"May I have it, then?"
She knew he was holding out his hand. She made a great effort, lifted her hand, and gave him Van Brinen's letter without looking at him. She heard the thin paper rustle as he folded it.
"Charmian," he said, "I'm going to keep this letter. Do you know why? Because I love the man who wrote it. Because I know that if ever I am tempted again, by anyone or by anything, to prostitute such powers as have been given me, I have only to look at this letter, I have only to remember to-night, to be saved from my own weakness, from my disease of weakness."
Still she did not look at him. But she noticed in his voice a sound of growing excitement. And now she heard him get up from the sofa.
"But I believe, in any case, what has happened to-night would have cured me. I've had a tremendous lesson to-night. We've both had a tremendous lesson. Do you know that after the call at the end of the third act Armand Gillier very nearly assaulted me?"
"Claude!"
Now she looked up. Claude was standing a little way from her by the piano. With one hand he held fast to the edge of the piano, so fast that the knuckles showed white through the stretched skin.
"Miss Mardon and he realized, as of course everyone else realized, my complete failure which dragged his libretto down. The way the audience applauded him when I left the stage told the story. No other comment was necessary. But Gillier isn't a very delicate person, and he made comments before Miss Mardon, Crayford, and several of the company, before scene-shifters and stage carpenters, too. What he said was true enough. But it wasn't pleasant to hear it in such company."
He came away from the piano, turned his back on her for a moment, and walked toward the farther wall of the room.
"Oh, I've had my lesson!" she heard him say. "Miss Mardon said nothing to you?"