“Celeste Aïda!” he sang, and it was celestial. Then at once Amneris, enacted by a debutante, appeared and the house was treated to what it had not had since Scalchi was in her prime, a voice with a conservatory in the upper register, a cavern in the lower and, strewn between, rich loops of light, of opals, flowers, kisses and stars.
Princess she was and looked, yet, despite the glory of her raiment, rather a princess in a drawing-room than the daughter of a Pharaoh in a Memphian crypt. She seemed pleased, sure of her charm, and she pleased and charmed at sight. The house, the most apathetic—save Covent Garden—in the world, and, musically, the most ignorant as well, rose to her.
Sylvia turned to Orr. In his gloved hand was a program. “What a dear!” she murmured. “Who is she?”
Orr, before answering, looked at Annandale. The latter’s eyes were on the roof. He may have been drinking the song, unconscious of the singer. But it is more probable that his thoughts were elsewhere, though hardly in the Tombs, where, during his relatively brief sojourn, he had lived at the relatively reasonable rate of a hundred dollars a day.
“A debutante,” Orr answered. “She is billed as Dellarandi.”
The curtain fell. The box was invaded. Men indebted to Mrs. Annandale for dinner, or who hoped to be, dropped in. Orr got up and went out.
The second act began. There was an alternating chorus. During it Amneris sat mirroring her beauty in a glass. Presently her voice mounted, mounting as mounts a bird and higher. She was joining in the incomparable duo that ensues. It passed. A march, blown from Egyptian trumpets, followed, preluding the dance of priestesses which precedes the tenor’s return. As that progressed the leader of the orchestra shook like an epileptic. From his own musicians, from those on the stage, from