But under Sir Harry's quizzical gaze he swallowed it
down bravely, and sat gasping and blinking.
It may have been that the maraschino induced a haze upon the rest of
the afternoon. The gas-lamps were lit when they left the
pastry-cook's and entered a haberdasher's where Taffy, without
knowing why, was fitted with a pair of white kid gloves. Of dinner
at the hotel he remembered nothing except that the candles on the
tables had red shades, of which the silverware gave funny
reflections; that the same waiter flitted about in the penumbra; and
that Sir Harry, who was dressed like the waiter, said, "Wake up,
young Marasheno! Do you take your coffee black?" "It's usually pale
brown at home," answered Taffy; at which Sir Harry laughed again.
"Black will suit you better to-night," he said, and poured out a
small cupful, which Taffy drank and found exceedingly nasty. And a
moment later he was wide awake, and the three were following a young
woman along a passage which seemed to run in a complete circle.
The young woman flung open a door; they entered a little room with a
balcony in front; and the first glorious vision broke on the child
with a blaze of light, a crash of music, and the murmur of hundreds
of voices.
Faces, faces, faces!--faces mounting from the pit below him, up and
up to the sky-blue ceiling, where painted goddesses danced and
scattered pink roses around the enormous gasalier.
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