Two young men appeared in the stalls; they kept standing and looked
about them.
"Didn't I say so, Hector?" cried the elder of the two, a tall fellow
with little black mustaches. "We're too early! You might quite well have
allowed me to finish my cigar."
An attendant was passing.
"Oh, Monsieur Fauchery," she said familiarly, "it won't begin for half
an hour yet!"
"Then why do they advertise for nine o'clock?" muttered Hector, whose
long thin face assumed an expression of vexation. "Only this morning
Clarisse, who's in the piece, swore that they'd begin at nine o'clock
punctually."
For a moment they remained silent and, looking upward, scanned the
shadowy boxes. But the green paper with which these were hung rendered
them more shadowy still. Down below, under the dress circle, the lower
boxes were buried in utter night. In those on the second tier there was
only one stout lady, who was stranded, as it were, on the velvet-covered
balustrade in front of her. On the right hand and on the left, between
lofty pilasters, the stage boxes, bedraped with long-fringed scalloped
hangings, remained untenanted. The house with its white and gold,
relieved by soft green tones, lay only half disclosed to view, as though
full of a fine dust shed from the little jets of flame in the great
glass luster.
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