On a January evening in the following year Claude and Charmian had just
finished dinner, and Claude got up, rather slowly and wearily, from the
small table which stood in the middle of their handsome red sitting-room
on the eighth floor of the St. Regis Hotel in New York.
"How terribly hot this room is!" he said.
"Americans like their rooms hot. But open a little bit of the window,
Claudie."
"If I do the noise of Fifth Avenue will come in."
He spoke almost irritably, like a man whose nerves were tired. But
Charmian did not seem to notice it. She looked bright, resolute,
dominant, as she replied in her clear voice:
"Let it come in. I like to hear it. It is the voice of the world we are
here to conquer. Don't look at me like that, dear old boy, but open the
window. The air will do you good. You're tired. I shouldn't have allowed
you to work during the voyage."
"I had to work."
"Well, very soon you'll be able to rest, and on laurels."
Claude went to open the big window, pulling aside the blind, while
Charmian lighted a cigarette, and curled herself up on the padded sofa.
And as, in a moment, the roar of the gigantic city swelled in a fierce
crescendo, she leaned forward with the cigarette in her hand, listening
intently, half smiling, with an eager light in her eyes.
"What a city it is!" she said, as Claude turned and came toward her. "It
makes London seem almost like a village. I'm glad it is here the opera
is to be given for the first time."
"So am I," he said, sitting down.
But he spoke almost gloomily, looking at the floor. His face was white
and too expressive, and his left hand, as it hung down between his
knees, fluttered. He lifted it, turning the fingers inward.
"Why?" Charmian said.
He looked up at her.
"Oh, I--they are all strangers here."
She said nothing, and just then the telephone bell sounded. Mr. Alston
Lake was below asking if Mr. Heath was in.
In a moment he entered, looking enthusiastic, full of cheerfulness and
vitality, bringing with him an atmosphere which Charmian savored almost
greedily, of expectation and virile optimism.
"My!" he said, as he shook them both by the hand. "You look settled in
for the night."
"So we are," said Charmian.
Alston laughed.
"I've come to take you to the theater."
"But they're not rehearsing to-night," said Claude.
"No; but Crayford's trying effects."
"Mr. Crayford! Is he back from Philadelphia?" exclaimed Charmian.
"Been back an hour and hard at work already. He sent me to fetch you.
They're all up on the stage trying to get the locust effect."
"The locusts! Wait a minute, Alston! I'll change my gown."
She hurried out of the room.
"Well, old chap, what's up? You don't look too pleased," said Alston to
Claude as the door shut. "Don't you want to come out? But we must put
our backs into this, you know. The fight's on, and a bully big fight it
is. Seen the papers to-day?"
"No. I haven't had a minute. I've been going through the orchestration
with Meroni."
"What does he say?"
"He was very nice," answered Claude evasively. "But what's in the
papers?"
"A bit of news that's made Crayford bristle like a scrubbing brush. The
Metropolitan's changed the date for the production of Sennier's new
opera, put it forward by nearly a fortnight, pledged themselves to be
ready by the first of March."
"What does it matter?"
"Well, I like that! It takes all the wind out of our sails. In a big
race the getting off is half the battle. We were coming first. But if I
know anything of Crayford we shall come first even now. It's all Madame
Sennier. She's mad against Crayford and the opera and you, and she's
specially mad against Mrs. Charmian. The papers to-night are full of a
lot of nonsense about the libretto."
"Which libretto?"
"Yours. Apparently Madame Sennier's been saying it was really written
for Sennier and had been promised to him."
"That's a lie."
"Of course it is. But she's spread herself on it finely, I can tell you.
Crayford's simply delighted."
"Delighted, when I'm accused of mean conduct, of stealing another man's
property."
"It's no use getting furious over our papers! Doesn't pay! Besides, it
makes a story, works up public interest. Still, I think she might have
kept out Mrs. Charmian's name."
"Charmian is in it?"
"Yes, a lot of rubbish about her hearing what a stunner the libretto
was, and rushing over to Paris to bribe it away before Sennier had
considered it in its finished state."
