Elliot had a very kind heart, and by its light he sometimes read clearly a human prose that did not please him. Now, as he lay in his narrow berth in the wagon-lit jolting toward Constantine, he read some of Adelaide Shiffney's prose. Faintly, for the train was noisy, he heard voices in the next compartment, where Mrs. Shiffney and Madame Sennier were talking in their berths. Mrs. Shiffney was in the top berth. That fact gave the measure of Madame Sennier's iron will.
"You really believe it?" cried Madame Sennier.
"How is one to know? But Crayford is moving Heaven and earth to find a genius. He may have his eye on Claude Heath. He believes in les jeunes."
"Jacques is forty."
"If one has arrived it doesn't matter much what age one is."
"You don't think Crayford can have given this man a secret commission to compose an opera?"
"Oh, no. Why should he? Besides, if he had, she would have let it out. She could never have kept such a thing to herself."
"Max thought his music wonderful, didn't he?"
"Yes, but it was all sacred. Te Deums, and things of that sort that nobody on earth would ever listen to."
"I should like to see the libretto."