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Updated: May 7, 2025
Claude looked from Gillier to his wife. "You were smoking?" he said, glancing at the tray. "Won't you have another cigarette?" "Merci!" "Anyhow, I will." He picked up the cigarette box. "We haven't seen you for a long while." He lit a cigarette. "Aren't you going to sit down?" After a pause Gillier sat down. His eyes were fixed on Claude. "I am glad you have come," he said.
It seemed that his eyes had put a great question to her, and now her voice had answered it. Claude turned to Armand Gillier. "Monsieur," he said, "you can't have your libretto back. It's mine, and I'm going to keep it." When Gillier was gone Charmian said, almost in a faltering voice, and with none of her usual self-possession of manner: "How how could you bear that man's insults as you did?"
She could not conceive of herself deprived of them, of her life without them. Early in the New Year the Heaths received a visit from Armand Gillier, the writer of Claude's libretto. He had come over from Paris to see his family, who lived at St. Eugene. Charmian had met him in Paris, but Claude had never seen him, though he had corresponded with him, and sent him a cheque of £100 for his work.
But Gillier isn't a very delicate person, and he made comments before Miss Mardon, Crayford, and several of the company, before scene-shifters and stage carpenters, too. What he said was true enough. But it wasn't pleasant to hear it in such company." He came away from the piano, turned his back on her for a moment, and walked toward the farther wall of the room.
Charmian had become so exultant on noticing this that she had been unable to refrain from saying to Gillier, "Do you begin to believe in it?" As she sat now waiting for Susan she remembered his answer, "Madame, if the whole opera goes like that scene well!" He had finished with a characteristic gesture, throwing out his strong hands and smiling at her. She almost felt as if she liked Gillier.
Charmian interrupted him. She was almost trembling with anger and excitement, but she managed to speak quietly. "No, madame." "You have asked me a question " "I have asked no question, madame!" "Do you mean to say you are not asking me if we will resell the libretto?" Gillier was silent. "My answer is that the libretto is our property and that we intend to keep it.
He knew little of music, but in the scene rehearsed Claude had introduced a clever imitation, if not an exact reproduction, of the songs of Said Hitani and his companions. This had aroused the enthusiasm of Gillier, who had a curious love of the country where he had spent the wild years of his youth. It had been evident both to Charmian and to Claude that he began to have great hopes of the opera.
She discussed the singers, showing her usual half-slipshod discrimination, dropping here and there criticisms full of acuteness. "Altogether," she concluded, "it has been a most interesting and unusual evening. Ah, there is Monsieur Gillier!" Gillier came up and received congratulations. His expression was very strange. It seemed to combine something that was morose with a sort of exultation.
What can Miss Mardon mean by those frantic gesticulations, now by turning her back on Mr. Crayford and Claude? If only people " Meroni left the stage. In a moment the orchestra sounded once more. Charmian turned round instinctively for sympathy to Armand Gillier, and caught an unpleasant look in his large eyes. Instantly she was on the defensive.
He took Mrs. Shiffney's hand. Its clasp now told him nothing. They crossed the bridge and came once more into the violent activities, into the perpetual uproar of the city. By the evening train Mrs. Shiffney and her party left for Algiers. Claude went down to the station to see them off. On the platform they found Armand Gillier, with a bunch of flowers in his hand.
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