"What is it?" Claude said, directly she had gone. "What's the matter, Charmian? Why did Gillier go away so early?" "Let us go upstairs," she answered. Remembering the sound of her voice in the court, she strove to keep it natural, even gentle, now. Susan's recent touch had helped her a little. "All right," he answered. "Come into my sitting-room for a minute," she said, when they were in the narrow gallery which ran round the drawing-room on the upper story of the house. Next to her bedroom Charmian had a tiny room, a sort of nook, where she wrote her letters and did accounts. "Well, what is it?" Claude asked again, when he had followed her into this room, which was lit only by a hanging antique lamp. "How could you show the libretto to Madame Sennier?" said Charmian. "How could you be so mad as to do such a thing?" As she finished speaking she sat down on the little divan in the embrasure of the small grated window. "What do you mean?" he exclaimed. "I have never shown the libretto to Madame Sennier. What could put such an idea into your head?" "But you must have shown it!" "Charmian, I have this moment told you that I haven't." "She has read it." "Nonsense." "I am positive she has read it." "Then Gillier must have shown her a copy of it." Charmian was silent for a minute. Then she said: "You did not show it to anyone while you were at Constantine?" "I didn't say that." "Ah! You--you let Mrs. Shiffney see it!" Her voice rose as she said the last words. "I suppose I have a right to allow anyone I choose to read a libretto I have bought and paid for," he said coldly, almost sternly. "You did give it to Mrs. Shiffney then! You did! You did!" "Certainly I did!" "And then--then you come to me and say that Madame Sennier hasn't read it!" There was a sound of acute, almost of fierce exasperation in her voice. "She had not read my copy." "I say she has!" "Mrs. Shiffney herself specially advised me not to show it to her." "To her--to Madame Sennier?" "Yes." "Mrs. Shiffney advised you! Oh--you--oh, that men should claim to have keener intellects than we women! Ah! Ah!" She began to laugh hysterically, then suddenly put a handkerchief before her mouth, turned her head away from him and pressed her face, with the handkerchief still held to it, against the cushions of the divan. Her body shook. "Charmian!" he said. "Charmian!" She looked up. All one side of her face was red. She dropped her handkerchief on the floor. "Do you understand now?" she said. "But, of course, you don't. Well, then!" She put both her hands palm downward on the divan, and, speaking slowly with an emphasis that was cutting, and stretching her body till her shoulders were slightly raised, she said: "Just now, while Susan and you were in the garden, Armand Gillier asked me if we would give up his libretto." "Give up the libretto?" "Sell it back to him for one hundred pounds. He also said he was very poor. Do you put the two things together?"