"Do you mind being used for ulterior purposes?" she asked him.
He intimated that he did not if they were amusing, as any of Mary's were pretty sure to be.
"I'm interested in an opera," she told him, "or rather, I'm very much interested in a man who has written one. Father and I have agreed that he's a great person and everybody seems willing to admit that he's a musical genius. Paula considered the opera, but gave it up after she had kept him working over it for weeks because the soprano part wasn't big enough. It would be just the thing for Fournier."
Jimmy raised the language difficulty. "The book's in English, I suppose," he said.
"It's been translated into French," Mary said, and then admitted authorship by adding, "after a fashion; as well as an amateur like me could do it." She didn't mind a bit how much Jimmy knew. Not that he wasn't capable of very acute surmises but that whatever he brought up he wouldn't have the flutters over.
"Does Fournier like it himself?" he wanted to know. "Does he see the personal possibilities in it, I mean?"
"I haven't shown it to him yet," Mary said. "I want him to hear about it in just the right way first. If Paula would only say just the right thing! She means to but she forgets. LaChaise would back her up, I think, if she took the lead. Otherwise … well, he isn't looking for trouble, I suppose, and of course, it would mean a lot."
"Somebody has to put his back into an enterprise of that sort,"
Jimmy observed.
"I can't, directly," she said, "not with LaChaise nor with Mr. Eckstein. But you see," she went on, "if Violet happened to hear, from somebody who was in the way of getting inside information, about a small opera that had a sensational part for a baritone, she'd work it and make her husband too, and since he's one of the real backers and a friend of Mr. Eckstein's, they'd be likely to accomplish something."
"Lead me to it," said Jimmy. "Give me your inside information and leave
Violet to me."