And perhaps there were other reasons that only a physician could have explained, reasons connected with tired and irritated nerves, with a brain upon which an unnatural strain had been put. The overworked man of talent sometimes is confronted with strange figures making strange demands upon him. Claude knew these figures now. He had always been aware of fascination in Mrs. Shiffney. Now he let himself go toward this fascination. He had always, too, felt what he had called the minotaur-thing in her, the creature with teeth and claws fastening upon pleasure. Now he was ready to be with the minotaur-thing. For something within him, that was intimately connected with whatever he had of genius, murmured incessantly, "To-morrow I die!" And he wanted, at any cost, to dull the sound of that voice. Why should not he let his monster fasten on pleasure too? The situation was full of a piquancy which delighted Mrs. Shiffney. She was "on the other side," and was now preparing to make love in the enemy's camp. Nothing pleased her more than to mingle art with love, linking the intelligence of her brain with the emotion, such as it was, of her thoroughly pagan heart. And the feeling that she was a sort of traitress to her beloved Jacques and Henriette was quite enchanting. One thing more gave a very feminine zest to her pursuit--the thought of Charmian, who knew nothing about it, but who, no doubt, would know some day. She rejoiced in intrigue, loved a secret that would eventually be hinted at, if not actually told, and revelled in proving her power on a man who, in his unknown days, had resisted it, and who now that he was on the eve, perhaps, of a wide fame, seemed ready to succumb to it. There were even moments when she found herself wishing for the success of Claude's opera, despite her active dislike of Charmian. It would really be such fun to take Claude away from that silly Charmian creature in the very hour of a triumph. Yet she did not wish to see Charmian even the neglected wife of a great celebrity. Her feelings were rather complex. But she had always been at home with complexity. She managed to get rid of Susan Fleet, by persuading her to visit some friends of Susan who lived in Washington. Then it was easy enough to see Claude quietly, in her apartment at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and elsewhere. Mrs. Shiffney was a past mistress of what she called "playing about." Claude recognized this, and had a glimpse into a life strangely different from his own, an almost intimate glimpse which both interested and disgusted him. In his determination to grasp at the blatant thing, the big success, a determination that pushed him almost inevitably into a certain extravagance of conduct, because it was foreign to his innermost nature, Claude gave himself to the vulgar vanity of the male. He was out here to conquer. Why not conquer Mrs. Shiffney? To do that would be scarcely more spurious than to win with a "made over" opera.