e stage under the amber light, she
looked into the vast dim theater with its thousands of empty seats, and
excitement and fear burned in her, mingled together. Then something
determined in her, the thing perhaps which had enabled her to take
Claude for her husband, and later to play a part in his art life, rose
up and drove out the fear. "It is fear which saps the will, fear which
disintegrates, fear which calls to failure." She was able to say that to
herself and to cast fear away. And her mind repeated the words she had
often heard Crayford utter, "It's up to us now to bring the thing off
and we've just got to bring it off!"

"No, no, I tell you! They're too much on one side of the scene still!
Who in thunder ever saw locusts swarming in a corner when they've got
the whole desert to spread themselves in? It aren't their nature. What?
Well, then, you must alter the position of your motors. Where is
Jimber?"

And Mr. Crayford strode behind the scenes.

Half-past two in the morning! What could Claude be doing? Was Alston
never coming back? Charmian suddenly began to feel tired and cold. She
buttoned her sealskin coat up to her throat. For a moment there was no
one on the stage. From behind the scenes came no longer the clever
imitation of a roaring wind. An abrupt inaction, that was like
desolation, made the great house seem oddly vacant. She sat staring
rather vaguely at the palms and the yellow sands.

After she had sat thus for perhaps some five minutes she saw Claude walk
hastily on to the stage. He had a large black note-book and a pencil in
his hand, and seemed in search of someone. Crayford came on brusquely
from the opposite side of the scene and met him. They began to confer
together.

The box door behind Charmian was opened and Alston came in.

"Old Claude's too busy to come. He wants me to take you home."

"What has he been doing all this time?"

"No end of things. It's just as I said. Crayford's determined to be
first in the field. This move of the Metropolitan has put him on the
run, and he'll keep everyone in the theater running till the opera's
out. Claude's been with the pressmen behind, and having a hairy-teary
heart to heart with Enid Mardon. Come, Mrs. Charmian!"

"But I don't like to leave Claude."

"There's nothing for us to do, and he'll follow us as soon as ever he
can. I'll just leave you at the hotel."

"What was the matter with Miss Mardon?" Charmian asked anxiously, as she
got up