The Way of Ambition Part 70

"You did not show it to anyone while you were at Constantine?"

"I didn't say that."

"Ah! You--you let Mrs. Shiffney see it!"

Her voice rose as she said the last words.

"I suppose I have a right to allow anyone I choose to read a libretto I have bought and paid for," he said coldly, almost sternly.

"You did give it to Mrs. Shiffney then! You did! You did!"

"Certainly I did!"

"And then--then you come to me and say that Madame Sennier hasn't read it!"

There was a sound of acute, almost of fierce exasperation in her voice.

"She had not read my copy."

"I say she has!"

"Mrs. Shiffney herself specially advised me not to show it to her."

"To her--to Madame Sennier?"

"Yes."

"Mrs. Shiffney advised you! Oh--you--oh, that men should claim to have keener intellects than we women! Ah! Ah!"

She began to laugh hysterically, then suddenly put a handkerchief before her mouth, turned her head away from him and pressed her face, with the handkerchief still held to it, against the cushions of the divan. Her body shook.

"Charmian!" he said. "Charmian!"

She looked up. All one side of her face was red. She dropped her handkerchief on the floor.

"Do you understand now?" she said. "But, of course, you don't. Well, then!"

She put both her hands palm downward on the divan, and, speaking slowly with an emphasis that was cutting, and stretching her body till her shoulders were slightly raised, she said:

"Just now, while Susan and you were in the garden, Armand Gillier asked me if we would give up his libretto."

"Give up the libretto?"

"Sell it back to him for one hundred pounds. He also said he was very poor. Do you put the two things together?"

"You think he fancies--"

"No. I am sure he knows he could resell it at an advance to Jacques Sennier. Those two--Mrs. Shiffney and Madame Sennier--went to Constantine with the intention of finding out what you were doing."

"Absurd!"

"Is it? Just tell me! Wasn't it Mrs. Shiffney who began to talk of the libretto?"

"Well--"

"Of course it was! And didn't she pretend to be deeply interested in what you were doing?"

Claude flushed.

"And didn't she talk of how other artists had trusted her with secrets n.o.body else knew? And didn't she--didn't she--"

But something in Claude's eyes stopped her as she was going to say--"make love to you."

"And so you gave your libretto up to our enemy to read, and now they are trying to bribe Gillier to ruin us. Why are we here? Why did I give up everything, my whole life, my mother, my friends, our little house, everything I cared for, everything that has made my life till now?

Simply for you and for your success. And then for the first woman who comes along--"

Her cheeks were flaming. As she thought more about what had happened a storm of jealousy swept through her heart.

"That's not true or fair--what you imply!" said Claude. "I never--Mrs.

Shiffney is absolutely nothing to me--nothing!"

"Do you understand now that she got the libretto in order to show it to Madame Sennier?"

"Did Gillier ever say so?"

"Of course not! Even if he knows it, do you think it was necessary he should--to a woman!"

The contempt in her voice seemed to cut into him. He began, against his will, to feel that Charmian must be right in her supposition, to believe that he had been tricked.

"We have no proof," he said.

Charmian raised her eyebrows and sank back on the divan. She was struggling against an outburst of tears. Her lips moved.

"Proof! Proof!" she said at last.

Her lips moved violently. She got up, and tried hurriedly to go by Claude into the gallery; but he put out a hand and caught her by the arm.

"Charmian!"

She tried to get away. But he held her.

"I do understand. You have given up a lot for me. Perhaps I was a great fool at Constantine. I begin to believe I was. But, after all, there's no great harm done. The libretto is mine--ours, ours. And we're not going to give it up. I'll try--I'll try to put my heart into the music, to bring off a real success, to give you all you want, pay you back for all you've given up for me and the work. Of course, I may fail--"

She stopped his mouth with her lips, wrenched herself from his grasp, and hurried away.

A moment later he heard the heavy low door of her bedroom creak as she pushed it to, then the grinding of the key in the lock.

He sat down on the divan she had just left. For a moment he sat still, facing the gallery, and the carved wooden bal.u.s.trade which protected its further side. Then he turned and looked out through the low, grated window, from which no doubt in days long since gone by veiled Arab women had looked as they sat idly on the divan.