"I see. And what about all the months of work I have put in? What about all the music I have composed? Are you here to ask me to throw it away, or what?"
Gillier was silent.
"Surely your proposition isn't a serious one?" said Claude, still speaking with complete self-control.
"But I say it is! I say"—Gillier raised his voice—"that it is serious. I am a poor man, and I am sick of waiting for success. I sold my libretto to you in a hurry, not knowing what I was doing. Now I have a chance, a great chance, of being associated with someone who is already famous, who would make the success of my libretto a certainty—"
"A chance, when your libretto is my property!" interrupted Claude.
"Oh, I know as well as you do that it's a hard thing to ask you to throw away all these months of labor! I don't think I could have done it, though in this world every man, every artist especially, must think of himself, if it wasn't for one thing."
"And that is—?"
"Your heart isn't in the work!" said Gillier defiantly, but with a curious air of conviction—the conviction of an acute man who had made a discovery which could not be contested or gainsaid.
"That's not true, Monsieur Gillier!" said Charmian, with hot energy.
Claude said nothing, and Gillier continued, raising his voice: