"Oh, yes, madame! He saw, heard everything."

Gillier blew forth a cloud of smoke, turned a little in his chair and looked at his cigar. He seemed to be considering something.

"Then the expedition was a success?" said Charmian.

Gillier glanced at her and took another sip of brandy.

"Who knows, madame?"

"Who knows? Why, how do you mean?"

"Madame, since I have been away with your husband I confess I begin to have certain doubts."

"Doubts!" said Charmian, in a changed and almost challenging voice. "I don't quite understand."

"That your husband is a clever man, I realize. He has evidently much knowledge of the technique of music, much imagination. He is an original, though he seldom shows it, and wishes to conceal it."

"Then—"

"A moment, madame! You will say, 'That is good for the opera!'"

"Naturally!"

"That depends. I do not know whether his sort of originality is what the public will appreciate. But I do know very well that your husband and I will never get on together."

"Why not?"

"He is not my sort. I don't understand him. And I confess that I feel anxious."

"Anxious? What about, monsieur?"

"Madame, I have written a great libretto. I want a great opera made of it. It is my nature to speak frankly; perhaps you may call it brutally, but I am not homme du monde. I am not a little man of the salons. I am not accustomed to live in kid gloves. I have sweated. I have seen life. I have been, and I still am, poor—poor, madame! But, madame, I do not intend to remain sunk to my neck in poverty for ever. No!"

"Of course not—with your talent!"

"Ah, that is just it!"

His eyes shone with excitement as he went on, leaning toward her, and speaking almost with violence.

"That is just it! My talent for the stage is great, I have always known that. Even when my work was refused once, a second, a third time, I knew it. 'The day will come,' I thought, 'when those who now refuse my work will come crawling to me to get me to write for them. Now I am told to go! Then they will seek me.' Yes"—he paused, finished his glass of brandy, and continued, more quietly, as if he were making a great effort after self-control—"but is your husband's talent for the stage as great as mine? I doubt it."

"Why do you doubt it?" exclaimed Charmian warmly. "What reason have you to doubt it? You have not heard my husband's music to your libretto yet, not a note of it."

"No. And that enables me—"

"Enables you to do what? Why didn't you finish your sentence, Monsieur Gillier?"

"Madame, if you are going to be angry with me—"

"Angry! My dear Monsieur Gillier, I am not angry! What can you be thinking of?"

"I feared by your words, your manner—"

"I assure you—besides, what is there to be angry about? But do finish what you were saying."

"I was about to say that the fact that I have not yet heard any of your husband's music to my libretto enables me, without any offense—personal offense—pronouncing any sort of judgment—to approach you—" He paused. The expression in her eyes made him pause. He fidgeted rather uneasily in his chair, and looked away from her to the fountain.

"Yes?" said Charmian.

"Madame?"

"Please tell me what it is you want of me, or my husband, or of both of us."

"I do not—I have not said I want anything. But it is true I want success. I want it for this work of mine. Since I have been in Constantine with Monsieur Heath I have—very reluctantly, madame, believe me!—come to the conclusion that he and I are not suited to be associated together in the production of a work of art. We are too different the one from the other. I am an Algerian ex-soldier, a man who has gone into the depths of life. He is an English Puritan who never has lived, and never will live. I have done all I could to make him understand something of the life not merely in, but that underlies—underlies—my libretto. My efforts—well, what can I say?"—he flung out his hands and shrugged his shoulders.

"It is only the difference between the French and English temperaments."

"No, madame. It is the difference between the man who is and the man who is not afraid to live."

"I don't agree with you," said Charmian coldly. "But really it is not a matter which I can discuss with you."

"I have no wish to discuss it. All I wish to say is this"—he looked down, hesitated, then with a sort of dogged obstinacy continued, "that I am willing to buy back my libretto from you at the price for which I sold it. I have come to the conclusion that it is not likely to suit your husband's talent. I am very poor indeed, alas! but I prefer to lose a hundred pounds rather than to—"

"Have you spoken to my husband of this?" Charmian interrupted him.

She was almost trembling with anger and excitement, but she managed to speak quietly.

"No, madame."

"You have asked me a question—"

"I have asked no question, madame!"

"Do you mean to say you are not asking me if we will resell the libretto?"

Gillier was silent.

"My answer is that the libretto is our property and that we intend to keep it. If you offered us five times what we gave you for it the answer would be the same."

She paused. Gillier said nothing. She looked at him and suddenly anger, a sense of outrage, got the better of her, and she added with intense bitterness:

"We are living here in North Africa, we have given up our home, our friends, our occupations, everything—our life in England"—her voice trembled. "Everything, I say, in order to do justice to your work, and you come, you dare to come to us, and ask—ask—"

Gillier got up.

"Madame, I see it is useless. You have bought my work, if you choose to keep it—"

"We do choose to keep it."

"Then I can do nothing."

He pulled out his watch.

"It is late. I must wish you good-night, madame. Kindly say good-night for me to that lady, your friend, and to Monsieur Heath."

He bowed. Charmian did not hold out her hand. She meant to, but it seemed to her that her hand refused to move, as if it had a will of its own to resist hers.

"Good-night," she said.

She watched his rather short and broad figure pass across the open space of the court and disappear.

After he had gone she moved across the court to the fountain and sat down at its edge. She was trembling now, and her excitement was growing in solitude. But she still had the desire to govern it, the hope that she would be able to do so. She felt that she had been grossly insulted by Gillier. But she was not only angry with him. She stared at the rising and falling water, clasping her hands tightly together. "I will be calm!" she was saying to herself. "I will be calm, mistress of myself."

But suddenly she got up, went swiftly across the court to the garden entrance, and called out:

"Susan! Claude! Where are you?"

Her voice sounded to her sharp and piercing in the night.

"What is it, Charmian?" answered Claude's voice from the distance.

"I'm going to bed. It's late. Monsieur Gillier has gone."

"Coming!" answered Claude's voice.

Charmian retreated to the house.

As she came into the drawing-room she looked at her watch. It was barely ten o'clock. In a moment Susan Fleet entered, followed by Claude. Susan's calm eyes glanced at Charmian's face. Then she said, in her quiet, agreeable voice:

"I'm going to my room. I have two or three letters to write, and I shall read a little before going to bed. It isn't really very late, but I daresay you are tired."

She took Charmian's hand and held it for an instant. And during that instant Charmian felt much calmer.

"Good-night, Susan dear. Monsieur Gillier asked me to say good-night to you for him."

Susan did not kiss her, said good-night to Claude, and went quietly away.

"What is it?" Claude said, directly she had gone. "What's the matter, Charmian? Why did Gillier go away so early?"

"Let us go upstairs," she answered.

Remembering the sound of her voice in the court, she strove to keep it natural, even gentle, now. Susan's recent touch had helped her a little.

"All right," he answered.

"Come into my sitting-room for a minute," she said, when they were in the narrow gallery which ran round the drawing-room on the upper story of the house.

Next to her bedroom Charmian had a tiny room, a sort of nook, where she wrote her letters and did accounts.

"Well, what is it?" Claude asked again, when he had followed her into this room, which was lit only by a hanging antique lamp.

"How could you show the libretto to Madame Sennier?" said Charmian. "How could you be so mad as to do such a thing?"

As she finished speaking she sat down on the little divan in the embrasure of the small grated window.

"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "I have never shown the libretto to Madame Sennier. What could put such an idea into your head?"

"But you must have shown it!"

"Charmian, I have this moment told you that I haven't."

"She has read it."

"Nonsense."

"I am positive she has read it."

"Then Gillier must have shown her a copy of it."

Charmian was silent for a minute. Then she said:

"You did not show it to anyone while you were at Constantine?"

"I didn't say that."

"Ah! You—you let Mrs. Shiffney see it!"

Her voice rose as she said the last words.

"I suppose I have a right to allow anyone I choose to read a libretto I have bought and paid for," he said coldly, almost sternly.

"You did give it to Mrs. Shiffney then! You did! You did!"

"Certainly I did!"

"And then—then you come to me and say that Madame Sennier hasn't read it!"

There was a sound of acute, almost of fierce exasperation in her voice.

"She had not read my copy."

"I say she has!"

"Mrs. Shiffney herself specially advised me not to show it to her."

"To her—to Madame Sennier?"

"Yes."

"Mrs. Shiffney advised you! Oh—you—oh, that men should claim to have keener intellects than we women! Ah! Ah!"

She began to laugh hysterically, then suddenly put a handkerchief before her mouth, turned her head away from him and pressed her face, with the handkerchief still held to it, against the cushions of the divan. Her body shook.

"Charmian!" he said. "Charmian!"

She looked up. All one side of her face was red. She dropped her handkerchief on the floor.

"Do you understand now?" she said. "But, of course, you don't. Well, then!"

She put both her hands palm downward on the divan, and, speaking slowly with an emphasis that was cutting, and stretching her body till her shoulders were slightly raised, she said:

"Just now, while Susan and you were in the garden, Armand Gillier asked me if we would give up his libretto."

"Give up the libretto?"

"Sell it back to him for one hundred pounds. He also said he was very poor. Do you put the two things together?"

"You think he fancies—"

"No. I am sure he knows he could resell it at an advance to Jacques Sennier. Those two—Mrs. Shiffney and Madame Sennier—went to Constantine with the intention of finding out what you were doing."

"Absurd!"

