Jacob Crayford was not the man to be beaten when he had set his heart on, put his hand to, any enterprise. On the day he had fixed upon for the production of Claude's opera the opera was ready to be produced. At the cost of heroic exertions the rough places had been made plain, every stage "effect" had been put right, all the "cuts" declared by Crayford to be essential had been made by Claude, the orchestra had mastered its work, the singers were "at home" in their parts. How it had all been accomplished in the short time Charmian did not understand. It seemed to her almost as if she had assisted at the accomplishment of the incredible, as if she had seen a miracle happen. She was obliged to believe in it after the final rehearsal, which was, so Crayford, Mr. Mulworth, Meroni, and it was even rumored Jimber declared, the most perfect rehearsal they had ever been present at.

"Exactly three hours and a half!" Crayford had remarked when the curtain came down on the fourth act. "So we come ahead of the Metropolitan. I've just heard they've had a set back with Sennier's opera; can't produce for nearly a week after the date they'd settled. We needn't have been in such a devil of a hurry after all. But we've got the laugh on them now. Sennier's first opera was a white man. No doubt about that. But the hoodoo seems out against this one. I tell you"—he had swung round to Claude, who had just come upon the stage—"I'd rather have this opera of yours than Sennier's, although he's known all over creation and you're nothing but a boom-boy up to now. I used to believe in names, but upon my word seems to me the public's changing. Give 'em the goods and they don't care where they come from."

His eyes twinkled as he added, clapping Claude on the shoulder:

"All very well for you now, my boy! But you'll wish it was the other way, p'raps, when you come round to the stage door with your next opera on offer!"

He was in grand spirits. He had "licked" the Metropolitan to a "frazzle" over the date of production, and he was going to "lick them to a frazzle" with the production. Every reserved seat in the house was sold for Claude's first night. Crayford stepped on air.

In the afternoon of the day of production, when Charmian and Claude, shut up in their apartment at the St. Regis, and denied to all visitors, were trying to rest, and were pretending to be quite calm, a note was brought in from Mrs. Shiffney. It was addressed to Charmian, and contained a folded slip of green paper, which fell to the ground as she opened the note. Claude picked it up.

"What is it?" said Charmian.

"A box ticket for the Metropolitan. It must be for Sennier's first night, I suppose."

"It is!" said Charmian, who had looked at the note.

In a moment she gave it to Claude without comment.

Claude read the note, and kept it for a moment in his hand. He was looking at it, but he knew Charmian's eyes were on him, he knew she was silently asking him to tell her all that had happened between Mrs. Shiffney and him. And he realized that her curiosity was the offspring of a jealousy which she probably wished to conceal, but which she suffered under even on such a day of anxiety and anticipation as this.

"Very kind of her!" he said at last, giving back the note with the box ticket carefully folded between the leaves. "Of course we will go to hear Sennier's opera. He is coming to ours."

"To yours!"

"Ours!" Claude repeated, with emphasis.

Charmian looked down. Then she went to the writing-table and put Mrs. Shiffney's note into one of its little drawers. She pushed the drawer softly. It clicked as it shut. She sighed. Something in the note they had just read made her feel apprehensive. It was almost as if it had given out a subtle exhalation which had affected her physically.

"Claudie!" she said, turning round. "I would give almost anything to be like Susan to-day."

"Would you? But why?"

"She would be able to take it all calmly. She would be able to say to herself—'all this is passing, a moment in eternity, whichever way things go my soul will remain unaffected'—something like that. And it would really be so with Susan."

"She certainly carries with her a great calmness."

Charmian gazed at him.

"You are wonderful to-day, too."

Claude had kept up to this moment his dominating, almost bold air of a conqueror of circumstances, the armor which he had put on as a dress suitable to New York.

"But in quite a different way," she added. "Susan never defies."

Claude was startled by her shrewdness but avoided comment on it.

"Madre must be thinking of us to-day," he said.

"Yes. I thought—I almost expected she would send us a cablegram."

"It may come yet. There's plenty of time."

Charmian looked at the clock.

"Only four hours before the curtain goes up."

"Or we may find one for us at the theater."

"Somehow I don't think Madre would send it there."

She went to sit down on the sofa, putting cushions behind her with nervous hands, leaned back, leaned forward, moved the cushions, again leaned back.