"How abominable! I shall--"
"I know, but I wouldn't. Crayford says it will give value to the
libretto, prepare the public mind for a masterpiece, and help to carry
your music to success."
"I see! With this and the locusts!"
He turned away toward the open window, through which came the incessant
roar of traffic, the sound of motor horns, and now, for a moment, a
chiming of bells from St. Patrick's Cathedral.
"Well, we must do all we know. We mustn't give away a single chance. The
whole Metropolitan crowd is just crazy to down us, and we must put up
the biggest fight we can. Leave it all to Crayford. He knows more than
any living man about a boom. And he said just now Madame Sennier was a
deed fool to have given us such a lift with her libel. There'll be a
crowd of pressmen around at the theater about it to-night, you can bet.
Here she comes! Get on your coat, and let's be off, or Crayford'll be
raging."
Claude stood still for an instant, looking from Alston to Charmian, who
walked in briskly, wearing a sealskin coat that reached to her heels,
and buttoning long white gloves. Then he said, "I won't be a minute!"
and went out of the room.
As he disappeared Charmian and Alston looked after him. Then Alston came
nearer to her, and they began to talk in rather low voices.
"The fight is on!"
How Claude hated those words; how he hated the truth which they
expressed! To-night, in New York, as he went to fetch his overcoat from
the smart and brilliantly lit bedroom which was opposite to the
sitting-room across a lobby, he wondered why Fate had led him into this
situation, why he had been doomed to become a sort of miserable center
of intrigue, recrimination, discussion, praise, blame, dissension. No
man, surely, on the face of the earth had loved tranquillity more than
he had. Few men had more surely possessed it. He had known his soul and
he had been its faithful guardian once--but long ago, surely centuries
ago! That he should be the cause of battle, what an irony!
Thinking with great rapidity, during this brief interval of loneliness,
while he got ready to go out, a rapidity to which his fatigue seemed to
contribute, giving it wings, Claude reviewed his life since the first
evening at Elliot's house. Events and periods and details flashed by;
his close friendship with Mrs. Mansfield (who had refused to come to
America), his almost inimical acquaintance with Charmian, Mrs.
Shiffney's capricious endeavors to get hold of him, the firmness of his
refusals, the voyage to Algiers, his regret at missing the wonders of
Africa, Charmian's return full of a knowledge he lacked, the dinner
during which he had looked at her with new eyes.
(He took down from its hook his heavy fur coat bought for the bitter
winter of New York.)
Chateaubriand's description of Napoleon, the little island in Mrs.
Grahame's garden, the production of Jacques Sennier's opera--they were
all linked together closely at this moment in a tenacious mind; with the
expression in Charmian's eyes at the end of the opera, Oxford Street by
night as he walked home, the spectral bunch of white roses on his table,
the furtive whisper of the letter of love to Charmian as it dropped in
the box, the watchful policeman, the noise of his heavy steps, the dying
of the moonlight on the leaded panes of the studio, the scent of the
earth as the dawn near drew.
Events and periods, and little details! And who or what had guided him
through the maze of them? And whither was he going? Whither and to what
was he hastening?
His marriage and the new life came back to him. He heard the maids
whispering together on the stairs in Kensington Square, and the sound of
the street organ in the frost. He saw the studio in Renwick Place,
Charmian coming in with books of poetry in her hands. There, had been
the beginning of that which had led to Algiers and now to New York, his
abdication. There, he had taken the first step down from the throne of
his own knowledge of himself.
He saw a gulf black beneath him.
But Charmian called:
"Claude, do make haste!"
