"It shall be! It shall be!" Charmian repeated to herself.
She looked again and again at Madame Sennier, striving to grasp the secret of her will for another, even while she gave herself to the enchantment of the music. But for that woman in all probability the music would never have been given life. Somewhere, far down in the mystery of an individual, it would have lain, corpse-like. A woman had willed that it should live. She deserved the homage she had received, and would receive to-night. For she had made her man do a great thing, because she had helped him to understand his own greatness.
Suddenly, out of the almost chaotic excitement caused in Charmian by the music, and by her secret infatuation, concrete knowledge seemed to detach itself and to arise. As, when she had looked at the island in the Algerian Garden, she had felt "I shall be here some day with him!" so now she seemed to be aware that the future would show a brilliant crowd assembled in some great theater, not for Jacques Sennier, but for one near her. Really she was violently willing that it should be so. But she thought she was receiving--from whom, or from what, she could not tell--a mysterious message.
And the red-haired woman's place was filled by another.
At last the curtain fell on the final scene, and the storm which meant a triumph was unchained. Heath sprang up from his seat, carried away by a generous enthusiasm. He did not know how to be jealous of anyone who could do a really fine thing. Charmian, in the midst of the uproar, heard him shouting "Bravo!" behind her, in a voice quick with excitement. His talent was surely calling to a brother. The noise all over the house strengthened gradually, then abruptly rose like a great wave. A small, thin, and pale man, with a big nose, a mighty forehead, scanty black hair and beard, and blinking eyes, had stepped out before the curtain. He leaned forward, made a movement as if to retreat, was stopped by a louder roar, stepped quickly to the middle of the small strip of stage that was visible, and stood still with his big head slightly thrust out toward the multitude which acclaimed him.
Charmian turned round to Claude Heath, who towered above her. He did not notice her movement. He was gazing at the stage while he violently clapped his hands. She gazed up at him. He felt her eyes, leaned down. For a moment they looked at each other, while the noise in the house increased. Claude saw that Charmian wanted to speak to him--and something else. After a moment, during which the blood rose in his cheeks and forehead, and he felt as if he were out in wind and rain, in falling snow and stern sunshine, he said: