“So you are a crook, Simon? It makes you very interesting. And you are safe with me. Here: we drink to secrecy.”

The Doctor took her wineglass in her hand and slipped her right arm through Darcourt’s left. They lifted their arms, and drank—drained their glasses.

“To secrecy,” said Darcourt.

“So—who are you robbing?”

“If you had to prepare this libretto, who would you rob? A poet, of course, but not a very well-known poet. And he would have to be a poet contemporaneous with Hoffmann, and a fellow-spirit, or the work would ring false. And amid the work of that poet you would have to interpose a lot of stuff in the same spirit, because nobody wrote a libretto about King Arthur that is lying around, waiting for such an occasion as this. And the result would be—”

“Pastiche!”

“Yes, and the craft of the thing would be sewing up the joins, so that nobody would notice and denounce the whole thing as—”

“Pistache! Oh, you are a clever one! Simon, I think you and I are going to be great friends!”

“Let’s drink to that, Nilla,” said Darcourt, and once again they linked arms and drank. Some people at a nearby table were staring, but the Doctor gave them a look of such Boreal hauteur that they hastily bent their heads over their plates.

“And now, Simon—who is it?”

“I won’t tell you, Nilla. Not because I think you would blab, but because it is very important to me to be the only one who knows, and if I lose that I may lose everything. Nor do I suppose the name would mean anything to you. Not at all a fashionable poet, at present.”

“But a good one. When Modred is plotting Arthur’s murder, you make him say:

I felt cold when I read that.”

“Good. And you saw how it fits Schnak’s musical fragment? So genuine Hoffmann is mated with my genuine poet, and with luck we may get something truly fine.”

“I wish very much I knew your poet.”

“Then look for him. He’s not totally obscure. Just a little off the beaten path.”

“Is he this Walter Scott, about whom Powell spoke?”

“Anything good you can pinch from Scott is well known, and nothing but his best is of any use.”

“Surely you will be found out when the opera is produced.”

“Not for a while. Perhaps not for a long time. How much of a libretto do you actually hear? It slips by, as an excuse for the music, and to indicate a plot.”

“You have changed the plot Powell told us about?”

“Not much. I’ve tightened it up. An opera has to have a good firm story.”

“And the music ought to carry the story and make it vivid.”

“Well—not in Hoffmann’s day. In Hoffmann’s operas and those he admired you get a chunk of plot, usually in pretty simple recitative, and then the action stops while the singers have a splendid rave-up about their feelings. It’s the rave-up that makes the opera; not the plot. Most of the plots, even after Wagner, have been disgustingly simple.”

“Simple—and few.”

“Astonishingly few, Nilla, however you dress them up.”

“Some critic said there were not more than nine plots in all literature.”

“He might as well have said, in all life. It’s amazing, and humbling, how we tread the old paths without recognizing them. Mankind is wonderfully egotistical.”

“Lucky for mankind, Simon. Don’t grudge us our little scrap of individuality. You talk like that woman Maria Cornish, with her wax-and-seal. What path is she treading, do you think?”

“How can I tell till her full story is told? At which time I shall probably not be around to have an opinion.”

“She interests me very much. Oh, not what you are thinking. I don’t want to break up her marriage, though she is a lovely creature. But somebody will.”

“You think so?”

“That husband of hers is all wrong for her.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Yes. A cold fish. Not a scrap of feeling in him.”

“Now Nilla, I see through you. You want me to contradict you and tell you all I know about Arthur. All I’m going to tell you is that you are wrong.”

“What a man for secrets you are.”

“Secrets are the priest’s trade or he is no priest.”

“All right. Don’t tell. But that woman comes out of a very different box from Arthur Cornish, who is all money and careful plans, and Kater Murr.”

“You’re right about Maria. Wrong about Arthur. He is scrambling upward from Kater Murr just as fast as he can.”

“Oh? So he married Maria to get away from Kater Murr? You let something slip, there. That woman is no Canadian.”

“Yes she is. A Canadian can be anything. It is one of our very few gifts. Because, you see, we all bring something to Canada with us, and a few years won’t wash it out. Not even a few generations. But if you are frying with curiosity, Nilla, I would be a rotten guest if I did not tell you a few things to appease you. Maria is half Pole and the other half is Hungarian Gypsy.”

“What a strong soup! Gypsy, is she?”

“If you met her mother you would never doubt it. Maria doesn’t hurry to admit it, but she is very like her mother. And Arthur is very fond of Maria’s mother. No wise man marries a woman if he can’t stand her mother.”

“And this mother is still alive? Here? I want to meet her. I love Gypsies.”

“I don’t suppose there is any reason why you shouldn’t meet her. But don’t assume you are going to love her. Mamusia would smell patronage a mile away, and she would be rough with you, Nilla. She is what Schnak would call one rough old broad, and as wise as a serpent.”

“Ah, now you are telling! That Maria is one rough young broad, for all her silly pretence of being a nice rich man’s wife with scholarly hobbies. You have blabbed, you leaky priest!”

“It’s this excellent wine, Nilla. But I have told you nothing that everybody doesn’t know.”

“So—come on, Simon—what about Arthur?”

“Arthur is a gifted financial man, chairman of the board of a great financial house, and a man with genuine artistic tastes. A generous man.”

“And a wimp? A nerd?—You see how I learn from Hulda.”

“Not a wimp, and not a nerd or anything that Hulda would know about. What he is you will have to find out for yourself.”

“But what plot are he and his wife working out together? Which of the nine? Tell me, or I might hit you!”

“Don’t brawl in a restaurant, it will get us thrown out. That would be deeply un-Canadian. I think I smell the plot, but if you think I am going to hint to you, you can think again. You’re a clever woman; work it out for yourself.”

“I will, and then probably I’ll hit you. Or maybe kiss you. You don’t smell bad, for a man. But you will take me to Maria’s mother, at least?”

“If you like.”

“I do like.”

“You’re a rough old broad yourself, Nilla.”

“Not so old. But rough.”

“I have a fancy for rough women.”

“Good. And now what about cognac?”

“Armagnac, I think, if I may. More suitable to rough broads.”