Robert Hichens

“ Claude's music broke in upon her questionings.
Mrs. Shiffney had a retentive as well as a swift mind, and she remembered every detail of Gillier's powerful, almost brutal libretto. In the reading it had transported her into a wild life, in a land where there is still romance, still strangeness—a land upon which civilization has not yet fastened its padded claw. And she had imagined the impression which this glimpse of an ardent and bold life might produce upon highly civilized people, like herself, if it were helped by powerful music. ”

“ Mrs. Mansfield had not heard them. And how extraordinary Charmian's eyes had been during that moment when she and he had gazed at one another. He had not known eyes could look like that, as if the whole spirit of a human being were crouching in them, intent. How far away from the eyes the human spirit must often be!
As Heath thought of Charmian's eyes he felt as if he knew very little of real life yet.
She had turned away. Again and again Jacques Sennier had been called. He had returned with Annie Meredith, to whom he had made the gift of a splendid rôle. ”

“ Claude went to open the big window, pulling aside the blind, while Charmian lighted a cigarette, and curled herself up on the padded sofa. And as, in a moment, the roar of the gigantic city swelled in a fierce crescendo, she leaned forward with the cigarette in her hand, listening intently, half smiling, with an eager light in her eyes.
"What a city it is!" she said, as Claude turned and came toward her. "It makes London seem almost like a village. I'm glad it is here the opera is to be given for the first time." ”

“ A walk will do me more good than you can dream of, genius though you are. And the time will pass quickly. I want it to fly. I want it to be night. I want to see the crowd. I want to hear it. How can we sit here in this hot red room waiting? Take me out!"
Claude was glad to obey her. They wrapped themselves up, for it was a bitter day, and went down to the hall. As they passed the bureau the well-dressed, smooth-faced men behind the broad barrier looked at them with a certain interest and smiled. Charmian glanced round gaily and nodded to them. ”

“ Nothing great, nothing to reach the hearts of men could be conceived, brought to birth in its atmosphere. Jacques Sennier, shut in alone, could never have written his opera here. In vain to try.
With an impulse of defiant anger Claude went to the writing-table, snatched up the music sheets which lay scattered upon it, tore them across and across. There should be an end to it, an end to austere futilities which led, which could lead, to nothing. In that moment of unnatural excitement he saw all his past as a pale eccentricity. ”

“ Fame was but a shadow when the breast of the great mother heaved under the least of her children. A bird chirped. Its little voice meant more to Claude than the tempest of applause which had carried him away in the theater.
Nature took him in the dawn and carried him back to himself. And that was terrible. For when he was himself he knew that he wished he had never written that letter of love to Charmian. ”

“ Surely the strong assertion of the will is the first step that takes a human being out of the crowd. Charmian had suffered because she was in the crowd, undistinguished, lost like a violet in a prairie abloom with thousands of violets. Something in Algeria, something perhaps in Susan Fleet, had put into her a resolve, unacknowledged even to herself. She had returned to England, meaning to marry Claude Heath, meaning to use her will as the ardent and capable servant of her heart. ”

“ One thing more gave a very feminine zest to her pursuit—the thought of Charmian, who knew nothing about it, but who, no doubt, would know some day. She rejoiced in intrigue, loved a secret that would eventually be hinted at, if not actually told, and revelled in proving her power on a man who, in his unknown days, had resisted it, and who now that he was on the eve, perhaps, of a wide fame, seemed ready to succumb to it. There were even moments when she found herself wishing for the success of Claude's opera, despite her active dislike of Charmian. ”

“ Max Elliot followed them. As they went Madame Sennier fixed her eyes for a moment on her departing husband. In that moment Charmian found out something. Madame Sennier certainly cared for the man, as well as for the composer. Charmian fancied that love, that softness for the one, bred hatred, hardness, for many others, that it was an exclusive and almost terrible love. Now that she was alone with Madame Sennier, enclosed as it were in that strong perfume, she felt almost afraid of her. She was conscious of being with someone far cleverer than herself. ”

