The Aberdeen Democrat. (Aberdeen, South Dakota) 1???-1909, 1905-03-17
In an Opera
Box
BY Lillian c.. PaScbdI
Copyright, 1904. By Lillian C. Paschal

The great hotel facing the park wa
an obelisk Of light f1ecks. Motor cars
came and went noisily under the wide
porte cochere.
Back Of the large hostelry and across
a narrow alley a white girlish face
banked with pillows looked out visit
fully from the one narrow window Of
a third floor back at these evidences Of
life and gayety, listening to the or
chestra.
Suddenly the music burst into a wild
tropical air from Carmen" a very revel
Of life and youth and lusty, red blood
ed joy. The invalid buried her tired
eyes in the soft pillows, and her thin
shoulders shook. Shaken by the tenn
pest Of sobs, a crutch that had been
leaning against the bedside ratified to
the floor.
"Oh, 1 can bear their old ragtime
things without a shiver," she cried,
"but the opera airs-they break my
heart! And now I shall W sing
them again. know l shan't!"
The incoherent cry went straight
through the open window like a wing
ed arrow, across the alleyway in the
grand hotel, and lodged deep in the sick
heart Of a listener there. Its note of
suffering and aching longing needed no
interpreter. That is a universal Ian
guage understood alike in palace and
tenement.
John Wixton had been staring mood
lily out Of the darkened shadows Of his
unlighted room into the still darker
shadows Of a future that looked
gloomy indeed to his usually careless,
sunny eyes. He had been hard hit
there was no doubt of that-and the
girls refusal of him had cut deep. He
had been so sur Of her-too sure, per-
haps-but he had thought he could not
be mistaken in that warm light in her
eyes that had set his heart on fire all
these weeks.
"The light that lies in woman's eyes
and lies and lies and lies!' he
sneered miserably, sitting there in the
dark. Course the whole sex, anyway,
and their deceitful wiles" And his
clinched hands thumped the window
sill fiercely. He had mooned I've her
like a Numbering idiot, he told himself
hotly, and now she was engaged, so
her mother had told him the last time
he called, to Billy Lunders and his mil
lions-principally the latter, he thought.
Lord! There was that beastly chan
sonnette from Carmen" again-could he
never escape the thing?-the song that
breathed SO horribly Of her in every
seductive note. She had worn a red
rose in her hair, too, that night he first
met her with the Van Lorns. He could
smell that rose now.
Tonight Carmen was on the bill
again. He recalled duly that he had
the same box for this performance, in
tending to take her and show her he
remembered that first night so long
ago. She had said men always forgot
the dates a woman remembered. He
had meant to tell her Of his loving lit
tie surprise that evening. Was it only a
week ago? How could he ever bear to
hear an opera again? Curse it. He
would get out Of this sickening old New
York and 60 west-to Chicago-any-
where.
"These opera %airs-they break my
hearth broke in the sobbing cry from
the window across the alley. John
raised his head to listen. Same here,
KID" he muttered heavily. Its that
lame girl-poor little beggar! She does
have a devil Of a time Of it, lying there
all day with hot water bags and things
around her. It's a shamew
Il want to be back there on the
stage again." went on the voice, "sing-
ing with the rest Of the chorus. I
was a village maiden in Carmen you
know, Mrs. Beebe." To the conscious
pride in this already we'll known fact
there came an indistinct murmur of
consolation from the dark interior Of
the little room.
And maybe some day 1 might have
been a Sembrich or a Melba, my own
self-the master said so-and now nv
backs hurt, and I'll never sing again.
l know 1t! If l could only 60 Just
once and hear it all again l think
maybe l could bear it better, but to
be penned in here all the time like a
rat with the snappers Of a trap caught
over his back-it's too The rest was
lost tn the Unfolding pillow.
The man in the darkened window
across the way suddenly stood 10.
turned on the light and squared his
shoulders like a soldier ready for
marching. "Ill do it!!' he said grimly.
I'll not run away like a coward. I'll
face this thing out. I've got to 20
through it some time, and 1 might as
well begin now. I'll go right to that
same box and fight it out. And, what's
more, I'm going to take that child
along. She'll probably look a fright.
and people will stare, but hang the
peopley'
He took bis hat and o%vercoat and
hurried from the room. At the Office
he stopped to give an order for an auto
cab.
Twenty minutes later he was bowling
toward Broadway with his strange lit
tie companion, still breathless over the
Wondrous angel in evening clothes
whose determination had carried all
opposition before him. Even the fat
landlady had been subdued into defer
ence and helped to dress her quickly so
as not to keep the young gentleman
waiting.
Wfxton plancod down OF hor +h;, -.