ll, but--" began Elliot. "Some such accusation has been brought
against many really great men. The Empress Frederick told a friend of
mine that no one who had not lived in Germany, and observed German life
closely, could understand the evil spread through the country by
Wagner's _Tristan_."

"Then the fault, the sin if you like, was in the hearers," said Heath,
almost with excitement.

He got up and stood by the fire.

"Wagner was a builder. I believe Germany is the better for a _Tristan_,
and I believe we should be the better for an English _Tristan_. But I
doubt if we gain essentially by the drama in cap and bells."

Elliot, who was fond of defending his friends, came vigorously to the
defense of the playwright, to whom he was devoted and whose first nights
he seldom missed. In the discussion which followed Charmian saw more
clearly how peculiarly in tune her mother's mind was with Heath's.

"This is the beginning of a great intimacy," she said to herself. "One
of mother's great intimacies."

And, for the first time she consciously envied her mother, consciously
wished that she had her mother's brains, temperament, and unintentional
fascination. The talk went on, and presently she drifted into it, took
her small part in it. But she felt herself too brainless, too ignorant
to be able to contribute to it anything of value. Her usually happy and
innocent self-conceit has deserted her, with all her audacities. She was
oddly subdued, was almost sad.

"How old is he really?" she thought more than once as she looked at
Claude Heath.

There was no mention of music, and at last Mrs. Mansfield got up to go.

As they said good-night she looked at Heath and remarked:

"We shall meet again?"

He clasped her hand, and answered, slightly reddening:

"Oh, I hope so! I do hope so!"

That was all. There was no mention of the Red Book, of being at home on
Thursdays, no "If you're ever near Berkeley Square," etc. All that was
unnecessary. Charmian touched a long-fingered hand and uttered a cold
little "Good-night." A minute more and her mother and she were in the
motor gliding through damp streets in the murky darkness.

After a short silence Mrs. Mansfield said:

"Well, Charmian, you escaped! Are you very thankful?"

"Escaped!" said a rather plaintive voice from the left-hand corner of
the car.

"The dreaded Te Deum."

"Is he a musician at all? I believe Max Elliot has been humbugging us."

"He warned you not to