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And she resented it still more when Madame Sennier replied: "I wanted you to choose the lower bed, but I thought you preferred being where you are." Mrs. Shiffney made no reply, but turned carefully over till she was looking at the wall. "Why do I do things for this woman?" was her thought. She had told herself more than once that she was travelling to Constantine for Henriette.
Did Adelaide, with her piercing and clever eyes, see more clearly into Heath's nature than Mrs. Mansfield could? Mrs. Shiffney had an extraordinary capacity for getting what she wanted. The hidden tragedy of her existence was that she was never satisfied with what she got.
Every reserved seat in the house was sold for Claude's first night. Crayford stepped on air. In the afternoon of the day of production, when Charmian and Claude, shut up in their apartment at the St. Regis, and denied to all visitors, were trying to rest, and were pretending to be quite calm, a note was brought in from Mrs. Shiffney.
And she began to look up to him in a new way, but with the worldly eyes, not with the mild or the passionate eyes of the spirit. Others, too, were impressed by the change in Claude. After the luncheon at Sherry's Mrs. Shiffney said, with a sort of reluctance, to Charmian: "The air of America seems to agree with your composer.
He did not come toward the hotel, but turned up the street leading to the Governor's palace and disappeared. Mrs. Shiffney noticed an Arab in a blue jacket and a white burnous, who joined him as he left the café. "Local color, I suppose," she murmured to herself. She wished she could go off like that in the strange and violent crowd, could be quite independent.
Shiffney wanted to hold hands with the composer himself. She had "no use" at the moment for anyone else, and had already arranged to take the Senniers on a yachting cruise after the London season, beginning with Cowes. The "feelers" which Charmian put out found the atmosphere rather chilly.
"I have a right to be specially interested since that evening with Said Hitani. And then I have been privileged. I have read the libretto." As she spoke Claude was conscious of uneasiness. He thought of Charmian, of Mrs. Shiffney, of the libretto.
In such crises she generally sent for Susan Fleet, if the theosophist were within reach. She now decided to telegraph to Folkestone, where Susan was staying in lodgings not far from the house of dear old Mrs. Simpkins. Susan replied that she would come up on the following day, and she duly arrived just before the hour of lunch. She found Mrs. Shiffney dressed to go out.
I I went round to Madame Sennier's box with Claude Adelaide Shiffney and Armand Gillier were in it! and congratulated her. Madre, we faced the music." Her voice quivered slightly. Mrs. Mansfield impulsively took her child's hands and held them. "We faced the music. Claude is strong. I never knew what he was before. Without that tremendous failure I never should have known him. He helped me.
He might miss her if she were hidden away in the shadow like a poltroon. She drew her hand away from Susan's, got up, and took her place alone in the front of the box, in sight of all the people in the stalls, in sight also of Mrs. Shiffney and Madame Sennier. Susan remained where she was. She felt that Charmian needed to be alone just then. She liked her for the impulse which she had divined.
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