"And _I_ found him that!" Charmian could not help saying quickly. "Find him a first-rate libretto, Mrs. Charmian! I'll tell you what, I know a lot of fellows in Paris who write. Suppose you and I run over to Paris--" "Would you let me, Claudie?" she interrupted. "Oh!" he said, laughing, but without much mirth. "Do whatever you like, my children. You make me feel as if I know nothing about myself, nothing at all." "Weren't you one of the best orchestral pupils at the Royal College?" said Alston. "Didn't you win----?" "Go--go to Paris and bring me back a libretto!" he exclaimed, assuming a mock despair. He did not reckon with Charmian's determination. He had taken it all as a kind of joke. But when, at the end of the season, he suggested a visit to Cornwall to see his people, Charmian said: "You go! And I'll take Susan Fleet as a chaperon and run over to Paris with Alston Lake." "What--to find the libretto? But there's no one in Paris in August." "Leave that to us," she answered with decision. Claude still felt as if the whole thing were a sort of joke. But he let his wife go. And she came back with a very clever and powerful libretto, written by a young Algerian who knew Arab life well, and who had served for a time with the Foreign Legion. Claude read it carefully, then studied it minutely. The story interested him. The plot was strong. There were wonderful opportunities for striking scenic effects. But the whole thing was entirely "out of his line." And he told Charmian and Lake so. "It would need to be as Oriental in the score as _Louise_ is French," he said. "And what do I know----" "Go and get it!" interrupted Lake. "Nothing ties you to London. Spend a couple of years over it, if you like. It would be worth it. And Crayford says there's going to be a regular 'boom' in Eastern things in a year or two." "Now how can he possibly know that?" said Claude. "My boy, he does know it. Crayford knows everything. He looks ahead, by Jove! Fools don't know what the people want. Clever men do know what they want. And Crayfords know what they're going to want." And now the Heath's boxes were actually packed, and the great case of scores stood in the hall in Berkeley Square. As Claude looked at it he felt like one who had burnt his boats.