armian eagerly acted as cicerone. That
spoiled things sometimes for Claude, but he did not care to say so to
his wife. So he sent that secret to join the many secrets which,
carefully kept from her, combined to make a sort of subterranean life
running its course in the darkness of his soul.

In addition to being a cicerone Charmian was a woman full of purpose.
And she was seldom able, perhaps indeed she feared, to forget this. The
phantom of Madame Sennier, white-faced, red-haired, determined, haunted
her. She and Claude were not as other people, who had come from England
or elsewhere to Algiers. They had an "object." They must not waste their
time. Claude was to be "steeped" in the atmosphere necessary for the
production of his Algerian opera. Almost a little anxiously, certainly
with a definiteness rather destructive, Charmian began the process of
"steeping" her husband.

She thought that she concealed her intention from Claude. She had
sufficient knowledge of his character to realize that he might be
worried if he thought that he was being taken too firmly in hand. She
honestly wished to be delicate with him, even to be very subtle. But she
was so keenly, so incessantly alive to the reason of their coming to
Africa, she was so determined that success should result from their
coming, that purpose, as it were, oozed out of her. And Claude was
sensitive. He felt it like a cloud gathering about him, involving him to
his detriment. Sometimes he was on the edge of speaking of it to
Charmian. Sometimes he was tempted to break violently away from all his
precautions, to burst out from secrecy, and to liberate his soul.

But a voice within him held him back. It whispered: "It is too late now.
You should have done it long ago when you were first married, when first
she began to assert herself in your art life."

And he kept silence.

Perhaps if he had been thoroughly convinced of the nature of Charmian's
love for him, he would even now have spoken. But he could not banish
from him grievous doubts as to the quality of her affection.

She devoted herself to him. She was concentrated upon him, too
concentrated for his peace. She was ready to give up things for him, as
she had just given up her life and her friends in England. But why? Was
it because she loved him, the man? Or was there another--a not
completely hidden reason?

Charmian and he went together to see the little island. The owner of the
garden in which it stoo