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Updated: May 1, 2025
Shiffney had always called her Charmian, as she called Mrs. Mansfield Violet. But there had never been even a hint of genuine intimacy between the girl and the married woman, and they seldom met except in society, and then only spoke a few casual and unmeaning words. They had little in common, Charmian supposed, except their mutual knowledge of quantities of people and of a certain social life.
Shiffney thought she was perhaps on the edge of something that might be more amusing than a mere wiping off the slate. Of course Claude Heath and Gillier would be at dinner. It would be rather fun to see Claude's face when she walked in with Henriette and Max Elliot. She got up and stood by the rail; and now she looked down on Claude with intention, willing that he should look up at her.
"Max, why don't you get a guide and take Henriette out to see some dancing? There is dancing only five minutes from here," said Mrs. Shiffney. "Well, but you aren't you coming?" She had exchanged a glance with Henriette. "I must write some letters. If I'm not too long over them perhaps I'll follow you. I can't miss you. All the dancing is in the same street."
That doesn't interest me. I wish to know whether you like her as you don't like me and the King and the crossing-sweeper?" "Charmian Heath and I are good friends. I am interested in her." "In a woman!" "Greatly because she is a woman." "I know you're a suffragette at heart!" They talked a little about politics. When coffee came, Mrs. Shiffney suddenly said: "I'll take you over to Algiers, Susan."
She was so surprised that she stood still by the door, and her whole face was suffused with blood. So much had this woman meant, did she still mean in Charmian's life, that even the habit of the world did not help Charmian to complete self-control at this moment. "I'm afraid our coming has quite startled you," said Mrs. Shiffney. "Didn't Susan tell you we were going to look in?" "Yes, of course.
If Claude had really known all the time that Adelaide Shiffney was coming and had not told her, Charmian! Unreason, which is the offspring of jealousy, filled her mind. She burned with anger. "I know he is in that box with her!" she thought. "And he did not tell me she was coming because he wanted to be with her at the rehearsal and not with me."
Her face and manner had completely changed directly she got out of the motor. She now looked radiant, like one for whom life held nothing but good things. And all the time she and Susan were lunching and talking she preserved a radiant demeanor. Her reward was that everyone said how handsome Adelaide Shiffney was looking.
Now he sat down beside her, crossed one leg over the other, held his knee with his clasped hands, and continued: "The worst of it is Mrs. Shiffney has made him bolt several doors. When she looked at him I could see at once that she made him feel transparent." "Poor thing! Tell me, do you enjoy very much protecting all the sensitive artistic temperaments that come into this room?
Shiffney who began to talk of the libretto?" "Well " "Of course it was! And didn't she pretend to be deeply interested in what you were doing?" Claude flushed. "And didn't she talk of how other artists had trusted her with secrets nobody else knew? And didn't she didn't she " But something in Claude's eyes stopped her as she was going to say "make love to you."
Then she observed: "You know there's something in you that I can't abide, as old dames say." This time Lane really smiled. "I hope so," he said. "Or else I should certainly lack variety. Well, Max, what is it?" "Mrs. Shiffney wants you." "I always want him. I swim in his irony and can't sink, like a tourist in the Dead Sea." "What a left-handed compliment!"
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