The Way of Ambition Part 93

"Rather! The coming baritone!"

"What a change!"

His eyes shone with excitement.

"I used to be almost afraid of celebrity, I think. But now I want it, I need it. America has made me need it."

"This is the country that wakes people up," said Alston.

"It drives me almost mad!" cried Claude, with sudden violence.

"Claudie!" exclaimed Charmian.

"It does! There's something here that pumps nervous energy into one until one's body and mind seem to be swirling in a mill race. When I think of my life in Mullion House and my life here!"

Charmian, with a quick movement, sat upright on the sofa.

"Then you do realize--" she began, almost excitedly. She paused, gazing at Claude.

The two men looked at her.

"What is it?" Claude said at length, as she remained silent.

"You do realize that I did see something for you that you hadn't seen for yourself, when you shut yourself and your talent in, when you wouldn't look at, wouldn't touch the world?"

"Of course. I hadn't courage then. I dreaded contact with life. Now I defy life to get the better of me. I know it, and I'm beginning to know how to deal with it. I say, let us plan out our campaign if Madame Sennier persists in her accusations."

He sat down between them.

"But first tell us exactly what you gave out to the pressmen to-night,"

said Alston.

They talked till the dawn crept along the sky.

When at last Alston got up to go, Claude said:

"If three strong wills are worth anything we must succeed."

"And we've got Crayford's back of ours," said Alston, putting his arms behind him into the sleeves of his coat. "Good-morning! I'm really going."

And he went.

Charmian had got up from her sofa, and was standing by the writing-table, which was in an angle of the room on the right of the window. As Alston went out, her eyes fell on an envelope lying by itself a little apart from the letters with which the table was strewn.

Scarcely thinking about what she was doing she stretched out her hand.

Her intention was to put the envelope with its fellows. But when she took it up she saw that it had not been opened and contained a letter, or note, addressed to Claude.

"Why, here's a letter for you, Claudie!" she said, giving it to him.

"Is there? Another autograph hunter, I suppose."

Without glancing at the writing he tore the envelope, took out a letter, and began to read it.

"It's from Mrs. s.h.i.+ffney!" he said. "She arrived to-day on the same s.h.i.+p as Gillier."

"I knew she would come!" cried Charmian. "Though they all pretended she was going to winter at Cap Martin."

"And she's brought Susan Fleet with her."

"Susan!"

"But read what she says. It seems to have all been quite unexpected, a sudden caprice."

"You poor thing!" said Charmian, looking at him with pitiful eyes. "When will you begin to understand?"

"What?"

"Us."

Claude sent a glance so keen that it was almost like a dart at Charmian.

But she did not see it for she was reading the letter.

"THE RITZ-CARLTON HOTEL, _Friday._

"DEAR MR. HEATH,--I've just arrived with Susan Fleet on the _Philadelphia_. I heard such reports of the excitement over your opera out here that I suddenly felt I must run over. After all you told me about it at Constantine I'm naturally interested. Do be nice and let me into a rehearsal. I never take sides in questions of art, and though of course I'm a friend of the Senniers, I'm really praying for you to have a triumph. Surely the sky has room for two stars. What nonsense all this Press got-up rivalry is.

Don't believe a word you see in the papers about Henriette and your libretto. She knows nothing whatever about it, of course. Such rubbis.h.!.+ Susan is pining to see her beloved Charmian. Can't you both lunch with us at Sherry's to-morrow at one o'clock? Love to Charmian.--Yours very sincerely, ADELAIDE s.h.i.+FFNEY."

"Well?" said Claude, as Charmian sat without speaking, after she had finished the letter. "Shall we go to Sherry's to-morrow?"

He spoke as if he were testing her, but she did not seem to notice it.

"Yes, Claudie, I think we will."

She looked at him.

"What are you thinking?" she asked quickly.

"Do you still believe Mrs. s.h.i.+ffney tricked me at Constantine?"

"I know she did."

"And yet--"

She interrupted him.

"We are in the arena!"