"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?"