They studied mechanically because they were obliged to; they no longer cared.
That winter they went to a few more parties--not many.

However, they were gingerly permitted to witness their first play, and later, the same year, were taken to "Lohengrin" at the opera.
During the play, which was a highly moral one, they sat watching, listening, wide-eyed as children.
At the opera Geraldine's impetuous soul soared straight up to paradise with the first heavenly strains, and remained there far above the rigid, breathless little body, bolt upright in its golden sarcophagus of the grand tier.
Her physical consciousness really seemed to have fled.

Until the end she sat unaware of the throngs, of Scott and Kathleen whispering behind her, of several tall, broad-shouldered, shy young fellows who came into their box between the acts and tried to discuss anything at all with her, only to find her blind, deaf, and dumb.
These were the only memories of her first opera--confused, chaotic brilliancy, paradise revealed: and long, long afterward, the carriage flying up Fifth Avenue through darkness all gray with whirling snow.
* * * * * Their eighteenth year dragged, beginning in physical and intellectual indifference, but promised stormily as they became more accustomed to glimpses of an outside world--a world teeming with restless young people in unbelievable quantities.
Scott had begun to develop two traits: laziness and a tendency to sullen, unspoken wrath.

He took more liberty than was officially granted him--more than Geraldine dared take--and came into collision with Kathleen more often now.

He boldly overstayed his leave in visiting his few boy friends for an afternoon; he returned home alone on foot after dusk, telling the chauffeur to go to the devil.