"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 a.s.sumed, 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 navete 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?"