"I couldn't possibly write an opera," Claude said.
Alston Lake, who was long-limbed, very blond, clean-shaved, with gray eyes, extraordinarily smooth yellow hair, and short, determined and rather blunt features, stretched out one large hand to the cigar-box, and glanced at Charmian.
"What is your bent toward?" he said, in his strong and ringing baritone voice.
Claude's forehead puckered, and the sudden distressed look, which Mrs. Mansfield had sometimes noticed, came into his eyes.
"Well--" he began, in a hesitating voice. "I hardly know--now."
"Then for all you can tell it may be toward opera?" said Alston triumphantly.
Charmian touched the wreath of green leaves which shone in her dark hair. Her face had grown more decisive of late. She looked perhaps more definitely handsome, but she looked just a little bit harder. She glanced at her husband, glanced away, and lit a cigarette. That evening she had again seen Madame Sennier, had noticed, with a woman's almost miraculous sharpness, the crescendo in the Frenchwoman's formerly dominant personality. She puffed out a tiny ring of pale smoke and said nothing. It seemed to her that Alston was doing work for her.
"I don't think it is," Claude said, after a pause. "I'm twenty-nine, and up to now I've never felt impelled to write anything operatic."
"That's probably because you haven't been in the way of meeting managers, opera singers, and conductors. Every man wants the match that fires him."
"That's just what I think," said Charmian.
Claude smiled. In the recent days he had heard so much talk about music and musicians. And he had noticed that Alston and his wife were nearly always in agreement.
"What was the match that fired you, Alston?" he asked, looking at the big lad--he looked little more than a lad--good-naturedly.
"Well, I always wanted to sing, of course. But I think it was Crayford."
"Crayford's a marvellous man. He'll lick the Metropolitan crowd yet. He's going to make me."
"You mean you're going to make yourself?" interrupted Claude.
"Without Crayford I should never have believed I could be a big opera singer. As it is, I mean to be. And, what is more, I know I shall be. Now, Claude, old fellow, don't get on your hind legs, but just listen to me. Every man needs help when he's a kid, needs somebody who knows--_knows_, mind you--to put him in the right way. What is wanted nowadays is operatic stuff, first-rate operatic stuff. Now, look here, I'm going to speak out straight, and that's all there is to it. I wanted Crayford to hear your big things"--Claude shifted in his chair, stretched out his legs and drew them up--"I told him about them and how strong they were. 'What subjects does he treat?' he said. I told him. At least, I began to tell him. 'Oh, Lord!' he said, stopping me on the nail--but you know how busy he is. He can't waste time. And he's out for the goods, you know--'Oh, Lord!' he said. 'Don't bother me with the Bible. The time for oratorio has gone to join Holy Moses!' I tried to explain that your stuff was no more like old-fashioned oratorio than Chicago is like Stratford-on-Avon, but he wouldn't listen. All he said was, 'Gone to join Holy Moses, my boy! Tell that chap Heath to bring me a good opera and I'll make him more famous than Sennier. For I know how to run him, or any man that can produce the goods, twice as well as Sennier's run.' There, old chap! I've given it you straight. Look what a success we've had with the song!"