Gillier bit his moustache and looked down. A heavy gloom seemed to have overspread him. After a moment he looked up, leaned back, as if determined to be at his ease, and said abruptly:
"Monsieur Sennier has completed a new opera. It is to be produced at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York some time next winter."
"Is it?"
Charmian tried to keep all expression out of her voice as she spoke.
"Since I last saw you, madame," Gillier continued, "I have managed to get a look at the libretto."
Without knowing that she did so Charmian leaned forward quickly and moved her hands.
"It does not approach my work, the work your husband bought from me for only one hundred pounds, in strength and drama."
"Your libretto is splendid. Mr. Lake and I have always thought so; and of course my husband agrees with us. But you know that."
Gillier pulled his thick moustache, looked quickly round the room, then at his hands, which he had abruptly brought down on his knees, and then at Charmian.
"I have reason to believe that Jacques Sennier—or rather Madame Sennier, for she read all the libretti sent in to him, and only showed him those she thought worth considering—that if Madame Sennier had seen the libretto I sold to your husband Sennier would have set mine—mine—in preference to the one he has set."