"And you really mean to give up Kensington Square and the studio, and to take Djenan-el-Maqui for five years?" said Mrs. Mansfield to Charmian on a spring evening, as they sat together in the former's little library on the first floor of the house in Berkeley Square.

"Yes, my only mother, if—there's always an 'if' in our poor lives, isn't there?"

"If?" said her mother gently.

"If you will occasionally brave the Gulf of Lyons and come to us in the winter. In the summer we shall generally come back to you."

Mrs. Mansfield looked into the fire for a moment. Caroline lay before it in mild contentment, unchanged, unaffected by the results of America. Enough for her if a pleasant warmth from the burning logs played agreeably about her lemon-colored body, enough for her if the meal of dog biscuit soaked in milk was set before her at the appointed time. She sighed now, but not because she heard discussion of Djenan-el-Maqui. Her delicate noise was elicited by the point of her mistress's shoe, which at this moment pressed her side softly, moving her loose skin to and fro.

"The Gulf of Lyons couldn't keep me from coming," Mrs. Mansfield said at last. "Yes, I daresay I shall see you in that Arab house, Charmian. Claude wishes to go there again?"

"It is Claude who has decided the whole thing."

Charmian's voice held a new sound. Mrs. Mansfield looked closely at her daughter.

"You see, Madre, he and I—well, I think we have earned our retreat. We—we did stand up to the failure. We went to the first night of Jacques Sennier's new opera and helped, as everyone in an audience can help, to seal its triumph. I—I went round to Madame Sennier's box with Claude—Adelaide Shiffney and Armand Gillier were in it!—and congratulated her. Madre, we faced the music."

Her voice quivered slightly. Mrs. Mansfield impulsively took her child's hands and held them.

"We faced the music. Claude is strong. I never knew what he was before. Without that tremendous failure I never should have known him. He helped me. I didn't know one human being could help another as Claude helped me after the failure of the opera. Even Mr. Crayford admired him. He said to me the last day, when we were going to start for the ship: 'Well, little lady, you've married the biggest failure we've brought over here in my time, but you have married a man!' And I said—I said—"

"Yes, my only child?"

"'I believe that's all a woman wants.'"

"Is it?"

Mrs. Mansfield's dark, intense eyes searched Charmian's.

"Is it all that you want?"

"You mean—?"

"Isn't the fear of the crowd still haunting you? Isn't uneasy ambition still tugging at you?"

Charmian took her foot away from Caroline's side and sat very still for a moment.

"I do want Claude to succeed, yes, I do, Madre. I believe every woman wants her man to succeed. But I shall never interfere again—never. I've had my lesson. I've seen the truth, both of myself and of Claude. But I shall always wish Claude to succeed, not in my way, but in his own. And I think he will. Yes, I believe he will. Weren't we—he and I—both extremists? I think perhaps we were. I may have been vulgar—oh, that word!—in my desire for fame, in my wish to get out of the crowd. But wasn't Claude just a little bit morbid in his fear of life, in his shrinking from publicity? I think, perhaps, he was. And I know now he thinks so. Claude is changed, Madre. All he went through in New York has changed him. He's a much bigger man than he was when we left England. You must see that!"

"I do see it."

"From now onward he'll do the work he is fitted to do, only that. But I think he means to let people hear it. He said to me only last night: 'Now they all know the false man, I have the wish to show them the man who is real.'"

"The man who had the crucifix standing before his piano," said Mrs. Mansfield, in a low voice. "The man who heard a great voice out of the temple speaking to the seven angels."

She paused.

"Did he ever play you that?" she asked Charmian.

"One night in America, when our dear friend, Alfred Van Brinen, was with us. But he played it for Mr. Van Brinen."

"And—since then?"

"Madre, he has played it since then for me."

Charmian got up from her chair. She stood by the fire. Her thin body showed in clear outline against the flames, but her face was a little in shadow.

"Madretta," she began, and was silent.

"Yes?" said Mrs. Mansfield.

"Susan Fleet and I were once talking about theosophy. And Susan said a thing I have never forgotten."

"What was that?"

"She said: 'It's a long journey up the Ray.' I didn't understand. And she explained that by the Ray she meant the bridge that leads from the personal which perishes to the immortal which endures. Madre, I shall always be very personal, I think. I can't help it. I don't know that I even want to help it. But—but I do believe that in America, that night after the opera, I took a long, long step on the journey up the Ray. I must have, I think, because that night I was happy."

Her eyes became almost mysterious in the firelight. She looked down and added, in a withdrawn voice:

"I was happy in failure!"

"No, in success!" said Mrs. Mansfield.

THE END