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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14487 ***
+
+THE LION'S SHARE
+
+by
+
+Arnold Bennett
+
+First Published 1916.
+
+
+
+_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+NOVELS--
+    A MAN FROM THE NORTH
+    ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+    LEONORA
+    A GREAT MAN
+    SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
+    WHOM GOD HATH JOINED
+    BURIED ALIVE
+    THE OLD WIVES' TALE
+    THE GLIMPSE
+    HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND
+    CLAYHANGER
+    HILDA LESSWAYS
+    THESE TWAIN
+    THE CARD
+    THE REGENT
+    THE PRICE OF LOVE
+
+
+FANTASIAS--
+    THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL
+    THE GATES OF WRATH
+    TERESA OF WATLING STREET
+    THE LOOT OF CITIES
+    HUGO
+    THE GHOST
+    THE CITY OF PLEASURE
+
+
+SHORT STORIES--
+    TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+    THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+    THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+
+
+BELLES-LETTRES--
+    JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN
+    FAME AND FICTION
+    HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR
+    THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR
+    THE REASONABLE LIFE
+    HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY
+    THE HUMAN MACHINE
+    LITERARY TASTE
+    FRIENDSHIP AND HAPPINESS
+    THOSE UNITED STATES
+    MARRIAGE
+    LIBERTY
+
+
+DRAMA--
+    POLITE FARCES
+    CUPID AND COMMONSENSE
+    WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS
+    THE HONEYMOON
+    THE GREAT ADVENTURE
+    MILESTONES (in collaboration with Edward Knoblauch)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+        (In collaboration with Eden Phillpotts)
+    THE SINEWS OF WAR: A Romance
+    THE STATUE: A Romance
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+1. MISS INGATE, AND THE YACHT
+2. THE THIEF'S PLAN WRECKED
+3. THE LEGACY
+4. MR. FOULGER
+5. THE DEAD HAND
+6. THE YOUNG WIDOW
+7. THE CIGARETTE GIRL
+8. EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD
+9. LIFE IN PARIS
+10. FANCY DRESS
+11. A POLITICAL REFUGEE
+12. WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO
+13. THE SWOON
+14. MISS INGATE POINTS OUT THE DOOR
+15. THE RIGHT BANK
+16. ROBES
+17. SOIRÉE
+18. A DECISION
+19. THE BOUDOIR
+20. PAGET GARDENS
+21. JANE
+22. THE DETECTIVE
+23. THE BLUE CITY
+24. THE SPATTS
+25. THE MUTE
+26. NOCTURNE
+27. IN THE GARDEN
+28. ENCOUNTER
+29. FLIGHT
+30. ARIADNE
+31. THE NOSTRUM
+32. BY THE BINNACLE
+33. AGUILAR'S DOUBLE LIFE
+34. THE TANK-ROOM
+35. THE THIRD SORT OF WOMAN
+36. IN THE DINGHY
+37. AFLOAT
+38. IN THE UNIVERSE
+39. THE IMMINENT DRIVE
+40. GENIUS AT BAY
+41. FINANCIAL NEWS
+42. INTERVAL
+43. ENTR'ACTE
+44. END OF THE CONCERT
+45. STRANGE RESULT OF A QUARREL
+46. AN EPILOGUE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MISS INGATE, AND THE YACHT
+
+
+Audrey had just closed the safe in her father's study when she was startled
+by a slight noise. She turned like a defensive animal to face danger. It
+had indeed occurred to her that she was rather like an animal in captivity,
+and she found a bitter pleasure in the idea, though it was not at all
+original.
+
+"And Flank Hall is my Zoo!" she had said. (Not that she had ever seen the
+Zoological Gardens or visited London.)
+
+She was lithe; she moved with charm. Her short, plain blue serge
+walking-frock disclosed the form of her limbs and left them free, and it
+made her look younger even than she was. Its simplicity suited her gestures
+and took grace from them. But she wore the old thing without the least
+interest in it--almost unconsciously. She had none of the preoccupations
+caused by the paraphernalia of existence. She scarcely knew what it was to
+own. She was aware only of her body and her soul. Beyond these her
+possessions were so few, so mean, so unimportant, that she might have
+carried them to the grave and into heaven without protest from the
+authorities earthly or celestial.
+
+The slight noise was due to the door of the study, which great age had
+distorted and bereft of sense, and, in fact, almost unhinged. It unlatched
+itself, paused, and then calmly but firmly swung wide open. When it could
+swing no farther it shook, vibrating into repose.
+
+Audrey condemned the door for a senile lunatic, and herself for a poltroon.
+She became defiant of peril, until the sound of a step on the stair beyond
+the door threw her back into alarm. But when the figure of Miss Ingate
+appeared in the doorway she was definitely reassured, to the point of
+disdain. All her facial expression said: "It's only Miss Ingate."
+
+And yet Miss Ingate was not a negligible woman. Her untidy hair was
+greying; she was stout, she was fifty, she was plain, she had not elegance;
+her accent and turns of speech were noticeably those of Essex. But she had
+a magnificent pale forehead; the eyes beneath it sparkled with energy,
+inquisitiveness, and sagacity; and the mouth beneath the eyes showed by its
+sardonic dropping corners that she had come to a settled, cheerful
+conclusion about human nature, and that the conclusion was not flattering.
+Miss Ingate was a Guardian of the Poor, and the Local Representative of the
+Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association. She had studied intimately
+the needy and the rich and the middling. She was charitable without
+illusions; and, while adhering to every social convention, she did so with
+a toleration pleasantly contemptuous; in her heart she had no mercy for
+snobs of any kind, though, unfortunately, she was at times absurdly
+intimidated by them--at other times she was not.
+
+To the west, within a radius of twelve miles, she knew everybody and
+everybody knew her; to the east her fame was bounded only by the regardless
+sea. She and her ancestors had lived in the village of Moze as long as even
+Mr. Mathew Moze and his ancestors. In the village, and to the village, she
+was Miss Ingate, a natural phenomenon, like the lie of the land and the
+river Moze. Her opinions offended nobody, not Mr. Moze himself--she was
+Miss Ingate. She was laughed at, beloved and respected. Her sagacity had
+one flaw, and the flaw sprang from her sincere conviction that human nature
+in that corner of Essex, which she understood so profoundly, and where she
+was so perfectly at home, was different from, and more fondly foolish than,
+human nature in any other part of the world. She could not believe that
+distant populations could be at once so pathetically and so naughtily human
+as the population in and around Moze.
+
+If Audrey disdained Miss Ingate, it was only because Miss Ingate was
+neither young nor fair nor the proprietress of some man, and because people
+made out that she was peculiar. In some respects Audrey looked upon Miss
+Ingate as a life-belt, as the speck of light at the end of a tunnel, as the
+enigmatic smile which glimmers always in the frown of destiny.
+
+"Well?" cried Miss Ingate in her rather shrill voice, grinning
+sardonically, with the corners of her lips still lower than usual in
+anticipatory sarcasm. It was as if she had said: "You cannot surprise me by
+any narrative of imbecility or turpitude or bathos. All the same, I am
+dying to hear the latest eccentricity of this village."
+
+"Well?" parried Audrey, holding one hand behind her.
+
+They did not shake hands. People who call at ten o'clock in the morning
+cannot expect to have their hands shaken. Miss Ingate certainly expected
+nothing of the sort. She had the freedom of Flank Hall, as of scores of
+other houses, at all times of day. Servants opened front doors for her with
+a careless smile, and having shut front doors they left her loose, like a
+familiar cat, to find what she wanted. They seldom "showed" her into any
+room, nor did they dream of acting before her the unconvincing comedy of
+going to "see" whether masters or mistresses were out or in.
+
+"Where's your mother?" asked Miss Ingate idly, quite sure that interesting
+divulgations would come, and quite content to wait for them. She had been
+out of the village for over a week.
+
+"Mother's taking her acetyl salicylic," Audrey answered, coming to the door
+of the study.
+
+This meant merely that Mrs. Moze had a customary attack of the neuralgia
+for which the district is justly renowned among strangers.
+
+"Oh!" murmured Miss Ingate callously. Mrs. Moze, though she had lived in
+the district for twenty-five years, did not belong to it. If she chose to
+keep on having neuralgia, that was her affair, but in justice to natives
+and to the district she ought not to make too much of it, and she ought to
+admit that it might well be due to her weakness after her operation. Miss
+Ingate considered the climate to be the finest in England; which it was, on
+the condition that you were proof against neuralgia.
+
+"Father's gone to Colchester in the car to see the Bishop," Audrey coldly
+added.
+
+"If I'd known he was going to Colchester I should have asked him for a
+lift," said Miss Ingate, with determination.
+
+"Oh, yes! He'd have taken _you!_" said Audrey, reserved. "I suppose you
+had fine times in London!"
