On the following day she received a note from Alston.
"Dear Mrs. Charmian,—You are a wonder. No one on earth could have managed him better. You might have known him from the cradle—yours, of course, not his! I'm taking him around to-day. He wants to go to Djenan-el-Maqui, I can see that. But I'm keeping him off it. Lie low and mum's the word as to Claude.—Your fellow conspirator,
"Alston."
It was difficult to "lie low." But she obeyed and spent the long day alone. No one came to see her. Toward evening she felt deserted, presently even strangely depressed. As she dined, as she sat out afterward in the court with Caroline reposing on her skirt in a curved attitude of supreme contentment, she recalled the excitement and emotion of the preceding night. She had read well. She had done her part for Claude. But if all her work had been useless? If all the ingenuity of herself and Alston should be of no avail? If the opera should never be produced, or should be produced and fail? Perhaps for the first time she strongly and deliberately imagined that catastrophe. For so long now had the opera been the thing that ruled in her life with Claude, for so long had everything centered round it, been subservient to it, that Charmian could scarcely conceive of life without it. She would be quite alone with Claude. Now they were a ménage à trois. She recalled the beginnings of her married life. How fussy, how anxious, how unstable they had been! Now the current flowed strongly, steadily, evenly. The river seemed to have a soul, to know whither it was flowing.
Surely so much thought, care, labor and love could not be bestowed on a thing in vain; surely the opera, child of so many hopes, bearer of such a load of ambition, could not "go down"? She tried to regain her strength of anticipation. But all the evening she felt depressed. If only Alston would come in for five minutes! Perhaps he would. She looked at the tiny watch which hung by her side at the end of a thin gold chain. The hands pointed to half-past nine. He might come yet. She listened. The night, one of a long succession of marvellous African nights, was perfectly still. The servants within the villa made no sound. Caroline heaved a faint sigh and stirred, turning to push her long nose into a tempting fold of Charmian's skirt. But, midway in her movement she paused, lifted her head, stared at the darkness with her small yellow eyes, and uttered a muffled bark which was like an inquiry. Her nose was twitching.
"What is it, Caroline?" said Charmian.
She lifted the dog on to her knees.
"What is it?"
Caroline barked faintly again.
"Someone is coming," thought Charmian. "Alston is coming."