human
The Gulf of Lyons couldn't keep me from coming, Mrs. Mansfield said at last.
gpt
Yes, I daresay I shall see you in that Arab house, Charmian. Claude wishes to go there again?
human
It is Claude who has decided the whole thing.
gpt
You see, Madre, he and I--well, I think we have earned our retreat. We--we did stand up to the failure. We went to the first night of Jacques Sennier's new opera and helped, as everyone in an audience can help, to seal its triumph. I--I went round to Madame Sennier's box with Claude--Adelaide Shiffney and Armand Gillier were in it!--and congratulated her. Madre, we faced the music.
human
We faced the music. Claude is strong. I never knew what he was before. Without that tremendous failure I never should have known him. He helped me. I didn't know one human being could help another as Claude helped me after the failure of the opera. Even Mr. Crayford admired him. He said to me the last day, when we were going to start for the ship: 'Well, little lady, you've married the biggest failure we've brought over here in my time, but you have married a man!' And I said--I said--
gpt
Yes, my only child?
human
Is it?
gpt
Is it all that _you_ want?
human
You mean--?
gpt
Isn't the fear of the crowd still haunting you? Isn't uneasy ambition still tugging at you?
human
I do want Claude to succeed, yes, I do, Madre. I believe every woman wants her man to succeed. But I shall never interfere again--never. I've had my lesson. I've seen the truth, both of myself and of Claude. But I shall always wish Claude to succeed, not in my way, but in his own. And I think he will. Yes, I believe he will. Weren't we--he and I--both extremists? I think perhaps we were. I may have been vulgar--oh, that word!--in my desire for fame, in my wish to get out of the crowd. But wasn't Claude just a little bit morbid in his fear of life, in his shrinking from publicity? I think, perhaps, he was. And I know now he thinks so. Claude is changed, Madre. All he went through in New York has changed him. He's a much bigger man than he was when we left England. You must see that!
gpt
I do see it.
human
From now onward he'll do the work he is fitted to do, only that. But I think he means to let people hear it. He said to me only last night: 'Now they all know the false man, I have the wish to show them the man who is real.'
gpt
The man who had the crucifix standing before his piano, said Mrs. Mansfield, in a low voice.
human
The man who heard a great voice out of the temple speaking to the seven angels.
gpt
Did he ever play you that?
human
One night in America, when our dear friend, Alfred Van Brinen, was with us. But he played it for Mr. Van Brinen.
gpt
And--since then?
human
Madre, he has played it since then for me.
gpt
Madretta,
human
Yes?
gpt
Susan Fleet and I were once talking about theosophy. And Susan said a thing I have never forgotten.
human
What was that?
gpt
She said: 'It's a long journey up the Ray.' I didn't understand. And she explained that by the Ray she meant the bridge that leads from the personal which perishes to the immortal which endures. Madre, I shall always be very personal, I think. I can't help it. I don't know that I even want to help it. But--but I do believe that in America, that night after the opera, I took a long, long step on the journey up the Ray. I must have, I think, because that night I was happy.
human
No, in success!