He smiled again with pleasant boyishness. Claude longed to take him by the shoulders and say to him: "It isn't a swarm of locusts that will make an opera!" But he only nodded and remarked: "All the better for us!" Then hastily he opened his letters. Three were from autograph hunters, and he thrust them into the pocket of his coat. The fourth was from Armand Gillier. When Claude saw the name of his collaborator he stood still and read the note frowning. "Letters! Always letters!" said Charmian, coming up. "Anything interesting, Claudie?" "Gillier is coming out after all." "Armand Gillier!" "Yes. Or--he arrived to-day, I expect, though this was posted in France. What day does the _Philadelphia_--" "This morning," said Alston. "Then he's here." Charmian looked disgusted. "It's bad taste on his part. After his horrible efforts to ruin the opera he ought to have kept away." "What does it matter?" said Claude. "He'll be interviewed on the libretto," said Alston. "Gee knows what he'll say, the beast!" "If he backs up Madame Sennier in her libelous remarks it will be proclaiming that he can be bribed," exclaimed Charmian. "I suppose he's bound to throw in his lot with us," added Alston, as they came into the huge curving corridor which ran behind the ground tier boxes. "How dark it is! Claudie, give me your hand. It slopes, doesn't it?" "Yes. The entrance is just here." "How hot your hand is!" "Here we are!" said Alston. He pushed a swing door, and they came into the theater. It was dimly lighted, and over the rows of stalls pale coverings were drawn. The hundreds of empty boxes gaped. The distant galleries were lost in the darkness. It was a vast house, and the faint light and the emptiness of it made it look even vaster than it was. "The maw, and I am to fill it!" Claude thought again. And he was conscious of unimportance. He even felt as if he had never composed any music, as if he knew nothing about composition, had no talent at all. It seemed to him incredible that, because of him, of what he had done, great sums of money were being spent, small armies of people were at work, columns upon columns were being written in myriads of newspapers, a man such as Crayford was putting forth all his influence, lavishing all his powers of showman, impresario, man of taste, fighting man. He remembered the night when Sennier's opera was produced, and it seemed to him impossible that such a night could ever come to him, be his night. He thought of it somewhat as a man thinks of Death, as his neighbor's visitant not as his own. "Chaw-_lee_!" shouted an imperative voice. "Chaw-ley! Chaw-_lee_!" "Ah!" cried a thin voice from somewhere behind the stage. "Get down that light! Give us your ambers! No, not the blues! Your ambers! Where's Jimber? I say, where is Jimber?"