"I'm going to my room. I have two or three letters to write, and I shall read a little before going to bed. It isn't really very late, but I daresay you are tired."
She took Charmian's hand and held it for an instant. And during that instant Charmian felt much calmer.
"Good-night, Susan dear. Monsieur Gillier asked me to say good-night to you for him."
Susan did not kiss her, said good-night to Claude, and went quietly away.
"What is it?" Claude said, directly she had gone. "What's the matter, Charmian? Why did Gillier go away so early?"
Remembering the sound of her voice in the court, she strove to keep it natural, even gentle, now. Susan's recent touch had helped her a little.
"Come into my sitting-room for a minute," she said, when they were in the narrow gallery which ran round the drawing-room on the upper story of the house.
Next to her bedroom Charmian had a tiny room, a sort of nook, where she wrote her letters and did accounts.
"Well, what is it?" Claude asked again, when he had followed her into this room, which was lit only by a hanging antique lamp.
"How could you show the libretto to Madame Sennier?" said Charmian. "How could you be so mad as to do such a thing?"
As she finished speaking she sat down on the little divan in the embrasure of the small grated window.
"What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "I have never shown the libretto to Madame Sennier. What could put such an idea into your head?"
"Charmian, I have this moment told you that I haven't."
"Then Gillier must have shown her a copy of it."
Charmian was silent for a minute. Then she said:
"You did not show it to anyone while you were at Constantine?"
Her voice rose as she said the last words.
"I suppose I have a right to allow anyone I choose to read a libretto I have bought and paid for," he said coldly, almost sternly.
"You did give it to Mrs. Shiffney then! You did! You did!"
"And then--then you come to me and say that Madame Sennier hasn't read it!"
There was a sound of acute, almost of fierce exasperation in her voice.
"Mrs. Shiffney herself specially advised me not to show it to her."
"Mrs. Shiffney advised you! Oh--you--oh, that men should claim to have keener intellects than we women! Ah! Ah!"
She began to laugh hysterically, then suddenly put a handkerchief before her mouth, turned her head away from him and pressed her face, with the handkerchief still held to it, against the cushions of the divan. Her body shook.