"Is it? Just tell me! Wasn't it Mrs. Shiffney who began to talk of the libretto?"

"Well—"

"Of course it was! And didn't she pretend to be deeply interested in what you were doing?"

Claude flushed.

"And didn't she talk of how other artists had trusted her with secrets nobody else knew? And didn't she—didn't she—"

But something in Claude's eyes stopped her as she was going to say—"make love to you."

"And so you gave your libretto up to our enemy to read, and now they are trying to bribe Gillier to ruin us. Why are we here? Why did I give up everything, my whole life, my mother, my friends, our little house, everything I cared for, everything that has made my life till now? Simply for you and for your success. And then for the first woman who comes along—"

Her cheeks were flaming. As she thought more about what had happened a storm of jealousy swept through her heart.

"That's not true or fair—what you imply!" said Claude. "I never—Mrs. Shiffney is absolutely nothing to me—nothing!"

"Do you understand now that she got the libretto in order to show it to Madame Sennier?"

"Did Gillier ever say so?"

"Of course not! Even if he knows it, do you think it was necessary he should—to a woman!"

The contempt in her voice seemed to cut into him. He began, against his will, to feel that Charmian must be right in her supposition, to believe that he had been tricked.

"We have no proof," he said.

Charmian raised her eyebrows and sank back on the divan. She was struggling against an outburst of tears. Her lips moved.

"Proof! Proof!" she said at last.

Her lips moved violently. She got up, and tried hurriedly to go by Claude into the gallery; but he put out a hand and caught her by the arm.

"Charmian!"

She tried to get away. But he held her.

"I do understand. You have given up a lot for me. Perhaps I was a great fool at Constantine. I begin to believe I was. But, after all, there's no great harm done. The libretto is mine—ours, ours. And we're not going to give it up. I'll try—I'll try to put my heart into the music, to bring off a real success, to give you all you want, pay you back for all you've given up for me and the work. Of course, I may fail—"

She stopped his mouth with her lips, wrenched herself from his grasp, and hurried away.

A moment later he heard the heavy low door of her bedroom creak as she pushed it to, then the grinding of the key in the lock.

He sat down on the divan she had just left. For a moment he sat still, facing the gallery, and the carved wooden balustrade which protected its further side. Then he turned and looked out through the low, grated window, from which no doubt in days long since gone by veiled Arab women had looked as they sat idly on the divan.

He saw a section of almost black-purple sky. He saw some stars. And, leaning his cheek on his hand, he gazed through the little window for a long, long time.



CHAPTER XXV

More than a year had passed away. April held sway over Algeria.

In the white Arab house on the hill Claude and Charmian still lived and Claude still worked. To escape the great heat of the previous summer they had gone to England for a time, but early October had found them once more at Djenan-el-Maqui, and since then they had not stirred.

Their visit to London had been a strange experience for Charmian.

They had arrived in town at the beginning of July, and had stayed with Mrs. Mansfield in Berkeley Square. Mrs. Mansfield had not paid her proposed visit to Algiers. She had written that she was growing old and lazy, and dreaded a sea voyage. But she had received them with a warmth of affection which had earned their immediate forgiveness. There was still a month of "season" to run, and Charmian went about and saw her old friends. But Claude refused to go out, and returned at once to orchestral studies with his "coach." He even remained in London during the whole of August and September, while Charmian paid some visits, and went to the sea with her mother. Thus they had been separated for a time after their long sojourn together in the closest intimacy.

Charmian found that she missed Claude very much. One day she said to her mother, with pretended lightness and smiling:

"Madre, I've got such a habit of Claude and Claude's work that I seem to be in half when I'm not with him."

Mrs. Mansfield wondered whether her son-in-law felt in half when he was by himself in London.

To Charmian, coming back, London and "the set" seemed changed. She had sometimes suffered from ennui in Africa, even from loneliness in the first months there. She had got up dreading the empty days, and had often longed to have a party in the evening to look forward to. In England she realized that not only had she got a habit of Claude, but that she had got a habit, or almost a habit, of Africa and a quiet life in the sunshine under blue skies. If the opera were finished, the need for living in Mustapha removed, would she be glad not to return to Djenan-el-Maqui? The mere thought of never seeing the little white house with its cupolas and its flat roof again sent a sharp pang through her. Pierre, with his arched eyebrows and upraised, upturned palm, "La Grande Jeanne," Bibi, little Fatma, they had become almost a dear part of her life.

But soon she fell into old ways of thought and of action, though she was never, she believed, quite the same Charmian as before. She longed, as of old, but even more strongly, to conquer the set, and this world of pleasure-seekers and connoisseurs. But she looked upon them from the outside, whereas before she had been inside. During her long absence she had certainly "dropped out" a little. She realized the root indifference of most people to those who are not perpetually before them, making a claim to friendship. When she reappeared in London many whom she had hitherto looked upon as friends greeted her with a casual, "Oh, are you back after all? We thought you had quite forsaken us!" And it was impossible for even Charmian to suppose that such a forsaking would have been felt as a great affliction.

This recognition on her part of the small place she had held, even as merely a charming girl, in this society, made Charmian think of Djenan-el-Maqui with a stronger affection, but also made her long in a new, and more ruthless way, to triumph in London, as clever wives of great celebrities triumph. She saw Madame Sennier several times, as usual surrounded and feted. And Madame Sennier, though she nodded and said a few words, scarcely seemed to remember who Charmian was. Only once did Charmian see a peculiarly keen expression in the yellow eyes as they looked at her. That was when some mention was made of a project of Crayford's, his intention to build a big opera house in London. Madame Sennier had shrugged her shoulders. But as she answered, "What would be the use? The Metropolitan has nearly killed him. Covent Garden, with its subscription, would simply finish him off. He has moved Heaven and earth to get Jacques' new opera either for America or England, but of course we laughed at him. He may pretend as much as he likes, but he's got nothing up his sleeve"—the yellow eyes had fixed themselves upon Charmian with an intent look that was almost like a look of inquiry.

To Sennier she had only spoken twice. The first time he had forgotten who she was. The second time he had exclaimed, "Ah, the syrups! the greengage! and the moonlight among the passion-flowers!" and had greeted her with effusion.

But he had never come to call on her.

She still felt a sort of fondness for him; but she understood that he was like a child who needed perpetual petting and did not care very much from whom it came.

The impression she received, on coming back to this world after a long absence, was of a shifting quicksand. She also now knew absolutely how much of a nobody she was in it.

She had returned to Africa caring for it much less, but longing much more to conquer it and to dominate it.

On that day in October, a gorgeous day which had surely lain long in the heart of summer, when she saw again the climbing white town on the hill, when later she stood again in the Arab court, hearing the French voices of the servants, the guttural chatter of Bibi and Fatma, seeing the three gold fish making their eternal pilgrimage through the water shed by the fountain into the marble basin, she felt an intimate thrill at her heart. There was something here that she loved as she loved nothing in London.

From the night when Claude and Armand Gillier had returned to Mustapha after the visit to Constantine "the opera" had been to Charmian almost as a living thing—a thing for which she had fought, from which she had beaten off enemies. She thought of it as their child, Claude's and hers. They had no other child. She did not regret that.

Claude had long ago learnt to work in his home without difficulty. The paralysis which had beset him in Kensington had not returned. He was inclined to believe that by constant effort he had strengthened his will. But he had also become thoroughly accustomed to married life. And the fact that Charmian had become accustomed to it, too, had helped him without his being conscious of it. The embarrassment of beginnings was gone. And something else was gone; the sense of secret combat which in the first months of their marriage had made life so difficult to both of them.

The man had given in to the woman. When Claude left England with Gillier's bought libretto he was a conquered man. And this fact had brought about a cessation of struggle and had created a sensation of calm even in the conquered.

Every day now, when Claude went up to his room on the roof to work at the opera, he was doing exactly what his wife wished him to do. By degrees he had come to believe that he was also doing what he wished to do.

He was no longer reserved about his work with Charmian. The barriers were broken down. The wife knew what the husband was doing. They "talked things over."

Twice during their long sojourn at Mustapha they had been visited by Alston Lake. And now, in the first days of April, came a note from Saint Eugene. Gillier was once more in Algeria. He had never given them a sign of life since he had tried to buy back his libretto from them. Now he wrote formally, saying he was paying a short visit to his family, and asking permission to call at Djenan-el-Maqui at any hour that would suit them. His note was addressed to Claude, who at once showed it to Charmian.

"Of course we must let him come," Claude said.

"Of course!"

She turned the note over, twisted it in her fingers.

"How I hate him!" she said. "I can't help it. His insult to you and—"

"Don't let us go into all that again. It is so long ago."

"This letter brings it all back."

She made a grimace of disgust.

"Why should you see him?" said Claude. "Let me see him alone. You can easily have an engagement. You are going to those theatricals at the Hotel Continental on Friday. Let me have him here then."

"Shall I?" She glanced at Claude. "No, I'd better be here too."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know—but I'd better! Tell him to come on Thursday."

"Lunch?"

"Oh, no! Let us just have him in the afternoon."

Gillier came at the time appointed, and was received by Charmian, who made a creditable effort to behave as if she were at her ease and glad to see him. She made him sit down with her in the cosiest corner of the drawing-room, gave him coffee and a cigarette, and promised that Claude would come in a moment.