"I almost wish we'd asked Alston to come in to-day," she said.

"But he's resting."

"I know. But he would have come. He could have rested here with us."

"Better for him to keep his voice perfectly quiet. To-night is his dÉbut. He has got to pay back over three years to Crayford with his performance to-night. And we shall have him with us at supper."

Charmian moved again, pushed the cushions away from her.

"Yes, I've ordered it, a wonderful supper, all the things you and Alston like best."

"We'll enjoy it."

"Won't we? You sent Miss Mardon the flowers?"

"Yes."

The telephone sounded.

"It is Miss Mardon," Claude said, as he listened. "She's thanking me for the flowers."

"Give her my love and best wishes for to-night."

Claude obeyed, and added his own in a firm and cheerful voice.

"She's resting, of course," said Charmian.

"Yes."

"Everyone resting. It seems almost ghastly."

"Why?" he said, laughing.

"Oh, I don't know—death-like. I'm stupid to-day."

She longed to say, "I am full of forebodings!" But she was held back by the thought, "Shall I fail in resolution at the last moment, show the white feather when he is so cool, so master of himself? I who have been such a courageous wife, who have urged him on, who have made this day possible!"

"It's only the physical reaction," she added hastily. "After all we've gone through."

"Oh, we mustn't give way to reaction yet. We've got the big thing in front of us. All the rest is nothing in comparison with to-night."

"I know! I hope Madre will cable. If she doesn't, it will seem like a bad omen. I shall feel as if she didn't care what happens."

He said nothing.

"Won't you?" she asked.

"I think she will cable. But even if she doesn't, I know she always cares very much what happens to you and me. Nothing would ever make me doubt that."

"No, of course not. But I do want her to show it, to prove it to us to-day. It is such a day in our lives! Never, so long as we live, can we have such another day. It is the day I dreamed of, the day I foresaw, that night at Covent Garden."

She felt a longing, which she checked, to add, "It is the day I decreed when I looked at Henriette Sennier!" But though she checked the longing, its birth had brought to her hope. She, a girl, had decreed this day and her decree had been obeyed. Her will had been exerted, and her will had triumphed. Nothing could break down that fact. Nothing could ever take from her the glory of that achievement. And it seemed to point to the ultimate glory for which she had been living so long, for which she had endured so patiently. Suddenly her restlessness increased, but it was no longer merely the restlessness of unquiet nerves. Anticipation whipped her to movement, and she sprang up abruptly from the sofa.

"Claude, I can't stay in here! I can't rest. Don't ask me to. Anything else, but not that!"

She went to him, put her hands on his shoulders.

"Be a dear! Take me out!"

"Where to?"

"Anywhere! Fifth Avenue, Central Park! Let us walk! I know! Let us walk across the park and look at the theater, our theater. A walk will do me more good than you can dream of, genius though you are. And the time will pass quickly. I want it to fly. I want it to be night. I want to see the crowd. I want to hear it. How can we sit here in this hot red room waiting? Take me out!"

Claude was glad to obey her. They wrapped themselves up, for it was a bitter day, and went down to the hall. As they passed the bureau the well-dressed, smooth-faced men behind the broad barrier looked at them with a certain interest and smiled. Charmian glanced round gaily and nodded to them.

"I am sure they are all wishing us well!" she said to Claude. "I quite love Americans."

"A taxi, sir?" asked a big man in uniform outside.

"No, thank you."

They went to the left and turned into Fifth Avenue.

How it roared that day! An endless river of motor-cars poured down it. Pedestrians thronged the pavements, hurrying by vivaciously, brimming with life, with vigor, with purpose. The nations, it seemed, were there. For the types were many, and called up before the imagination a great vision of the world, not merely a conception of New York or of America. Charmian looked at the faces flitting past and thought:

"What a world it is to conquer!"

"Isn't it splendid out here!" she said. "What an almost maddening whirl of life. Faces, faces, faces, and brains and souls behind them. I love to see all these faces to-day. I feel the brains and the souls are wanting something that you are going to give them."

"Let us hope one or two out of the multitude may be!"

"One or two! Claudie, you miserable niggard! You always think yourself unwanted. But you will see to-night. Every reserved seat and every box is taken, every single one! Think of that—and all because of what you have done. Are we going to Central Park?"

