see how really fine his opera is," Claude said,
seriously, even earnestly.

"Margot says when the Americans like anything they are the most
enthusiastic nation in the world."

"If it is so it's a fine trait in the national character, I think."

How impersonal he sounded. She longed for the creeping music of jealousy
in his voice. If only Claude would be jealous of Sennier!

She spoke lightly of other things, and presently said:

"How is the work getting on?"

There was a slight pause. Then Claude said:

"The work?"

"Yes, yours."

She hesitated. There was something in her husband's personality that
sometimes lay upon her like an embargo. She was conscious of this
embargo now. But her nervous irritation made her determined to defy it.

"Claudie," she went on, "you don't know, you can't know, how much I care
for your work. It's part of you. It is you. You promised me once you
would let me be in the secret. Don't you remember?"

"Did I? When?"

"The day after our party when you were going to begin work again. And
now it's nearly two months."

She stopped. He was silent. A flame burst out of a log in the grate and
lit up strongly one half of his face. She thought it looked stern,
almost fierce, and very foreign. Many Cornish people have Spanish blood
in them, she remembered. That foreign look made her feel for a moment
almost as if she were sitting with a stranger.

"Nearly two months," she repeated in a more tentative voice.

"Is it?"

"Yes. Don't you think I've been very patient?"

"But, surely--surely--why should you want to know?"

"I do want. Your work is your life. I want it to be mine, too."

"Oh, it could never be that--the work of another."

"I want to identify myself with you."

There was another silence. And this time it was a long one. At last
Claude moved, turned round to face Charmian fully, and said, with the
voice of one making a strong, almost a desperate effort:

"You wish to know what I've been working on during these weeks when I've
been in my room?"

"Yes."

"I haven't been working on anything."

"What?"

"I haven't been working at all."

"Not working!"

"No."

"But--you must--but we were all so quiet! I told Alice--"

"I never asked you to."

"No, but of course--but what have you been doing up there?"

"Reading Carlyle's _French Revolution_ most of the time."

"Carlyle! You've been reading Carlyle!"

In her voice there was a sound of outrage. Claude got up