Carpentaria fell back. Then he regained his self-command and, pushing his fingers through his red-gold hair, he asked monosyllabically, “Why?” And then he interpreted for her the answer to his own question. “You worried Josephus. He wanted to get rid of you.” Josephus disengaged his hands from those of Juliette. “Mother!” he moaned sadly, and then added, “She is mad!” But through Carpentaria Mrs. Ilam said: “I am not mad. But my love has always been too strong.” “Did you know of this, Ilam?” Carpentaria asked his partner solemnly. “Of course I did not,” was the answer--“not till it was too late.” “Then, why did you warn me up in the wheel?” “Because I suspected. I suspected my poor mother was beginning to hate you, and I feared that---- I can’t say any more.” Carpentaria, powerfully moved, walked out of the room, and it was Pauline who followed him. Mrs. Ilam’s eyes were now shut. CHAPTER XXXI--Unison That summer was astoundingly fine and warm, not to say tropical. But since it remains clearly in the memory of all, especially of the London water-companies, as a unique caprice on the part of the English climate, there is no need to go into details of its beauty. Towards the end of September the weather was exceedingly lovely. And of course the City prospered accordingly. It had been thought that the record “gates” during the great fêtes of August would make the September returns look meagre and feeble. Such, however, was not the case. In the first week of September over a million people paid fifty thousand pounds at the turnstiles to enjoy the charms of the City. And a water-famine in most other parts of London did not impair their pleasure, for Ilam and Carpentaria had sunk their own Artesian wells, and they had sunk them deep enough. Consequently, the glorious lawns of the Oriental Gardens and the turf of the cricket field kept a vivid green through that solitary summer. The consumption of multi-coloured liquids in the cafés dotted about the gardens exceeded the most sanguine estimates. It was stated that during one of Carpentaria’s concerts twelve thousand pints of Pilsen beer (the genuine article, imported daily in casks from the Erste Pilsen Actien-Brauerei, Pilsen) were consumed within sight of the bandstand. “This,” said Carpentaria emphatically, “is success. No composer-conductor,” he added, “has ever before been able to say that he was listened to by an audience that put away Pilsen beer at the rate of a hundred pints a minute.” And he was right. Success was written large all over the place. Success shone on the faces of the entire staff, and it shone particularly on the face of Carpentaria, though he tried to pretend that it was nothing to him. It was, naturally, a great deal to him. He was the lion of London, and he knew it. All his previous triumphs were nothing in comparison with this triumph, which was the triumph of his ideas as well as a personal triumph.