to acquire the learning of the brothels of Paris.
And then he came home and struck the Tenderloin; and
at three o’clock one morning he walked through
a plate-glass window, and so the newspapers took him
up. That had suddenly opened a new vista in life
for Charlie—he became a devotee of fame;
everywhere he went he was followed by newspaper reporters
and a staring crowd. He carried wads as big round
as his arm, and gave away hundred-dollar tips to bootblacks,
and lost forty thousand dollars in a game of poker.
He gave a fete to the demi-monde, with a jewelled
Christmas tree in midsummer, and fifty thousand dollars’
worth of splendour. But the greatest stroke of
all was the announcement that he was going to build
a submarine yacht and fill it with chorus-girls!—Now
Charlie had sunk out of public attention, and his
friends would not see him for days; he would be lying
in a “sporting house” literally wallowing
in champagne.
And all this, Montague realized, 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!
In the morning they went home with others of the party
by train. They could not wait for Charlie 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 half-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.
But after the act was over, Oliver got him alone outside
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 Oliver,
“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 Oliver responded, “People don’t
come to the Opera to listen to the music.”