In the morning of that day she had persuaded Claude to let her have a quarter of an hour alone with Gillier. He had asked her why she wanted to be alone with a man she disliked. She had replied, "After Constantine, don't you think you had better leave the practical part of it to me?" Claude had reddened slightly, but he had only said, "Very well. But I don't quite see what you mean. We have no reason to suppose Gillier has a special purpose in coming."

"No, but I should like that quarter of an hour."

So now she and Gillier sat together in the shady drawing-room, and she asked him about Paris and his family, and he replied with a stiff formality which had in it something military.

Directly Charmian had looked at Gillier she had realized that he had a definite purpose in coming. She was on the defensive, but she tried not to show it. Presently she said:

"Have you been working—writing?"

"Yes, madame."

"Another libretto?"

"Madame," Gillier said, with a sort of icy fierceness, "I cannot believe that you are good enough to be genuinely interested in my unsuccessful life."

After the unpleasant scene at Djenan-el-Maqui Gillier had returned to Paris, shut himself in, and labored almost with fury on a libretto destined for Jacques Sennier. He had taken immense pains and trouble, and had not spared time. At last the work had been completed, typed, and submitted to Madame Sennier. After a week of anxious waiting Gillier had received the libretto with the following note:

"DEAR GILLIER,—This might do very well for some unknown genius, say Monsieur Heath, but it is no good to a man like Jacques. Nevertheless, we believe in you still, and renew our offer. Send us a fine libretto, such as I know you can write, and we will pay you five times as much as anyone else would, on account of a royalty. We should not mind even if someone else had already tried to set it. All we care about is to get your best work. HENRIETTE SENNIER."

Gillier had torn this note up with fury. Then he had thought things over and paid Madame Sennier a visit. It was this visit which had prompted his return to Djenan-el-Maqui.

"But I hope it won't be unsuccessful much longer," Charmian said, with deliberate graciousness.

"I hope so too, madame."

Something in his voice, a new tone, almost startled her. But she continued, without any change of manner:

"We must all hope for a great success."

"We, madame?"

"You and I and my husband."

Gillier bit his moustache and looked down. A heavy gloom seemed to have overspread him. After a moment he looked up, leaned back, as if determined to be at his ease, and said abruptly:

"Monsieur Sennier has completed a new opera. It is to be produced at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York some time next winter."

"Is it?"

Charmian tried to keep all expression out of her voice as she spoke.

"Since I last saw you, madame," Gillier continued, "I have managed to get a look at the libretto."

Without knowing that she did so Charmian leaned forward quickly and moved her hands.

"It does not approach my work, the work your husband bought from me for only one hundred pounds, in strength and drama."

"Your libretto is splendid. Mr. Lake and I have always thought so; and of course my husband agrees with us. But you know that."

Gillier pulled his thick moustache, looked quickly round the room, then at his hands, which he had abruptly brought down on his knees, and then at Charmian.

"I have reason to believe that Jacques Sennier—or rather Madame Sennier, for she read all the libretti sent in to him, and only showed him those she thought worth considering—that if Madame Sennier had seen the libretto I sold to your husband Sennier would have set mine—mine—in preference to the one he has set."

"Indeed!" said Charmian, with studied indifference.

"Yes!" he exclaimed, almost with violence.

"All this is very interesting. But I don't see what it has to do with me and my husband. You were good enough to offer to buy back your libretto from us last year. We refused. Our refusal—"

"Your refusal, madame! I never spoke about the matter to your husband. I never asked him."

"Have you come here now to ask him? Is that what you mean, monsieur?"

Gillier got up, throwing his cigarette end into the brass coffee tray. He was evidently much excited. As he stood up in front of her Charmian thought that he looked suddenly more common, coarser. He thrust his hands into the pockets of his black trousers.

"I must understand the position," he began.

"It is perfectly clear. Forgive me, monsieur, but I must say I think it rather bad taste on your part to return to a subject which has been finally disposed of and which is very disagreeable to me."

"Madame, I am here to say to you that I cannot consider it as finally disposed of till I have discussed it with Monsieur Heath. I came here prepared to make a proposition."

"It is useless."

"Madame, I trust that your husband is not endeavoring to avoid me."

Charmian got up and sharply clapped her hands. The Arab boy, Bibi, appeared.

"Bibi, ask monsieur to come," she said to him in French.

"Bieng, madame," replied Bibi, who turned and walked softly away.

During the two or three minutes which elapsed before Claude came in Charmian and Gillier said nothing. Gillier, who, under the influence of excitement, was losing his veneer of good manners, moved about the room pretending to examine the few bibelots it contained. His face was flushed. He still kept his hands in his pockets. Charmian sat still in her corner, watching him. She was too angry to speak. And what was there to be said now? Although she had a good deal of will she was clever enough to realize when its exercise would be useless. She knew that she could do nothing more with this man. Otherwise she would not have sent for Claude.

"V'la, Mousou!"

Bibi had returned and gently pointed to his master, smiling.

"Bon jour, Gillier!" said Claude, as the Frenchman swung round sharply.

"Bon jour!"

They shook hands. Claude looked from Gillier to his wife.

"You were smoking?" he said, glancing at the tray. "Won't you have another cigarette?"

"Merci!"

"Anyhow, I will."

He picked up the cigarette box.

"We haven't seen you for a long while." He lit a cigarette. "Aren't you going to sit down?"

After a pause Gillier sat down. His eyes were fixed on Claude.

"I am glad you have come," he said. "Madame does not quite understand—"

"I understand perfectly, Monsieur Gillier," Charmian interrupted. "Pray don't endow me with a stupidity which I don't possess."

"I prefer at any rate to explain the reason of my visit to Monsieur Heath, madame."

"Have you come with a special object then?" said Claude.

"Yes."

"By all means tell me what it is."

"Mon Dieu!" said Gillier. "What is the good of a cloud of words between two men? I want to buy back the libretto I sold to you more than a year ago."

Charmian gazed at her husband. To her surprise his usually sensitive face did not show her what was passing in his mind. Indeed she thought it looked peculiarly inexpressive as he replied:

"Do you? Why?"

"Why? Because I don't think you and I are suited to work together. I don't think we could ever make a satisfactory combination in art. This has been my opinion ever since I was with you at Constantine."

"More than a year ago. And you only come here and say so now!"

Gillier was silent and fidgeted on the divan.

"Surely you must have some other reason?" said Claude in a very quiet, almost unnaturally quiet voice.

"That is one reason, and an excellent one. Another is, however, that if you will consent to sell me back my libretto I believe I could get it taken up by a man, a composer, who is more in sympathy with me and my artistic aims than you could ever be."

"I see. And what about all the months of work I have put in? What about all the music I have composed? Are you here to ask me to throw it away, or what?"

Gillier was silent.

"Surely your proposition isn't a serious one?" said Claude, still speaking with complete self-control.

"But I say it is! I say"—Gillier raised his voice—"that it is serious. I am a poor man, and I am sick of waiting for success. I sold my libretto to you in a hurry, not knowing what I was doing. Now I have a chance, a great chance, of being associated with someone who is already famous, who would make the success of my libretto a certainty—"

"A chance, when your libretto is my property!" interrupted Claude.

"Oh, I know as well as you do that it's a hard thing to ask you to throw away all these months of labor! I don't think I could have done it, though in this world every man, every artist especially, must think of himself, if it wasn't for one thing."

"And that is—?"

"Your heart isn't in the work!" said Gillier defiantly, but with a curious air of conviction—the conviction of an acute man who had made a discovery which could not be contested or gainsaid.

"That's not true, Monsieur Gillier!" said Charmian, with hot energy.

Claude said nothing, and Gillier continued, raising his voice:

"It is true. Your talent and mine are not fitted to be joined together, and you are artist enough to know it as well as I do. I haven't heard your music; but I can tell. I may be poor, I may be unknown—that doesn't matter! I've got the instinct that doesn't lie, can't lie. If I had known you as I do now, before I had sold my libretto, you never should have had it, even if you had offered me five hundred pounds instead of a hundred, and nobody else would have looked at it. With your temperament, with your way of thinking, you'll never make a success of it—never! I tell you that—I who am speaking to you!"

The veins in his temples swelled, and he frowned.

"Give me back my libretto and take back your money! Let me have my chance of success. Madame—she is hard! She cares nothing! But—"

"Monsieur, I must ask you to leave my wife's name out," said Claude.

And for the first time since he had come into the room he spoke with stern determination.

He had become very pale, and now looked strangely moved.

"I won't have her name brought in," he added. "This is my affair."

"Very well! Will you let me buy back my libretto?"

Charmian expected an instant stern refusal from her husband. But after Gillier's question there was a prolonged pause. She wanted to break it, to answer fiercely for Claude; but she did not dare to. For a moment something in her husband's look and manner dominated her. For a moment she was in subjection. She sat still staring at Claude, waiting for him to speak. He sat looking down, and it seemed to her as if he were wrestling as Jacob wrestled with the angel. His white forehead drew her eyes. She was filled with fear; but when he looked up at her the fear grew. She felt almost sick—sick with apprehension.

"Claude!" she said. "Oh, Claude!"

It seemed that his eyes had put a great question to her, and now her voice had answered it.

Claude turned to Armand Gillier.

"Monsieur," he said, "you can't have your libretto back. It's mine, and I'm going to keep it."

When Gillier was gone Charmian said, almost in a faltering voice, and with none of her usual self-possession of manner:

"How—how could you bear that man's insults as you did?"

"His insults?"

