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Updated: June 1, 2025
She put down her tea-cup, lit a cigarette, and drew her chair to the rail of the balcony. Claude Heath was sipping his coffee. One long-fingered musical hand lay on his knee. His soft hat was tilted a little forward over the eyes that were watching the crowd. Probably he was thinking about his opera. Mrs. Shiffney was incapable of Henriette's hard and bitter determination.
They consulted together, amicably arranging the menu. The dinner was brought quickly, and they sat down, one on each side of a round table decorated with lilies of the valley. "I'm playing traitress to-night," Mrs. Shiffney said in her deep voice. "I was to have been at a dinner arranged for the Senniers by Mrs. Algernon Batsford." "I am so ashamed." "Or are you a little bit flattered?"
Oh, you're not eating anything!" "I will help myself." "Mrs. Shiffney wouldn't agree with you." "No." "Didn't didn't you see her? She went just before you came." "I saw someone. I thought it might be Adelaide. I wasn't sure." "It was she. I hadn't asked her to come and wasn't expecting her." He stopped, then added abruptly: "It was wonderfully kind of her to come, though.
At that moment he saw the minotaur thing, with its teeth and claws, heard the shuddering voice of it. He wanted to look away at once from Mrs. Shiffney, but he could not. All that he could do was to try not to show by his eyes that he understood her desire and was recoiling from it. Of course, he failed, as any other man must have failed.
"That isn't Jimmy's line" was their restraining thought if they had for a moment contemplated suggesting to Mr. Shiffney that he might perhaps put himself out for a friend. And Jimmy was quite of their opinion, and always stuck to his "line," like a sensible fellow. Two or three days after Mrs. Shiffney's visit to Claude Heath her husband, late one afternoon, found her in tears.
"It will be. Crayford has said so. And that settles it." "What an extraordinary man he is!" "He's a great man!" "Alston!" "Yes, Mrs. Charmian?" "He wouldn't make a great mistake, would he?" "A mistake!" "I mean a huge mistake." "Not he! There goes the curtain at last." "And there's Adelaide Shiffney coming in again. She is going to stay to the end. If only this act goes well!"
Lady Manning had been a feverish traveller and had written several careless and clever books of description. She had died of a fever in Hong-Kong while her husband was in Scotland. Although apparently of an unreserved nature, he had never bemoaned her loss. Mrs. Shiffney had a husband, a lenient man who loved comfort and who was fond of his wife in an altruistic way.
Madame Sennier was standing with Mrs. Shiffney and was also looking down. "Listen to all the voices!" she said. "Nobody but Jacques could ever get this sort of effect into an opera." A huge diligence, painted yellow, green, and red, with an immense hood beneath which crowded Arabs vaguely showed, came slowly down the hill, drawn by seven gray horses.
"Well, but, Max, don't you represent the world in connection with the art of music?" "I! Do I?" he said, suddenly grave. She laughed. "I should think so, mon cher. I don't believe either you or I have a right to talk!" It was a moment of truth, and was followed, as truth often is, by a moment of silence. Then Mrs. Shiffney said: "Claude Heath has gone to Algiers to compose an opera."
Charmian obviously hesitated, saw that any want of frankness would seem extraordinary, and added: "He has gone to Constantine with a friend." Her voice was reluctant. "Do have some tea!" she added quickly, pulling the bell, which Pierre promptly answered with the tea things. "Constantine!" said Mrs. Shiffney. "That's no distance, only a night in the train.
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