"Claude's libretto has never been offered to anyone else," she answered.
Madame Sennier slightly shrugged her shoulders.
"And so Gillier is with your husband!" she observed. Apparently she was clairvoyante. "Well, madame, you are a brave woman. That is all I can say!"
"Brave! But why?"
Mrs. Shiffney's eyes looked full of laughter.
"Why, Henriette?" she asked, leaning forward. "Do tell us."
"Gillier makes other people like he is," said Madame Sennier. "But what does it matter? Each one for himself! Don't you say that in England?"
She had turned to Max Elliot.
"That applies specially to women," she continued, with her curiously ruthless and too self-possessed air. "Each woman for herself, and the Devil will carefully take the hindmost. Why should he not?"
She shot another glance at Charmian, a glance penetrating and cold as a dagger. Charmian felt that she hated this woman. And yet she admired her immensely, too. Madame Sennier would never be taken by the Devil because she was the hindmost. That was certain.