So Claude Heath had accepted. Charmian concluded this from Margot Drake's remarks. No doubt Mrs. Shiffney had received his answer that day. She loved giving people the impression that she was adventurous and knew strange and wonderful beings who wouldn't know anyone else. So she had not been able to keep silence about Claude Heath and the Greek Isles. Charmian's heart bounded. The peculiar singing of Ferdinand Rades, which had upon hearers much of the effect made upon readers by the books of Pierre Loti, had excited and quickened her imagination. Secretly Charmian was romantic, though she seldom seemed so. She longed after wonders, and was dissatisfied with the usual. Yet she was capable of expecting wonders to conform to a standard to which she was accustomed. There was much conventionality in her, though she did not know it. "The Brighton tradition" was not a mere phrase in her mother's mouth. Laughingly said it contained, nevertheless, particles of truth. But at this moment it seemed far away from Charmian, quite foreign to her. The Greek Isles and—
Millie Deans had stepped upon the dais, accompanied by a very thin, hectic French boy, who sat down at the piano. But she did not seem inclined to sing. She looked round, glanced at the hectic boy, folded her hands in front of her, and waited. Max Elliot approached with his genial air and spoke to her. She answered, putting her dead-white face close to his. He also looked round the room, then hurried out. There was a pause.
"What is it?" people murmured, turning their heads.
Paul Lane bent down and said to the dégagée Duchess:
"She won't sing till Mr. Brett, of the opera, comes."
His lips curled in a sarcastic smile.
"What a fuss they all make about themselves!" returned the Duchess. "It's a hard face."
"Millie's? She's in a violent temper. You'll see; until Mr. Brett comes she won't open her mouth."
Miss Deans stood rigid, with her hands always crossed in front of her and her eyes watching the door. The boy at the piano moved his hands over the keys without producing any sound. There was the ripple of a laugh, and Mrs. Shiffney came carelessly in with Rades, followed by a small, stout man, Mr. Brett, and Max Elliot. When he saw Miss Deans the stout man looked humorously sarcastic. Max Elliot wanted Mrs. Shiffney to come near to the dais, but she refused, and sat down by the door. Rades whispered to her and she laughed again. Max Elliot went close to Millie Deans. She frowned at her accompanist, who began to play, looking sensitive. Mr. Brett leaned against the wall looking critical.
Charmian was in one of the balconies now with a young man. She saw her mother opposite to her with Sir Hilary Burnington, looking down on the singer and the crowd, and she thought her mother must have heard something very sad. Millie Deans sang an aria of Mozart in a fine, steady, and warm soprano voice. Then she sang two morceaux from the filmy opera, Crêpe de Chine, by a young Frenchman, which she had helped to make the rage of Paris. Her eyes were often on Mr. Brett, commanding him to be favorable, yet pleading with him too.