Claude's face was flushed, his short hair was untidy, and the eyes which he fixed upon her looked excited, tired, and, she thought, something else. "Is anything the matter?" "No, why should there be? Where have you been?" "With Alston. He insisted on my keeping out of the way. Crayford I mean, of course. Has it gone well? Did you play the whole of it; all you've composed, I mean?" "Yes." "What did he say? What did he think of it?" "It isn't easy to know exactly what that kind of man thinks." "Was he disagreeable? Didn't you get on?" "Oh, I suppose we did." "What did he say, then?" "All sorts of things." "Go on eating. You look dreadfully tired. Tell me some of the things." "Well, he liked some of it." "Only some?" "He seemed to like a good deal. But he suggested quantities of alterations." "Where? Which part?" "I should have to show you." "Drink some wine. I'm sure you need it. Give me some idea. You can easily do that without showing me to-night." "He says a march should be introduced. You know, in that scene--" "I know, the soldiers, the Foreign Legion. Well, that would be easy enough. You could do that in a day." "Do you think one has only to sit down?" "Two days, then; a week if you like! You have wonderful facility when you choose. And what else? Here, I'll pour out the wine. What else?" "Heaps of things. He wants to pull half the opera to pieces, I think." "Oh, no, Claudie! You are exaggerating. You always do, dear old boy. And if you do what he says, what then?" "How d'you mean?" "Would he take it? Would he produce it?" "He didn't commit himself." "Of course not! They never do. But would he? You must have gathered something from his manner, from what he said, what he looked like." "He seemed very much struck with the libretto. He said there were great opportunities for new scenic effects." "He is going to take it! He is! He is!" she cried exultantly. "I knew he would. I always knew. Why, why do you look so grim, Claudie?" She threw one arm round his neck and kissed him. "Don't look like that when we are on the eve of everything we've been working for, waiting--longing for, for months and years! Caroline! Caroline!" Caroline hastily indicated her presence. "Come up! The darling, she shall have a piece of cake, two pieces! There! And the sugary part, too!" "You'll make her ill." "Never mind. If she is ill it is in a good cause. Claudie, just think, you are going to be another Jacques Sennier! It's too wonderful. And yet I knew it. Didn't I tell you that night in the opera house? I said it would be so. Didn't I? Can you deny it?" "I don't deny it. But--" "You are made of buts. If it were not for me you would go and hide away your genius, and no one would ever know you existed at all. It's pathetic. But you've married a wife who knows what you are, and others shall know too. The whole world shall know."