The music sounded strangely new to her in this environment. She had heard it all at Djenan-el-Maqui, on the piano, sung by Alston and hummed by Claude. She had felt it, sometimes deeply on nights of excitement, when Claude had played till the stars were fading. She had had her favorite passages, which had always come to her out of the midst of the opera like friends, smiling, or passionate, or perhaps weeping, tugging at her heart-strings, stirring longings that were romantic. At the rehearsals she had heard the opera with the singers, the orchestra. Yet now it seemed to her new and strange. The great audience had taken it, had changed it, was showing it to her now, was saying to her: "This is the opera of the composer, Claude Heath, a man hitherto unknown." And presently it seemed to be saying to her with insistence: "It is useless for you to pretend to be apart from me, separate from me. For you belong to me. You are part of me. Your thought is part of my thought, your feeling is part of mine. You are nothing but a drop in me and I am the ocean." Charmian felt as if she were struggling against this attempt of the audience to take possession of her, were fighting to preserve intact her independence, her individuality. But it became almost the business of a nightmare, this strange and unequal struggle in the artistic darkness devised by Crayford. And the audience seemed to be gaining in strength, like an adversary braced up by conflict. Conflict! The word had appeared like a criminal in Charmian's mind. She strove vehemently to banish it. There was, there could be no conflict in such a matter as was now in hand. But, oh! this portentous silence! It came to an end at last. The curtain fell, and applause broke forth. It resembled the applause after the first act. And once more there were three calls for the singers. Then the clapping died away and conversation broke out, spreading over the crowd. Many people got up from their seats and went out or moved about talking with acquaintances. "I can see Mr. Van Brinen," said Charmian. "Can you? Where is he?" Claude got up slowly, picked up the roses and the cablegram from the chair beside Charmian, put them behind him, and took the chair, bringing it forward quite to the front of the box. As he did so Charmian made a sound like a word half-uttered and checked. "Where is he?" Claude repeated. Many people in the stalls were looking at him, were pointing him out. He seemed to ignore the attention fixed upon him. "There!" said Charmian, in a low voice. She pointed with her fan, then leaned back. Claude looked and saw Van Brinen not far off. He was standing up in the stalls, facing the boxes, bending a little and talking to two smartly dressed women. His pale face looked sad. Presently he stood up straight and seemed to look across the intervening heads into Claude's eyes. "He must see me!" Claude thought. "He does see me!"