"It is true. Your talent and mine are not fitted to be joined together, and you are artist enough to know it as well as I do. I haven't heard your music; but I can tell. I may be poor, I may be unknown—that doesn't matter! I've got the instinct that doesn't lie, can't lie. If I had known you as I do now, before I had sold my libretto, you never should have had it, even if you had offered me five hundred pounds instead of a hundred, and nobody else would have looked at it. With your temperament, with your way of thinking, you'll never make a success of it—never! I tell you that—I who am speaking to you!"
The veins in his temples swelled, and he frowned.
"Give me back my libretto and take back your money! Let me have my chance of success. Madame—she is hard! She cares nothing! But—"
"Monsieur, I must ask you to leave my wife's name out," said Claude.
And for the first time since he had come into the room he spoke with stern determination.
He had become very pale, and now looked strangely moved.
"I won't have her name brought in," he added. "This is my affair."
"Very well! Will you let me buy back my libretto?"
Charmian expected an instant stern refusal from her husband. But after Gillier's question there was a prolonged pause. She wanted to break it, to answer fiercely for Claude; but she did not dare to. For a moment something in her husband's look and manner dominated her. For a moment she was in subjection. She sat still staring at Claude, waiting for him to speak. He sat looking down, and it seemed to her as if he were wrestling as Jacob wrestled with the angel. His white forehead drew her eyes. She was filled with fear; but when he looked up at her the fear grew. She felt almost sick—sick with apprehension.
"Claude!" she said. "Oh, Claude!"