The Way of Ambition Part 69

"Have you spoken to my husband of this?" Charmian interrupted him.

She was almost trembling with anger and excitement, but she managed to speak quietly.

"No, madame."

"You have asked me a question--"

"I have asked no question, madame!"

"Do you mean to say you are not asking me if we will resell the libretto?"

Gillier was silent.

"My answer is that the libretto is our property and that we intend to keep it. If you offered us five times what we gave you for it the answer would be the same."

She paused. Gillier said nothing. She looked at him and suddenly anger, a sense of outrage, got the better of her, and she added with intense bitterness:

"We are living here in North Africa, we have given up our home, our friends, our occupations, everything--our life in England"--her voice trembled. "Everything, I say, in order to do justice to your work, and you come, you dare to come to us, and ask--ask--"

Gillier got up.

"Madame, I see it is useless. You have bought my work, if you choose to keep it--"

"We do choose to keep it."

"Then I can do nothing."

He pulled out his watch.

"It is late. I must wish you good-night, madame. Kindly say good-night for me to that lady, your friend, and to Monsieur Heath."

He bowed. Charmian did not hold out her hand. She meant to, but it seemed to her that her hand refused to move, as if it had a will of its own to resist hers.

"Good-night," she said.

She watched his rather short and broad figure pa.s.s across the open s.p.a.ce of the court and disappear.

After he had gone she moved across the court to the fountain and sat down at its edge. She was trembling now, and her excitement was growing in solitude. But she still had the desire to govern it, the hope that she would be able to do so. She felt that she had been grossly insulted by Gillier. But she was not only angry with him. She stared at the rising and falling water, clasping her hands tightly together. "I will be calm!" she was saying to herself. "I will be calm, mistress of myself."

But suddenly she got up, went swiftly across the court to the garden entrance, and called out:

"Susan! Claude! Where are you?"

Her voice sounded to her sharp and piercing in the night.

"What is it, Charmian?" answered Claude's voice from the distance.

"I'm going to bed. It's late. Monsieur Gillier has gone."

"Coming!" answered Claude's voice.

Charmian retreated to the house.

As she came into the drawing-room she looked at her watch. It was barely ten o'clock. In a moment Susan Fleet entered, followed by Claude.

Susan's calm eyes glanced at Charmian's face. Then she said, in her quiet, agreeable voice:

"I'm going to my room. I have two or three letters to write, and I shall read a little before going to bed. It isn't really very late, but I daresay you are tired."

She took Charmian's hand and held it for an instant. And during that instant Charmian felt much calmer.

"Good-night, Susan dear. Monsieur Gillier asked me to say good-night to you for him."

Susan did not kiss her, said good-night to Claude, and went quietly away.

"What is it?" Claude said, directly she had gone. "What's the matter, Charmian? Why did Gillier go away so early?"

"Let us go upstairs," she answered.

Remembering the sound of her voice in the court, she strove to keep it natural, even gentle, now. Susan's recent touch had helped her a little.

"All right," he answered.

"Come into my sitting-room for a minute," she said, when they were in the narrow gallery which ran round the drawing-room on the upper story of the house.

Next to her bedroom Charmian had a tiny room, a sort of nook, where she wrote her letters and did accounts.

"Well, what is it?" Claude asked again, when he had followed her into this room, which was lit only by a hanging antique lamp.

"How could you show the libretto to Madame Sennier?" said Charmian. "How could you be so mad as to do such a thing?"

As she finished speaking she sat down on the little divan in the embrasure of the small grated window.

"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "I have never shown the libretto to Madame Sennier. What could put such an idea into your head?"

"But you must have shown it!"

"Charmian, I have this moment told you that I haven't."

"She has read it."

"Nonsense."

"I am positive she has read it."

"Then Gillier must have shown her a copy of it."

Charmian was silent for a minute. Then she said: