"Have you spoken to my husband of this?" Charmian interrupted him.
She was almost trembling with anger and excitement, but she managed to speak quietly.
"Do you mean to say you are not asking me if we will resell the libretto?"
"My answer is that the libretto is our property and that we intend to keep it. If you offered us five times what we gave you for it the answer would be the same."
She paused. Gillier said nothing. She looked at him and suddenly anger, a sense of outrage, got the better of her, and she added with intense bitterness:
"We are living here in North Africa, we have given up our home, our friends, our occupations, everything--our life in England"--her voice trembled. "Everything, I say, in order to do justice to your work, and you come, you dare to come to us, and ask--ask--"
"Madame, I see it is useless. You have bought my work, if you choose to keep it--"
"It is late. I must wish you good-night, madame. Kindly say good-night for me to that lady, your friend, and to Monsieur Heath."
He bowed. Charmian did not hold out her hand. She meant to, but it seemed to her that her hand refused to move, as if it had a will of its own to resist hers.
She watched his rather short and broad figure pass across the open space of the court and disappear.
After he had gone she moved across the court to the fountain and sat down at its edge. She was trembling now, and her excitement was growing in solitude. But she still had the desire to govern it, the hope that she would be able to do so. She felt that she had been grossly insulted by Gillier. But she was not only angry with him. She stared at the rising and falling water, clasping her hands tightly together. "I will be calm!" she was saying to herself. "I will be calm, mistress of myself."
But suddenly she got up, went swiftly across the court to the garden entrance, and called out:
Her voice sounded to her sharp and piercing in the night.
"What is it, Charmian?" answered Claude's voice from the distance.
"I'm going to bed. It's late. Monsieur Gillier has gone."
As she came into the drawing-room she looked at her watch. It was barely ten o'clock. In a moment Susan Fleet entered, followed by Claude. Susan's calm eyes glanced at Charmian's face. Then she said, in her quiet, agreeable voice:
