Evening has fallen over the party, though we scarcely noticed it. The boys Luce hired for the event have lit candles in a thousand lanterns, which are strung from every branch and bush, and encircle all with their warm, gentle light, which is hardly different in color from the rich sunlight the summer afternoon had brought. Yet there is something in the appearance of unnatural light which I find particularly appealing. There is a warmth to it, a personal touch, that I quite like. I suppose it is the touch of theater, which it lends to everything it lands upon. A spotlight, a flood light, the heat rising from the foot lights into the heavy air of actors' endless pleas for connection with those before them...
        Ah, even when I am not before it, I am seduced by the passions and pretenses of the stage! But that does remind me, isn't my little singer supposed to perform for us tonight? I ought to go find him, it has been some time since I saw him. I do hope he has not been stolen away by someone else, I was so looking forward to hearing him sing - though I should not blame someone for doing so, for his voice is equally lovely in any of its various exercises, whether musical or not.
        I stroll casually around the rose garden, passing from one conversation to the next, though my attention is truly on what I see rather than what I hear or what I say - he must be here somewhere! But his dark hair blends in too well, with the shadows and the suits, and he is never dressed in any remarkable fashion (despite all my efforts).
        "Mephisto, I had hoped to find you! Here, do aid us in our dispute."
        "Oh you are perfect, dear, just who we wanted! Now, pray tell us, did you select this evening's music?"
        I smile, though inwardly I sigh at the interruption. Carey and Adir, the two never will end an argument, they are both always completely enamored of their own positions, and will simply not hear of someone else being correct. "Of course," I answer. "Who else should we trust to chose for such a marked occasion? But I only suggested the musicians - their program for the evening was entirely Luce's idea."
        "Ah! That must explain it."
        "Oh but it does not at all!"
        "Of course it does, if Luce dictated the evening's score, then he of course influenced the stylistic approach to be used, and thus any method of interpretation they chose to use must have been at his suggestion."
        "Not if they, as a group, always take interpretations in that direction. If they are a modernist group, then they shall have a tendency to use experimental approaches. If they are an old and traditional group, then---"
        "But would not Luce have ensured that they---"
        "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" I interrupt dramatically, gently waving them apart. "I am certain that each of your arguments is a worthy one, but why do you not simply ask Luce if the apparent incongruities in the music were his intent or not? I am certain he would be happy to detail for you all of the varied preparations he has made for the evening. You know there is no factor he does not plan out - why, I should not be at all surprised if he had intended the two of you to have this very argument!"
        There is laughter, and I lift my hands to pat them both on the shoulder. "Now, I am sorry, but you must excuse me, I have someone I am looking for..."
        They answer with some polite response, and I walk away, weaving through the dense crowd of sable and crimson. Luce had requested that all the ladies in attendance dress in red, and the men in black, to further enhance the setting of the party. I must admit, the results are quite striking, particularly with the fall of evening. The dark dress coats blur into shadow, leaving pale faces to take on the dim and dreamy glow of lamplight, while the scarlet fabric swathed about the women falls languidly about them, as silken sheets in a candlelit boudoir. The voices have altered with the change in light, they are deeper now, lower and shaded with subtleties. Discrete confidences are made with all the imagined privacy of a darkened theater - one can often feel safest in the middle of a crowd, for one feels there are enough other conversations and thoughts going on around one, that one's own murmurs shall be automatically dismissed or politely ignored.
        I am reminded of a scene a few evenings before this (I do not know quite the day, but what do days matter, in boundless time such as this?). I was, as I often am, at the theater, waiting for the scenery to be changed between acts, and in the heavy blanket of shadow which covered all the gathered crowd. My companion for the evening had removed herself briefly, to get a bit of air, but I had chosen to remain, not desiring to miss any of the play. The two lead roles were played by particular favorites of mine, and I had been quite entranced by a new face portraying one of the side characters, a young man I had hitherto not been aware of. He had such striking eyes, I could tell even at a distance, and his unusually long blond hair (I have yet to discover if it was truly his own or a mere part of his costume) set off the flush of his cheeks with the exquisite care of a painter's loving brush strokes.
        There were two young men sitting behind me, I had taken note of them before the curtain rose. A handsome pair, really, both with dark hair, dressed with that peculiar mix of style and poverty which eternally marks the student. They spoke in low voices, but not so low that I could not make out their words.
        "She is quite fond of plays, you know, one of us ought to have brought her tonight."
        "Did you not know? He had planned for weeks to take her out tonight - did you not notice how she refused to make any plans for the week-end at all?"
        "I had noticed she was rather melancholy, the few times I chanced to meet with her this week. Does he really not suspect how miserable he makes her?"
        "How could he! She is such the actress, she treats him with all the respect and admiration one could expect from a young woman engaged - all that is lacking is the dreamy-eyed doting, and that, I do not think he should wish for even were she able to conjure such action toward him. He is such a dull sort."
        "Which is why we shall save her from this mess, shall we not?"
        "We? I am quite sure it will be I who rescue her, and sweep her away to the palaces of her dreams---"
        He was answered with a loud laugh, which is quickly hushed, and followed by quiet speech. "I think it is rather in your dreams that you are able to provide her a palace... you really oughtn't to be even making a bid for her, you scarcely have the money to keep food on the table for yourself!"
        "And you are so much the better off? Look, what we offer is not monetary pleasures - if that were all she wanted, she should be happy with him. I offer her dreams and a life of romance and all the beauty of the arts, I---"
        "You! You entered this wager only because you cannot find any other girl who will even consent to walk beside you on the street."
        "And you! You are unfathomably fortunate, that she has been so sheltered and never come near the campus, that she might have heard just how many girls you have had walk beside you, and not just walk but---"
        There was jovial, jocular laughter between them, and I smiled to hear it. It was all I could do to not turn around and join the conversation, offering them advice on how best to obtain their goals. But my companion arrived, just as the stage lights returned to full and the lead actor burst into passionate song...
        Song! There is song around me now! Oh my dear boy, you are yet here, and already you have begun! I rush toward the sound - oh but rush is the wrong word, that would be quite indecorous of me and I am not so human as all that. But I move toward the sound with renewed energy and purpose, and will not stop for any side conversations. He stands in front of the musicians, looking shockingly young and small and inconsequential... until you realize that the voice is his, this voice which permeates all the air with an indescribable sweetness, yearning toward the highest beauties, catching in its wake all the lesser beauties along the way and thus combining them distilling them condensing them into one melody of sheer rapture... His eyes are closed, his dark hair combed carefully back from his delicately-boned face, his lips of flushed rose parted in song. His stature is slight, and it does not seem that music in such volume and profusion could possibly be held in something so small... but perhaps that is the answer to it, that it has been misplaced into his small frame, and now expels itself in almost violent passions, after having been pent up for so long.
        I find a seat nearby, waving over a servant, who carries a tray of crystalline glasses filled with some exquisite wine. (Luce has always the best stores - Meres may find the most exotic elements, in food and drink as all else, but with Luce, it is always quality, and the very, very best at that.) I take a glass, and make myself comfortable, my eyes held by the thousand subtle motions of the singer's body, drinking in the myriad cues to the emotions which run rampant within him, spilling over from the song which was meant to contain them, bursting out of tiny fissures in the dam of his body.