+
+"Oh! It was vehy exciting! It was vehy exciting!" Miss Ingate agreed
+loudly.
+
+"Father wouldn't let me read about it in the paper," said Audrey, still
+reserved. "He never will, you know. But I did!"
+
+"Oh! But you didn't read about me playing the barrel organ all the way down
+Regent Street, because that wasn't in any of the papers."
+
+"You _didn't!_" Audrey protested, with a sudden dark smile.
+
+"Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And vehy tiring it was. Vehy tiring
+indeed. It's quite an art to turn a barrel organ. If you don't keep going
+perfectly even it makes the tune jerky. Oh! I know a bit about barrel
+organs now. They smashed it all to pieces. Oh yes! All to pieces. I spoke
+to the police. I said, 'Aren't you going to protect these ladies'
+property?' But they didn't lift a finger."
+
+"And weren't you arrested?"
+
+"Me!" shrieked Miss Ingate. "Me arrested!" Then more quietly, in an assured
+tone, "Oh no! I wasn't arrested. You see, as soon as the row began I just
+walked away from the organ and became one of the crowd. I'm all _for_ them,
+but I wasn't going to be arrested."
+
+Miss Ingate's sparkling eyes seemed to say: "Sylvia Pankhurst can be
+arrested if she likes, and so can Mrs. Despard and Annie Kenney and Jane
+Foley, or any of them. But the policeman that is clever enough to catch
+Miss Ingate of Moze does not exist. And the gumption of Miss Ingate of Moze
+surpasses the united gumption of all the other feminists in England."
+
+"Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" repeated Miss Ingate with mingled complacency, glee,
+passion, and sardonic tolerance of the whole panorama of worldly existence.
+"The police were awful, shocking. But I was not arrested."
+
+"Well, _I_ was--this morning," said Audrey in a low and poignant voice.
+
+Miss Ingate was startled out of her mood of the detached ironic spectator.
+
+"What?" she frowned.
+
+They heard a servant moving about at the foot of the stairs, and a capped
+head could be seen through the interstices of the white Chinese balustrade.
+The study was the only immediate refuge; Miss Ingate advanced right into
+it, and Audrey pushed the door to.
+
+"Father's given me a month's C.B."
+
+Miss Ingate, gazing at the girl's face, saw in its quiet and yet savage
+desperation the possibility that after all she might indeed be surprised by
+the vagaries of human nature in the village. And her glance became
+sympathetic, even tender, as well as apprehensive.
+
+"'C.B.'? What do you mean--'C.B.'?"
+
+"Don't you know what C.B. means?" exclaimed Audrey with scornful
+superiority over the old spinster. "Confined to barracks. Father says I'm
+not to go beyond the grounds for a month. And to-day's the second of
+April!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Yes, he does. He's given me a week, you know, before. Now it's a month."
+
+Silence fell.
+
+Miss Ingate looked round at the shabby study, with its guns, cigar-boxes,
+prints, books neither old nor new, japanned boxes of documents, and general
+litter scattered over the voluted walnut furniture. Her own house was
+old-fashioned, and she realised it was old-fashioned; but when she came
+into Flank Hall, and particularly into Mr. Moze's study, she felt as if
+she was stepping backwards into history--and this in spite of the fact that
+nothing in the place was really ancient, save the ceilings and the woodwork
+round the windows. It was Mr. Moze's habit of mind that dominated and
+transmogrified the whole interior, giving it the quality of a mausoleum.
+The suffragette procession in which Miss Ingate had musically and
+discreetly taken part seemed to her as she stood in Mr. Moze's changeless
+lair to be a phantasm. Then she looked at the young captive animal and
+perceived that two centuries may coincide on the same carpet and that time
+is merely a convention.
+
+"What you been doing?" she questioned, with delicacy.
+
+"I took a strange man by the hand," said Audrey, choosing her words
+queerly, as she sometimes did, to produce a dramatic effect.
+
+"This morning?"
+
+"Yes. Eight o'clock."
+
+"What? Is there a strange man in the village?"
+
+"You don't mean to say you haven't seen the yacht!"
+
+"Yacht?" Miss Ingate showed some excitement.
+
+"Come and look, Winnie," said Audrey, who occasionally thought fit to
+address Miss Ingate in the manner of the elder generation. She drew Miss
+Ingate to the window.
