The Metropolis

Eublic attention, and his friends would not see im for days; he would be lying in a "sporting house" literally wallowing in champagne.

And all this, Montague realised, his brother must have known! And he had said not a word about it — because of the eight or ten millions which Charlie would have when he was twenty-five!

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CHAPTER IX

IN the morning they went home with others of the party by train. They could not wait for CharUe and his automobile, because Monday was the opening night of the Opera, and no one could miss that. Here Society would appear in its most gorgeous raiment, and there would be a show of jewellery such as could be seen nowhere else in the world.

General Prentice and his wife had opened their town-house, and had invited them to dinner and to share their box; and so at about hatf-past nine o'clock Montague found himself seated in a great balcony of the shape of a horseshoe, with several hundred of the richest people in the city. There was another tier of boxes above, and three galleries above that, and a thousand or more people seated and standing below him. Upon the big stage there was an elaborate and showy play, the words of which were sung to the accompaniment of an orchestra.

Now Montague had never heard an opera, and he was fond of music. The second act had just begun when he came in, and all through it he sat quite spellbound, listening to the most ravishing strains that ever he had heard in his life. He scarcely noticed that Mrs. Prentice was spending her time studying the occupants of the other boxes through a jewelled lorgnette, or that Oliver was chattering to her daughter.

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But after the act was over, OKver got him alone outside of the box, and whispered, "For God's sake, Allan, don't make a fool of yourself."

"Why, what's the matter?" asked the other.

"What will people think," exclaimed Ohver, "seeing you sitting there like a man in a dope dream.?"

"Why," laughed the other, "they'll think I'm listening to the music."

To which Ohver responded, "People don't come to the Opera to listen to the music."

This sounded like a joke, but it was not. To Society the Opera was a great state function, an exhibition of far more exclusiveness and magnificence than the Horse Show; and Society certainly had the right to say, for it owned the opera-house and ran it. The real music-lovers who came, either stood up in the back, or sat in the fifth gallery, close to the ceiling, where the air was foul and hot. How much Society cared about the play was suflSciently indicated by the fact that all of the operas were sung in foreign languages, and sung so carelessly that the few who understood the languages could make but Uttle of the words. Once there was a world-poet who devoted his life to trying to make the Opera an art; and in the battle with Society he all but starved to death. Now, after half a century, his genius had triumphed, and Society consented to sit for hours in darkness and listen to the domestic disputes of German gods and goddesses. But what Society really cared for was a play with beautiful costumes and scenery and dancing, and pretty songs to which one could hsten while one talked;

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the story must be elemental and passionate, so that one could understand it in pantomime — say the tragic love of a beautiful and noble-minded courtesan for a gallant young man of fashion. Nearly everyone who came to the Opera had a glass, by means of which he could bring each gorgeously clad society dame close to him, and study her at leisure. There were said to be two hundred million dollars' worth of diamonds in New York, and those that were not in the stores were very apt to be at this show; for here was where they could accomplish the purpose for which they existed — here was where all the world came to stare at them. There were nine prominent society women, who among them displayed five million dollars' worth of jewels. You would see stomachers which looked like a

Eiece of a coat of mail, and were made wholly of lazing diamonds. You would see emeralds and rubies and diamonds and pearls made into tiaras — that is to say, imitation crowns and coronets — and exhibited with a stout and solemn dowager for a pediment. One of the Wallings had set this fashion, and now everyone of importance wore them. One lady to whom Montague was introduced made a specialty of pearls — two black pearl ear-rings at forty thousand dollars, a string at three hundred thousand, a brooch of pink pearls at fifty thousand, and two necklaces at a quarter of a million each!

This incessant repetition of the prices of things came to seem very sordid; but Montague found that there was no getting away from it. The people in Society who paid these prices affected

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