"Because I've heard so much about the New York battle from Margot."
"To be sure!"
"What—that little man!"
"Why not?"
"With the tiny beard! It's the tiniest beard I ever saw."
"More brain than beard," said Max Elliot. "I can assure you Mr. Crayford is one of the most energetic, determined, enterprising, and courageous men on either side of the Atlantic. Diabolically clever, too, in his way, but an idealist at heart. Some people in America think that last fact puts him at a disadvantage as a manager. It certainly gives him point and even charm as a man."
"I should like very much to know him," said Charmian. "Of course you know him?"
"Yes."
"Do introduce me to him."
She had seen a faintly doubtful expression flit rapidly across his face, and noticed that Mr. Crayford was already surrounded. Adelaide Shiffney kept him in conversation. Margot Drake stood close to him, and fixed her dark eyes upon him with an expression of still determination. Paul Lane had come up to the group. Three or four well-known singers were converging upon it from different parts of the room. Charmian quite understood. But she thought of the conversation in the studio which marked the beginning of a new epoch in her life with Claude, and she repeated quietly, but with determination: