opera.

Jacques Sennier and his wife, fresh from their triumphs in America, had
come to London again in June. The _Paradis Terrestre_ had been revived
at Covent Garden, and its success had been even greater than before.

"Claude, you've simply got to write an opera!" Lake had said one night
in his studio.

Charmian, Claude, and he had all been at Covent Garden that night, and
had dropped in, as they sometimes did, at the studio to spend an hour on
their way home. Lake loved the studio, and if there were any question of
his going either there or to the house in Kensington, he always "plumped
for the studio." They "sat around" now, eating sandwiches and drinking
lemonade and whisky-and-soda, and discussing the events of the evening.

"I couldn't possibly write an opera," Claude said.

"Why not?"

"I have no bent toward the theater."

Alston Lake, who was long-limbed, very blond, clean-shaved, with gray
eyes, extraordinarily smooth yellow hair, and short, determined and
rather blunt features, stretched out one large hand to the cigar-box,
and glanced at Charmian.

"What is your bent toward?" he said, in his strong and ringing baritone
voice.

Claude's forehead puckered, and the sudden distressed look, which Mrs.
Mansfield had sometimes noticed, came into his eyes.

"Well--" he began, in a hesitating voice. "I hardly know--now."

"Now, old chap?"

"I mean I hardly know."

"Then for all you can tell it may be toward opera?" said Alston
triumphantly.

Charmian touched the wreath of green leaves which shone in her dark
hair. Her face had grown more decisive of late. She looked perhaps more
definitely handsome, but she looked just a little bit harder. She
glanced at her husband, glanced away, and lit a cigarette. That evening
she had again seen Madame Sennier, had noticed, with a woman's almost
miraculous sharpness, the crescendo in the Frenchwoman's formerly
dominant personality. She puffed out a tiny ring of pale smoke and said
nothing. It seemed to her that Alston was doing work for her.

"I don't think it is," Claude said, after a pause. "I'm twenty-nine, and
up to now I've never felt impelled to write anything operatic."

"That's probably because you haven't been in the way of meeting
managers, opera singers, and conductors. Every man wants the match that
fires him."

"That's just what I think," said Charmian.

Claude smiled. In the recent days he had heard so much talk about music
and musicians. A