The Way of Ambition Part 119

"Isn't the fear of the crowd still haunting you? Isn't uneasy ambition still tugging at you?"

Charmian took her foot away from Caroline's side and sat very still for a moment.

"I do want Claude to succeed, yes, I do, Madre. I believe every woman wants her man to succeed. But I shall never interfere again--never. I've had my lesson. I've seen the truth, both of myself and of Claude. But I shall always wish Claude to succeed, not in my way, but in his own. And I think he will. Yes, I believe he will. Weren't we--he and I--both extremists? I think perhaps we were. I may have been vulgar--oh, that word!--in my desire for fame, in my wish to get out of the crowd. But wasn't Claude just a little bit morbid in his fear of life, in his shrinking from publicity? I think, perhaps, he was. And I know now he thinks so. Claude is changed, Madre. All he went through in New York has changed him. He's a much bigger man than he was when we left England.

You must see that!"

"I do see it."

"From now onward he'll do the work he is fitted to do, only that. But I think he means to let people hear it. He said to me only last night: 'Now they all know the false man, I have the wish to show them the man who is real.'"

"The man who had the crucifix standing before his piano," said Mrs.

Mansfield, in a low voice. "The man who heard a great voice out of the temple speaking to the seven angels."

She paused.

"Did he ever play you that?" she asked Charmian.

"One night in America, when our dear friend, Alfred Van Brinen, was with us. But he played it for Mr. Van Brinen."

"And--since then?"

"Madre, he has played it since then for me."

Charmian got up from her chair. She stood by the fire. Her thin body showed in clear outline against the flames, but her face was a little in shadow.

"Madretta," she began, and was silent.

"Yes?" said Mrs. Mansfield.

"Susan Fleet and I were once talking about theosophy. And Susan said a thing I have never forgotten."

"What was that?"

"She said: 'It's a long journey up the Ray.' I didn't understand. And she explained that by the Ray she meant the bridge that leads from the personal which perishes to the immortal which endures. Madre, I shall always be very personal, I think. I can't help it. I don't know that I even want to help it. But--but I do believe that in America, that night after the opera, I took a long, long step on the journey up the Ray. I must have, I think, because that night I was happy."

Her eyes became almost mysterious in the firelight. She looked down and added, in a withdrawn voice:

"_I_ was happy in failure!"

"No, in success!" said Mrs. Mansfield.

THE END