everything.
How did you hear of him?"

"The Adelaide has been talking about him. She says he's a genius who
hates the evil world, and will only know her and your mother, and that
he's going with her and you and Max Elliot to the Greek Isles on one
condition--that nobody else is to be asked and that he is to be
introduced to no one. If it's really the Greek Isles, I think I ought to
be taken. I told the Adelaide so, but she said Claude Heath would rather
die than have a girl like me with him on the yacht."

"So he really has accepted?"

"Evidently. Now you don't look pleased."

"Mr. Heath's Madretta's friend, not mine," said Charmian.

"Really? Then your mother should go to Greece. Why did the Adelaide ask
you?"

"I can't imagine."

"Now, Charmian!"

"I assure you, Margot, I was amazed at being asked."

"But you accepted."

"I wanted to get out of this weather."

"With a Cornish genius?"

"Mr. Heath only looks at middle-aged married women," said Charmian. "I
think he has a horror of girls. He and I don't get on at all."

"What is he like?"

"Plain and gaunt."

"Is his music really so wonderful?"

"I've never heard a note of it."

"Hasn't your mother?"

With difficulty Charmian kept a displeased look out of her face as she
answered sweetly:

"Once, I think. But she has said very little about it."

At this moment the tragic mask of Miss Deans was seen in a doorway, and
Margot got up quickly.

"There's that darling Millie from Paris!"

"Who? Where?"

"Millie Deans, the only real actress on the operatic stage. Until you've
seen her in _Crepe de Chine_ you've never seen opera as it ought to be.
Millie! Millie!"

She went rather aggressively toward Miss Deans, forgetting her calm gown
for the moment.

So Claude Heath had accepted. Charmian concluded this from Margot
Drake's remarks. No doubt Mrs. Shiffney had received his answer that
day. She loved giving people the impression that she was adventurous and
knew strange and wonderful beings who wouldn't know anyone else. So she
had not been able to keep silence about Claude Heath and the Greek
Isles. Charmian's heart bounded. The peculiar singing of Ferdinand
Rades, which had upon hearers much of the effect made upon readers by
the books of Pierre Loti, had excited and quickened her imagination.
Secretly Charmian was romantic, though she seldom seemed so. She longed
after wonders, and was dissatisfied with the usual. Yet she was capable
of e