"I've come to take you to the theater."

"But they're not rehearsing to-night," said Claude.

"No; but Crayford's trying effects."

"Mr. Crayford! Is he back from Philadelphia?" exclaimed Charmian.

"Been back an hour and hard at work already. He sent me to fetch you.

They're all up on the stage trying to get the locust effect."

"The locusts! Wait a minute, Alston! I'll change my gown."

She hurried out of the room.

"Well, old chap, what's up? You don't look too pleased," said Alston to Claude as the door shut. "Don't you want to come out? But we must put our backs into this, you know. The fight's on, and a bully big fight it is. Seen the papers to-day?"

"No. I haven't had a minute. I've been going through the orchestration with Meroni."

"What does he say?"

"He was very nice," answered Claude evasively. "But what's in the papers?"

"A bit of news that's made Crayford bristle like a scrubbing brush. The Metropolitan's changed the date for the production of Sennier's new opera, put it forward by nearly a fortnight, pledged themselves to be ready by the first of March."

"What does it matter?"

"Well, I like that! It takes all the wind out of our sails. In a big race the getting off is half the battle. We were coming first. But if I know anything of Crayford we shall come first even now. It's all Madame Sennier. She's mad against Crayford and the opera and you, and she's specially mad against Mrs. Charmian. The papers to-night are full of a lot of nonsense about the libretto."

"Which libretto?"

"Yours. Apparently Madame Sennier's been saying it was really written for Sennier and had been promised to him."

"That's a lie."

"Of course it is. But she's spread herself on it finely, I can tell you.

Crayford's simply delighted."

"Delighted, when I'm accused of mean conduct, of stealing another man's property."

"It's no use getting furious over our papers! Doesn't pay! Besides, it makes a story, works up public interest. Still, I think she might have kept out Mrs. Charmian's name."

"Charmian is in it?"

"Yes, a lot of rubbish about her hearing what a stunner the libretto was, and rushing over to Paris to bribe it away before Sennier had considered it in its finished state."

"How abominable! I shall--"

"I know, but I wouldn't. Crayford says it will give value to the libretto, prepare the public mind for a masterpiece, and help to carry your music to success."

"I see! With this and the locusts!"

He turned away toward the open window, through which came the incessant roar of traffic, the sound of motor horns, and now, for a moment, a chiming of bells from St. Patrick's Cathedral.

"Well, we must do all we know. We mustn't give away a single chance. The whole Metropolitan crowd is just crazy to down us, and we must put up the biggest fight we can. Leave it all to Crayford. He knows more than any living man about a boom. And he said just now Madame Sennier was a deed fool to have given us such a lift with her libel. There'll be a crowd of pressmen around at the theater about it to-night, you can bet.

Here she comes! Get on your coat, and let's be off, or Crayford'll be raging."

Claude stood still for an instant, looking from Alston to Charmian, who walked in briskly, wearing a sealskin coat that reached to her heels, and b.u.t.toning long white gloves. Then he said, "I won't be a minute!"

and went out of the room.

As he disappeared Charmian and Alston looked after him. Then Alston came nearer to her, and they began to talk in rather low voices.

"The fight is on!"

How Claude hated those words; how he hated the truth which they expressed! To-night, in New York, as he went to fetch his overcoat from the smart and brilliantly lit bedroom which was opposite to the sitting-room across a lobby, he wondered why Fate had led him into this situation, why he had been doomed to become a sort of miserable center of intrigue, recrimination, discussion, praise, blame, dissension. No man, surely, on the face of the earth had loved tranquillity more than he had. Few men had more surely possessed it. He had known his soul and he had been its faithful guardian once--but long ago, surely centuries ago! That he should be the cause of battle, what an irony!

Thinking with great rapidity, during this brief interval of loneliness, while he got ready to go out, a rapidity to which his fatigue seemed to contribute, giving it wings, Claude reviewed his life since the first evening at Elliot's house. Events and periods and details flashed by; his close friendship with Mrs. Mansfield (who had refused to come to America), his almost inimical acquaintance with Charmian, Mrs.

Shiffney's capricious endeavors to get hold of him, the firmness of his refusals, the voyage to Algiers, his regret at missing the wonders of Africa, Charmian's return full of a knowledge he lacked, the dinner during which he had looked at her with new eyes.

(He took down from its hook his heavy fur coat bought for the bitter winter of New York.)

Chateaubriand's description of Napoleon, the little island in Mrs.

Grahame's garden, the production of Jacques Sennier's opera--they were all linked together closely at this moment in a tenacious mind; with the expression in Charmian's eyes at the end of the opera, Oxford Street by night as he walked home, the spectral bunch of white roses on his table, the furtive whisper of the letter of love to Charmian as it dropped in the box, the watchful policeman, the noise of his heavy steps, the dying of the moonlight on the leaded panes of the studio, the scent of the earth as the dawn near drew.

Events and periods, and little details! And who or what had guided him through the maze of them? And whither was he going? Whither and to what was he hastening?

His marriage and the new life came back to him. He heard the maids whispering together on the stairs in Kensington Square, and the sound of the street organ in the frost. He saw the studio in Renwick Place, Charmian coming in with books of poetry in her hands. There, had been the beginning of that which had led to Algiers and now to New York, his abdication. There, he had taken the first step down from the throne of his own knowledge of himself.

He saw a gulf black beneath him.

But Charmian called:

"Claude, do make haste!"

He caught up hat and gloves and went out into the lobby. But even as he went, with an extraordinary swiftness he reviewed the incidents of his short time in America; the arrival in the cruel coldness of a winter dawn; the immensity of the city's aspect seen across the tufted waters, its towers--as they had seemed to him then--climbing into Heaven, its voices companioning its towers; the throngs of pressmen and photographers, who had gazed at him with piercing, yet not unkind, eyes, searching him for his secrets; the meeting with Crayford and Crayford's small army of helpers; publicity agents, business and stage managers, conductors, producers, machinists, typewriters, box-office people, scene painters, singers, instrumentalists. Their figures rushed across Claude's mind with a vertiginous rapidity. Their faces flashed by grimacing. Their hands beckoned him on in a mad career. And he saw the huge theater, a monster of masonry, with a terrific maw which he--he of all men!--was expected to fill, a maw gaping for human beings, gaping for dollars. What a coldness it had struck into him, as he stood for the first time looking into its dimness as into the dimness of some gigantic cavern. In that moment he had realized, or had at least partially realized, the meaning of a tremendous failure, and how far the circles of its influence radiate. And he had felt very cold, as a guilty man may feel who hugs his secret. And the huge theater had surely leaned over, leaned down, filled suddenly with a sinister purpose, to crush him into the dust.

"Claude!"

"Here I am!"

"What a time you've been! We--are you very tired?"

"Not a bit. Come along!"

They went out into the corridor lined with marble, stepped into a lift, shot down, and pa.s.sed through the vestibule to the street where a taxi-cab was waiting. A young man stood on the pavement, and while Charmian was getting in he spoke to Claude.

"Mr. Claude Heath, I believe?"

"Yes."