The Way of Ambition. Robert Hichens

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      "Never! He means to keep me out. I can see it. He has that Dantini in his pocket. A woman with a voice like a dwarf in a gramophone!"

      At this moment, perhaps fortunately, Miss Deans's hired electric brougham came up, and Max Elliot got rid of her.

      Although she had lost her temper Miss Deans had not lost her shrewdness. Mr. Brett shrugged his shoulders and confessed that the talent of Miss Deans did not appeal to him.

      "Her singing bored me," was the verdict of Mrs. Shiffney.

      And many of Max Elliot's guests found that they had been subject to a similar ennui when the American was singing.

      "Poor woman!" thought Mrs. Mansfield, who was unprejudiced, and who, with Max Elliot and other genuine musicians, recognized the gifts of Miss Deans.

      And again her mind went to Claude Heath.

      "Better to keep out of it! Better to keep out of it!" a voice said within her.

      And apparently Heath was of one mind with her on this matter.

      As Mrs. Mansfield and Charmian were going away they met Mrs. Shiffney in the hall with Ferdinand, who was holding her cloak.

      "Oh, Charmian!" she said, turning quickly, with the cloak over one of her broad shoulders. "I heard from Claude Heath to-day."

      "Did you?" said Charmian languidly, looking about her at the crowd.

      "Yes. He can't come. His mother's got a cold and he doesn't like to leave her, or something. And he's working very hard on a composition that nobody is ever to hear. And—I forget what else. But there were four sides of excuses."

      She laughed.

      "Poor boy! He hasn't much savoir-faire. Good-night! I'll let you know when we start."

      Her eyes pierced Charmian.

      "Come, Ferdinand! No, you get in first. I hate being passed and trodden on when once I'm in, and I take up so much room."

      That night, when Charmian was safely in her bedroom and had locked the door against imaginary intruders, she cried, bitterly, impetuously:

      "If only Rades had not sung Petite Fille de Tombouctou!"

      That song seemed to have put the finishing touch to desires which would never be gratified. Charmian could not have explained why. But such music was cruel when life went wrong.

      "Why won't he come? Why won't he come?" she murmured angrily.

      Then she looked at herself in the glass, and thought she realized that from the first she had hated Claude Heath.

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