+
+Between the brown curtains Mozewater, the broad, shallow estuary of the
+Moze, was spread out glittering in the sunshine which could not get into
+the chilly room. The tide was nearly at full, and the estuary looked like a
+mighty harbour for great ships; but in six hours it would be reduced to a
+narrow stream winding through mud flats of marvellous ochres, greens, and
+pinks. In the hazy distance a fitful white flash showed where ocean waves
+were breaking on a sand-bank. And in the foreground, against a disused Hard
+that was a couple of hundred yards lower down than the village Hard, a
+large white yacht was moored, probably the largest yacht that had ever
+threaded that ticklish navigation. She was a shallow-draft barge-yacht,
+rigged like a Thames barge, and her whiteness and the glint of her brass,
+and the flicker of her ensign at the stern were dazzling. Blue figures ran
+busily about on her, and a white-and-blue person in a peaked cap stood
+importantly at the wheel.
+
+"She was on the mud last night," said Audrey eagerly, "opposite the Flank
+buoy, and she came up this morning at half-flood. I think they made fast at
+Lousey Hard, because they couldn't get any farther without waiting. They
+have a motor, and it must be their first trip this season. I was on the
+dyke. I wasn't even looking at them, but they called me, so I had to go.
+They only wanted to know if Lousey Hard was private. Of course I told them
+it wasn't. It was a very middle-aged man spoke to me. He must be the owner.
+As soon as they were tied up he wanted to jump ashore. It was rather
+awkward, and I just held out my hand to help him. Father saw me from here.
+I might have known he would."
+
+"Why! It's going off!" exclaimed Miss Ingate.
+
+The yacht swung slowly round, held by her stern to the Hard. Then the last
+hawser was cast off, and she floated away on the first of the ebb; and as
+she moved, her main-sail, unbrailed, spread itself out and became a vast
+pinion. Like a dream of happiness she lessened and faded, and Lousey Hard
+was as lonely and forlorn as ever.
+
+"But didn't you explain to your father?" Miss Ingate demanded of Audrey.
+
+"Of course I did. But he wouldn't listen. He never does. I might just as
+well have explained to the hall-clock. He raged. I think he enjoys losing
+his temper. He said I oughtn't to have been there at all, and it was just
+like me, and he couldn't understand it in a daughter of his, and it would
+be a great shock to my poor mother, and he'd talked enough--he should now
+proceed to action. All the usual things. He actually asked me who 'the man'
+was."
+
+"And who was it?"
+
+"How can I tell? For goodness' sake don't go imitating father, Winnie! ...
+Rather a dull man, I should say. Rather like father, only not so old. He
+had a beautiful necktie; I think it must have been made out of a strip of
+Joseph's coat."
+
+Miss Ingate giggled at a high pitch, and Audrey responsively smiled.
+
+"Oh dear! Oh dear!" murmured Miss Ingate when her giggling was exhausted.
+"How queer it is that a girl like you can't keep your father in a good
+temper!"
+
+"Father hates me to say funny things. If I say anything funny he turns as
+black as ink--and he takes care to keep gloomy all the rest of the day,
+too. He never laughs. Mother laughs now and then, but I never heard father
+laugh. Oh yes, I did. He laughed when the cat fell out of the bathroom
+window on to the lawn-roller. He went quite red in the face with
+laughing.... I say, Miss Ingate, do you think father's mad?"
+
+"I shouldn't think he's what you call mad," replied Miss Ingate judicially,
+with admirable sang-froid. "I've known so many peculiar people in my time.
+And you must remember, Audrey, this is a peculiar part of the world."
+
+"Well, I believe he's mad, anyway. I believe he's got men on the brain,
+especially young men. He's growing worse. Yesterday he told me I musn't
+have the punt out on Mozewater this season unless he's with me. Fancy
+skiffing about with father! He says I'm too old for that now. So there you
+are. The older I get the less I'm allowed to do. I can't go a walk, unless
+it's an errand. The pedal is off my bike, and father is much too cunning to
+have it repaired. I can't boat. I'm never given any money. He grumbles
+frightfully if I want any clothes, so I never want any. That's my latest
+dodge. I've read every book in the house except the silly liturgical and
+legal things he's always having from the London Library--and I've read even
+some of those. He won't buy any new music. Golf! Ye gods, Winnie, you
+should hear him talk about ladies and golf!"
+
+"I have," said Miss Ingate. "But it doesn't ruffle me, because I don't
+play."
+
+"But he plays with girls, and young girls, too, all the same. He's been
+caught in the act. Ethel told me. He little thinks I know. He'd let me play
+if he could be the only man on the course. He's mad about me and men. He
+never looks at me without thinking of all the boys in the district."
