re in March's quotations), and asked
Heaven to answer why an American composer should have availed himself of
a decadent French libretto.

The audience showed a friendly bias toward it at the beginning and were
plainly moved by the dramatic power of it as it progressed, but they
seemed shocked and bewildered by the bludgeon blows of the conclusion and
the curtain fell upon a rather panicky silence. Then they rallied and
gave both the performers and the composer what would pass in current
journalese for an ovation.

The Wollastons' friends, who were out in pretty good force, crowded
forward to be introduced to Mary's fiance and to offer him their
double congratulations. They found him rather unresponsive and decided
that he was temperamental (a judgment which did him no serious
disservice with most of them), though the kindlier ones thought he
might be shy. Mary herself found something not quite accountable in
his manner, but she forbore to press for an explanation and let him
off, good-humoredly enough, from the little celebration of his triumph
which she had had in mind.

The fact was that he had come through the experience, which no one who
has not shared it with him can possibly understand, of discovering the
enormous difference between the effect of a thing on paper, or even in
its last rehearsal, and the effect of it when it is performed before an
audience which has paid to see it. It was no wonder he was dazed, for the
opera he found himself listening to seemed like a changeling.

He worked all night over it and told LaChaise the next morning that he
had made serious alterations in it and would need more rehearsals. The
opera had been billed in advance for a repetition on the following
Saturday night, the understanding among the powers being that if it
failed to get a sufficient measure of favor the bill should be changed.
It was touch and go, but the final decision was that it should have
another chance.

So LaChaise agreed to March's request, ran over the composer's revised
manuscript with a subtle French smile, sent for the timpani player, who
was an expert copyist, and put him to work getting the altered parts
ready, instanter. March told Mary he was making a few changes and asked
her to stay away from rehearsals so that on Saturday night, from out in
front, she might get the full effect.

Really, as it turned out, he did not need any individual testimony, for
one could have learned the effect of the ne