When they were gone Charmian was suddenly overcome by a sense of profound depression such as she had never felt before. With them seemed to go a world; and it was a world that some part of her loved and longed for. Sennier stood for fame, for success; his wife for the glory of the woman who aids and is crowned; Mrs. Shiffney and Max Elliot for the joy and the power that belong to great patrons of the arts. An immense vitality went away with them all. So long as they were with her the little Arab house, the little African garden, had stood in the center of things, in the heart of vital things. The two women had troubled Charmian. Madame Sennier had almost frightened her. Yet something in both of them fascinated, must always fascinate such a mind and temperament as hers. They meant so much to the men who were known. And they had made themselves known. Both were women who stood apart from the great crowd. When their names were mentioned everyone--who counted--knew who they were. As to Jacques Sennier, he left a crevasse in the life at Djenan-el-Maqui. It had been a dangerous experience for Charmian, the associating in intimacy with the little famous man. Her secret ambitions were irritated almost to the point of nervous exasperation. But she only knew it now that he was gone. Madame Sennier had frightened her. "_Mais, ma chere, ce n'est pas serieux!_" The words had been said with an air of hard and careless authority, as if the speaker knew she was expressing the obvious truth, and a truth known to both her hearers; and then the words which had followed: "One has only to look at your interesting husband, to see him in the African _milieu_, to see that!" What had happened at Constantine? How had Claude been? Charmian wanted so much to see him, to hear his account of the whole matter, that she telegraphed: "Come back as soon as you can they have gone very dull here.--CHARMIAN." She knew that in sending this telegram she was coming out of her role; but her nerves drove her into the weakness. Within a week Claude and Gillier returned. Charmian noticed at once that their expedition had not drawn the two men together, that their manner to each other was cold and constrained. On the day of their return she persuaded Gillier to dine at the villa. He seemed reluctant to accept, but she overcame his hesitation. "I want to hear all about it," she said. "You must remember what a keen interest I have in everything that has to do with the opera." Gillier looked at her oddly, with a sort of furtive inquiry, she thought. Then he said formally: "I am delighted to stay, madame." During dinner he became more expansive, but Claude seemed to Charmian to become more constrained. Beneath his constraint excitement lay in hiding. He looked tired; but his imaginative eyes shone as if they could not help speaking, although his lips were often dumb. Only when he was talking to Susan Fleet did he seem to be comparatively at ease.