er. They interrupted, put
questions, made comments, protested, argued, encouraged, exclaimed.

Mr. Cane had brought pressman after pressman to interview Claude on the
libretto scandal, as they called it. It seemed that Madame Sennier had
made her libelous statement in a violent fit of temper, brought on by a
bad rehearsal at the Metropolitan Opera House. Annie Meredith, who was
to sing the big role in Sennier's new opera, and who was much greater as
an actress than as a vocalist, had complained of the weakness of the
libretto, and had attacked Madame Sennier for having made Jacques set
it. Thereupon the great Henriette had lost all control of her powerful
temperament. The secret bitterness engendered in her by her failure to
capture the libretto of Gillier had found vent in the outburst which, no
doubt with plenty of amplifications, had got into the evening papers.
The management at first had wished to attempt the impossible, to try to
muzzle the pressmen. But their publicity agent knew better. Madame
Sennier had been carried by temper into stupidity. She had made a false
move. The only thing to do now was to make a sensation of it.

As Claude told of the pressmen's questions his mind burned with
excitement, and a recklessness, such as he had never felt before,
invaded him. He had been indignant, had even felt a sort of shame, when
he was asked whether he had been "cute" in the libretto matter, whether
he had stolen a march on his rival. Crayford's treatment of the affair
had disgusted him. For Crayford, with his sharp eye to business, had
seen at once that their "game" was, of course with all delicacy, all
subtlety, to accept the imputation of shrewdness. The innocent "stunt"
was "no good to anyone" in his opinion. And he had not scrupled to say
so to Claude. There had been an argument--the theater is the Temple of
Argument--and Claude had heard himself called a "lobster," but had stuck
to his determination to use truth as a weapon in his defense. But now,
as he told all this, he felt that he did not care either way. What did
it matter if dishonorable conduct, if every deadly sin, were imputed to
him out here so long as he "made good" in the end with the work of his
brain, the work which had led him to Africa and across the Atlantic?
What did it matter if the work were a spurious thing, a pasticcio, a
poor victim which had been pulled this way and that, changed, cut, added
to? What did it matter if the locusts swarmed