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 fÊted. 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'lÀ, 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 naÏvetÉ 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 dÉcor—swiftly her imagination began to work. The dÉcor 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 'Éblouir' 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.