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"Crayford's very clever at discovering singers." "Almost too clever for the Metropolitan, eh?" "Enid Mardon looks wonderful." Silence fell upon them again. The dressmaker had got up from her seat and slipped away into the darkness, after examining Enid Mardon's costume for two or three minutes through a small but powerful opera-glass. Charmian was now quite alone.
He did not merely catalogue a disconnected string of excellences, but he seemed to plant himself in the central point of Mardon's nature, and to see from what it radiated.
The second supply of whiskies was brought into the Lounge by Mr. Mardon's Marie. He smiled on her familiarly, and remarked that he supposed she would soon be going to bed after a hard day's work. She gave a moue and a flounce in reply, and swished out. "Carries herself well, doesn't she?" observed Mr. Mardon, as though Marie had been an exhibit at an agricultural show.
The second act came to an end without another breakdown, but Charmian felt more doubtful about the opera than she had felt after the first act. The deadness of rehearsal began to creep upon her, almost like moss creeping over a building. Claude hurried away again. And Mrs. Haynes, the dressmaker, took his place and began telling Charmian a long story about Enid Mardon's impossible proceedings.
Mardon's vulgar inquisitiveness, such inquisitiveness as might have been expected from a fellow who tucked his serviette under his chin. Peel-Swynnerton knew exactly how long he would stay. He would stay until the day after the morrow; he had only about fifty francs in his pocket.
"Really Miss Mardon's impossible!" Charmian was saying a moment later to Alston Lake. "Why, Mrs. Charmian?" "Oh, I don't know! She always looks on the dark side." "With eyes like hers what else can she do? Isn't it going stunningly?" "Alston, I must tell you you're an absolute darling!" She nearly kissed him. A bell sounded. "Third act!" exclaimed Alston, in his resounding baritone.
Mardon knew it. Mr. Mardon's heart leapt. He saw in his imagination the formation of the preliminary syndicate, with himself at its head, and then the re-sale by the syndicate to a limited company at a profit. He saw a nice little profit for his own private personal self of a thousand or so gained in a moment. The plant, his hope, which he had deemed dead, blossomed with miraculous suddenness.
When I had been lying alone and awake at night, I had thought of all the endless miles of hill and valley that lay outside my window, separating me from the one house in which I could be at peace; and at times I scarcely prevented myself from getting up and taking the mail train and presenting myself at Mardon's door, braving all consequences.
Those may call it cowardice to whom all associations are nothing, and to whom beliefs are no more than matters of indifferent research; but as for me, Mardon's talk darkened my days and nights. I never could understand the light manner in which people will discuss the gravest questions, such as God and the immortality of the soul.
"Enid Mardon's perfect," continued Mrs. Shiffney. "She will make a sensation. And the mise-en-scène is really exquisite, not overloaded. Crayford has evidently learnt something from Berlin." "How malicious Adelaide is!" thought Charmian. "She won't speak of the music simply because she knows I only care about that."
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