The Way of Ambition Part 98

The great theater was pervaded by optimism, which flowed from the fountain-head of its owner. And this optimism percolated through certain sections of society in New York, as had been the case in London before Sennier's _Paradis Terrestre_ was given for the first time.

Report of the opera was very good. And with each pa.s.sing day it became better.

Charmian remembered what had happened in London, and thought exultantly, "Success is in the air."

It certainly seemed to be so. Rumor was busy and spoke kind things.

Charmian noticed that the manner of many people toward her and Claude was becoming increasingly cordial. The pressmen whom she met gave her unmistakable indications that they expected great things of her husband.

Two of them, musical critics both, came to dine with her and Claude one night at the St. Regis, and talked music for hours. One of them had lived in Paris, and was steeped in modernity. He was evidently much interested in Claude's personality, and after dinner, when they had all returned from the restaurant to the Heaths' sitting-room, he said to Charmian:

"Your husband is the most interesting English personality I have met. He is the only Englishman who has ever given to me the feeling of strangeness, of the beyond."

He glanced around with his large Southern eyes and saw that there was a piano in the room.

"Would he play to us, do you think?" he said, rather tentatively. "I am not asking as a pressman but as a keen musician."

"Claude!" Charmian said. "Mr. Van Brinen asks if you will play us a little bit of the opera."

Claude got up.

"Why not?" he said.

He spoke firmly. His manner was self-reliant, almost determined. He went to the piano, sat down, and played the scene Gillier had liked so much, the scene in which some of Said Hitani's curious songs were reproduced.

The two journalists were evidently delighted.

"That's new!" said Van Brinen. "Nothing like that has ever been heard here before. It brings a breath of the East to Broadway."

Claude had turned half round on the piano stool. His eyes were fixed upon Van Brinen. And now Van Brinen looked at him. There was an instant of silence. Then Claude swung round again to the piano and began to play something that was not out of the opera. Charmian had never heard it before. But Mrs. Mansfield had heard it.

"'I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, "Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of G.o.d upon the earth...."

"'The second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man....

"'The fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given to him to scorch men with fire....

"'The sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the Kings of the East might be prepared....

"'Behold I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.'"

When Claude ceased there was a silence that seemed long. He remained sitting with his back to his wife and his guests, his face to the piano.

At last he got up and turned, and his eyes again sought the face of Van Brinen. Then Van Brinen moved, clasped his long and thin hands tightly together, and said:

"That's great! That's very great!"

He paused, gazing at Claude.

"That's enormous!" he said. "Do you mean--is that from the opera?"

"Oh, no!" said Claude.

He came to sit down, and began to talk quickly of all sorts of things.

When the two pressmen were about to go away Van Brinen said:

"I wish you success, Mr. Heath, as I have very seldom wished it for any man. For since I have heard some of your music, I feel that you deserve it as very few musicians I know anything of do."

Claude's face flushed painfully, became scarlet.

"Thank you very much," he almost muttered. But he wrung Van Brinen's thin hand hard, and when he was alone with Charmian he said:

"Of all the men I have met in New York that is the one I like best."

Van Brinen had considerable influence in the musical world of New York, and after that evening he used it on Claude's behalf. The members of the art circles of the city had Claude's name perpetually upon their lips.

Articles began to appear which voiced the great expectation musicians were beginning to found upon Claude's work. The "boom" grew, and was no longer merely sensational, a noisy thing worked up by paid agents.

Charmian became quickly aware of this and exulted. Now and then she remembered her conversation with Susan Fleet and had a moment of doubt, of wonder. Now and then a fleeting expression in the pale face of her husband, a look in his eyes, a sound in his voice, even a movement, sent a slight chill through her heart. But these faintly disagreeable sensations pa.s.sed swiftly from her. The whirling round of life took her, swept her on. She had scarcely time to think, though she had always time to feel intensely.

Often during these days of fierce preparation she was separated from Claude. He had innumerable things to do connected with the production.

Charmian haunted the opera house, but was seldom actually with Claude there, though she often saw him on the stage or in the orchestra, heard him discussing points concerning his work. And Claude was very often away, when rehearsals did not demand his attention, visiting the singers who were to appear in the opera, going through their roles with them, trying to imbue them with his exact meaning. Charmian meanwhile was with some of the many friends she had made in New York.

Thus it happened that Claude was able to meet Mrs. Shiffney several times without Charmian's knowledge.

It was an understood thing--and Charmian knew this--that Mrs. Shiffney was to come to the first full rehearsal of the opera. The verdict in advance was to be given and taken. Mrs. Shiffney had called once at the St. Regis, when Claude was out, and had sat for ten minutes with Charmian. And Charmian had called upon her at the Ritz-Carlton and had not found her. Here matters had ended in connection with "Adelaide," so far as Charmian knew. Mrs. Shiffney had mult.i.tudes of friends in New York, and was always rushing about. It never occurred to Charmian that she had any time to give to Claude, or that Claude had any time to give to her. But Mrs. Shiffney always found time to do anything she really cared to do. And just now she cared to meet Claude.

