ought a box into view, situated on the grand tier and almost
immediately opposite his own. It was occupied by a party of six
persons. With four of those persons Richard was aware he had nothing to
do. But with the remaining two persons--a woman fashioned, as it
appeared, of ivory and gold, and a young man standing almost directly
behind her--he had much, everything, in fact, to do. It was
incomprehensible to him that he had not observed these two persons
sooner, since they were as necessary to the accomplishment of that
terrible, yet beneficent, approaching event as he himself was. The
woman he knew actually and intimately, though as yet he could give her
no name, nor recall in what his knowledge of her consisted. The young
man he knew inferentially. And Dickie was sensible of regarding him
with instinctive repulsion, since his appearance presented a living and
grossly ribald caricature of a figure august, worshipful, and holy.
Long and closely Richard studied those two persons, studied them,
forgetful of all else, straining his memory to place them. And all the
while they talked.

But, at last, the woman fashioned of ivory and gold ceased talking. She
folded her arms upon the velvet cushion of the front of the box and
gazed right out into the theatre. There was a splendid arrogance in the
pose of her head, and in the droop of her eyelids. Then she looked up
and across, straight at Richard. He saw her drooping eyelids raised,
her eyes open wide, and remain fixed as in amazement. A something
alert, and very fierce, came into her expression. She seemed to think
carefully for a brief space. She threw back her head, and he saw
uncontrollable laughter convulse her beautiful throat. And, at that
same moment, a mighty outburst of applause and of welcome shook the
great theatre from floor to ceiling, and, as it died away, the voice of
the famous soprano, rich and compelling as of old, swelled out, and
made vibrant with passionate sweetness the whole atmosphere. And
Richard hailed that glorious voice, not that in itself it moved him
greatly, but because in it he recognised the beginning of the end. It
came as prelude to catastrophe which was also salvation.--Very soon the
bees would swarm now! He rallied his patience. He had not much longer
to wait.

Meanwhile he looked back at that box on the grand tier, striving to
unriddle the mystery of his knowledge of those two persons. He needed
glasses no longer. His sight had become p