at Charmian.
But she did not see it for she was reading the letter.

"THE RITZ-CARLTON HOTEL,
_Friday._

"DEAR MR. HEATH,--I've just arrived with Susan Fleet on
the _Philadelphia_. I heard such reports of the excitement over
your opera out here that I suddenly felt I must run over. After all
you told me about it at Constantine I'm naturally interested. Do be
nice and let me into a rehearsal. I never take sides in questions
of art, and though of course I'm a friend of the Senniers, I'm
really praying for you to have a triumph. Surely the sky has room
for two stars. What nonsense all this Press got-up rivalry is.
Don't believe a word you see in the papers about Henriette and your
libretto. She knows nothing whatever about it, of course. Such
rubbish! Susan is pining to see her beloved Charmian. Can't you
both lunch with us at Sherry's to-morrow at one o'clock? Love to
Charmian.--Yours very sincerely,
ADELAIDE SHIFFNEY."

"Well?" said Claude, as Charmian sat without speaking, after she had
finished the letter. "Shall we go to Sherry's to-morrow?"

He spoke as if he were testing her, but she did not seem to notice it.

"Yes, Claudie, I think we will."

She looked at him.

"What are you thinking?" she asked quickly.

"Do you still believe Mrs. Shiffney tricked me at Constantine?"

"I know she did."

"And yet--"

She interrupted him.

"We are in the arena!"

"Ah--I understand."

"If we go to Sherry's, and Mrs. Shiffney speaks about coming to a
rehearsal, what do you mean to do?"

"What do you think about it?"

"Of course she only wants to come in the hope of being able to carry a
bad report to the Senniers."

Claude was silent for a moment. Then he said:

"That may be. But--we are in the arena."

"What is it?"

"You dislike Mrs. Shiffney, you distrust her, but you do think she has
taste, judgment, don't you?"

"Yes--some."

"A great deal?"

"When she isn't biased by personal feeling. But she is biased against
you."

Claude's eyes had become piercing.

"I think," he said, "that if I were with Mrs. Shiffney at a rehearsal I
should divine her real, her honest opinion, the opinion one has of a
thing whether one wishes to have it or not. If _she_ were to admire the
opera--" He paused.