Once more the cries were heard. The applause revived. Charmian gazed at Claude. His face, she thought, looked set but quite calm. He stood at the very edge of the stage, and she saw him look, not toward where she was, but up to the gallery as if in search of someone. Then he stepped back. He had come to the audience before Gillier. He now disappeared before Gillier, who seemed about to follow him closely, hesitated, looked round once more at the audience, and stood for an instant alone on the stage.
Then suddenly came from the audience the sound!
It was less full, less strong, less intense than it had been at Covent Garden on the night of the first performance of Le Paradis Terrestre. But essentially it was the same sound.
Charmian heard it and her lips grew pale. But she sat well forward in the box, and, though she saw two opera-glasses levelled at her, she lifted her hands again and clapped till Armand Gillier passed out of sight.
CHAPTER XXXVII
In the red sitting-room at the St. Regis Hotel a supper-table was laid for three people. It was decorated with some lilies-of-the-valley and white heather, which Jacob Crayford had sent in the afternoon to the "little lady." On a table near stood a gilded basket of tulips, left by Gillier with a formal note. The elderly German waiter, who looked like a very respectable butler, placed a menu beside the lilies and the heather soon after the clock struck twelve. Then he glanced at the clock, compared it with his silver watch, and retired to see that the champagne was being properly iced. He returned, with a subordinate, about half-past twelve, and began to arrange an ice pail, from which the neck of a bottle protruded, and other things on a side table. While he was still in the room he heard voices in the corridor, and the three people for whom the preparations had been made came in.
"Supper is ready? That's right!" Charmian said, in a high and gay voice.
She turned.
"Doesn't the table look pretty, Alston, with Mr. Crayford's white heather?"