ford. "No man
can do more. And very few men know the way to do as much. Are you
interested in music?"

"Intensely."

She paused, looking at the little man before her. She was hesitating
whether to tell him that she had married a musician or to refrain.
Something told her to refrain, and she added:

"I've always lived among musical people and heard the best of
everything."

"Well, opera's the only thing nowadays, the only really big proposition.
And it's going to be a bigger proposition than most people dream of."

His eyes flashed.

"Wait till I build an opera house in London, something better than that
old barn of yours over against the Police Station."

"Are you going to build an opera house here?"

"Why not? But I've got to find some composers. They're somewhere about.
Bound to be. The thing is to find them. It was a mere chance Sennier
coming up. If he hadn't married his wife he'd be starving at this
minute, and I'd be licking the Metropolitan into a cocked hat."

Charmian longed to put her hand on the little man's arm and to say:

"I've married a musician, I've married a genius. Take him up. Give him
his chance."

But she looked at those big brown eyes which confronted her under the
twitching eyebrows. And now that the flash was gone she saw in them the
soul of the business man. Claude was not a "business proposition." It
was useless to speak of him yet.

"I hope you'll find your composer," she said quietly, almost with a
dainty indifference.

Then someone came up and claimed Crayford with determination.

"That's a pretty girl," he remarked. "Is she married? I didn't catch her
name."

"Oh, yes, she's married to an unknown man who composes."

"The devil she is!"

The lips above the tiny beard stretched in a smile that was rather
sardonic.

Before going away Charmian wanted to have a little talk with Susan
Fleet, who was helping Mrs. Shiffney with the "fuzzywuzzies." She found
her at length standing before a buffet, and entertaining a very thin and
angular woman, dressed in black, with scarlet flowers growing out of her
toilet in various unexpected places. Miss Fleet welcomed Charmian with
her usual unimpassioned directness, and introduced her quietly to Miss
Gretch, as her companion was called, surprisingly.

Miss Gretch, who was drinking claret cup, and eating little rolls which
contained hidden treasure of pate de foie gras, bowed and smiled with
anxious intensity, then abruptly became un