It was a place of the old-fashioned sort, with small
tables in the front, and waiters hurrying about serving drinks.
The people were of the lowest order, and the atmosphere of the
room was thick with tobacco smoke. A young woman in a flaxen wig
and boy's clothes was singing a popular ditty, marching up and
down the stage, and interspersing the words o f her song with
grimaces and appropriate action. Tavernake sat down with a
barely-smothered groan. He was beginning to realize the tragedy
upon which he had stumbled. A comic singer followed, who in a
dress suit several sizes too large for him gave an imitation of a
popular Irish comedian. Then the curtain went up and the
professor was seen, standing in front of the curtain and bowing
solemnly to a somewhat unresponsive audience. A minute later
Beatrice came quietly in and sat by his side. There was nothing
new about the show. Tavernake had seen the same thing before,
with the exception that the professor was perhaps a little behind
the majority of his fellow-craftsmen. The performance was
finished in dead silence, and after it was over, Beatrice came to
the front and sang. She was a very unusual figure in such a
place, in a plain black evening gown, with black gloves and no
jewelry, but they encored her heartily, and she sang a song from
the musical comedy in which Tavernake had first seen her. A
sudden wave of reminiscence stirred within him. His thoughts
seemed to go back to the night when he had waited for her outside
the theatre and they had had supper at Imano's, to the day when
he had left the boarding-house and entered upon his new life.
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