is. But, my dear Miss Deans, people were delighted. You
will come back, you--"

"Never! He means to keep me out. I can see it. He has that Dantini in
his pocket. A woman with a voice like a dwarf in a gramophone!"

At this moment, perhaps fortunately, Miss Deans's hired electric
brougham came up, and Max Elliot got rid of her.

Although she had lost her temper Miss Deans had not lost her shrewdness.
Mr. Brett shrugged his shoulders and confessed that the talent of Miss
Deans did not appeal to him.

"Her singing bored me," was the verdict of Mrs. Shiffney.

And many of Max Elliot's guests found that they had been subject to a
similar ennui when the American was singing.

"Poor woman!" thought Mrs. Mansfield, who was unprejudiced, and who,
with Max Elliot and other genuine musicians, recognized the gifts of
Miss Deans.

And again her mind went to Claude Heath.

"Better to keep out of it! Better to keep out of it!" a voice said
within her.

And apparently Heath was of one mind with her on this matter.

As Mrs. Mansfield and Charmian were going away they met Mrs. Shiffney in
the hall with Ferdinand, who was holding her cloak.

"Oh, Charmian!" she said, turning quickly, with the cloak over one of
her broad shoulders. "I heard from Claude Heath to-day."

"Did you?" said Charmian languidly, looking about her at the crowd.

"Yes. He can't come. His mother's got a cold and he doesn't like to
leave her, or something. And he's working very hard on a composition
that nobody is ever to hear. And--I forget what else. But there were
four sides of excuses."

She laughed.

"Poor boy! He hasn't much savoir-faire. Good-night! I'll let you know
when we start."

Her eyes pierced Charmian.

"Come, Ferdinand! No, you get in first. I hate being passed and trodden
on when once I'm in, and I take up so much room."

That night, when Charmian was safely in her bedroom and had locked the
door against imaginary intruders, she cried, bitterly, impetuously:

"If only Rades had not sung _Petite Fille de Tombouctou_!"

That song seemed to have put the finishing touch to desires which would
never be gratified. Charmian could not have explained why. But such
music was cruel when life went wrong.

"Why won't he come? Why won't he come?" she murmured angrily.

Then she looked at herself in the glass, and thought she realized that
from the first she had hated Claude Heath.

CHAPTER VIII

A fortnight later _The Wanderer