Claude put his arm round her gently.

"I understand that my att.i.tude about my work must often be very aggravating," he said. "But--"

He stopped, said nothing more.

"Let us believe in the opera," she exclaimed--"your own child. Then others will believe in it, too. Alston does."

She looked up at him with the tears still shining in her eyes.

"And Jacob Crayford shall."

After a moment she added:

"If only you leave him to me and don't spoil things."

"How could I spoil my own music?" he asked.

But she only answered:

"Oh, Claude, there are things you don't understand!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

"So the darned rester's come back, has he?"

Crayford was the speaker. Dressed in a very thin suit, with a yellow linen coat on his arm, a pair of goggles in one hand, and a huge silver cigar-case, "suitably inscribed," in the other, he had just come into the smoking-room of the Excelsior Hotel.

"They gave you the note, then?" said Alston.

"Yaw."

Crayford laid the coat down, opened the cigar-case, and took out a huge Havana.

"I guess we'll let the car wait a bit, Alston," he said, lighting up.

"Of course she telegraphed him to come."

"I'm quite sure she didn't," said Alston emphatically.

"Think I can't see?" observed Crayford drily.

He sat down and crossed his legs.

"No. But even you can't see what isn't."

"There's not much that is this eye don't light on. The little lady up at Djen-anne-whatever you may call it is following up a spoor; and I'm the big game at the end of it. She's out to bring me down, my boy. Well, that's all right, only don't you two take me for too much of an innocent little thing, that's all."

Alston said nothing, and maintained a cheerful and imperturbable expression.

"She's brought the rester back so as not to miss the opportunity of his life. Now I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going right up to Djen-anne. I'm going to take the rester by myself, and I'm just going to hear that darned opera; and neither the little lady nor you's going to get a look in. This is up to me, and you'll just keep right out of it.

See?"

He turned the cigar in his mouth, and his tic suddenly became very apparent.

"And what am I to do?" asked Alston.

"When I get to Djen-anne, I'll open out at once, come right to business.

You stop here. As likely as not the little lady'll come back in the car to take you for a spin. If she does, keep her out till late. You can tell her a good bit depends on it."

"Very well."

"Happen she'll dine with you?" threw out Crayford, always with the same half-humorous dryness.

"Do you mean that you wish me to try and keep Mrs. Heath to dinner?"

said Alston, with bland formality.

"She might cheer you up. You might cheer each other up."

At this point in the conversation Crayford allowed a faint smile to distort slightly one corner of his mouth.

Charmian did come down from Mustapha in Crayford's big yellow car. She was in a state of great excitement.

"O Alston!" she exclaimed, "where are we going? What a man he is when it comes to business! He simply packed me off. I have never been treated in such a way before. We've got hours and hours to fill up somehow. I feel almost as if I were waiting to be told on what day I am to be guillotined, like a French criminal. How will Claude get on with him?

Just think of those two shut in together!"

As Alston got into the car she repeated:

"Where are we going?"

"_Allez au Diable!_" said Alston to Crayford's chauffeur, who was a Frenchman.

"_Bien, m'sieu!_"

"And--" Alston pulled out his watch. "You must take at least seven hours to get there."

"_Tres bien, m'sieu._"

"That's a cute fellow," said Alston to Charmian, as they drove off.

"Knows how to time things!"

It was evening when they returned to the hotel, dusty and tired.

"You'll dine with me, Mrs. Charmian!" said Alston.

"Oh, no; I must go home now. I can't wait any longer."