y Mildred.

Charmian looked eagerly about the house, putting up her opera-glasses,
finding everywhere friends and acquaintances. She frankly loved the
world with the energy of her youth.

At this moment the sight of the huge and crowded theater, full of
watchful eyes and whispering lips, full of brains and souls waiting to
be fed, the sound of its hum and stir, sent a warm thrill through her,
thrill of expectation, of desire. She thought of that man, Jacques
Sennier, hidden somewhere, the cause of all that was happening in the
house, of all that would happen almost immediately upon the stage. She
envied him with intensity. Then she looked at Claude Heath's rather grim
and constrained expression. Was it possible that Heath did not share her
feeling of envy?

There was a tap at the door. Heath sprang up and opened it. Paul Lane's
pale and discontented face appeared.

"Halloa! Haven't seen you since that dinner! May I come in for a
minute?"

He spoke to the Mansfields.

"Perfectly marvellous! Everyone behind the scenes is mad about it! Annie
Meredith says she will make the success of her life in it. Who's that
Frenchwoman with Adelaide Shiffney? Madame Sennier, the composer's
wife--his second, the first killed herself. Very clever woman. She's not
going to kill herself. Sennier says he could do nothing without her,
never would have done this opera but for her. She found him the
libretto, kept him at it, got the Covent Garden management interested in
it, persuaded Annie Meredith to come over from South America to sing the
part. An extraordinary woman, ugly, but a will of iron, and an ambition
that can't be kept back. Her hour of triumph to-night. There goes the
curtain."

As Lane slipped out of the box, he whispered to Heath:

"Mrs. Shiffney hopes you'll come and speak to her between the acts. Her
name's on the door."

Heath sat down a little behind Mrs. Mansfield. Although the curtain was
now up he noticed that Charmian, with raised opera-glasses, was
earnestly looking at Mrs. Shiffney's box. He noticed, too, that her left
hand shook slightly, almost imperceptibly.

"Her hour of triumph!" Yes, the hour proved to be that. Madame Sennier's
energies had not been expended in vain. From the first bars of music,
from the first actions upon the stage, the audience was captured by the
new work. There was no hesitating. There were no dangerous moments. The
evening was like a crescendo, admirably devised and carried out