Although he was a native of Suffolk, and had only spent a year in Germany, he succeeded in looking almost exactly like a German student. Rather large and bulky, he had a quite hairless face, very fair, with Teutonic features, and a high forehead, above which the pale hair of his head was cropped like the coat of a newly singed horse. His eyes were pale blue, introspective and romantic. At the back of his neck, just above his low collar, appeared a neat little roll of white flesh. Charmian thought he looked as if he had once, consenting, been gently boiled. A flowing blue tie, freely peppered with ample white spots, gave a Bohemian touch to his pleasant and innocent appearance. He was dressed for cool weather in England, and wore boots with square toes and elastic sides.
In his special line he was a man of extraordinary talent.
He had intended to be a composer, but had little faculty for original work. His knowledge of composition, nevertheless, was enormous, and he was the best orchestral "coach" in England.
His heart was in his work. His devotion to a clever pupil knew no limits. And he considered Claude the cleverest pupil he had ever taught.
Charmian, therefore, accepted him with enthusiasm—boots, tie, little roll of white flesh, the whole of him.
He settled down with them in Mustapha, once he had been conveyed into the house, as comfortably as a cat in front of whom, with every tender precaution, has been placed a bowl of rich milk. In a couple of days it seemed as if he had always been there.
Charmian did not see very much of him. The two men toiled with diligence despite the great heat which lay over the land. They began early in the morning before the sun was high, rested and slept in the middle of the day, resumed work about five, and, with an interval for dinner, went on till late in the night.
The English Colony had long since broken up. Only the British Vice-Consul and his wife remained, and they lived a good way out in the country. Since May few people had come to disturb the peace of Djenan-el-Maqui. Charmian dwelt in a strange and sun-smitten isolation. She was very much alone. Only now and then some French acquaintance would call to see her and sit with her for a little while at evening in the garden, or in the courtyard of the fountain.
The beauty, the fierce romance of this land, sometimes excited her spirit. Sometimes, with fiery hands, it lulled her into a condition almost of apathy. She listened to the fountain, she looked at the sea which was always blue, and she felt almost as if some part of her nature had fallen away from her, leaving her vague and fragmentary, a Charmian lacking some virtue, or vice, that had formerly been hers and had made her salient. But this apathy did not last long. The sound of Jernington's strangely German voice talking loudly above would disturb it, perhaps, or the noise of chords or passages powerfully struck upon the piano. And immediately the child was with her again, she was busy thinking, planning, hoping, longing, concentrated on the future of the child.
She had studied the libretto minutely, had practised reading it aloud. It was of course written in French, and she found a clever woman, retired from a theatrical career in Paris, Madame Thénant, who gave her lessons in elocution, and who finally said that she read the libretto "assez bien." This from Madame Thénant, who had played Dowagers at the Comédie Francaise, was a high compliment. Charmian felt that she was ready to make an effect on Jacob Crayford. She was in active correspondence with Alston Lake, who was still in London, and who had had greater success than before. From him she knew that Crayford was in town, and would take his usual "cure" in August at Divonne-les-Bains. Lake had "begun upon him" warily, but had not yet even hinted at the visit to Africa. After his "cure" Crayford proposed making a motor tour. He thought nothing of running all over Europe in his car. Lake was going presently to speak of the perfect surfaces of the Algerian roads, "the best way perhaps of getting him to go to Algeria." He still wanted operas "badly," and had asked after the Heaths directly he arrived in London. Lake had replied that Claude was finishing off an opera. Was he? Where? Alston had evaded the question, giving the impression that Claude wished to remain hidden away. Thereupon Crayford had asked after Charmian, and had been informed that of course she was with her husband. Turtle doves, eh? Crayford had dropped the subject, but had eventually returned to it again in a casual way. Had Lake heard the opera? Some of it. Did it seem any good? Lake had not expressed an opinion. He had shrewdly made rather a mystery of the whole thing. This, as he expected, had put Crayford on the alert. Since the success of Jacques Sennier he saw the hand of his rival, "The Metropolitan," everywhere, like the giant hand of one of the great Trusts. Lake's air of mystery had evidently made him suspect that Claude had some reason for keeping away and making a sort of secret of what he was doing. Finally he had inquired point blank whether any one was "after young Heath's opera." Lake could not say anything as to that. "Why don't he write in Europe anyway, where folk could get at him if they wanted to?" had been the next question. Lake's answer had rather indicated that the composer was very glad to have a good stretch of ocean between himself and any "folk" who might want to get at him.