"I represent--"
"Very sorry I can"t wait. I have to go to the theater."
He sprang in, and the taxi turned to the right into Fifth Avenue, and rushed toward Central Park. A mountain of lights towered up on the left where the Plaza invaded the starless sky. The dark s.p.a.ces of the Park showed vaguely on the right, as the cab swung round. In front gleamed the golden and sleepless eyes of the Broadway district. The sharp frosty air quivered with a thousand noises. Motors hurried by in an unending procession, little gleaming worlds, each holding its group of strangers, gazing, gesticulating, laughing, intent on some unknown errand. The pavements were thronged with pedestrians, m.u.f.fled to the ears and walking swiftly. The taxi-cab, caught in the maze of traffic, jerked as the chauffeur applied the brakes, and slowed down almost to walking pace. Under a lamp Claude saw a colored woman wearing a huge pink hat.
She seemed to be gazing at him, and her large lips parted in a smile. In an instant she was gone. But Claude could not forget her. In his excitement and fatigue he thought of her as a great goblin woman, and her smile was a terrible grin of bitter sarcasm stretching across the world. Charmian and Alston were talking unweariedly. Claude did not hear what they were saying. He saw snowflakes floating down between the lights, strangely pure and remote, lost wanderers from some delicate world where the fragile things are worshipped. And, with a strange emotion, his heart turned to the now remote children of his imagination, those children with whom he had sat alone by his wood fire on lonely evenings, when the pale blue of the flames had struck on his eyes like the soft notes of a flute on his ears, those children with whom he had kept long vigils and sometimes seen the dawn. How far they had retreated from him, as if they thought him a stern, or neglectful father! He shut his eyes, and seemed to see once more the smile of the goblin woman, and then the fiery gaze of Mrs. Mansfield.
"How could she say it? But I don"t know that I mind!"
"Minding things doesn"t help any in a place like New York."
"But will they believe it?"
"If they do half of them will think you worth while."
"Yes, but the other half?"
"As long as you get there it"s all right."
The cab stopped at the stage door of Crayford"s opera house.
As they went in two or three journalists spoke to them, asking for information about the libretto. Claude hurried on as if he did not hear them. His usual almost eager amiability of manner with strangers had deserted him this evening. But Charmian and Alston Lake spoke to the pressmen, and Alston"s whole-hearted laugh rang out. Claude heard it and envied Alston.
From a room on the right of the entrance a very dark young man came carrying some letters.
"More letters!" he said to Claude, with a smile.
"Oh, thank you."
"They"re all on the stage. The locusts will be real fine when they fix them right. We have folks inquiring about them all the time. Nothing like that in the Sennier opera."
He smiled again with pleasant boyishness. Claude longed to take him by the shoulders and say to him:
"It isn"t a swarm of locusts that will make an opera!" But he only nodded and remarked:
"All the better for us!"
Then hastily he opened his letters. Three were from autograph hunters, and he thrust them into the pocket of his coat. The fourth was from Armand Gillier. When Claude saw the name of his collaborator he stood still and read the note frowning.
"Letters! Always letters!" said Charmian, coming up. "Anything interesting, Claudie?"
"Gillier is coming out after all."
"Armand Gillier!"
"Yes. Or--he arrived to-day, I expect, though this was posted in France.
What day does the _Philadelphia_--"
"This morning," said Alston.
"Then he"s here."
Charmian looked disgusted.
"It"s bad taste on his part. After his horrible efforts to ruin the opera he ought to have kept away."
"What does it matter?" said Claude.
"He"ll be interviewed on the libretto," said Alston. "Gee knows what he"ll say, the beast!"
"If he backs up Madame Sennier in her libelous remarks it will be proclaiming that he can be bribed," exclaimed Charmian.
"I suppose he"s bound to throw in his lot with us," added Alston, as they came into the huge curving corridor which ran behind the ground tier boxes.
"How dark it is! Claudie, give me your hand. It slopes, doesn"t it?"
"Yes. The entrance is just here."
"How hot your hand is!"
"Here we are!" said Alston.
He pushed a swing door, and they came into the theater. It was dimly lighted, and over the rows of stalls pale coverings were drawn. The hundreds of empty boxes gaped. The distant galleries were lost in the darkness. It was a vast house, and the faint light and the emptiness of it made it look even vaster than it was.
"The maw, and I am to fill it!" Claude thought again. And he was conscious of unimportance. He even felt as if he had never composed any music, as if he knew nothing about composition, had no talent at all. It seemed to him incredible that, because of him, of what he had done, great sums of money were being spent, small armies of people were at work, columns upon columns were being written in myriads of newspapers, a man such as Crayford was putting forth all his influence, lavishing all his powers of showman, impresario, man of taste, fighting man. He remembered the night when Sennier"s opera was produced, and it seemed to him impossible that such a night could ever come to him, be his night.
He thought of it somewhat as a man thinks of Death, as his neighbor"s visitant not as his own.
"Chaw-_lee_!" shouted an imperative voice. "Chaw-ley! Chaw-_lee_!"
"Ah!" cried a thin voice from somewhere behind the stage.
"Get down that light! Give us your ambers! No, not the blues! Your ambers! Where"s Jimber? I say, where is Jimber?"
Mr. Mulworth, the stage producer, who was the speaker, appeared running sidewise down an uncovered avenue between two rows of stalls close to the stage. Although a large man, he proceeded with remarkable rapidity.
Emerging into the open he came upon Claude.
"Oh, Mr. Crayford is here. He wants very much to see you."
"Where is he?"
"Somewhere behind. I think he"s viewing camels. Can you come with me?"
"Of course!"
He went off quickly with Mr. Mulworth, who shouted:
"I say, where is Jimber?" to some unknown personality as he ran toward a door which gave on to the stage.
"Let us go and sit down at the back of the stalls, Alston," said Charmian. "They don"t seem to be trying the locusts yet."