He caught up hat and gloves and went out into the lobby. But even as he
went, with an extraordinary swiftness he reviewed the incidents of his
short time in America; the arrival in the cruel coldness of a winter
dawn; the immensity of the city's aspect seen across the tufted waters,
its towers--as they had seemed to him then--climbing into Heaven, its
voices companioning its towers; the throngs of pressmen and
photographers, who had gazed at him with piercing, yet not unkind, eyes,
searching him for his secrets; the meeting with Crayford and Crayford's
small army of helpers; publicity agents, business and stage managers,
conductors, producers, machinists, typewriters, box-office people, scene
painters, singers, instrumentalists. Their figures rushed across
Claude's mind with a vertiginous rapidity. Their faces flashed by
grimacing. Their hands beckoned him on in a mad career. And he saw the
huge theater, a monster of masonry, with a terrific maw which he--he of
all men!--was expected to fill, a maw gaping for human beings, gaping
for dollars. What a coldness it had struck into him, as he stood for the
first time looking into its dimness as into the dimness of some gigantic
cavern. In that moment he had realized, or had at least partially
realized, the meaning of a tremendous failure, and how far the circles
of its influence radiate. And he had felt very cold, as a guilty man may
feel who hugs his secret. And the huge theater had surely leaned over,
leaned down, filled suddenly with a sinister purpose, to crush him into
the dust.
"Claude!"
"Here I am!"
"What a time you've been! We--are you very tired?"
"Not a bit. Come along!"
They went out into the corridor lined with marble, stepped into a lift,
shot down, and passed through the vestibule to the street where a
taxi-cab was waiting. A young man stood on the pavement, and while
Charmian was getting in he spoke to Claude.
"Mr. Claude Heath, I believe?"
"Yes."
"I represent--"
"Very sorry I can't wait. I have to go to the theater."
He sprang in, and the taxi turned to the right into Fifth Avenue, and
rushed toward Central Park. A mountain of lights towered up on the left
where the Plaza invaded the starless sky. The dark spaces of the Park
showed vaguely on the right, as the cab swung round. In front gleamed
the golden and sleepless eyes of the Broadway district. The sharp frosty
air quivered with a thousand noises. Motors hurried by in an unending
procession, little gleaming worlds, each holding its group of strangers,
gazing, gesticulating, laughing, intent on some unknown errand. The
pavements were thronged with pedestrians, muffled to the ears and
walking swiftly. The taxi-cab, caught in the maze of traffic, jerked as
the chauffeur applied the brakes, and slowed down almost to walking
pace. Under a lamp Claude saw a colored woman wearing a huge pink hat.
She seemed to be gazing at him, and her large lips parted in a smile. In
an instant she was gone. But Claude could not forget her. In his
excitement and fatigue he thought of her as a great goblin woman, and
her smile was a terrible grin of bitter sarcasm stretching across the
world. Charmian and Alston were talking unweariedly. Claude did not hear
what they were saying. He saw snowflakes floating down between the
lights, strangely pure and remote, lost wanderers from some delicate
world where the fragile things are worshipped. And, with a strange
emotion, his heart turned to the now remote children of his imagination,
those children with whom he had sat alone by his wood fire on lonely
evenings, when the pale blue of the flames had struck on his eyes like
the soft notes of a flute on his ears, those children with whom he had
kept long vigils and sometimes seen the dawn. How far they had retreated
from him, as if they thought him a stern, or neglectful father! He shut
his eyes, and seemed to see once more the smile of the goblin woman, and
then the fiery gaze of Mrs. Mansfield.
"How could she say it? But I don't know that I mind!"
"Minding things doesn't help any in a place like New York."
"But will they believe it?"
"If they do half of them will think you worth while."
"Yes, but the other half?"
"As long as you get there it's all right."
The cab stopped at the stage door of Crayford's opera house.
As they went in two or three journalists spoke to them, asking for
information about the libretto. Claude hurried on as if he did not hear
them. His usual almost eager amiability of manner with strangers had
deserted him this evening. But Charmian and Alston Lake spoke to the
pressmen, and Alston's whole-hearted laugh rang out. Claude heard it and
envied Alston.
From a room on the right of the entrance a very dark young man came
carrying some letters.
"More letters!" he said to Claude, with a smile.
"Oh, thank you."
"They're all on the stage. The locusts will be real fine when they fix
them right. We have folks inquiring about them all the time. Nothing
like that in the Sennier opera."
He smiled again with pleasant boyishness. Claude longed to take him by
the shoulders and say to him:
"It isn't a swarm of locusts that will make an opera!" But he only
nodded and remarked:
"All the better for us!"
Then hastily he opened his letters. Three were from autograph hunters,
and he thrust them into the pocket of his coat. The fourth was from
Armand Gillier. When Claude saw the name of his collaborator he stood
still and read the note frowning.
"Letters! Always letters!" said Charmian, coming up. "Anything
interesting, Claudie?"
"Gillier is coming out after all."
"Armand Gillier!"
"Yes. Or--he arrived to-day, I expect, though this was posted in France.
What day does the _Philadelphia_--"
"This morning," said Alston.
"Then he's here."
Charmian looked disgusted.
"It's bad taste on his part. After his horrible efforts to ruin the
opera he ought to have kept away."
"What does it matter?" said Claude.
"He'll be interviewed on the libretto," said Alston. "Gee knows what
he'll say, the beast!"
"If he backs up Madame Sennier in her libelous remarks it will be
proclaiming that he can be bribed," exclaimed Charmian.
"I suppose he's bound to throw in his lot with us," added Alston, as
they came into the huge curving corridor which ran behind the ground
tier boxes.
"How dark it is! Claudie, give me your hand. It slopes, doesn't it?"
"Yes. The entrance is just here."
"How hot your hand is!"
"Here we are!" said Alston.
He pushed a swing door, and they came into the theater. It was dimly
lighted, and over the rows of stalls pale coverings were drawn. The
hundreds of empty boxes gaped. The distant galleries were lost in the
darkness. It was a vast house, and the faint light and the emptiness of
it made it look even vaster than it was.
"The maw, and I am to fill it!" Claude thought again. And he was
conscious of unimportance. He even felt as if he had never composed any
music, as if he knew nothing about composition, had no talent at all. It
seemed to him incredible that, because of him, of what he had done,
great sums of money were being spent, small armies of people were at
work, columns upon columns were being written in myriads of newspapers,
a man such as Crayford was putting forth all his influence, lavishing
all his powers of showman, impresario, man of taste, fighting man. He
remembered the night when Sennier's opera was produced, and it seemed to
him impossible that such a night could ever come to him, be his night.
He thought of it somewhat as a man thinks of Death, as his neighbor's
visitant not as his own.
"Chaw-_lee_!" shouted an imperative voice. "Chaw-ley! Chaw-_lee_!"
"Ah!" cried a thin voice from somewhere behind the stage.
"Get down that light! Give us your ambers! No, not the blues! Your
ambers! Where's Jimber? I say, where is Jimber?"
Mr. Mulworth, the stage producer, who was the speaker, appeared running
sidewise down an uncovered avenue between two rows of stalls close to
the stage. Although a large man, he proceeded with remarkable rapidity.
Emerging into the open he came upon Claude.
"Oh, Mr. Crayford is here. He wants very much to see you."
"Where is he?"
"Somewhere behind. I think he's viewing camels. Can you come with me?"
"Of course!"
He went off quickly with Mr. Mulworth, who shouted:
"I say, where is Jimber?" to some unknown personality as he ran toward a
door which gave on to the stage.
"Let us go and sit down at the back of the stalls, Alston," said
Charmian. "They don't seem to be trying the locusts yet."
"No. There are always delays. The patience one needs in a theater! Talk
of self-control! Here, I'll pull away the--or shall we go to that box?"
"Yes. I'll get on this chair. Help me! That's it."
They sat down in a dark box at the back of the stalls. Far off, across a
huge space, they saw the immense stage, lit up now by an amber glow
which came not from the footlights but from above. The stage was set
with a scene representing an oasis in the desert with yellow sand in the
distance. Among some tufted palms stood three or four stage hands, pale,
dusty, in shirt sleeves. At the extreme back of the scene, against the
horizon, Mr. Mulworth crossed, with a thick-set, lantern-jawed, and very
bald man, who was probably Jimber. Claude followed two or three yards
behind them, and disappeared. His face looked ghastly under the stream
of amber light.
"It's dreadful to see people on the stage not made up!" said Charmian.
"They all look so corpse-like. O Alston, are we going to have a
success?"
"What! You beginning to doubt!"
"No, no. But when I see this huge dark theater I can't help thinking,
'Shall we fill it?' What a fight art is! I never realized till now that
we are on a battlefield. Alston, I feel I would almost rather die than
fail."
