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Updated: May 7, 2025
The power of Gillier's libretto culminated in the last act, which was short, fierce, concentrated, and highly dramatic. In it Enid Mardon had a big acting chance. She and Gillier had become great allies, on account of her admiration of his libretto. Gillier, who had been with her many times during the night, now slipped into the front row of the stalls to watch his divinity.
On a table near stood a gilded basket of tulips, left by Gillier with a formal note. The elderly German waiter, who looked like a very respectable butler, placed a menu beside the lilies and the heather soon after the clock struck twelve. Then he glanced at the clock, compared it with his silver watch, and retired to see that the champagne was being properly iced.
"I wonder when he will begin to suspect it?" "Men have to take their time over things like that," remarked Henriette. "What hideous flowers these are! I think I shall throw them out of the window." "No, don't!" "Why not?" "They are a symbol of your reconciliation with Armand Gillier." "He isn't altogether a fool, I fancy," remarked Henriette, laying Gillier's bouquet down on the seat beside her.
"If I were satisfied I would see that you got it." There was a long silence, during which they looked at each other. Gillier was puzzled. He did not believe Claude Heath had shown the libretto to her. Yet she was surely prompted now by some very definite purpose. He could not guess what it was. At last he looked down at the paper he was folding mechanically.
His manner was self-reliant, almost determined. He went to the piano, sat down, and played the scene Gillier had liked so much, the scene in which some of Said Hitani's curious songs were reproduced. The two journalists were evidently delighted. "That's new!" said Van Brinen. "Nothing like that has ever been heard here before. It brings a breath of the East to Broadway."
Gillier looked hard at Claude, and Charmian thought she detected admiration in his eyes. "Men need to be cool when the critical moment is at hand," he remarked. "I learned that long ago in Algeria." "Then you are not nervous now?" "Nerves are for women!" he returned. But the expression in his face belied his words. "Claude is cooler than he is!" Charmian thought.
"It's the bulliest thing there's been in New York in years!" he exclaimed, as he went to his dressing-room, where he found Claude, who had been sitting in the orchestra, and who had now hurried round to ask the singers how they felt in their parts. Gillier was with Miss Mardon, at whose feet he was laying his homage. Meanwhile Charmian was still quite alone.
Shiffney and Claude left the room Gillier bowed with very formal politeness. The door shut. After a pause Gillier said: "You go away to-night, madame?" She had been awake most of the previous night, with jealous care studying the libretto Gillier had sold to Claude, which had been put into her hands by Mrs. Shiffney. At once she had recognized its unusual merit.
Claude, who was already standing up, hurried away toward the entrance and disappeared. Charmian sat biting her lips and tingling all over in an acute exasperation of the nerves. Behind her Armand Gillier sat in silence. Claude joined the people on the stage, and there was a long colloquy in which eventually Meroni, the conductor, took part.
She looked hard at this short, brusque, and rather violent young man. Armand Gillier must help Claude to bridge that gulf. "Take another cigarette. I'll tell you about my husband," she said. Mrs. Shiffney, who was perpetually changing her mind in the chase after happiness, changed it about India.
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