"And you really mean to give up Kensington Square and the studio, and to
take Djenan-el-Maqui for five years?" said Mrs. Mansfield to Charmian on
a spring evening, as they sat together in the former's little library on
the first floor of the house in Berkeley Square.
"Yes, my only mother, if--there's always an 'if' in our poor lives,
isn't there?"
"If?" said her mother gently.
"If you will occasionally brave the Gulf of Lyons and come to us in the
winter. In the summer we shall generally come back to you."
Mrs. Mansfield looked into the fire for a moment. Caroline lay before it
in mild contentment, unchanged, unaffected by the results of America.
Enough for her if a pleasant warmth from the burning logs played
agreeably about her lemon-colored body, enough for her if the meal of
dog biscuit soaked in milk was set before her at the appointed time. She
sighed now, but not because she heard discussion of Djenan-el-Maqui. Her
delicate noise was elicited by the point of her mistress's shoe, which
at this moment pressed her side softly, moving her loose skin to and
fro.
"The Gulf of Lyons couldn't keep me from coming," Mrs. Mansfield said at
last. "Yes, I daresay I shall see you in that Arab house, Charmian.
Claude wishes to go there again?"
"It is Claude who has decided the whole thing."
Charmian's voice held a new sound. Mrs. Mansfield looked closely at her
daughter.
"You see, Madre, he and I--well, I think we have earned our retreat.
We--we did stand up to the failure. We went to the first night of
Jacques Sennier's new opera and helped, as everyone in an audience can
help, to seal its triumph. I--I went round to Madame Sennier's box with
Claude--Adelaide Shiffney and Armand Gillier were in it!--and
congratulated her. Madre, we faced the music."
Her voice quivered slightly. Mrs. Mansfield impulsively took her child's
hands and held them.
"We faced the music. Claude is strong. I never knew what he was before.
Without that tremendous failure I never should have known him. He helped
me. I didn't know one human being could help another as Claude helped me
after the failure of the opera. Even Mr. Crayford admired him. He said
to me the last day, when we were going to start for the ship: 'Well,
little lady, you've married the biggest failure we've brought over here
in my time, but you have married a man!' And I said--I said--"
"Yes, my only child?"
"'I believe that's all a woman wants.'"
"Is it?"
Mrs. Mansfield's dark, intense eyes searched Charmian's.
"Is it all that _you_ want?"
"You mean--?"
"Isn't the fear of the crowd still haunting you? Isn't uneasy ambition
still tugging at you?"
Charmian took her foot away from Caroline's side and sat very still for
a moment.
"I do want Claude to succeed, yes, I do, Madre. I believe every woman
wants her man to succeed. But I shall never interfere again--never. I've
had my lesson. I've seen the truth, both of myself and of Claude. But I
shall always wish Claude to succeed, not in my way, but in his own. And
I think he will. Yes, I believe he will. Weren't we--he and I--both
extremists? I think perhaps we were. I may have been vulgar--oh, that
word!--in my desire for fame, in my wish to get out of the crowd. But
wasn't Claude just a little bit morbid in his fear of life, in his
shrinking from publicity? I think, perhaps, he was. And I know now he
thinks so. Claude is changed, Madre. All he went through in New York has
changed him. He's a much bigger man than he was when we left England.
You must see that!"
"I do see it."
"From now onward he'll do the work he is fitted to do, only that. But I
think he means to let people hear it. He said to me only last night:
'Now they all know the false man, I have the wish to show them the man
who is real.'"
"The man who had the crucifix standing before his piano," said Mrs.
Mansfield, in a low voice. "The man who heard a great voice out of the
temple speaking to the seven angels."
She paused.
"Did he ever play you that?" she asked Charmian.
"One night in America, when our dear friend, Alfred Van Brinen, was with
us. But he played it for Mr. Van Brinen."
"And--since then?"
"Madre, he has played it since then for me."
Charmian got up from her chair. She stood by the fire. Her thin body
showed in clear outline against the flames, but her face was a little in
shadow.
"Madretta," she began, and was silent.
"Yes?" said Mrs. Mansfield.
"Susan Fleet and I were once talking about theosophy. And Susan said a
thing I have never forgotten."
"What was that?"
"She said: 'It's a long journey up the Ray.' I didn't understand. And
she explained that by the Ray she meant the bridge that leads from the
personal which perishes to the immortal which endures. Madre, I shall
always be very personal, I think. I can't help it. I don't know that I
even want to help it. But--but I do believe that in America, that night
after the opera, I took a long, long step on the journey up the Ray. I
must have, I think, because that night I was happy."
Her eyes became almost mysterious in the firelight. She looked down and
added, in a withdrawn voice:
"_I_ was happy in failure!"
"No, in success!" said Mrs. Mansfield.
THE END