"Fail! But--"
"Or quite rather die."
"In any case it couldn't be your failure."
She turned and looked at him in the heavy dimness.
"Couldn't it?"
"You didn't write the libretto. You didn't compose the music."
"And yet," she said, in a low tense voice, "it would be my failure if
the opera failed, because but for me it never would have been written,
never have been produced out here. Alston, it's a great responsibility.
And I never really understood how great till I saw Claude go across the
stage just now. He looked so--he looked--"
She broke off.
"Whatever is it, Mrs. Charmian?"
"He looked like a victim, I thought."
"Everyone does in that light unless--there's Crayford!"
At this moment Mr. Crayford came upon the stage from the side on which
Claude had just vanished. He had a soft hat on the back of his head, and
a cigar in his mouth.
"He doesn't!" whispered Charmian.
"Now go ahead!" roared Crayford. "Work your motors and let's see!"
There was a sound like a rushing mighty wind.
At two o'clock in the morning Crayford was still smoking, still
watching, still shouting. Charmian and Alston were still in the darkness
of the box, gazing, listening, sometimes talking. They had not seen
Claude again. If he came into the front of the theater they meant to
call him. But he did not come. The hours had flown, and now, when Alston
looked at his watch and told Charmian the time, she could scarcely
believe him.
"Where can Claude be?"
"I'll go behind."
"Jimber!" roared Mr. Crayford. "Where is Jimber?"
Mr. Mulworth, who looked now as if he had lain awake in his clothes for
more nights than he cared to remember, rushed upon the stage almost
fanatically.
"The locusts are all in one corner!" shouted Crayford. "What's the use
of that? They must spread."
"Spread your locusts!" bawled Mr. Mulworth.
He lifted both his arms in a semaphore movement, which he continued
until it seemed as if his physical mechanism had escaped from the
control of his brain.
"Spread your locusts, Jimber!" he wailed. "Spread! Spread! I tell
you--spread your locusts!"
He vanished, always moving his arms. His voice died away in the further
regions.
Charmian was alone. She had nodded in reply to Alston's remark. To-night
she felt rather anxious about Claude. She could not entirely rid her
mind of the remembrance of him crossing under the light, looking
unnatural, ghastly, like a persecuted man. And now that she was alone
she felt as if she were haunted. Eager to be reassured, she fixed her
eyes on the keen figure, the resolute face, of Mr. Crayford. The power
of work in Americans was almost astounding, she thought. All the men
with whom she and Claude had had anything to do seemed to be working all
the time, unresting as waves driven by a determined wind. Keenness! That
was the characteristic of this marvellous city, this marvellous land.
And it had acted upon her almost like electricity. She had felt charged
with it.
It would be terrible to fail before a nation that worshipped success,
that looked for it with resolute piercing eyes.
And she recalled her arrival with Claude in the cold light of early
morning, her first sensation of enchantment when a pressman, with
searching eyes and a firm mouth turned down at the corners, had come up
to interview her. At that moment she had felt that she was leaving the
dulness of the unknown life behind her for ever. It was no doubt a
terribly vulgar feeling. She had been uneasily conscious of that. But,
nevertheless, it had grown within her, fostered by events. For
Crayford's publicity agent had been masterly in his efforts. Charmian
and Claude had been snapshotted on the deck of the ship by a little army
of journalists. They had been snapshotted again on the gangplank. In the
docks they had been interviewed by more than a dozen people. A little
later, in the afternoon of the same day, they had held a reception of
pressmen in their sitting-room at the St. Regis Hotel. Charmian thought
of these men now as she waited for Alston's return.
They had been introduced by Mr. Cane, Crayford's publicity agent, and
had arrived about three o'clock. All of them were, or looked as if they
were, young men, smart and alert, men who meant something. And they had
all been polite and charming. They had "sat around" attentively, and had
put their questions without brutality. They had seemed interested,
sympathetic, as if they really cared about Claude's talent and the
opera. His song, _Wild Heart of Youth_, had been touched upon, and a
tall young man, with a pale face and anxious eyes, had told Charmian
that he loved it. Then they had discussed music. Claude at first had
seemed uncomfortable, almost too modest, Charmian had thought. But the
pressmen had been so agreeable, so unself-conscious, that his discomfort
had worn off. His natural inclination to please, to give people what
they seemed to expect of him, had come to his rescue. He had been
vivacious and even charming. But when the pressmen had gone he had said
to Charmian:
"Pleasant fellows, weren't they? But their eyes ask one for success.
