When Monica went into her dressing-room, Giles was there, sitting on the sofa. His expression was furious, but she was not deceived; there was a forlorn look about him which she had never seen before, and it filled her with pity. She ran to him and tried to put her arms about him, but he pushed her away.

“Well—a fine bloody mess that was,” said he.

“Giles, what was wrong?”

“That damned orchestra. Wouldn’t follow the score, wouldn’t follow my beat—absolute chaos! I explained the whole thing to them beforehand, and they said they understood—anyhow the first fiddle did—but they had no idea what they were doing. I could cheerfully have killed the lot of them!”

“Poor Giles.”

“Don’t ‘Poor Giles’ me. I saw you, shuddering and making faces, like Palfreyman and all the rest of them, whenever we got into trouble.”

“We didn’t. It was only that—”

““You did. You were all mugging like lunatics. Do you think I can’t see? You were throwing the show away with both hands. I don’t particularly blame you. You’re nothing but a bloody little colonial greenhorn who doesn’t know anything about professional conduct, but Palfreyman was flat for the last two acts, and he was glaring at me with his eyes sticking out like doorknobs. I could have thrown my stick at him!”

“I’m sure he was just trying to follow your beat, Giles. We all were, honestly. What was the trouble?”

“I’ve told you the trouble. I was trying to give my opera, instead of Brum Benny’s, and everybody behaved as if I were demanding some obscene impossibility. I’m almost ready to believe you were all in cahoots to do it.”

“Oh, Giles!”

“Yes, you’re all hypnotized by the great Sir Benedict. What the composer wants is nothing; it’s what Sir Benedict wants that counts. He’s bought the whole lot of you with blarney and champagne suppers, and I’m just a stooge.”

“No, it isn’t like that a bit—”

“What’s the good of saying that? D’you think I can’t see? What do you suppose I’ve been doing since I came here? Fighting for my own music. And it appears I’ve lost the fight.”

And so on; much more to the same effect, until there was a soft knock on the door, and Sir Benedict came in.

“Well, we ran into a spot of bother,” said he, smiling.

“ ‘We’ didn’t run into anything. I ran into something. I ran right smack into the fact that my music seems to mean less in this theatre than your ideas about it.”

“But my dear fellow, why did you do it?”

“Is it so extraordinary that I should want a chance to conduct my own opera?”

“No. You know what I mean. Why did you try to revise the score at the last minute?”

“I did not revise it; I simply restored it to what I originally meant it to be. I’ve heard your version, with all the neat, conventional little bridges and re-writes and revises you’ve stuck into it, to make it the kind of Leipzig Conservatory stuff you’d write if you could write anything at all. I’ve heard it and it’s just so much Zopf!”

“Giles, Giles, nothing went into your score that was mine. You approved every change and every cut; many of the revisions were in your own hand. Now let’s be reasonable—”

“Revisions I made with a pistol at my head! I never wanted to revise; I damned well knew when the opera was finished. You were the one who wanted to tinker.”

“All right, let’s forget that for the moment. But really, my dear man, if you peel off sometimes as many as seven revisions from a score you must expect trouble. The concert-master tells me that the conductor’s room was knee-deep in gummed paper—”

“I knew he’d be clearing himself to you! They all run to you! Did he tell you he said he understood the revisions?”

“He told me he argued with you, and finally said they’d do their best. Be sensible, Giles. He doesn’t speak English particularly well and I expect you bullied him. The orchestra are first-rate men, but they can’t do miracles; you should have realized that when you’d pulled off all the revisions there were bound to be difficulties, because quite a few of them weren’t gummed to the parts—they were written in by hand. Still, it’s done now, and we’d better say no more about it at present. It’s not the end of the world.”

Giles would no doubt have retorted that it was the end of the world, simply from necessity to dissent from Domdaniel, but it was at this moment that Signer Petri, the manager, came in. A huge man, of immense dignity, and at this moment deeply solemn.

“Mr Revelstoke this was very, very wrong of you,” he said.

“I don’t see that. If your orchestra can’t follow a score, why is it my fault?”

“Mr Revelstoke, I have been with Gnecchi, and he showed me the orchestra parts and they were incomprehensible in many places. There is a place in Act Three, in the ballet, where there are discrepancies of as much as six bars in some of the parts. Signora Render is very distressed and who wonders? The theatre doctor is with her now. You made her look a fool. You should not have—what is the word I seek—monkeyed with that score.”

“I did not monkey with the score. I restored it to what I wrote and it was as clear as day.”

“To you, perhaps. To no one else.”

“Damn it, Petri, my score had been revised and patted and pulled and buggered about and I wanted it to be played as I wrote it. Has a composer no rights in this theatre?”

“Every right, Mr Revelstoke. Every respect. La Fenice has presented new scores by Verdi, do not forget it, and by many very great men. But not even Verdi has a right to insult my audience, and make my artists appear to be analphabets in public, and that is what you have done. Now hear what I have to say—”

“Jesus Christ, Petri, come off it; and stop talking at me like a musical Mussolini, you fat—”

“Now Giles, now Giles,” said Domdaniel, “let’s not have a scene.”

“No, no, no; by no means; no, no, no,” said Signer Petri with the calm of a thunderstorm restraining itself.

Giles howled with laughter. “It only needed that!” he cried; “the ultimate touch of farce! No, no, let’s not have a scene. The Jew is cool as a cucumber; the Wop is a monument of marble calm. Only the Englishman has lost his phlegm. Why not have a scene? Give me one good reason. I’m the one who’s been wronged, and I’d bloody well like to have a bloody great scene.”

Signer Petri lifted the hand of a Roman consul. “You forget, Mr Revelstoke, the presence of the Signora Gowl,” said he. “Now listen to me: you will not conduct this opera again in this theatre, and by tomorrow night the orchestra parts must be restored to their proper condition, or my men will refuse to play. Perhaps you do not realize it, but tonight’s reception would have been disastrous if we had not been pulled through by our efficient claque. That is all I have to say. An apology to the company, to Gnecchi on behalf of the orchestra, to the Signora Render and a generous recognition to the leader of the claque—these things I leave to your own discretion. Signora. Sir Benedict.” With a splendid mingling of courtesy, and scorn for Giles, Signer Petri made his departure.

Giles was laughing again. His laughter seemed a little forced, but it did not stop until Sir Benedict spoke very firmly to him.

“Cut out that nonsense,” said he, “and stop playing the fool. Face the fact, Giles, you’ve made a mess of this business. The best thing you can do is take Petri’s advice and go around now and make your peace with everybody. Then we can all forget this fiasco and get ready for the job of putting those parts right tomorrow. It’ll take several hours, but if we all get down to it early, it can be done in plenty of time.”

“I’ve no intention of being the goat for you and Petri. Everybody seems to think themselves wronged in this matter. What’s the trouble with you? Surely you’ve gained face? The great Sir Benny can pull the company through anything; you don’t catch him messing about with scores. He’s even independent of the claque. Hurray for Benny!”