“ But it is true I want success. I want it for this work of mine. Since I have been in Constantine with Monsieur Heath I have—very reluctantly, madame, believe me!—come to the conclusion that he and I are not suited to be associated together in the production of a work of art. We are too different the one from the other. I am an Algerian ex-soldier, a man who has gone into the depths of life. He is an English Puritan who never has lived, and never will live. I have done all I could to make him understand something of the life not merely in, but that underlies—underlies—my libretto. ”

“ Mansfield and Charmian came into the music-room. "It's poison. It turns everything to I forget what, but something that develops the microbes instead of destroying them. I nearly died of it. Ah, Violet! Don't let Charmian be massaged by a Swede. It will ruin her figure. I've had to starve in Switzerland, or I couldn't have got into any of my new gowns. There's nothing so fatal as a rest cure. It sets every nerve on edge. The terrible monotony, and not knowing whether those one loves are alive or dead, whether the Government's gone out, or if there's a new King, or anything. ”

“ You don't want anyone's help. You've come away from us all, and how right you've been. And Charmian's done the right thing, too, giving up all our nonsense for your work. Sacrifice means success. You are bound to have it. I feel you are going to. Ah, you don't know how I sometimes long to be linked, really linked, to the striving, the abnegation, the patience, the triumph of a man of genius! People envy my silly little position, as they call it. And what is it worth? And yet I do know, I have an instinct, a flair, for the real thing. ”

“ Somewhere, far down in the mystery of an individual, it would have lain, corpse-like. A woman had willed that it should live. She deserved the homage she had received, and would receive to-night. For she had made her man do a great thing, because she had helped him to understand his own greatness.
Suddenly, out of the almost chaotic excitement caused in Charmian by the music, and by her secret infatuation, concrete knowledge seemed to detach itself and to arise. As, when she had looked at the island in the Algerian Garden, she had felt "I shall be here some day with him!" ”

“ Heath seemed restless. His face was slightly flushed, and his eyes, always full of a peculiar vitality, looked more living even than usual. He glanced at Mrs. Mansfield, then glanced away, almost guiltily, she thought.
"Do come and sit down by the fire. Would you like a cushion?"
"No, thank you! What a nice old settle!"
"Yes, isn't it? I live in this room. Alling, the painter, built it for his studio. The other rooms are tiny."
"What a delightful servant you have!"
"Mrs. Searle—yes. She's a treasure! Humanity breaks out of her whatever the occasion. And my goodness, how she understands men!" ”

“ Heath was not a conceited man, but he did not at this moment doubt Charmian's love for him. Though he was sometimes child-like, and could be, like most men, very blind, he had a keen intellect which could reason about psychology. He knew how women love success. He knew how, in a moment of excitement such as that at the end of the opera, when Jacques Sennier came before the curtain, they instinctively concentrate on the man who has made the success. ”

“ Charmian had only got in the way of a whim. But Mrs. Shiffney disliked those who got in the way of her whims, and resented their conduct, as the spoilt child resents the sudden removal of a toy. Without hating Charmian she dearly wished for the failure of the great enterprise, in which she knew Charmian's whole heart and soul were involved. And she wished it the more on account of the change in Claude Heath. In his intensity, his vivacity, his resolution, she was conscious of fascination. He puzzled her. "There really is a great deal in him," she said to herself. ”

“ I have never been to a London première."
"Oh, more—more boisterous and less intense. Isn't it so, Claude?"
"No doubt there's a difference," said Claude.
"Do you mean they are boisterous at Covent Garden?" said Hostatter, evidently surprised. "I always thought the Covent Garden audience was such a cold one."
"Oh, no, I don't think so," said Charmian.
She remembered the first night of Le Paradis Terrestre. Suddenly a chill ran all through her, as if a stream of ice-cold water had trickled upon her.
"Really!" said Hostatter. "And yet we Americans are said to have a bad reputation for noise." ”

“ In England she realized that not only had she got a habit of Claude, but that she had got a habit, or almost a habit, of Africa and a quiet life in the sunshine under blue skies. If the opera were finished, the need for living in Mustapha removed, would she be glad not to return to Djenan-el-Maqui? The mere thought of never seeing the little white house with its cupolas and its flat roof again sent a sharp pang through her. Pierre, with his arched eyebrows and upraised, upturned palm, "La Grande Jeanne," Bibi, little Fatma, they had become almost a dear part of her life. ”