He had never before asked his wife what she thought of his music. She had often spoken about it, but never because he had asked her to. But this apparently was to be an evening of a certain frankness. Charmian had evidently planned that it should be so. He would try to meet her. "That's partly what I wanted to talk about to-night." Claude felt as if something in him suddenly curled up. Was Charmian about to criticize his works unfavorably, severely perhaps? At once he felt within him a sort of angry contempt for her judgment. Charmian was faintly conscious of his fierce independence, as she had been on the night of their first meeting; of the something strong and permanent which his manner so often contradicted, a mental remoteness which was disagreeable to her, but which impressed her. To-night, however, she was resolved to play the Madame Sennier to her husband, to bring up battalions of will. "Well?" Claude said. "I think, just as I know Madre does, that your things are wonderful. But I don't think they are for everybody." "For everybody! How do you mean?" "Oh, I know the bad taste of the crowd. Why, Madre always laughs at me for my horror of the crowd. But there is now a big cosmopolitan public which has taste. Look at the success of Strauss, for instance, of Debussy, and now of Jacques Sennier--our own Elgar, too! What I mean is that perhaps the things you have done hitherto are for the very few. There is something terrible about them, I think. They might almost frighten people. They might almost make people dislike you." She was thinking of the Burningtons, the Drakes, of other Sennier-worshippers. "I believe it is partly because of the words you set," she added. "Great words, of course. But where can they be sung? Not everywhere. And people are so strange about the Bible." "Strange about the Bible!" "English people, and even Americans, at any rate. There is a sort of queer, absurd tradition. One begins to think of oratorio." She paused. Claude said nothing. He was feeling hot all over. "I can't help wishing, for your own sake, that you wouldn't always go to the Bible for your inspiration." "I daresay it is very absurd of me." "Claudie, you could never be absurd." "Anybody can be absurd." "I could never think you absurd. But I suppose everyone can make a mistake. It seems to me as if there are a lot of channels, some short, ending abruptly, some long, going almost to the center of things. And genius is like a liquid poured into them. I only want you to pour yours into a long channel. Is it very stupid, or perverse, of me?" As she said the last words she felt deeply conscious of her feminine intelligence, of that delicate ingenuity peculiar to women, unattainable by man. "No, Charmian, of course not. So you think I've been pouring into a very short channel?" "Don't you?" "I'm afraid I've never thought about it." "I know. It wants another to do that, I think." "Very likely."