+
+"But he's really very fond of you, Audrey."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Audrey. "He ought to keep me in the china cupboard."
+
+"Well, it's a great problem."
+
+"He's invented a beautiful new trick for keeping me in when he's out. I
+have to copy his beastly Society letters for him."
+
+"I see he's got a new box," observed Miss Ingate, glancing into the open
+cupboard in which stood the safe. On the top of the safe were two japanned
+boxes, each lettered in white: "The National Reformation Society." The
+uppermost box was freshly unpacked and shone with all the intact pride of
+virginity.
+
+"You should read some of the letters. You really should, Winnie," said
+Audrey. "All the bigwigs of the Society love writing to each other. I bet
+you father will get a typewriting machine this year, and make me learn it.
+The chairman has a typewriter, and father means to be the next chairman.
+You'll see.... Oh! What's that? Listen!"
+
+"What's what?"
+
+A faint distant throbbing could be heard.
+
+"It's the motor! He's coming back for something. Fly out of here, Winnie,
+fly!"
+
+Audrey felt sick at the thought that if her father had returned only a few
+minutes earlier he might have trapped her at the safe itself. She still
+kept one hand behind her.
+
+Miss Ingate, who with all her qualities was rather easily flustered, ran
+out of the dangerous room in Audrey's wake. They met Mr. Mathew Moze at
+the half-landing of the stairs.
+
+He was a man of average size, somewhat past sixty years. He had plump
+cheeks, tinged with red; his hair, moustache and short, full beard, were
+quite grey. He wore a thick wide-spreading ulster, and between his coat and
+waistcoat a leather vest, and on his head a grey cap. Put him in the Strand
+in town clothes, and he might have been taken for a clerk, a civil servant,
+a club secretary, a retired military officer, a poet, an undertaker--for
+anything except the last of a long line of immovable squires who could not
+possibly conceive what it was not to be the owner of land. His face was
+preoccupied and overcast, but as soon as he realised that Miss Ingate was
+on the stairs it instantly brightened into a warm and rather wistful smile.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Ingate," he greeted her with deferential cordiality.
+"I'm so glad to see you back."
+
+"Good morning, good morning, Mr. Moze," responded Miss Ingate. "Vehy nice
+of you. Vehy nice of you."
+
+Nobody would have guessed from their demeanour that they differed on every
+subject except their loyalty to that particular corner of Essex, that he
+regarded her and her political associates as deadly microbes in the
+national organism, and that she regarded him as a nincompoop crossed with a
+tyrant. Each of them had a magic glass to see in the other nothing but a
+local Effendi and familiar guardian angel of Moze. Moreover, Mr. Moze's
+public smile and public manner were irresistible--until he lost his temper.
+He might have had friends by the score, had it not been for his deep
+constitutional reserve--due partly to diffidence and partly to an immense
+hidden conceit. Mr. Moze's existence was actuated, though he knew it not,
+by the conviction that the historic traditions of England were committed to
+his keeping. Hence the conceit, which was that of a soul secretly
+self-dedicated.
+
+Audrey, outraged by the hateful hypocrisy of persons over fifty, and
+terribly constrained and alarmed, turned vaguely back up the stairs. Miss
+Ingate, not quite knowing what she did, with an equal vagueness followed
+her.
+
+"Come in. Do come in," urged Mr. Moze at the door of the study.
+
+Audrey, who remained on the landing, heard her elders talk smoothly of
+grave Mozian things, while Mr. Moze unlocked the new tin box above the
+safe.
+
+"I'd forgotten a most important paper," said he, as he relocked the box. "I
+have an appointment with the Bishop of Colchester at ten-forty-five, and I
+fear I may be late. Will you excuse me, Miss Ingate?"
+
+She excused him.
+
+Departing, he put the paper into his pocket with a careful and loving
+gesture that well symbolised his passionate affection for the Society of
+which he was already the vice-chairman. He had been a member of the
+National Reformation Society for eleven years. Despite the promise of its
+name, this wealthy association of idealists had no care for reforms in a
+sadly imperfect England. Its aim was anti-Romanist. The Reformation which
+it had in mind was Luther's, and it wished, by fighting an alleged
+insidious revival of Roman Catholicism, to make sure that so far as England
+was concerned Luther had not preached in vain.