"Unless you wish to promenade up and down Fifth Avenue."

"No, I did say the Park, and we will go there. But let us walk near the edge, not too far away from this marvellous city. Never was there a city like New York for life. I'm sure of that. It's as if every living creature had quicksilver in his veins—or her veins. For I never saw such vital women as one sees here anywhere else! Oh, Claude! When you conquer these wonderful women!"

Her vivacity and excitement were almost unnatural.

"New York intoxicates me to-day!" she exclaimed.

"How are you going to do without it?"

"When we go?"

"Yes, when we go home?"

"Home? But where is our home?"

"In Kensington Square, I suppose."

"I don't feel as if we should ever be able to settle down there again. That little house saw our little beginnings, when we didn't know what we really meant to do."

"Djenan-el-Maqui then?"

"Ah!" she said, with a changed voice. "Djenan-el-Maqui! What I have felt there! More than I ever can tell you, Claudie."

She began to desire the comparative quiet of the Park, and was glad that just then they passed the Plaza Hotel and went toward it.

"I wonder how Enid Mardon is feeling," she said, looking up at the ranges of windows. "Which is the tenth floor where she is?"

"Don't ask me to count to-day. I would rather play with the squirrels."

They were among the trees now and walked on briskly. Both of them needed movement and action, something to "take them out of themselves." A gray squirrel ran down from its tree with a waving tail and crossed just in front of them slowly. Charmian followed it with her eyes. It had an air of cheerful detachment, of self-possession, almost of importance, as if it were fully conscious of its own value in the scheme of the universe, whatever others might think.

"How contented that little beast looks," said Claude.

"But it can never be really happy, as you and I could be, as we are going to be."

"No, perhaps not. But there's the other side."

He quoted Dante:

"Quanto la cosa È piÙ perfetta, piÙ senta il bene, e cosÌ la doglienza."

"I don't wish to prove that I'm high up in the scale by suffering," she said. "Do you?"

"Ought not the artist to be ready for every experience?" he answered.

And she thought she detected in his voice a creeping of irony.

"We are getting near to the theater," she said presently, when they had walked for a time in silence. "Let us keep in the Park till we are close to it, and then just stand and look at it for a moment from the opposite side of the way."

"Yes," he said.

Evening was falling as they stood before the great building, the home of their fortune of the night. The broad roadway lay between them and it. Carriages rolled perpetually by, motor-cars glided out of the dimness of one distance into the dimness of the other. Across the flood of humanity they gazed at the great blind building, which would soon be brilliantly lit up for them, because of what they had done. The carriages, the motor-cars filed by. A little later and they would stop in front of the monster, to give it the food it desired, to fill its capacious maw. And out of every carriage, out of every motor-car, would step a judge, or judges, prepared to join in the great decision by which was to be decided a fate. Both Claude and Charmian were thinking of this as they stood together, while the darkness gathered about them and the cold wind eddied by. And Charmian longed passionately to have the power to hypnotize all those brains into thinking Claude's work wonderful, all those hearts into loving it. For a moment the thought of the human being's independence almost appalled her.

"It looks cold and almost dead now," she murmured. "How different it will look in a few hours!"

"Yes."

They still stood there, almost like two children, fascinated by the sight of the theater. Charmian was rapt. For a moment she forgot the passers-by, the gliding motor-cars, the noises of the city, even herself. She was giving herself imaginatively to fate, not as herself, but merely as a human life. She was feeling the profound mystery of human life held in the arms of destiny. An abrupt movement of Claude almost startled her.

"What is it?" she said.

She looked up at him quickly.

"What's the matter, Claude?"

"Nothing," he answered. "But it's time we went back to the hotel. Come along."

And without another glance at the theater he turned round and began to walk quickly.

He had seen on the other side of the way, going toward the theater, the colored woman in the huge pink hat, of whom he had caught a glimpse on the night when Alston Lake had fetched him and Charmian to see the rehearsal of the "locust-effect." The woman turned her head, seemed to gaze at him across the road with her bulging eyes, stretched her thick lips in a smile. Then she took her place in a queue which was beginning to lengthen outside one of the gallery doors of the theater.