"Why, madame?"
"You tried to sell libretti to my husband before he was famous."
"And failed."
"Yes. But now I'm glad to know you have succeeded with another man who is not famous yet."
Gillier laid his right hand down on one of the glazed black covers of L'Illustration.
"You do not believe in my talent, madame. I cannot understand why you should be interested in such a matter."
"You make the mistake of supposing that a talented man can never be immature. What you offered to my husband was immature; but I always knew you had talent."
"Indeed? You never told me so that I remember."
"You appeared to be fully aware of it."
Gillier made a fist of his hand on the cover. He wished Jacques Sennier were setting the libretto he had sold to Claude Heath, and Madame Sennier wished exactly the same thing. He did not know her thought; but she divined his. With all her soul, greedy for her Jacques and for herself, she coveted that libretto. She almost hated Claude Heath for possessing it. And now, as she sat opposite to Gillier, with the round table between them, always alert for intrigue, she began to wonder whether in truth the libretto was irrevocably lost to them.