+
+Mr. Moze's connection with the Society had originated in a quarrel between
+himself and a Catholic priest from Ipswich who had instituted a boys'
+summer camp on the banks of Mozewater near the village of Moze. Until that
+quarrel, the exceeding noxiousness of the Papal doctrine had not clearly
+presented itself to Mr. Moze. In such strange ways may an ideal come to
+birth. As Mr. Moze, preoccupied and gloomy once more, steered himself
+rapidly out of Moze towards the episcopal presence, the image of the
+imperturbable and Jesuitical priest took shape in his mind, refreshing his
+determination to be even with Rome at any cost.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE THIEF'S PLAN WRECKED
+
+
+"The fact is," said Audrey, "father has another woman in the house now."
+
+Mr. Moze had left Miss Ingate in the study and Audrey had cautiously
+rejoined her there.
+
+"Another woman in the house!" repeated Miss Ingate, sitting down in happy
+expectation. "What on earth do you mean? Who on earth do you mean?"
+
+"I mean me."
+
+"You aren't a woman, Audrey."
+
+"I'm just as much of a woman as you are. All father's behaviour proves it."
+
+"But your father treats you as a child."
+
+"No, he doesn't. He treats me as a woman. If he thought I was a child he
+wouldn't have anything to worry about. I'm over nineteen."
+
+"You don't look it."
+
+"Of course I don't. But I could if I liked. I simply won't look it because
+I don't care to be made ridiculous. I should start to look my age at once
+if father stopped treating me like a child."
+
+"But you've just said he treats you as a woman!"
+
+"You don't understand, Winnie," said the girl sharply. "Unless you're
+pretending. Now you've never told me anything about yourself, and I've
+always told you lots about myself. You belong to an old-fashioned family.
+How were you treated when you were my age?"
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"You know what way," said Audrey, gazing at her.
+
+"Well, my dear. Things seemed to come very naturally, somehow."
+
+"Were you ever engaged?"
+
+"Me? Oh, no!" answered Miss Ingate with tranquillity. "I'm vehy interested
+in them. Oh, vehy! Oh, vehy! And I like talking to them. But anything more
+than that gets on my nerves. My eldest sister was the one. Oh! She was the
+one. She refused eleven men, and when she was going to be married she made
+me embroider the monograms of all of them on the skirt of her
+wedding-dress. She made me, and I had to do it. I sat up all night the
+night before the wedding to finish them."
+
+"And what did the bridegroom say about it?"
+
+"The bridegroom didn't say anything about it because he didn't know. Nobody
+knew except Arabella and me. She just wanted to feel that the monograms
+were on her dress, that was all."
+
+"How strange!"
+
+"Yes, it was. But this is a vehy strange part of the world."
+
+"And what happened afterwards?"
+
+"Bella died when she had her first baby, and the baby died as well. And the
+father's dead now, too."
+
+"What a horrid story, Winnie!" Audrey murmured. And after a pause: "I like
+your sister."
+
+"She was vehy uncommon. But I liked her too. I don't know why, but I did.
+She could make the best marmalade I ever tasted in my born days."
+
+"I could make the best marmalade you ever tasted in your born days," said
+Audrey, sinking neatly to the floor and crossing her legs, "but they won't
+let me."
+
+"Won't let you! But I thought you did all sorts of things in the house."
+
+"No, Winnie. I only do one thing. I do as I'm told--and not always even
+that. Now, if I wanted to make the best marmalade you ever tasted in your
+born days, first of all there would be a fearful row about the oranges.
+Secondly, father would tell mother she must tell me exactly what I was to
+do. He would also tell cook. Thirdly and lastly, dear friends, he would
+come into the kitchen himself. It wouldn't be my marmalade at all. I should
+only be a marmalade-making machine. They never let me have any
+responsibility--no, not even when mother's operation was on--and I'm never
+officially free. The kitchen-maid has far more responsibility than I have.
+And she has an evening off and an afternoon off. She can write a letter
+without everybody asking her who she's writing to. She's only seventeen.
+She has the morning postman for a young man now, and probably one or two
+others that I don't know of. And she has money and she buys her own
+clothes. She's a very naughty, wicked girl, and I wish I was in her place.
+She scorns me, naturally. Who wouldn't?"
+
+Miss Ingate said not a word. She merely sat with her hands in the lap of
+her spotted pale-blue dress, faintly and sadly smiling.
+
+Audrey burst out:
+
+"Miss Ingate, what can I do? I must do something. What can I do?"
+
+Miss Ingate shook her head, and put her lips tightly together, while
+mechanically smoothing the sides of her grey coat.
+
+"I don't know," she said. "It beats me."
