e go to that box?"

"Yes. I'll get on this chair. Help me! That's it."

They sat down in a dark box at the back of the stalls. Far off, across a
huge space, they saw the immense stage, lit up now by an amber glow
which came not from the footlights but from above. The stage was set
with a scene representing an oasis in the desert with yellow sand in the
distance. Among some tufted palms stood three or four stage hands, pale,
dusty, in shirt sleeves. At the extreme back of the scene, against the
horizon, Mr. Mulworth crossed, with a thick-set, lantern-jawed, and very
bald man, who was probably Jimber. Claude followed two or three yards
behind them, and disappeared. His face looked ghastly under the stream
of amber light.

"It's dreadful to see people on the stage not made up!" said Charmian.
"They all look so corpse-like. O Alston, are we going to have a
success?"

"What! You beginning to doubt!"

"No, no. But when I see this huge dark theater I can't help thinking,
'Shall we fill it?' What a fight art is! I never realized till now that
we are on a battlefield. Alston, I feel I would almost rather die than
fail."

"Fail! But--"

"Or quite rather die."

"In any case it couldn't be your failure."

She turned and looked at him in the heavy dimness.

"Couldn't it?"

"You didn't write the libretto. You didn't compose the music."

"And yet," she said, in a low tense voice, "it would be my failure if
the opera failed, because but for me it never would have been written,
never have been produced out here. Alston, it's a great responsibility.
And I never really understood how great till I saw Claude go across the
stage just now. He looked so--he looked--"

She broke off.

"Whatever is it, Mrs. Charmian?"

"He looked like a victim, I thought."

"Everyone does in that light unless--there's Crayford!"

At this moment Mr. Crayford came upon the stage from the side on which
Claude had just vanished. He had a soft hat on the back of his head, and
a cigar in his mouth.

"He doesn't!" whispered Charmian.

"Now go ahead!" roared Crayford. "Work your motors and let's see!"

There was a sound like a rushing mighty wind.

At two o'clock in the morning Crayford was still smoking, still
watching, still shouting. Charmian and Alston were still in the darkness
of the box, gazing, listening, sometimes talking. They had not seen
Claude again. If he came into the front of the theater they meant to
call him. But he did no