“Like the little birds who have feathered their nests, you should say!” she replied.
Madame Torialli gave a graceful gesture of denial.
“But indeed it is true about Louis,” she went on. “He is rising in the world, he has become very ambitious; you will never guess to what he aspires now?”
“My dear, I have always guessed it,” said Salvi calmly. “It is you who never see these things; it was inevitable that he should adore you——”
Madame Torialli laughed lightly.
“It is another inevitable avoided then,” she answered. “He has not confided his passion to me—for myself, dear friend; on the contrary he aspires very much higher—it appears that he wants you to sing for him on the great night itself. When you are going to sing for us on the following Wednesday, too, it is a little too ambitious, is it not?”
Madame Salvi frowned.
“I am not surprised to hear that he gets on,” she said. “If he is so little afraid of being snubbed.”
“It is amusing, is it not?” said Madame Torialli. “He is not like poor Torialli, who always says that he will never let business interfere with pleasure.”
“Well, my dear, he has no need to, since he has married you,” said Salvi.