+
+"Then _I'll_ tell you what I can do!" answered Audrey firmly, wriggling
+somewhat nearer to her along the floor. "And what I shall do."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Will you promise to keep it a secret?"
+
+Miss Ingate nodded, smiling and showing her teeth. Her broad polished
+forehead positively shone with kindly eagerness.
+
+"Will you swear?"
+
+Miss Ingate hesitated, and then nodded again.
+
+"Then put your hand on my head and say, 'I swear.'"
+
+Miss Ingate obeyed.
+
+"I shall leave this house," said Audrey in a low voice.
+
+"You won't, Audrey!"
+
+"I'll eat my hand off if I've not left this house by to-morrow, anyway."
+
+"To-morrow!" Miss Ingate nearly screamed. "Now, Audrey, do reflect. Think
+what you are!"
+
+Audrey bounded to her feet.
+
+"That's what father's always saying," she exploded angrily. "He's always
+telling me to examine myself. The fact is, I know too much about myself. I
+know exactly the kind of girl it is who's going to leave this house.
+Exactly!"
+
+"Audrey, you frighten me. Where are you going to?"
+
+"London."
+
+"Oh! That's all right then. I am relieved. I thought perhaps you waited to
+come to _my_ house. You won't get to London, because you haven't any
+money."
+
+"Oh, yes, I have. I've got a hundred pounds."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Remember, you've sworn.... Here!" she cried suddenly, and drawing her hand
+from behind her back she most sensationally displayed a crushed roll of
+bank-notes.
+
+"And who did you get those from?"
+
+"I didn't get them from anybody. I got them out of father's safe. They're
+his reserve. He keeps them right at the back of the left-hand drawer, and
+he's so sure they're there that he never looks for them. He thinks he's a
+perfect model, but really he's careless. There's a duplicate key to the
+safe, you know, and he leaves it with a lot of other keys loose in his
+desk. I expect he thought nobody would ever dream of guessing it was a key
+of the safe. I know he never looked at this roll, because I've been opening
+the safe every day for weeks past, and the roll was always the same. In
+fact, it was dusty. Then to-day I decided to take it, and here you are! He
+finished himself off yesterday, so far as I'm concerned, with the business
+about the punt."
+
+"But do you know you're a thief, Audrey?" breathed Miss Ingate, extremely
+embarrassed, and for once somewhat staggered by the vagaries of human
+nature.
+
+"You seem to forget, Miss Ingate," said Audrey solemnly, "that Cousin
+Caroline left me a legacy of two hundred pounds last year, and that I've
+never seen a penny of it. Father absolutely declined to let me have the
+tiniest bit of it. Well, I've taken half. He can keep the other half for
+his trouble."
+
+Miss Ingate's mouth stood open, and her eyes seemed startled.
+
+"But you can't go to London alone. You wouldn't know what to do."
+
+"Yes, I should. I've arranged everything. I shall wear my best clothes.
+When I arrive at Liverpool Street I shall take a taxi. I've got three
+addresses of boarding-houses out of the _Daily Telegraph_, and they're all
+in Bloomsbury, W.C. I shall have lessons in shorthand and typewriting at
+Pitman's School, and then I shall get a situation. My name will be
+Vavasour."
+
+"But you'll be caught."
+
+"I shan't. I shall book to Ipswich first and begin again from there. Girls
+like me aren't so easy to catch as all that."
+
+"You're vehy cunning."
+
+"I get that from mother. She's most frightfully cunning with father."
+
+"Audrey," said Miss Ingate with a strange grin, "I don't know how I can sit
+here and listen to you. You'll ruin me with your father, because if you go
+I'm sure I shall never be able to keep from him that I knew all about it."
+
+"Then you shouldn't have sworn," retorted Audrey. "But I'm glad you did
+swear, because I had to tell somebody, and there was nobody but you."
+
+Miss Ingate might possibly have contrived to employ some of that sagacity
+in which she took a secret pride upon a very critical and urgent situation,
+had not Mrs. Moze, with a white handkerchief wrapped round her forehead,
+at that moment come into the room. Immediately the study was full of
+neuralgia and eau-de-Cologne.
+
+When Mrs. Moze and Miss Ingate at length recovered from the tenderness of
+meeting each other after a separation of ten days or more, Audrey had
+vanished like an illusion. She was not afraid of her mother; and she could
+trust Miss Ingate, though Miss Ingate and Mrs. Moze were dangerously
+intimate; but she was too self-conscious to remain in the presence of her
+fellow-creatures; and in spite of her faith in Miss Ingate she thought of
+the spinster as of a vase filled now with a fatal liquor which by any
+accident might spill and spread ruin--so that she could scarcely bear to
+look upon Miss Ingate.
