by wide aisles, and rapidly filling now with the
men and women who were coming down to their places almost on a run.

The orchestra was already seated, and as Norma stood awed and ecstatic
in the front of the Von Behrens box, the conductor came in, and was met
with a wave of applause, which had no sooner died away than the lights
fanned softly and quickly down, there was the click of a baton on wood,
and in the instantly ensuing hush the first quivering notes of the opera
began.

"Sit down, you web-foot!" Acton Liggett whispered, laughing, and Norma
sank stiffly upon her chair, risking, as the curtain had not yet risen,
a swift, bewildered smile of apology toward the dim forms that were
rustling and settling behind her.

"Oo--oo--ooo!" was all that she could whisper when presently Chris
murmured a question in her ear. And when the lights were on again, and
the stars taking their calls, he saw that her face was wet, and her
lashes were caught together with tears.

"It _is_ wonderful music; the best of Verdi!" he said to Annie; and
Annie, agreeing, sent him off with "that baby," to have her dry her
eyes. Norma liked his not speaking to her, on her way to the great
parlour where women were circling about the long mirrors, but when she
rejoined him she was quite herself, laughing, excited, half dancing as
he took her back to the box.

She sat down again, her beautiful little head, with its innocent sweep
of smooth hair, visible from almost every part of the house, her
questions incessant as the blue eyes and the great fan swept to and fro.
Once, when she turned suddenly toward him, in the second entr'acte, she
saw a look on Chris's face that gave her an odd second of something like
fear, but the house darkened again before she could analyze the emotion,
and Norma glued her eyes to the footlights.

What she did not see was a man, not quite at ease at his own first grand
opera, not quite comfortable in his own first evening dress, lost--and
willingly lost, among the hundreds who had come in just to stand far at
the back, behind the seats, edging and elbowing each other, changing
feet, and resting against any chair-back or column that offered itself,
and sitting down, between acts, on the floor.

Wolf was not restless. He was strong enough to stand like an Indian, and
tall enough to look easily over the surrounding heads. More than that,
"Aida" did not interest him in itself, and at some of its most brilliant
passages