t we should. The English talent is
not for opera. The Te Deum, the cathedral service, the oratorio in one
form or another, in fact the thing with a sacred basis, that is where
the English strength lies. It is in the blood. But opera!" Her shoulders
went up. "Ah, here they come! Jacques, my cabbage, you are to be petted
for the last time! Here are your syrups."

Jacques Sennier came, almost running.

"Did they ever nearly starve?" Charmian asked Mrs. Shiffney, when for a
moment the attention of all the others was distracted from her by some
wild joke of the composer's.

"Henriette thinks so, I believe. Perhaps that is why Jacques is eating
all your biscuits now."

When the moment of parting came Jaques Sennier was almost in tears. He
insisted on going into the kitchen to say farewell to "la grande
Jeanne." He took Pierre in his arms, solemnly blessed Caroline, and
warmly pressed his lips to Charmian's hands as he held them, squeezed
one on the top of the other, in both his own.

"I shall dedicate my new opera to you and to your syrups!" he exclaimed.
"To the greengage, ah, and the passion-flowers! Max, you old person,
have you seen them, or have you not? The wonderful Washington was not
more truthful than I."

His eyes twinkled.

"Were it not that I am a physical coward, I would not go even now. But
to die because a man who cannot write has practised on soda-water
bottles! I fly before Armand Gillier. But, madame, I fear your
respectable husband is even more cowardly than I!"

"Why?" said Charmian, at length releasing her hands from his Simian
grasp.

"He accepted a libretto!"

When they were gone Charmian was suddenly overcome by a sense of
profound depression such as she had never felt before. With them seemed
to go a world; and it was a world that some part of her loved and longed
for. Sennier stood for fame, for success; his wife for the glory of the
woman who aids and is crowned; Mrs. Shiffney and Max Elliot for the joy
and the power that belong to great patrons of the arts. An immense
vitality went away with them all. So long as they were with her the
little Arab house, the little African garden, had stood in the center of
things, in the heart of vital things. The two women had troubled
Charmian. Madame Sennier had almost frightened her. Yet something in
both of them fascinated, must always fascinate such a mind and
temperament as hers. They meant so much to the men who were known. And
they had made t