Zona Gale

“ Even an usher may look upon a damsel in distress.
Sonia’s eyes sparkled bewilderingly. A box on the grand tier! But to sit there safely in a box on the grand tier until her uncle came to claim her, breathing out a thousand opinions! Perhaps even to sit there alone and hear Dragomir sing! She cast a terrified glance over her shoulder—the round, white shoulder from which the rose cloak had slipped—and her glance was all of apprehension—but apprehension, if the truth must be told, lest her Uncle Sergius be already returning. ”

“ In the glitter and crush of the carriage entrance at the Metropolitan, in the glitter and crush of the lobby and corridor, Sonia looked about her with eyes of delight. But it was Petersburg itself, she decided exultantly: there were lights and jewels and laughter at nothing at all and the sounds of the world even in this America, which had seemed made up of convent walls and wistful nuns who spoke the language of gentle though perpetual reproof.
“I shall hear the opera,” Sonia repeated, longing to draw in a deep breath of the bright air, “and I shall hear him sing. ”

“ Can he be so near—can Dragomir himself really be beneath this roof?”
Sonia moved forward, smiling a little for the very joy of the hour, forgetful of the mound of opinion, unconscious of the existence of all the purple and black in the world. Therefore, how it happened is not in all respects a mystery; similar things occur in broad daylight all day long; and it must be borne in mind that this great Aunt Aniela and this great Uncle Sergius had long been wont to come to the opera with no little mist of white and blur of rose to be considered. ”

“ Petersburg and could almost forget the long winter of her discontent in the American school where her Uncle Sergius—that mound of opinion—had condemned her at the beginning of his own indignant exile. How should it not be good, thought Sonia, to be free at last of the convent walls, at large upon this great Fifth-ave. of America, with the opera less than an hour away?
“I love it!” she said, half without knowing.
“One loves one’s friends, Panienka. One only likes occasions,” remarked the mound of opinion from out the cave of shadow. ”

“ In another instant the faint polite functionary had thrown wide the door of the box of the Holliday-Noels and had closed it upon the vision of white and rose and turned away, his professional mien fairly disarranged by the look of the crisp thing that Sonia had slipped in his hand. No wonder that he thereafter remained loyal for a space, though in the teeth of the entire force of his brother ushers! ”

“ All the sweet of her liberty and her adventure were singing in her veins, all the sweet of young life and the “honey of romance” were in her heart—so little it takes to make one mad with delight when she is twenty and safe away from two who are ponderous and done with glamour. ”

“ Then she knew, and one little hand groped toward him. “Isn’t it Dragomir?” breathed Sonia tremulously.
It is certain that those in the adjoining box and in the greater part of the house were at that moment listening with satisfaction to a sentiment of Woglinda, one of the Rhine maidens, who swam absurdly in the green stage-waters and sang:
We have nothing to fear! For everyone who lives must love! ”