"Yes."

Claude looked at her in silence. And again she was conscious of fear.

"Don't let us ever speak of this again," he answered at last.

He went away.

That day he was in his workroom till very late. He did not come to tea. The evening fell; but he was not working on the opera. Charmian heard him playing Bach.

* * * * *

At the end of April Alston Lake came once more to visit them.

Since those London days when they had first met him Lake had made great progress toward the fulfilment of his ambition. His energy and will were beginning to reap a good reward. He was making money, enough money to live upon; but he had still to pay back his big debt to Jacob Crayford, had still to achieve his great desire, an appearance in Grand Opera. When he arrived at Djenan-el-Maqui he brought with him, as of old, an infectious atmosphere of enthusiasm. With his iron will he combined a light heart. He had none of the childishness that surprised, and sometimes charmed, in Jacques Sennier, but much that was boyish still pleasantly lingered with him. In him, too, there was something courageous that inspired courage in others.

This time he announced he could stay for a month if they did not mind. He wanted a thorough rest before the many concerts he was going to sing at during the London season. Both Charmian and Claude were delighted. When Claude heard of it he was silent for a moment. Then he began to reckon.

"The thirtieth to-day, isn't it? By a month do you mean a month or four weeks?"

"Well, four weeks, old chap!"

"That is less than a month."

"I wish it weren't. But I have to sing in London at the Bechstein Hall early in June. So I'm running it pretty close as it is."

"May the twenty-eighth you go, then," said Claude.

"That's it. But why these higher mathematics?"

Claude only smiled and went out of the room.

"What is he up to, Mrs. Charmian?" asked Lake mystified.

"I don't know," she answered.

"Does he want to get rid of me? Is that why he was so keen to know whether it was four weeks or a month?" said Lake, laughing.

"I am afraid that probably is it. But come up and see the flowers I've put in your room."

"This is a little Paradise," said Lake, in his ringing baritone voice. "Sometimes this winter in Paris, when I was all in, don't you know—"

"All in?"

"Blues."

"Oh, yes!"

"I'd think of Djenan-el-Maqui, and wish I was a composer instead of a singer—for a fifth of a minute."

"Oh!" she said reproachfully. "Only a fifth!"

"I know. It wasn't long. But you see I'm born to sing, so I'm bound to love it more than anything else. Making a noise—oh, it's rare!"

He opened his mouth and ran up a scale to the high A.

"I can get there pretty well now, don't you think?"

"Splendid! Your voice gets bigger and bigger!" she said, with real enthusiasm. "But it's almost—"

He stopped her.

"I know what you're going to say; but I shall always be a baritone. If you knew as much as I do about baritones turned into tenors, you'd say, 'Leave it alone, my boy!' and that's what I'm going to do. Now what about these flowers? It is good to be here."

Claude did not join Alston Lake in making holiday. Indeed, Charmian noticed that he was working much harder than usual, as if Lake's coming had been an incentive to him.

"I don't apologize to you, Alston," he said.

"Odd if you did when I was the first to try and set you on to an opera. Besides, you can't get ahead too fast now. There's—"

He stopped.

"Crayford'll be over this summer," he remarked, giving a casual tone to his voice.

"Ah!" said Claude.

And the conversation dropped.

Only in the early morning, and for an hour, or an hour and a half after lunch, did Claude intermit his labors. In the morning the three of them rode, on good horses hired from the Vitoz stables. After lunch they sat in the little court of the fountain, smoked and talked. Conversation never flagged when Alston was there. His young energy bred a desire for expression in those about him. And Charmian and Claude were now his most intimate friends. He identified himself with them in a charming way, was devoted to their fortunes, and assumed, without a trace of conceit, their devotion to his. When Claude, about three o'clock, got up and went away to his workroom Alston often went off for a stroll alone. Between tea and dinner time, if Charmian had no engagement, she and Alston walked together in the scented Bois de Boulogne, past "Tananarivo," or drove down to the Jardin d'Essai, and spent an hour there near the shimmering sea.

In these many intimate hours Charmian learnt to appreciate the chivalry and delicacy peculiar to well-bred American men in their relations with women. Although she and Alston were both young, and she was an attractive woman, she felt as safe with him as if he were her brother. His life in Paris had left him entirely unspoiled, had even left him in possession of the characteristic and open-hearted naivete which was one of his chief attractions, though he was quite unaware of it. She was very happy with Alston. But often she thought of Claude, far away on the hill, shut in, resigning all this freedom, this delicious open-air life, which she was enjoying with his friend.

"He's working almost too hard," she said one day when they were sitting in the Jardin d'Essai, "and he will work at night now. He never used to do that. Don't you think he's beginning to look rather white and worn out?"

She spoke with some anxiety.

"Sometimes he does look a bit tired," Alston allowed. "But a man's bound to when he puts his back into a thing. And there's not much doubt as to whether old Claude's back is in the opera. I say, Mrs. Charmian, how far has he got exactly?"

"Practically the whole of the music is composed, I believe. It's the orchestration that takes such a lot of time."

"Well, and how far has that got? Claude's never told me plump out. Composers never do. And I know better than to pump them. It's fatal—that! They simply can't stand it."

"I know. I believe the opera might be ready by the end of this year."

"Not before then?"

They looked at each other, then Charmian said:

"Oh, Alston, if you only knew how difficult it is to me to wait—to wait and not to show any impatience to him. Sometimes—well, now and then, I've shut myself in and cried with impatience, cried angrily. I've wanted to bite things. One day I actually did bite a pillow."

She laughed, but her cheeks were flushed.

"It's the perpetual keeping it in that is such a torment. I know how wicked it would be to hurry him. And he does work so hard. And I've heard of people taking ten years over an opera. Claude only began about a year and five months ago. He's been marvellously quick, really. But, oh, sometimes I feel as if this suppressed impatience were making me ill, physically and mentally, as if it were a kind of poison stealing all through me! Can you understand?"

"Can I? You bet! I only wish the thing could be ready before Crayford goes back to the States."

"When does he go?"

"Some time in September, I believe. He goes on the Continent after July. Of course, July he's in London, June too. Then he has his cure at Divonne. If only—— When do you come to London?"

Charmian suddenly grasped his arm.

"Alston, I'll keep him here, give up London, anything to have the opera finished by the end of August!"

"Well, but the heat!"

"I don't believe it's too hot upon the hill where we are, with all those trees. Every afternoon I expect there's a breeze from the sea. I know we could stand it. It's only April now. That would mean four solid months of steady work. But then?"

"I'd bring Crayford over."

"Would he come?"

"I'd make him."

"But we might—"

"No, Mrs. Charmian. He ought to hear it in Mustapha. I know him. He's a hard business man. But he's awfully susceptible too. And then he's great on scenic effects. Now, he's never been in Africa. Think of the glamour of it, especially in summer, when the real Africa emerges, by Gee, in all its blue and fire! We'd plunge him in it, you and I. That Casbah scene—you know, the third act! I'd take him there by moonlight on a September night—full moon—show him the women on their terraces and in their courts, the town dropping down to the silver below, while the native music—by Gee! We'd dazzle him, we'd spread the magic carpet for him, we'd carry him away till he couldn't say no, till he'd be as mad on the thing as we are!"

"Oh, Alston, if we could!"

She had caught all his enthusiasm. It seemed to her that in North Africa Mr. Crayford could not refuse the opera. From that moment she had made up her mind. No London season! Whatever happened, she and Claude were going to remain at Djenan-el-Maqui till the opera was finished, finished to the last detail. That very evening she spoke about it to Claude.

"Claudie," she said. "Are you very keen on going to London this year?"

He looked at her as if almost startled.

"I? But, surely—do you mean that you don't want to go?"

She moved her head.

"Not one little bit."

"Well, but then where do you wish to go?"

"Where? Why should we go anywhere?"

"Stay here?"

"I've come to love this little house, the garden, even those absurd goldfish that are always looking for nothing."

"Well, but the heat!"

His voice did not sound reluctant or protesting, only a little doubtful and surprised.

"Lots of people stay. Algiers doesn't empty of human beings, only of travellers, because it's summer. And we are up on a height."

"That's true. And I could work on quietly."

"Absolutely undisturbed."

"The only thing is I meant to see Jernington."

Jernington was the professor with whom Claude studied orchestration in London.

"Get him over here."

"Jernington! Why, he never leaves London!"

"Get him to for a month. We'll pay all his expenses and everything, of course."

"How you go ahead!" he said, laughing. "You must be a twin of Alston's, I think."

"What has got to be done can be done."

"Well, but the expense; you know, Charmian, we live right up to our income."

"Hang the expense! Oh, as Alston would say!"

He laughed.

"You really are a marvellous wife!"

"Am I? Am I?"

"I might sound old Jernington. He'll think I'm raving mad, but still—"

"I only hope," she said, smiling and eager, "that he won't be so raving sane as to refuse."

"But what will Madre think, not seeing you—us, I mean?"

Charmian looked grave.

"Yes, I know. But Madre has never come to see us here."

"Oh, Charmian, there could never be a cloud between Madre and us!"

"No, no, never! Still, why has she never come?"

"She really hates the sea. You know she has never in her life done more than cross the Channel."

"Do you think that is the reason why she has never come?"

"How can I know?"

"Claude, Madre is strange sometimes. Don't you think so?"

"Strange? She is absolutely herself. She does not take anyone else's color, if that is what you mean. I love that in her."

