“Gladiators could die gracefully, but not Cleopatra. She had not to die in public.”
“There! you will exaggerate so! No one expects her to dance a quadrille. Why need you introduce such odd, queer harmonies into that invocation? I am not well up in harmony, and I must own that those outlandish chords of yours are beyond me.”
I bit my lip, not daring to make the obvious reply:
“Is it my fault that you know no harmony?”
“And then,” he went on, “why do you introduce a totally new rhythm in your accompaniments? I never heard anything like it.”
“I did not understand, monsieur, that we were not to try new modes if we were fortunate enough to find the right place for them.”
“But, my dear good fellow, Madame Dabadie is a capital musician, yet one could see it took all her care and talent to get her through.”
“Really, monsieur, I have yet to learn that music can be sung without either talent or care.”
“Well, well! you will have the last word. But do be warned for next year. Come and see me and we will talk it over like French gentlemen.”
And, chuckling over the point he had made (for his last words were a quotation from his own Jean de Paris), he walked off.