Till the opera is out I shall see those eyes, asking, always asking!"
And he had gone out of the room with a gesture suggestive of anxiety,
almost of fear.
Charmian saw those eyes now as she sat in the box. What Claude had said
was true. Beneath the sympathy, the charm, the frankness, the readiness
in welcome of these Americans, there was a silent and strong demand--the
demand of a powerful, vital country.
"We are here to make you known over immense distances to thousands of
people!" the eyes of the pressmen had seemed to say. "But--produce the
goods!" In other words, "Be a success!"
"Be a success! Be a success!" It seemed to Charmian as if all America
were saying that in her ears unceasingly. "We will be kind to you. We
will shower good-will upon you. We have hospitable hands, keen brains,
warm hearts at your service. We only ask to give of our best to you.
But--be a success! Be a success!"
And the voice grew so strong that at last it seemed almost stern, almost
fierce in her ears. At last it seemed as if peril would attend upon
non-compliance with its demand.
She thought of Claude crossing the stage under the amber light, she
looked into the vast dim theater with its thousands of empty seats, and
excitement and fear burned in her, mingled together. Then something
determined in her, the thing perhaps which had enabled her to take
Claude for her husband, and later to play a part in his art life, rose
up and drove out the fear. "It is fear which saps the will, fear which
disintegrates, fear which calls to failure." She was able to say that to
herself and to cast fear away. And her mind repeated the words she had
often heard Crayford utter, "It's up to us now to bring the thing off
and we've just got to bring it off!"
"No, no, I tell you! They're too much on one side of the scene still!
Who in thunder ever saw locusts swarming in a corner when they've got
the whole desert to spread themselves in? It aren't their nature. What?
Well, then, you must alter the position of your motors. Where is
Jimber?"
And Mr. Crayford strode behind the scenes.
Half-past two in the morning! What could Claude be doing? Was Alston
never coming back? Charmian suddenly began to feel tired and cold. She
buttoned her sealskin coat up to her throat. For a moment there was no
one on the stage. From behind the scenes came no longer the clever
imitation of a roaring wind. An abrupt inaction, that was like
desolation, made the great house seem oddly vacant. She sat staring
rather vaguely at the palms and the yellow sands.
After she had sat thus for perhaps some five minutes she saw Claude walk
hastily on to the stage. He had a large black note-book and a pencil in
his hand, and seemed in search of someone. Crayford came on brusquely
from the opposite side of the scene and met him. They began to confer
together.
The box door behind Charmian was opened and Alston came in.
"Old Claude's too busy to come. He wants me to take you home."
"What has he been doing all this time?"
"No end of things. It's just as I said. Crayford's determined to be
first in the field. This move of the Metropolitan has put him on the
run, and he'll keep everyone in the theater running till the opera's
out. Claude's been with the pressmen behind, and having a hairy-teary
heart to heart with Enid Mardon. Come, Mrs. Charmian!"
"But I don't like to leave Claude."
"There's nothing for us to do, and he'll follow us as soon as ever he
can. I'll just leave you at the hotel."
"What was the matter with Miss Mardon?" Charmian asked anxiously, as she
got up to go.
"Oh, everything! She was in one of her devil's moods to-night; wanted
everything altered. She's a great artist, but as destructive as a
monkey. She must pull everything to pieces as a beginning. So she's
pulling her part to pieces now."
"How did Claude take it?"
"Very quietly. Tell the truth I think he's a bit tired out to-night."
"Alston," Charmian said, stopping in the corridor, "I won't go home
without him. No, I won't. We must stick to Claude, back him up till the
end. Take me into the stalls. I'm going to sit where he can see us."
"He'll send us away."
"Oh, no, he won't!" she replied, with determination.
The Madame Sennier spirit was upon her in full force.