"So do I. Still, I think she is strange."

At this moment Alston came in and the conversation dropped. But both husband and wife thought many times of "Madre" that day, and not without a certain uneasiness. Was the heart of the mother with them in their enterprise?

Charmian put that question to herself. But Claude did not put it. He thought of Mrs. Mansfield's intense and fiery eyes. They saw far, saw deep. He loved them, the look in them. But he must try to forget them. He must give himself to the enthusiasm of his wife and of Alston Lake.

He sent a long telegram to Jernington, saying how difficult it was for him to leave Mustapha, and begging Jernington to come over during the summer so that they might work together in quiet. All expenses were to be paid. Next day he received a telegram from Jernington: "Very difficult is it absolutely impossible for you to come to England?"

"I'll answer that," said Charmian.

She telegraphed, "Absolutely impossible—HEATH."

In the late evening a second telegram came from Jernington: "Very well suppose I must come—JERNINGTON."

Charmian laughed as she read it over Claude's shoulder.

"The pathos of it," she said. "Poor old Jernington! He is horror-stricken. Bury St. Edmunds has been his farthest beat till now except for his year in Germany. Claudie, he loves the opera or he would never have consented to come. I felt it was a test. The opera, the child, has stood it triumphantly. I love old Jernington. And he is a first-rate critic, isn't he?"

"Of orchestration, certainly."

"That's half the battle in an opera. I feel so happy. Let us have an audition to-night!"

"All right," he said.

"And play us an act right through; the first act. Alston has only heard it in bits."

"I don't really care for anyone to hear it yet," Claude said, with obvious reluctance.

Yet he desired a verdict—of praise. He longed for encouragement. In old days, when he had composed for himself, he had felt indifferent to that. But now he was working on something which was planned, which was being executed, with the intention to strike upon the imagination of a big public. He was no longer indifferent. He was secretly anxious. He longed to be told that what he was doing was good.

That evening he was genuinely warmed by the enthusiasm of his wife and of Alston.

"And surely," he said to himself, "they would be inclined to be more critical than others, to be hypercritical."

He forgot that in some natures desire creates conviction.

On the last day of Alston's visit Charmian and he understood why Claude's mathematical powers had been brought to bear on the question of its exact duration. Claude himself explained with rather a rueful face.

"I hoped—I thought if you were going to stay for the extra days I might possibly have the finale of the opera finished. Even when you told me your month meant four weeks I thought I would have a tremendous try to complete it. Well, I have had a tremendous try. But I've failed. I must have two more weeks, I believe, before I conquer the monster."

He was looking very pale, had dark rings under his eyes, and moved his hands nervously while he was speaking.

"That was it!" exclaimed Alston.

"Yes, that was it."

Charmian and Alston exchanged a quick glance.

"When you've done the finale," Alston said, with the firmness of one who spoke with permission, even perhaps by special request, "will the opera be practically finished?"

"Finished? Good Heavens, no!"

"Well, but if it's the finale of the whole opera?" said Charmian.

"I've got bits here and there to do, and a lot to re-do."

Again Charmian and the American exchanged glances.

"I say, old chap," said Alston. "You read Balzac, don't you?"

"Of course. But what has that to do with the opera?"

"Did you ever read that story of his about a painter who was always striving to attain perfection, could never let a picture alone, was for ever adding new touches, painting details out and other details in? One day he called in his friends to see his masterpiece. When they came they found a mere mess of paint representing nothing."

"Well?" said Claude, rather stiffly.

"You've got a splendid talent. I hope you're going to trust it."

Claude said nothing, and Alston, in his easy, almost boyish way, glanced off to some other topic. But before he started for England he said to Charmian:

"Do watch him a bit if you can, Mrs. Charmian, for over-elaboration. Don't let him work it to death, I mean, till all the spontaneity is gone. I believe that's a danger with him. Somehow I think he lacks complete confidence in himself."

"You see it's the first time he has ever tried to do an opera."

"I know. It's natural enough. But do watch out for over-elaboration."

"I'll try to. But I have to be very careful with Claude."

"How d'you mean exactly?"

"He can be very reserved."

"Yes, but you know how to take him. And—well—we can't let the opera be anything but a big success, can we?"

If Claude had heard that "we!"

"I say, shall we walk around the garden?" Alston added, after a pause. "It isn't quite time to go, and I want to talk over things before Claude comes down to see the last of me."

"Yes, yes."

They went out, and descended the steps from the terrace.

"I wanted to tell you, Mrs. Charmian, that I'm going to bring Crayford over whatever happens, whether the opera's done or not. There's heaps ready for him to judge by. And you must read him the libretto."

"I?" exclaimed Charmian, startled.

"Yes, you. Study it up! Recite it to yourself. Learn to give it all and more than its value. That libretto is going to catch hold of Crayford right away, if you read it, and read it well."

When she had recovered from her first shock of surprise Charmian felt radiantly happy. She had something to do. Alston, with his shrewd outlook, was bringing her a step farther into this enterprise. He was right. She remembered Crayford. A woman should read him the libretto, and in a decor—swiftly her imagination began to work. The decor should be perfection; and her gown!

"How clever of you to think of that, Alston!" she exclaimed. "I'll study as if I were going to be an actress."

"That's the proposition! By Jove, you and I understand each other over this. I know Crayford by heart. We've got to what the French call 'eblouir' him when we get him here. We must play upon him with the scenery proposition; what he can do in the way of wonderful new stage effects. When we've got him thoroughly worked up over the libretto and the scenery prop., we'll begin to let him hear the music, but not a moment before. We can't be too careful, Mrs. Charmian. Crayford's a man who doesn't start going in a hurry on newly laid rails. He wants to test every sleeper pretty nearly. But once get him going, and the evening express from New York City to Chicago isn't in it with him. Now you and I have got to get him started before ever he comes to old Claude. In fact—"

He paused, put one finger to his firm round chin.

"But we can decide that a bit later on."

"That? What, Alston?"

"I was going to say it might be as well to get Claude out of the way for a day or two while we start on old Crayford here. I suppose it could be managed somehow?"

"Alston—" Charmian stopped on the path between the geraniums. "Anything can be managed that will help to persuade Mr. Crayford to accept Claude's opera."

"Right you are. That's talking! I'll think it all over and let you know."

"Oh," she exclaimed. "How I wish the end of August was here! You'll be in London. All your time will be filled up. You'll be singing, being applauded, getting on. And I have to sit here, and wait—wait."

"You'll be studying the libretto."

"So I shall!"

She sent him a grateful look.

"What a good friend you are to us, Alston!" she said, and there was heart at that moment in her voice.

"And haven't you been good friends to me? What about the studio? What about the Prophet's Chamber? Why, you've given me a sort of a home and family, you and old Claude. I can tell you I've often felt lonesome in Europe, I've often felt all in, right away from everybody, and my Dad trying to starve me out, and all my people dead against what I was doing. Since I've known you, well, I've felt quite bully in comparison with what it used to be. Claude's success and yours, it's just going to be my success too. And that's all there is to it."

He wrung her hand and shouted for Claude.

It was nearly time for him to go.



CHAPTER XXVI

Jernington, after sending to Claude several anxious and indeed almost deplorable letters, pleading to be let off his bargain by telegram, arrived in Algiers in the middle of the following July, with a great deal of fuss and very little luggage.

The Heaths welcomed him warmly.

Although he was a native of Suffolk, and had only spent a year in Germany, he succeeded in looking almost exactly like a German student. Rather large and bulky, he had a quite hairless face, very fair, with Teutonic features, and a high forehead, above which the pale hair of his head was cropped like the coat of a newly singed horse. His eyes were pale blue, introspective and romantic. At the back of his neck, just above his low collar, appeared a neat little roll of white flesh. Charmian thought he looked as if he had once, consenting, been gently boiled. A flowing blue tie, freely peppered with ample white spots, gave a Bohemian touch to his pleasant and innocent appearance. He was dressed for cool weather in England, and wore boots with square toes and elastic sides.

In his special line he was a man of extraordinary talent.

He had intended to be a composer, but had little faculty for original work. His knowledge of composition, nevertheless, was enormous, and he was the best orchestral "coach" in England.

His heart was in his work. His devotion to a clever pupil knew no limits. And he considered Claude the cleverest pupil he had ever taught.

Charmian, therefore, accepted him with enthusiasm—boots, tie, little roll of white flesh, the whole of him.

He settled down with them in Mustapha, once he had been conveyed into the house, as comfortably as a cat in front of whom, with every tender precaution, has been placed a bowl of rich milk. In a couple of days it seemed as if he had always been there.

Charmian did not see very much of him. The two men toiled with diligence despite the great heat which lay over the land. They began early in the morning before the sun was high, rested and slept in the middle of the day, resumed work about five, and, with an interval for dinner, went on till late in the night.

The English Colony had long since broken up. Only the British Vice-Consul and his wife remained, and they lived a good way out in the country. Since May few people had come to disturb the peace of Djenan-el-Maqui. Charmian dwelt in a strange and sun-smitten isolation. She was very much alone. Only now and then some French acquaintance would call to see her and sit with her for a little while at evening in the garden, or in the courtyard of the fountain.

