She had shunned the place.
"Why, did you expect Eglington ?" the Duchess asked idly, yet she was watchful too, alert for every movement in this life where the footsteps of happiness were falling by the edge of a precipice, over which she would not allow herself to look.

She knew that Hylda did not expect Eglington, for the decision to come to the opera was taken at the last moment.
"Of course not--he doesn't know we are here.

But if it wasn't too late, I thought I'd go down and drive him home." The Duchess veiled her look.

Here was some new development in the history which had been torturing her old eyes, which had given her and Lord Windlehurst as many anxious moments as they had known in many a day, and had formed them into a vigilance committee of two, who waited for the critical hour when they should be needed.
"We'll go at once if you like," she replied.

"The opera will be over soon.