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There was a crowd in Grosvenor Square. A good many people were still abroad, but there were enough in London to fill Mrs. Shiffney's drawing-rooms. And notorieties, beauties, and those mysterious nobodies who "go everywhere" until they almost succeed in becoming somebodies, were to be seen on every side. Charmian perceived at once that this was one of Adelaide's non-exclusive parties. Mrs.
Shiffney separated from the Heaths that day without speaking of the "libretto-scandal," as the papers now called the invention of Madame Sennier. They parted apparently on cordial terms. And Mrs. Shiffney's last words were: "I'm coming to see you one day in your eyrie at the Saint Regis. I take no sides where art is in question, and I want both the operas to be brilliant successes."
"There are not many parts of the civilized world in which his name will be unknown in four days from now," said Paul Lane, "or even in twenty-four hours. I'm going to meet him and his wife at supper at Adelaide Shiffney's, so I must say good-night oh, and good-night, Mr. Heath." Oh and good-night, Mr. Heath. Claude had walked all the way home alone slowly.
And more than ever she wanted to tell Miss Fleet. In self-restraint she became violently excited. Often she felt on the verge of tears. And at last, very suddenly and without premeditation, she spoke. They were visiting "Djenan el Ali," the lovely villa of an acquaintance of Mrs. Shiffney's who was away in Europe.
"How quietly you take it!" "We're in for it. It would be no use to lose one's head." "No, of course! But oh, what a fight it is. I can scarcely believe that in a few days it must be over, that we shall know!" "Here's the coffee. Drink it up." She drank it. They went down in the lift. As they parted for Claude had to go to Meroni Charmian said: "Adelaide Shiffney's still here."
They were in Kensington by ten o'clock that night. Charmian was in high spirits. A strong hope was dawning in her. Already she felt almost like a collaborator with Claude. "Don't let us go to bed!" she exclaimed. "Let us dress and go to Adelaide Shiffney's." "Very well," replied Claude. "By the way, what were you going to tell me about her?" "Oh, nothing!" she said. And they went up to dress.
He recalled her words, "Poor Charmian Mansfield! Whom can I get for her?" Had he been asked on Charmian's account? That seemed to him very absurd. She certainly disliked him. They were not en rapport. In the yacht they would be thrown together incessantly. He thought of the expression in Mrs. Shiffney's eyes and felt positive that she had pressed him to come for herself.
Now, as he lay in his narrow berth in the wagon-lit jolting toward Constantine, he read some of Adelaide Shiffney's prose. Faintly, for the train was noisy, he heard voices in the next compartment, where Mrs. Shiffney and Madame Sennier were talking in their berths. Mrs. Shiffney was in the top berth. That fact gave the measure of Madame Sennier's iron will.
"And ever since then I've been partly very glad." "But only partly?" "Yes, because I've always had an instinctive dread of getting drawn in." "To the current of our modern art life. I'm sure you mean that." "I do. And of course Elliot is in the thick of it. Mrs. Shiffney's in it, and all her lot, which I don't know. And that fellow Lane is in it too." "And I suppose I am in it with Charmian."
After an instant of delay, caused by this woman's footman, who spoke to her at the window, the car moved off and disappeared rapidly in the gathering darkness. "Was that Adelaide?" Mrs. Mansfield asked herself as she got out. She was not certain, but she thought the passing figure had looked like Mrs. Shiffney's.
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