The beauty, the fierce romance of this land, sometimes excited her spirit. Sometimes, with fiery hands, it lulled her into a condition almost of apathy. She listened to the fountain, she looked at the sea which was always blue, and she felt almost as if some part of her nature had fallen away from her, leaving her vague and fragmentary, a Charmian lacking some virtue, or vice, that had formerly been hers and had made her salient. But this apathy did not last long. The sound of Jernington's strangely German voice talking loudly above would disturb it, perhaps, or the noise of chords or passages powerfully struck upon the piano. And immediately the child was with her again, she was busy thinking, planning, hoping, longing, concentrated on the future of the child.

She had studied the libretto minutely, had practised reading it aloud. It was of course written in French, and she found a clever woman, retired from a theatrical career in Paris, Madame Thenant, who gave her lessons in elocution, and who finally said that she read the libretto "assez bien." This from Madame Thenant, who had played Dowagers at the Comedie Francaise, was a high compliment. Charmian felt that she was ready to make an effect on Jacob Crayford. She was in active correspondence with Alston Lake, who was still in London, and who had had greater success than before. From him she knew that Crayford was in town, and would take his usual "cure" in August at Divonne-les-Bains. Lake had "begun upon him" warily, but had not yet even hinted at the visit to Africa. After his "cure" Crayford proposed making a motor tour. He thought nothing of running all over Europe in his car. Lake was going presently to speak of the perfect surfaces of the Algerian roads, "the best way perhaps of getting him to go to Algeria." He still wanted operas "badly," and had asked after the Heaths directly he arrived in London. Lake had replied that Claude was finishing off an opera. Was he? Where? Alston had evaded the question, giving the impression that Claude wished to remain hidden away. Thereupon Crayford had asked after Charmian, and had been informed that of course she was with her husband. Turtle doves, eh? Crayford had dropped the subject, but had eventually returned to it again in a casual way. Had Lake heard the opera? Some of it. Did it seem any good? Lake had not expressed an opinion. He had shrewdly made rather a mystery of the whole thing. This, as he expected, had put Crayford on the alert. Since the success of Jacques Sennier he saw the hand of his rival, "The Metropolitan," everywhere, like the giant hand of one of the great Trusts. Lake's air of mystery had evidently made him suspect that Claude had some reason for keeping away and making a sort of secret of what he was doing. Finally he had inquired point blank whether any one was "after young Heath's opera." Lake could not say anything as to that. "Why don't he write in Europe anyway, where folk could get at him if they wanted to?" had been the next question. Lake's answer had rather indicated that the composer was very glad to have a good stretch of ocean between himself and any "folk" who might want to get at him.

This was the point at which the Lake correspondence with Charmian stood in the first week of August. His last letter lay on her knee one afternoon, as she sat in a hidden nook at the bottom of the garden, with delicate bamboos rustling in a warm south wind about her.

Claude knew nothing of this exchange of letters, of all the planning and plotting. It was all for him. Some day, when the result was success, he should be told everything, unless by that time it was too late, and the steps to success were all forgotten. Charmian did nothing to disturb him. She wished him to be obsessed by the work, to do it now merely for its own sake. The result of his labors would probably be better if that were so. If Crayford did come—and he must come! Charmian was willing it every day—his coming would be a surprise to Claude, and would seem to be a surprise to Charmian. She would get rid of Claude for a few days when Lake forewarned her that their arrival was imminent; would persuade him to take a little holiday, to go, perhaps, up into the cork woods to Hammam R'rirha. He was very pale, had dark circles beneath his eyes. The incessant work was beginning to tell upon him severely. Charmian saw that. But how could she beg him to rest now, when Jernington had come out, when it was so vital to their interests that the opera should be finished as soon as possible! Besides, she was certain that even if she spoke Claude would not listen to her. Jernington, so he said, always gave him an impetus, always excited him. It was a keen pleasure to show a man of such deep knowledge what he had been doing, a keener pleasure still when he approved, when he said, in his German voice, "That goes!" And they had been trying over passages with instrumentalists who had been "unearthed," as Jernington expressed it, in Algiers. They had got hold of a horn player, had found another man who played the clarinet, the violin, and a third instrument.

In fact, they were living for, and in, the opera. And Charmian, devoured by her secret ambition, had no heart to play a careful wife's part. She had the will to urge her man on. She had no will to hold him back. Afterward he could rest, he should rest—on the bed of his laurels.

She smiled now when she thought of that.

Presently she felt that some one was approaching her. She looked up and saw Jernington coming down the path, wiping his pale forehead with a silk handkerchief in which various colors seemed fortuitously combined.

"Is the work over?" she cried out to him.

He threw up one square-nailed white hand.

"No. But for once he has got a passage all wrong. I have left him to correct it. He kicked me out, in fact!"

Jernington threw back his head and laughed gutturally. His laugh always contradicted his eyes. They were romantic, but his laugh was prosaic.

He sat down by Charmian and put his hands on his knees. One still grasped the handkerchief.

"Dear Mr. Jernington, tell me!" she said. "You know so much. Claude says your knowledge is extraordinary. Isn't the opera fine?"

Now Jernington was a specialist, and he was one of those men who cannot detach their minds from the subject in which they specialize in order to take a broad view. His vision was extraordinarily acute, but it was strictly limited. When Charmian spoke of the opera he believed he was thinking of the opera as a whole, whereas he was in reality only thinking about the orchestration of it.

"It is superb!" he replied enthusiastically. "Never before have I had a pupil with such talent as your husband."

With a rapid movement he put one hand to the back of his neck and softly rubbed his little roll of white flesh.

"He has an instinct for orchestration such as I have found in no one else. Now, for example—"

He flung himself into depths of orchestral knowledge, dragging Charmian with him. She was happily engulfed. When they emerged in about half an hour's time she again threw out a lure for general praise.

"Then you really admire the opera as a whole? You think it undoubtedly fine, don't you?"

Jernington wiped his perspiring face, his forehead, and, finally, his whole head and neck, manipulating the huge handkerchief in a masterly manner almost worthy of an expensive conjurer.

"It is superb. When it is given, when the world knows that the great Heath studied with me—well, I shall have to take a studio as large as the Albert Hall, there will be such a rush of pupils. Do you know that his employment of the oboe in combination with the flute, the strings being divided—"

And once more he plunged down into the depths of orchestral knowledge taking Charmian with him. He quoted Prout, he quoted Vincent d'Indy; he minutely compared passages in Elgar's second symphony with passages in Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony; he dissected the delicate orchestral effects in Debussy's Nuages and Fete Nocturne, compared the modern French methods in orchestration with Richard Strauss's gigantic, and sometimes monstrous combinations. But again and again he returned to his pupil, Claude. As he talked his enthusiasm mounted. The little roll of flesh trembled as he emphatically moved his head. His voice grew harsher, more German. He untied and reknotted his flowing cravat, pulled up his boots with elastic sides, thrust his cuffs, which were not attached to his shirt, violently out of sight up his plump arms.

Charmian could not doubt his admiration for the opera. It was expressed in a manner peculiar to Jernington that became almost epileptic, but it was undoubtedly sincere.

When he left her and went back to Claude's workroom she was glowing with pride and happiness.

"That funny old thing knows!" she thought. "He knows!"

Jernington was usually called an old thing, although he was not yet forty.

His departure was due about the twentieth of August, but when that day drew near Claude begged him to stay on till the end of the month. Charmian was secretly dismayed. She had news from Lake that his campaign on Claude's behalf had every prospect of success. Crayford was now at Divonne-les-Bains, but had invited Lake to join him in a motor tour as soon as his "cure"—by no means a severe one—was over.

"That tour, Mrs. Charmian, as I'm a living man with good prospects, will end on the quay at Marseilles, and start again on the quay at Algiers. Crayford has tried to bring off a fresh deal with Sennier, but been beaten off by the pierrot in petticoats, as he calls the great Henriette. She asked for the earth, and all the planets and constellations besides. Now they are at daggers drawn. That's bully for us. Take out your bottom dollar, and bet it that I bring him over before September is ten days old."

September—yes. But Lake was impulsive. He might hurry things, might arrive with the impresario sooner. Jernington must not be at Djenan-el-Maqui when he arrived. If Claude were found studying with a sort of professor Crayford would certainly get a wrong impression. It might just make the difference between the success of the great plan and its failure. Claude must present himself, or be presented by Lake as a master, not as a pupil.

She must get rid of old Jernington as soon as possible.

But it now became alarmingly manifest that old Jernington was in no hurry to go. He was one of those persons who arrive with great difficulty, but who find an even greater difficulty in bringing themselves to the point of departure. Never having been out of Europe before, it seemed that he was not unwilling to end his days in a tropical exile. He "felt" the heat terribly, but professed to like it, was charmed with the villa and the comfort of the life, and "really had no need to hurry away" now that he had definitely relinquished his annual holiday at Bury St. Edmunds.

As Claude wished him to stay on, and had no suspicion that any plan was in the wind, Charmian found herself in a difficult position as the days went by and the end of August drew near. Her imagination revolved about all sorts of preposterous means for getting rid of the poor fellow, whom she honestly liked, and to whom she was grateful for his enthusiastic labors. She thought of making a hole in his mosquito net, to permit the entry of those marauders whom he dreaded; of casually mentioning that there had been cases suspiciously resembling Asiatic cholera in the Casbah of Algiers; of pretending to fall ill and saying that Claude must take her away for a change; even of getting Alston Lake to send a telegram to Jernington saying that his presence was urgently demanded in his native Suffolk. Had he a mother? Till now Charmian had never thought of probing into Jernington's family affairs. When, driven by stress of circumstances, she began to do so, she found that his mother had died almost before he was born. Indeed, his relatives seemed to be as few in number as they were robust in constitution.

