As for the managers, they looked at each other, when the curtain fell.
"That's one!" said Moncharmin.
"Yes, the ghost is late," said Firmin Richard.
"It's not a bad house," said Moncharmin, "for 'a house with a curse on it.'"
M. Richard smiled and pointed to a fat, rather vulgar woman, dressed in black, sitting in a stall in the middle of the auditorium with a man in a broadcloth frock-coat on either side of her.
"Who on earth are 'those?'" asked Moncharmin.
"'Those,' my dear fellow, are my concierge, her husband and her brother."
"Did you give them their tickets?"
"I did ...
My concierge had never been to the Opera—this is, the first time—and, as she is now going to come every night, I wanted her to have a good seat, before spending her time showing other people to theirs."
Moncharmin asked what he meant and Richard answered that he had persuaded his concierge, in whom he had the greatest confidence, to come and take Mme. Giry's place. Yes, he would like to see if, with that woman instead of the old lunatic, Box Five would continue to astonish the natives?
"By the way," said Moncharmin, "you know that Mother Giry is going to lodge a complaint against you."
"With whom?
The ghost?"
The ghost!
Moncharmin had almost forgotten him. However, that mysterious person did nothing to bring himself to the memory of the managers; and they were just saying so to each other for the second time, when the door of the box suddenly opened to admit the startled stage-manager.
"What's the matter?" they both asked, amazed at seeing him there at such a time.
"It seems there's a plot got up by Christine Daae's friends against Carlotta.
Carlotta's furious."
"What on earth ... ?" said Richard, knitting his brows.
But the curtain rose on the kermess scene and Richard made a sign to the stage-manager to go away.
When the two were alone again, Moncharmin leaned over to Richard:
"Then Daae has friends?" he asked.
"Yes, she has."
"Whom?"
Richard glanced across at a box on the grand tier containing no one but two men.
"The Comte de Chagny?"
"Yes, he spoke to me in her favor with such warmth that, if I had not known him to be Sorelli's friend ..." "Really? Really?" said Moncharmin.
"And who is that pale young man beside him?"
"That's his brother, the viscount."
"He ought to be in his bed.
He looks ill."
The stage rang with gay song:
"Red or white liquor,
Coarse or fine!
What can it matter,
So we have wine?"
Students, citizens, soldiers, girls and matrons whirled light-heartedly before the inn with the figure of Bacchus for a sign.
Siebel made her entrance.
Christine Daae looked charming in her boy's clothes; and Carlotta's partisans expected to hear her greeted with an ovation which would have enlightened them as to the intentions of her friends.
But nothing happened.
On the other hand, when Margarita crossed the stage and sang the only two lines allotted her in this second act:
"No, my lord, not a lady am I, nor yet a beauty, And do not need an arm to help me on my way,"
Carlotta was received with enthusiastic applause. It was so unexpected and so uncalled for that those who knew nothing about the rumors looked at one another and asked what was happening.
And this act also was finished without incident.
Then everybody said: "Of course, it will be during the next act."
Some, who seemed to be better informed than the rest, declared that the "row" would begin with the ballad of the KING OF THULE and rushed to the subscribers' entrance to warn Carlotta.
The managers left the box during the entr'acte to find out more about the cabal of which the stage-manager had spoken; but they soon returned to their seats, shrugging their shoulders and treating the whole affair as silly.
The first thing they saw, on entering the box, was a box of English sweets on the little shelf of the ledge.
Who had put it there?