Part 32 (1/2)

Charmian was overjoyed. Max Elliot, Lady Mildred Burnington, Margot and Kit Drake, Paul Lane, all her acquaintances, in fact, were already ”raving” about Jacques Sennier, without knowing him, and about his opera, without having heard it. Sensation, success, they were in the air. Not to go to this premiere would be a disaster. Charmian's instinctive love of being ”in” everything had caused her to feel acute vexation when her mother had told her that their application for stalls had been refused. Now, at the last moment, they had one of the best boxes in the house.

”Whom shall we take?” said Mrs. Mansfield. ”There's room for four.”

”Why not invite Mr. Heath?” said Charmian, with a rather elaborate carelessness. ”As he's a musician it might interest him.”

”I will if you like. But he's sure to refuse.”

Of late Heath had retired into his sh.e.l.l. Mrs. s.h.i.+ffney had not seen him for months. Max Elliot had given him up in despair. Even in Berkeley Square he was but seldom visible. His excuse for not calling was that he knew n.o.body had any time to spare in the season.

”Don't write to him, Madre, or he will. Get him to come here and ask him. He really ought to follow the progress of his own art, silly fellow. I have no patience with his absurd fogeydom.”

She spoke with the lightest scorn, but in her long eyes there was an intentness which contradicted her manner.

Heath came to the house, was invited to come to the box, and had just refused when Charmian entered the room.

”You're afraid, Mr. Heath,” she said, smiling at him.

”Afraid! What of?” he asked quickly, and a little defiantly.

”Afraid of hearing what the foreign composers of your own age are doing, of comparing their talents with your own. That's so Englis.h.!.+ Never mind what the rest of the world is about! We'll go on in our own way! It seems so valiant, doesn't it? And really it's nothing but cowardice, fear of being forced to see that others are advancing while we are standing still. I'm sick of English stolidity!”

Heath's eyes shown with something that looked like anger.

”I really don't think I'm afraid!” he said stiffly.

Perhaps to prove that he was not, he rescinded his refusal and came to the premiere with the Mansfields. It was a triumph for Charmian, but she did not show that she knew it.

Heath was in his most reserved mood. He had the manner of the defiant male lured from behind his defenses into the open against his will. Some intelligence within him knew that his cold stiffness was rather ridiculous, and made him unhappy. Mrs. Mansfield was really sorry for him.

Nothing is more humorously tragic than pleasure indulged in under protest. And Heath's protest was painfully apparent.

Charmian, who was looking her best, her most self-possessed, a radiant minx, with fleeting hints of depths and softnesses, half veiled by the firm habit of the world, seemed to tower morally above the composer. He marvelled afresh at the triumphant composure of modern girlhood. Sitting between the two women in the box--no one else had been asked to join them--he looked out, almost shyly, at the crowded and brilliant house.

Mrs. s.h.i.+ffney, large, powerful and glittering with jewels, came into a box immediately opposite to theirs, accompanied by Ferdinand Rades, Paul Lane, and a very smart, very French, and very ugly woman, who was covered thickly with white paint, and who looked like all the feminine intelligence of Paris beneath her perfectly-dressed red hair. In the box next the stage on the same side were the Max Elliots with Sir Hilary Burnington and Lady Mildred.

Charmian looked eagerly about the house, putting up her opera-gla.s.ses, finding everywhere friends and acquaintances. She frankly loved the world with the energy of her youth.

At this moment the sight of the huge and crowded theater, full of watchful eyes and whispering lips, full of brains and souls waiting to be fed, the sound of its hum and stir, sent a warm thrill through her, thrill of expectation, of desire. She thought of that man, Jacques Sennier, hidden somewhere, the cause of all that was happening in the house, of all that would happen almost immediately upon the stage. She envied him with intensity. Then she looked at Claude Heath's rather grim and constrained expression. Was it possible that Heath did not share her feeling of envy?

There was a tap at the door. Heath sprang up and opened it. Paul Lane's pale and discontented face appeared.

”Halloa! Haven't seen you since that dinner! May I come in for a minute?”

He spoke to the Mansfields.

”Perfectly marvellous! Everyone behind the scenes is mad about it! Annie Meredith says she will make the success of her life in it. Who's that Frenchwoman with Adelaide s.h.i.+ffney? Madame Sennier, the composer's wife--his second, the first killed herself. Very clever woman. She's not going to kill herself. Sennier says he could do nothing without her, never would have done this opera but for her. She found him the libretto, kept him at it, got the Covent Garden management interested in it, persuaded Annie Meredith to come over from South America to sing the part. An extraordinary woman, ugly, but a will of iron, and an ambition that can't be kept back. Her hour of triumph to-night. There goes the curtain.”

As Lane slipped out of the box, he whispered to Heath:

”Mrs. s.h.i.+ffney hopes you'll come and speak to her between the acts. Her name's on the door.”

Heath sat down a little behind Mrs. Mansfield. Although the curtain was now up he noticed that Charmian, with raised opera-gla.s.ses, was earnestly looking at Mrs. s.h.i.+ffney's box. He noticed, too, that her left hand shook slightly, almost imperceptibly.