Long ago in London, when he was very genuine, she had been attracted by him. Now, in New York, when he was dressed up in motley, with painted face and eyes that strove, though sometimes in vain, to be false, he fascinated her. The new Claude, harder, more dominant, secretly unhappy, feverish with a burning excitement of soul and brain, appealed to this woman who loved all that was strange, exotic, who hated and despised the commonplace, and who lived on excitement.

She threw out one or two lures for Claude, and he, who in London had refused her invitations, in New York accepted them. Why did he do this?

Because he had flung away his real self, because he was secretly angry with, hated the self to which he was giving the rein, because he, too, during this period was living on excitement, because he longed sometimes, with a cruel longing, to raise up a barrier between himself and Charmian.

And perhaps there were other reasons that only a physician could have explained, reasons connected with tired and irritated nerves, with a brain upon which an unnatural strain had been put. The overworked man of talent sometimes is confronted with strange figures making strange demands upon him. Claude knew these figures now.

He had always been aware of fascination in Mrs. Shiffney. Now he let himself go toward this fascination. He had always, too, felt what he had called the minotaur-thing in her, the creature with teeth and claws fastening upon pleasure. Now he was ready to be with the minotaur-thing.

For something within him, that was intimately connected with whatever he had of genius, murmured incessantly, "To-morrow I die!" And he wanted, at any cost, to dull the sound of that voice. Why should not he let his monster fasten on pleasure too? The situation was full of a piquancy which delighted Mrs. Shiffney. She was "on the other side," and was now preparing to make love in the enemy's camp. Nothing pleased her more than to mingle art with love, linking the intelligence of her brain with the emotion, such as it was, of her thoroughly pagan heart. And the feeling that she was a sort of traitress to her beloved Jacques and Henriette was quite enchanting. 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 succ.u.mb to it. There were even moments when she found herself wishing for the success of Claude's opera, despite her active dislike of Charmian. It would really be such fun to take Claude away from that silly Charmian creature in the very hour of a triumph.

Yet she did not wish to see Charmian even the neglected wife of a great celebrity. Her feelings were rather complex. But she had always been at home with complexity.

She managed to get rid of Susan Fleet, by persuading her to visit some friends of Susan who lived in Washington. Then it was easy enough to see Claude quietly, in her apartment at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and elsewhere. Mrs. Shiffney was a past mistress of what she called "playing about." Claude recognized this, and had a glimpse into a life strangely different from his own, an almost intimate glimpse which both interested and disgusted him.

In his determination to grasp at the blatant thing, the big success, a determination that pushed him almost inevitably into a certain extravagance of conduct, because it was foreign to his innermost nature, Claude gave himself to the vulgar vanity of the male. He was out here to conquer. Why not conquer Mrs. Shiffney? To do that would be scarcely more spurious than to win with a "made over" opera.

He kept secret a.s.signations, which were not openly supposed to be secret by either Mrs. Shiffney or himself. For Mrs. Shiffney was leading him gently, savoring nuances, while he was feeling blatant, though saved by his breeding from showing it. They had some charming, some almost exciting talks, full of innuendo, of veiled allusions to personal feeling and the human depths. And all this was mingled with art and the great life of human ambition. Mrs. Shiffney's attraction to artists was a genuine thing in her. She really felt the pull of that which was secretly powerful in Claude. And she, not too consciously, made him know this. The knowledge drew him toward her.

One day Claude went to see her after a long rehearsal. When he reached the hotel it was nearly eight o'clock. The rehearsal of his opera had only been stopped because it had been necessary to get ready for the evening performance. Claude had promised to dine with Van Brinen that night, and Charmian was dining with some friends. But, at the last moment, Van Brinen had telephoned to say that he was obliged to go to a concert on behalf of his paper. Claude had left the opera house, weary, excited, doubtful what to do. If he returned to the St. Regis he would be all alone. At that moment he dreaded solitude. After hesitating for a moment outside the stage door, he called a taxi-cab, and ordered the man to drive to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.

Mrs. Shiffney would probably be out, would almost certainly have some engagement for the evening. The hour was unorthodox for a visit. Claude did not care. He had been drowned in his own music for hours. He was in a strongly emotional condition, and wanted to do something strange, something bizarre.

He sent up his name to Mrs. Shiffney, who was at home. In a few moments she sent down to say she would see him in her sitting-room. When Claude came into it he found her there in an evening gown.

"Do forgive me! You're going out?" he said.

"Where are you dining?" she answered.