‘So you’ve been writing again?’ said Diaz, smiling quizzically.

‘Yes,’ I answered.  ’I’ve been writing a long time, but I haven’t let you know anything about it; and just to-day I’ve finished it.’

‘What is it—­another novel?’

‘No; a little drama in verse.’

‘Going to publish it?’

‘Why, naturally.’

Diaz was aware that I enjoyed fame in England and America.  He was probably aware that my books had brought me a considerable amount of money.  He had read some of my works, and found them excellent—­indeed, he was quite proud of my talent.  But he did not, he could not, take altogether seriously either my talent or my fame.  I knew that he always regarded me as a child gracefully playing at a career.  For him there was only one sort of fame; all the other sorts were shadows.  A supreme violinist might, perhaps, approach the real thing, in his generous mind; but he was incapable of honestly believing that any fame compared with that of a pianist.  The other fames were very well, but they were paste to the precious stone, gewgaws to amuse simple persons.  The sums paid to sopranos struck him as merely ridiculous in their enormity.  He could not be called conceited; nevertheless, he was magnificently sure that he had been, and still was, the most celebrated person in the civilized world.  Certainly he had no superiors in fame, but he would not admit the possibility of equals.  Of course, he never argued such a point; it was a tacit assumption, secure from argument.  And with that he profoundly reverenced the great composers.  The death of Brahms affected him for years.  He regarded it as an occasion for universal sorrow.  Had Brahms condescended to play the piano, Diaz would have turned the pages for him, and deemed himself honoured—­him whom queens had flattered!

‘Did you imagine,’ I began to tease him, after a pause, ’that while you are working I spend my time in merely existing?’

‘You exist—­that is enough, my darling,’ he said.  ’Strange that a beautiful woman can’t understand that in existing she is doing her life’s work!’

And he leaned over and touched my right wrist below the glove.

‘You dear thing!’ I murmured, smiling.  ‘How foolish you can be!’

‘What’s the drama about?’ he asked.

‘About La Valliere,’ I said.

‘La Valliere!  But that’s the kind of subject I want for my opera!’

‘Yes,’ I said; ‘I have thought so.’

‘Could you turn it into a libretto, my child?’

‘No, dearest.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it already is a libretto.  I have written it as such.’

‘For me?’

‘For whom else?’

And I looked at him fondly, and I think tears came to my eyes.

‘You are a genius, Magda!’ he exclaimed.  ’You leave nothing undone for me.  The subject is the very thing to suit Villedo.’

‘Who is Villedo?’