The Way of Ambition

by Robert Hichens

Often during these days of fierce preparation she was separated from Claude. He had innumerable things to do connected with the production. Charmian haunted the opera house, but was seldom actually with Claude there, though she often saw him on the stage or in the orchestra, heard him discussing points concerning his work. And Claude was very often away, when rehearsals did not demand his attention, visiting the singers who were to appear in the opera, going through their rôles with them, trying to imbue them with his exact meaning. Charmian meanwhile was with some of the many friends she had made in New York.

Thus it happened that Claude was able to meet Mrs. Shiffney several times without Charmian's knowledge.

It was an understood thing—and Charmian knew this—that Mrs. Shiffney was to come to the first full rehearsal of the opera. The verdict in advance was to be given and taken. Mrs. Shiffney had called once at the St. Regis, when Claude was out, and had sat for ten minutes with Charmian. And Charmian had called upon her at the Ritz-Carlton and had not found her. Here matters had ended in connection with "Adelaide," so far as Charmian knew. Mrs. Shiffney had multitudes of friends in New York, and was always rushing about. It never occurred to Charmian that she had any time to give to Claude, or that Claude had any time to give to her. But Mrs. Shiffney always found time to do anything she really cared to do. And just now she cared to meet Claude.

Long ago in London, when he was very genuine, she had been attracted by him. Now, in New York, when he was dressed up in motley, with painted face and eyes that strove, though sometimes in vain, to be false, he fascinated her. The new Claude, harder, more dominant, secretly unhappy, feverish with a burning excitement of soul and brain, appealed to this woman who loved all that was strange, exotic, who hated and despised the commonplace, and who lived on excitement.

She threw out one or two lures for Claude, and he, who in London had refused her invitations, in New York accepted them. Why did he do this? Because he had flung away his real self, because he was secretly angry with, hated the self to which he was giving the rein, because he, too, during this period was living on excitement, because he longed sometimes, with a cruel longing, to raise up a barrier between himself and Charmian.

And perhaps there were other reasons that only a physician could have explained, reasons connected with tired and irritated nerves, with a brain upon which an unnatural strain had been put. The overworked man of talent sometimes is confronted with strange figures making strange demands upon him. Claude knew these figures now.

He had always been aware of fascination in Mrs. Shiffney. Now he let himself go toward this fascination. He had always, too, felt what he had called the minotaur-thing in her, the creature with teeth and claws fastening upon pleasure. Now he was ready to be with the minotaur-thing. For something within him, that was intimately connected with whatever he had of genius, murmured incessantly, "To-morrow I die!" And he wanted, at any cost, to dull the sound of that voice. Why should not he let his monster fasten on pleasure too? The situation was full of a piquancy which delighted Mrs. Shiffney. She was "on the other side," and was now preparing to make love in the enemy's camp. Nothing pleased her more than to mingle art with love, linking the intelligence of her brain with the emotion, such as it was, of her thoroughly pagan heart. And the feeling that she was a sort of traitress to her beloved Jacques and Henriette was quite enchanting. One thing more gave a very feminine zest to her pursuit—the thought of Charmian, who knew nothing about it, but who, no doubt, would know some day. She rejoiced in intrigue, loved a secret that would eventually be hinted at, if not actually told, and revelled in proving her power on a man who, in his unknown days, had resisted it, and who now that he was on the eve, perhaps, of a wide fame, seemed ready to succumb to it. There were even moments when she found herself wishing for the success of Claude's opera, despite her active dislike of Charmian. It would really be such fun to take Claude away from that silly Charmian creature in the very hour of a triumph. Yet she did not wish to see Charmian even the neglected wife of a great celebrity. Her feelings were rather complex. But she had always been at home with complexity.

She managed to get rid of Susan Fleet, by persuading her to visit some friends of Susan who lived in Washington. Then it was easy enough to see Claude quietly, in her apartment at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and elsewhere. Mrs. Shiffney was a past mistress of what she called "playing about." Claude recognized this, and had a glimpse into a life strangely different from his own, an almost intimate glimpse which both interested and disgusted him.

In his determination to grasp at the blatant thing, the big success, a determination that pushed him almost inevitably into a certain extravagance of conduct, because it was foreign to his innermost nature, Claude gave himself to the vulgar vanity of the male. He was out here to conquer. Why not conquer Mrs. Shiffney? To do that would be scarcely more spurious than to win with a "made over" opera.

He kept secret assignations, which were not openly supposed to be secret by either Mrs. Shiffney or himself. For Mrs. Shiffney was leading him gently, savoring nuances, while he was feeling blatant, though saved by his breeding from showing it. They had some charming, some almost exciting talks, full of innuendo, of veiled allusions to personal feeling and the human depths. And all this was mingled with art and the great life of human ambition. Mrs. Shiffney's attraction to artists was a genuine thing in her. She really felt the pull of that which was secretly powerful in Claude. And she, not too consciously, made him know this. The knowledge drew him toward her.