ing we aren't. Claude, I'm glad--I'm thankful you've made her
hate you. And I know how!"

"Hush! Don't let us talk about it."

"Poor Adelaide! How mad she will be on the twenty-eighth when she hears
how the public take it!"

Claude only said:

"If we are ready."

CHAPTER XXXV

Jacob Crayford was not the man to be beaten when he had set his heart
on, put his hand to, any enterprise. On the day he had fixed upon for
the production of Claude's opera the opera was ready to be produced. At
the cost of heroic exertions the rough places had been made plain, every
stage "effect" had been put right, all the "cuts" declared by Crayford
to be essential had been made by Claude, the orchestra had mastered its
work, the singers were "at home" in their parts. How it had all been
accomplished in the short time Charmian did not understand. It seemed to
her almost as if she had assisted at the accomplishment of the
incredible, as if she had seen a miracle happen. She was obliged to
believe in it after the final rehearsal, which was, so Crayford, Mr.
Mulworth, Meroni, and it was even rumored Jimber declared, the most
perfect rehearsal they had ever been present at.

"Exactly three hours and a half!" Crayford had remarked when the curtain
came down on the fourth act. "So we come ahead of the Metropolitan. I've
just heard they've had a set back with Sennier's opera; can't produce
for nearly a week after the date they'd settled. We needn't have been in
such a devil of a hurry after all. But we've got the laugh on them now.
Sennier's first opera was a white man. No doubt about that. But the
hoodoo seems out against this one. I tell you"--he had swung round to
Claude, who had just come upon the stage--"I'd rather have this opera of
yours than Sennier's, although he's known all over creation and you're
nothing but a boom-boy up to now. I used to believe in names, but upon
my word seems to me the public's changing. Give 'em the goods and they
don't care where they come from."

His eyes twinkled as he added, clapping Claude on the shoulder:

"All very well for you now, my boy! But you'll wish it was the other
way, p'raps, when you come round to the stage door with your next opera
on offer!"

He was in grand spirits. He had "licked" the Metropolitan to a "frazzle"
over the date of production, and he was going to "lick them to a
frazzle" with the production. Every reserved seat in the house was sold
for Claude's first night. Cr