She dismissed the idea of the telegram. She even said to herself that of course she had never entertained it. But what was she to do?

She tried to be a little cold to Jernington, thinking it might be possible to convey to him subtly the idea that perhaps his visit had lasted long enough, that his hostess had other plans in which his presence was not included.

But Jernington was conscious of no subtleties except those connected with the employment of musical instruments. And Charmian found it almost impossible to be glacial to such a simple and warm-hearted creature. His very boots seemed to claim her cordiality with their unabashed elastic sides. The way in which he pushed his cuffs out of sight appealed to the goodness of her heart, although it displeased her aesthetic sense. She had to recognize the fact that old Jernington was one of those tiresome people you cannot be unkind to.

Nevertheless she must get him out of the house and out of Africa.

If he stuck to the plan of leaving them at the end of August there would probably be no need of diplomacy, or of forcible ejection; but it had become obvious to Charmian that the last thing old Jernington was capable of doing was just that sticking to a plan.

"Do you mean to sail on the Marechal Bugeaud or the Ville d'Alger?" she asked him.

"I wonder," he replied artlessly. "In my idea Berlioz was not really the founder of modern orchestration as some have asserted. Your husband and I—"

She could not stop him. She began to feel almost as if she hated the delicious orchestral family. Jernington had a special passion for the oboe. Charmian found herself absurdly feeling against that rustic and Arcadian charmer an enmity such as she had scarcely ever experienced against a human being. One night she spoke unkindly, almost with a warmth of malignity, about the oboe. Jernington sprang amorously to its defense. She tried to quarrel with him, but was disarmed by his fidelity to the object of his affections. She was too much a woman to rail against fidelity.

The 30th of August arrived. In the afternoon of that day she received the following telegram from Alston Lake:

"Crayford and I start motor trip to-morrow he thinks Germany have no fear all right Marseilles or I Dutchman.—LAKE."

As she read this telegram Charmian knew that the two men would come to Algiers. She believed in Alston Lake. He had an extraordinary faculty for carrying things through; and Crayford was fond of him. Crayford had been kind, generous to the boy, and loved him as a man may love his own good action. Lake, as he had said in private to Charmian, could "do a lot with dear old Crayford."

He would certainly bring Crayford to Mustapha. Old Jernington must go.

The 31st of August dawned and began to fade.

Charmian felt desperate. She resolved to tackle Claude on the matter. Old Jernington would never understand unless she said to him, "Go! For Heaven's sake, go!" And even then he would probably think that she was saying the reverse of what she meant, in an effort after that type of playful humor which, for all she knew, perhaps still prevailed in his native Suffolk. She had bent Claude to her purposes before. She must bend him to her purpose now.

"Claudie," she said, "you know what an old dear I think Jernington, don't you?"

Claude looked up at her with rather searching eyes. She had come into his workroom at sunset. All day she had been considering what would be the best thing to do. Old Jernington was strolling in the garden smoking a very German pipe after having been "at it" for many hours.

"Jernington?"

"Yes, old Jernington."

"Of course he's an excellent fellow. What about him?"

She sat down delicately. She was looking very calm, and her movement was very quiet.

"Well, I'm beginning almost to hate him!" she remarked quietly.

"What do you mean, Charmian?"

"If I tell you are you going to get angry?"

"Why should I get angry?"

"You are looking very fierce."

He altered his expression.

"It's the work," he muttered. "When one grinds as I do one does feel fierce."

"That's why I'm beginning to—well, love Mr. Jernington a little less than I used to. He's almost killing you."

"Jernington!"

"Yes. It's got to stop."

Her voice and manner had quite changed. She spoke now with earnest and very serious decision.

"What?"

"The work, Claude. I've seen for some time that unless you take a short holiday you are going to break down."

"Well, but you have always encouraged me to work!"

She noticed a faint suspicion in his expression and voice.

"I know. I've been too eager, too keen on the opera. I haven't realized what a strain you are going through. But—it's just like a woman, I'm afraid!—now I see another urging you on, I see plainly. It may be jealousy—"

"You jealous of old Jernington!"

"I believe I am a tiny bit. But, apart really from that, you are looking dreadful these last few days. When you asked Jernington to prolong his visit I was horrified. You see, he's come to it all fresh. And then he's not creating. That's the tiring work. It's all very well helping and criticising."

"That's very true," Claude said.

He sighed heavily. She had told him that he was very tired, and he felt that he was very tired.

"It is a great strain," he added.

"It has got to stop, Claude."

There was a little silence. Then she said:

"These extra months have made a great difference, haven't they?"

"Enormous."

"You've got on very far?"

"Farther than I had thought would be possible."

Her heart bounded. But she only said:

"There's a boat to Marseilles the day after to-morrow. Old Jernington is going by it."

"Oh, but Charmian, we can't pack the dear old fellow—"

"The dear old fellow is going by that boat, Claudie."

"But what a tyrant you are!"

"I've been selfish. My keenness about your work has blinded me. Jernington has made me see. We've been two slave-drivers. It can't go on. If he could stay and be different—but he can't. He's a marvel of learning, but he has only one subject—orchestration. You've got to forget that for a little. So Jernington must go. Dear old boy! When I see your pale cheeks and your burning eyes I—I—"

Tears came into her eyes. From beneath the trickster the woman arose. Her own words touched her suddenly, made her understand how Claude had sacrificed himself to his work, and so to her ambition. She got up and turned away.

"Old Jernington shall go by the Marechal Bugeaud," she said, in a voice that slightly shook.

And by the Marechal Bugeaud old Jernington did go.

So ingeniously did Charmian manage things that he believed he went of his own accord, indeed that it had been his "idea" to go. She told Claude to leave it to her and not to say one word. Then she went to Jernington, and began to talk of his extraordinary influence over her husband. He soon pulled at his boots, thrust his cuffs up his arms, and showed other unmistakable symptoms of gratification.

"You can do anything with him," she said presently. "I wish I could."

Jernington protested with guttural exclamations.

"He's killing himself," she resumed. "And I have to sit by and see it, and say nothing."

"Killing himself!"

Jernington, who believed in women, was shocked.

"With overwork. He's on the verge of a complete breakdown. And it's you, Mr. Jernington, it's all you!"

Jernington was more than shocked. His gratification had vanished. A piteous, almost a guilty expression, came into his large fair face.

"Ach!" he exclaimed. "What have I done?"

"Oh, it's not your fault. But Claude almost worships you. He thinks there is no one like you. He's afraid to lose a moment of time while you are with him. Your learning, your enthusiasm excite him till he's beside himself. He can't rest with such a worker as you in the house, and no wonder. You are an inspiration to him. Who could rest with such an influence near? What are we to do? Unless he has a complete holiday he is going to break completely down. Do watch him to-day! Notice! See for yourself!"

Jernington, much impressed—for Charmian's despair had been very definite indeed, "oleographic in type," as she acknowledged to herself—did notice, did see for himself, and inquired innocently of Charmian what was to be done.

"I leave that to you," she answered, fixing her eyes almost hypnotically upon him.

Secretly she was willing him to go. She was saying in her mind: "Go! Go! Go!" was striving to "suggestion" him.

"Perhaps—" he paused, and pulled his cuffs down over his large, pale hands.

"Yes?"

"Perhaps I had better take him away for a little holiday."

She could have slapped him. But she only said eagerly:

"To England, you mean! Why not? There's a boat going the day after to-morrow take your passage on the Marechal Bugeaud. Don't say a word to Claude. But and leave the rest to me. I know how to manage Claude. And if I get a little help from you!"

Old Jernington took his passage on the Marechal Bugeaud and left the rest to Charmian, with this result. Late the next night, when they were all going to bed, she whispered to him, "I've put a note in your room. Don't say a word to him!" She touched her lips. Much intrigued by all this feminine diplomacy Jernington went to his room, and found the following note under a candlestick. (Charmian had a sense of the dramatic.)

"DEAR MR. JERNINGTON,—Claude won't go. It's no use for me to say anything. He is in a highly nervous state brought on by this overwork. I see the only thing is to let him have his own way in everything. Don't even mention that we had thought of this holiday in England. The least thing excites him. And as he won't go, what is the use of speaking of it? If I can get him to join you later well and good. For the moment we can only give in and be discreet. You have been such a dear to us both. The house will seem quite different without you. Not a word to Claude. Burn this! "C. H."

And old Jernington burnt it in the flame of the candle, and went away alone on the Marechal Bugeaud the next morning, with apologies to Claude.

The house did seem to Charmian quite different without him.



CHAPTER XXVII

Two days later, on the 4th of September, Charmian had got rid of Claude as well as of old Jernington, and, in a condition of expectation that was tinged agreeably with triumph, was awaiting the arrival of important visitors. She had received a telegram from Lake:

"Have got him into the Chateaux country going on to Orange hope on hope ever—ALSTON."

And she knew that the fateful motor would inevitably find its way to the quay at Marseilles.

She had had no difficulty in persuading Claude to go. When Jernington had departed Claude felt as if a strong prop had suddenly been knocked from under him, as if he might collapse. He could not work. Yet he felt as if in the little house which had seen his work he could not rest.

"Go away," Charmian said to him. "Take a couple of weeks' complete holiday."

