“Now that I’ve said what you made me say—don’t you say anything?”

“Yes. I say it won’t do. Suppose I took you up on it, and we had an affair, you loving and me using you as long as it lasted—which wouldn’t be long. It would be a cheat. I haven’t time or inclination for that, and when it finished you would be bitter, and you’re quite bitter enough already. What about Gunilla? Did you love her?”

“It wasn’t the same.”

“No love ever is the same as any other. The lucky ones get the big thing. You know—’The silver link, the silken tie’—but it’s not common. That’s one of the big mistakes, you know—that everybody loves in the same way and that everybody may have a great love. You might as well say that everybody can compose a great symphony. A lot of love is misery; bad weather punctuated by occasional flashes of sunlight. Look at this opera we’re busy with; the love in it is pretty rough. Its not the best of Arthurs life, or Lancelot’s, or Guenevere’s.”

“It’s the best of Elaines.”

“Elaine wasn’t a gifted musician, so don’t try that on. She had your trouble, though. ‘Fantasy’s hot fire, / Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly.’ You set those words to some very good music. Didn’t you learn anything from them? Schnak, if you and I set out on a love affair, you’d have had enough of it in two weeks.”

“Because I’m ugly! Because my looks make everybody sick! It isn’t fair! It’s a curse! That Cornish bitch, and Nilla and Dulcy all look great and they can do anything with you, or any man! I’ll kill myself!”

“No, you won’t. You’ve got other fish to fry. But truth is truth, Schnak; you’re no beauty queen and that’s just something you have to put up with, and it isn’t the worst affliction, let me tell you. What do you suppose Nilla looked like at your age? A big gawk, I’ll bet. Now she’s marvellous. When you’re her age, you’ll be totally different. Success will have given you a new look. You’ll be a kind of distinguished goblin, I expect.”

Schnak howled again, and hid her face in the pillows.

“I’m sorry if that hurt your feelings, but you see, Schnak old girl, I’m under considerable stress myself. Everybody says I have to talk to you, and be nice to you, though I protest I hadn’t an inkling of the way you felt about me, and I won’t take any responsibility. I can’t run the risk of feeding your flame, and making things worse. So I’m talking entirely against my inclination. You know how I am; I love to talk and talk as gaudily as I can, just for the pleasure it gives me. But with you, I’m trying to speak on oath, you see. Not a word I don’t truly mean. If I let myself go, I could rave on about the Livery of Hell, and the demon’s dunghill, and all the rest of it. Welsh rhetoric is part of me, and my curse is that the world is full of literal-minded morlocks who don’t understand, and think I’m a crook because their tongues are wrapped in burlap and mine is hinged with gold. I’ve been as honest as I know how. You see, don’t you?”

“I guess so.”

“Good. Now I must go. A million things to attend to. Get well as fast as you can; we want you on the first night, and that’s the day after tomorrow. And—Schnak, here’s a kiss. Not a romantic one, or a brotherly one, God forbid! but a friendly one. Fellow artists—isn’t that it?”

He was gone. Schnak dozed and thought, and dozed and thought, and when Gunilla came to see her late in the afternoon, she was decidedly better.

“It must have cost him a good deal to talk like that,” said Gunilla, when Schnak had given a version of what Geraint had said. “Lots of so-called lovers wouldn’t have been as direct with you, Hulda. It isn’t easy to be like Geraint.”

It was the final dress parade, on the Friday afternoon preceding the final dress rehearsal, which was to take place the same night. In Row G of the theatre sat a little group: Geraint Powell the dominant figure, with Dulcy Ringgold as his first lieutenant and Waldo Harris on his other side; in front of them sat Gwen Larking, with both her assistants, and a gofer poised to run with messages too delicate to be shouted toward the stage. One by one the actors, dressed and made up for their roles, walked to centre stage, did little excursions to right and left, bowed, curtsied, drew weapons. Now and then Geraint shouted some request to them; when they replied they shaded their eyes against the stage light, to see him if they could. Geraint whispered comments to Dulcy, who made notes, or explained, and occasionally expostulated if he wanted something that could not be managed in the time that was left before the opening.

A queer moment, thought Darcourt, who sat further back, by himself. The moment when all that is important is how the singer looks, not how he sings; the moment when everything that can be done to make the singers look like the people they represent has been done, and whatever has not been achieved must be accepted. A moment when inexplicable transformations take place.

The two black Knights, for instance, Greenlaw and LeMoyne, who looked superb in armour and the turbans Dulcy had given them to mark them as men of the East. But Wilson Tinney, as Gareth Beaumains, simply looked dumpy, although he was not an ill-looking man in his ordinary dress. His legs were too short. When he appeared without his armour he looked like a kewpie doll in his short robe. He had made himself up with very red cheeks, doubtless to suggest a life of adventure on horseback, but the effect was merely doll-like. In his robes as Merlin, Oliver Twentyman was convincingly magical, because his legs were long; he loved dressing up, and was enjoying himself. Giles Shippen, the Lancelot, looked less like a heart-breaker in costume than out of it; he was a reasonable figure, but he had Tenor written all over him, and his big chest made him look shorter than he really was.

“Did you put lifts in his shoes?” hissed Geraint to Dulcy.

“As much as I dared, without putting him in surgical boots,” said she; “he just doesn’t look like much whatever you do.”

“Nobody will believe a woman would leave Hoizknecht for him. Hans looks magnificent.”

“Every inch a ruler,” said Dulcy; “but everybody knows women have funny tastes. Nothing to be done, I’m afraid, Geraint.”

As was to be expected, Nutcombe Puckler had a great deal to say, and was full of complaint. “Geraint, I simply can’t hear in this thing,” he said. He was referring to his camail, a headpiece of chain armour that hung down from his fool’s bonnet to his shoulders, over his ears. “If I can’t hear, I may make a false entrance and screw up. Can’t something be done?”

“The effect is splendid, Nutty. You look the perfection of a merry warrior. Dulcy will put some pads under it, just over your ears, and you’ll be all right.”

“It fidgets me,” said Nutty. “I can’t bear to have my ears covered on the stage.”

“Nutty, you’re far too much of a pro to let a little thing bother you,” said Geraint. “Give it a try tonight and if it really doesn’t work, we’ll find another way.”

“Like hell we will,” murmured Dulcy, making a note.

Among the women the assumption of costume brought about similar changes in emphasis. As Queen Guenevere, Donalda Roche looked handsome, but very much a woman of the present day, whereas Marta Ullmann, as the Lady Elaine, looked so much a creature of the Middle Ages, and so infinitely desirable, that none of the men could take their eyes off her. Clara Intrepidi, as Morgan Le Fay, looked an undoubted sorceress in her gown of changing colours and her dragon head-dress—but a sorceress who was a fugitive from some unidentified opera by Wagner. She was taller than any of the men except Hoizknecht, and her appearance suggested that when she was at home she had a full suit of armour in her closet.

“Can’t be helped,” whispered Dulcy, “unless she consents to act on her knees, or sitting down all the time. Luckily she’s Arthur’s sister; great height runs in the family. Look at it that way.”