"Where shall we go?"

"But I am not going."

He looked surprised. But she noticed that he did not look displeased. Nevertheless, thinking of the future and remembering Alston Lake's advice, she continued:

"You need a complete change of people as well as of place. Is there anyone left in Algiers?"

"If you don't come," he interrupted her quickly, "I'd much rather go quite alone. It will rest me much more."

She saw by the look in his eyes that this sudden prospect of loneliness appealed to him strongly. He moved his shoulders, stretched out his arms.

"Yes, it will do me good. You are right, Charmian. It is sweet of you to think for me as you do."

And he bent down and kissed her.

Then he hurried to his room, packed a very small trunk, and took the first train, as she had suggested, to Hammam R'rirha.

"If you move from there mind you let me know your address," she said, as he was starting.

"Of course."

"I want always to know just where you are."

"Of course I shall let you know. But I think I shall stay quietly at Hammam R'rirha."

Charmian had been alone for five days when another telegram came:

"Starting to-morrow for Algiers by the Timgad Hurrah—ALSTON."

She read that telegram again and again. She even read it aloud. Then she hurried to her room to get her copy of the libretto. Two days and they would be here! Her heart danced, sang. Everything was going well, more than well. The omens were good. She saw in them a tendency. Success was in the air. She did not doubt, she would not doubt, that Crayford's coming meant his eventual acceptance of the opera. The combination of Alston and herself was a strong one. They knew their own minds; they were both enthusiasts; they both had strong wills. Crayford was devoted to his protege, and he admired her. She had seen admiration in his eyes the first time they had looked at her. Madame Sennier had surely never worked for her husband more strenuously and more effectively than she, Charmian, had worked for Claude; and she would work more strenuously, more effectively, during the next few days. The libretto! She snatched it up and sat down once more to study it. But she could not sit still, and she took it down with her into the garden. There she paced up and down, reading it aloud, reciting the strongest passages in it without looking at the words. She nearly knew the whole of it by heart.

When the day came on which the Timgad was due she was in a fever of excitement. She went about the little house re-arranging the furniture, putting flowers in all the vases. Of course Mr. Crayford and Alston would stay at a hotel. But no doubt they would spend a good deal of time at the villa. She would insist on their dining with her that night.

"Jeanne! Jeanne!"

She hurried toward the kitchen. It occurred to her that she was not supposed to know that the two men were coming. Oh, but of course, when he found them there, Claude would understand that naturally Alston had telegraphed from Marseilles. So she took "La Grande Jeanne" into her confidence without a scruple. They must have a perfect little dinner, a dinner for three such as had never yet been prepared in Mustapha!

She and Jeanne were together for more than an hour. Afterward she went out to watch for the steamer from a point of vantage on the Boulevard Bleu. Just after one o'clock she saw it gliding toward the harbor over the glassy sea. Then she went slowly home in the glaring heat, rested, put on a white gown, very simple but quite charming, and a large white hat, and went out into the Arab court with a book to await their arrival.

It was half-past four when a sound struck on her ears, a loud and trembling chord, a buzz, the rattle of a "cut-out." The blessed noises drew near. They were certainly in the little by-road which led to the house. They ceased. She did not move, but sat where she was with a fast-beating heart.

"Well, this is a cute little snuggery and no mistake!"

It was Crayford's voice in the court of the bougainvillea.

She bent her head and pored over her book. In a moment Alston Lake's voice said, in French:

"In the garden! No, don't call her, Bibi, we will find her!"

"Look well on the stage that boy!" said Crayford's voice. "No mistake at all about its being picturesque over here."

Then the two men came in sight in the sunshine. Instantly Alston said, as he took off his Panama hat:

"You got my wire from Marseilles, Mrs. Charmian?"

"Oh, yes, I was expecting you! But I didn't know when. Mr. Crayford, how kind of you to come over here in September! No one ever does."

She had got up rather languidly and was holding out her hand.

"Guess it's the proper time to come," said Crayford, squeezing her hand with his dried-up palm. "See a bit of the real thing! I don't believe in tourist seasons at all. Tourists always choose the wrong time, seems to me."

By the look in his eyes as he glanced around him Charmian saw that he was under the spell of Djenan-el-Maqui.

"You must have tea, iced drinks, whatever you like," she said. "I'm all alone—as you see."

"What's that?" said Crayford.

"My husband is away."

Crayford's lips pursed themselves. For a moment he looked like a man who finds he has been "had." In that moment Charmian knew that his real reason in "running over" to North Africa had certainly been the opera. She did not suppose he had acknowledged this to Lake, or ever would acknowledge it to anyone. But she was quite certain of it.

"Gone to England?" asked Crayford, carelessly.

"Oh, no. He's been working too hard, and run away by himself for a little holiday to a place near here, Hammam R'rirha. He'll be sorry to miss you. I know how busy you always are, so I suppose you'll only stay a day or two."

Crayford's keen eyes suddenly fastened upon her.

"Yes, I haven't too much time," he remarked drily.

They all sat down, and again Crayford looked around, stretching out his short and muscular legs.

"Cute, and no mistake!" he observed, with a sigh, as he pulled at the tiny beard. "Think of living here now! Pity I'm not a composer, eh, Alston?"

He ended with a laugh.

"And what's your husband been up to, Mrs. Heath?" he continued, settling himself more comfortably in his big chair, and pushing his white Homburg hat backward to leave his brown forehead bare to a tiny breeze which spoke softly, very gently, of the sea. "You've been over here for a big bunch of Sundays, Alston tells me, week-days too."

"Oh—" She seemed to be hesitating.

Alston's boyish eyes twinkled with appreciation.

"Well, we came here—we wanted to be quiet."

"You've got out of sight of Broadway, that's certain."

Tea and iced drinks were brought out. They talked of casual matters. The softness of late afternoon, warm, scented, exotic, dreamed in the radiant air. And Crayford said:

"It's cute! It's cute!"

He had removed his hat now and almost lay back in his chair. Presently he said:

"Seems to me years since I've rested like this, Alston!"

"I believe it is many years," said Lake, with a little satisfied laugh. "I've never seen you do it before."

"'Cepting the cure. And that don't amount to anything."

"Stay and dine, won't you?" said Charmian. "If you're not bored."

"Bored!" said Crayford.

"We'll dine just as we are. I'll go in and see the cook about it."

"Very good of you I'm sure," said Crayford. "But I don't want to put you out."

"Where are you staying?"

"The Excelsior," said Lake.

"Right down in the town. You must stay. It is cooler here."

She got up and went slowly into the house.

"Stunning figure she's got and no mistake!" observed Crayford, following her with his eyes. "But I say, Alston, what about this fellow Heath? Now I'm over here I ought to have a look at what he's up to. She seemed to want to avoid the subject, I thought. D'you think he's writing on commission? Or perhaps someone's seen the music. The Metropolitan crowd—"

They fell into a long discussion on opera prospects, during which Alston Lake succeeded in giving Crayford an impression that there might be some secret in connection with Claude Heath's opera. This set the impresario bristling. He was like a terrier at the opening of a rat-hole.

Charmian's little dinner that night was perfect. Crayford fell into a seraphic mood. Beneath his hard enterprise, his fierce energies, his armor of business equipment, there was a strain of romance of which he was half-ashamed, and which he scarcely understood or was at ease with. That night it came rather near to the surface of him. As he stepped out into the court to take coffee, with an excellent Havana in his mouth, as he saw the deep and limpid sky glittering with strong, almost fierce stars, and farther fainter stars, he heaved a long sigh.

"Bully!" he breathed. "Bully, and no mistake!"

Exactly how it all came about Charmian did not remember afterward; Alston, she thought, must have prepared the way with masterly ingenuity. Or perhaps she—no, she was not conscious of having brought it about deliberately. The fact was this. At ten o'clock that night, sitting with a light behind her, Charmian began to read the libretto of the opera to the two men who were smoking near the fountain.

It had seemed inevitable. The hour was propitious. They were all "worked up." The night, perhaps, played upon them after "La Grande Jeanne" had done her part. Crayford was obviously in his softest, most receptive mood. Alston was expansive, was in a gloriously hopeful condition. The opera was mentioned again. By whom? Surely by the hour or the night! It had to be mentioned, and inevitably was. Crayford was sympathetic, spoke almost with emotion—a liqueur-glass of excellent old brandy in his hand—of the young talented ones who must bear the banner of art bravely before the coming generations.

"I love the young!" he said. "It is my proudest boast to seek out and bring forward the young. Aren't it, Alston?"

Influenced perhaps by the satiny texture of the old brandy, in combination with the scented and jewelled night, he spoke as if he existed only for the benefit of the young, never thought about money-making, or business propositions. Charmian was touched. Alston also seemed moved. Claude was young. Crayford spoke of him, of his talent. Charmian was no longer evasive, though she honestly meant to be, thinking evasiveness was "the best way with Mr. Crayford." How could she, burning with secret eagerness, be evasive after a perfect dinner, when she saw the guest on whom all her hopes for the future were centered giving himself up almost greedily to the soft emotion which only comes on a night of nights?

The libretto was touched upon. Alston surely begged her to read it. Or did she offer to do so, induced and deliciously betrayed into the definite by Alston? She and he were supposed to be playing into each other's hands. But, in that matter of the libretto, Charmian never was able to believe that they did so. The whole thing seemed somehow to "come about of itself."