+
+At the back of the house a young Pomeranian dog, which had recently solaced
+Miss Ingate in the loss of a Pekingese done to death by a spinster's
+too-nourishing love, was prancing on his four springs round the chained
+yard-dog, his friend and patron. In a series of marvellous short bounds, he
+followed Audrey with yapping eagerness down the slope of the garden; and
+the yard-dog, aware that none but the omnipotent deity, Mr. Moze, sole
+source of good and evil, had the right to loose him, turned round once and
+laid himself flat and long on the ground, sighing.
+
+The garden, after developing into an orchard and deteriorating into a
+scraggy plantation, ended in a low wall that was at about the level of the
+sea-wall and separated from it by a water-course and a strip of very green
+meadow. Audrey glanced instinctively back at the house to see if anybody
+was watching her.
+
+Flank Hall, which for a hundred years had been called "the new hall," was a
+seemly Georgian residence, warm in colour, with some quaint woodwork; and
+like most such buildings in Essex, it made a very happy marriage with the
+landscape. Its dormers and fine chimneys glowed amid the dark bare trees,
+and they alone would have captivated a Londoner possessing those precious
+attributes, fortunately ever spreading among the enlightened
+middle-classes, a motor-car, a cultured taste in architecture, and a desire
+to enter the squirearchy. Audrey loathed the house. For her it was the last
+depth of sordidness and the commonplace. She could imagine positively
+nothing less romantic. She thought of the ground floor on chill March
+mornings with no fires anywhere save a red gleam in the dining-room, and
+herself wandering about in it idle, at a loss for a diversion, an ambition,
+an effort, a real task; and she thought of the upper floor, a mainly
+unoccupied wilderness of iron bedsteads and yellow chests of drawers and
+chipped earthenware and islands of carpets, and her mother plaintively and
+weariedly arguing with some servant over a slop-pail in a corner. The
+images of the interior, indelibly printed in her soul, desolated her.
+
+Mozewater she loved, and every souvenir of it was exquisite--red barges
+beating miraculously up the shallow puddles to Moze Quay, equinoctial
+spring-tides when the estuary was a tremendous ocean covered with foam and
+the sea-wall felt the light lash of spray, thunderstorms in autumn
+gathering over the yellow melancholy of deathlike sunsets, wild birds
+crying across miles of uncovered mud at early morning and duck-hunters
+crouching in punts behind a waving screen of delicate grasses to wing them,
+and the mysterious shapes of steamers and warships in the offing beyond the
+Sand.... The sail of the receding yacht gleamed now against the Sand, and
+its flashing broke her heart; for it was the flashing of freedom. She
+thought of the yachtsman; he was very courteous and deferential; a mild
+creature; he had behaved to her as to a woman.... Oh! To be the petted and
+capricious wife of such a man, to nod commands, to enslave with a smile, to
+want a thing and instantly to have it, to be consulted and to decide, to
+spend with large gestures, to be charitable, to be adored by those whom you
+had saved from disaster, to increase happiness wherever you went ... and to
+be free!....
+
+The little dog jumped up at her because he was tired of being ignored, and
+she caught him and kissed him again and again passionately, and he wriggled
+with ecstasy and licked her ears with all the love in him. And in kissing
+him she kissed grave and affectionate husbands, she kissed the lovely
+scenery of the Sound, and she kissed the magnificent ideal of emancipation.
+But the dog had soon had enough of her arms; he broke free, sprang,
+alighted, and rolled over, and arose sniffing, with earth on his black
+muzzle....
+
+He looked up at her inquiringly.... Strange, short-frocked blue figure
+looking down at him! She had a bulging forehead; her brown eyes were
+tunnelled underneath it. But what living eyes, what ardent eyes, that
+blazed up and sank like a fire! What delicate and exact mirrors of the
+secret traffic between her soul and the soul of the world!  She had full
+cheeks, and a large mouth ripe red, inviting and provocative. In the midst,
+an absurd small unprominent nose that meant nothing! Her complexion was
+divine, surpassing all similes. To caress that smooth downy cheek (if you
+looked close you could see the infinitesimal down against the light like an
+aura on the edge of the silhouette), even to let the gaze dwell on it, what
+an enchantment!... She considered herself piquant and comely, and she was
+not deceived. She had long hands.
+
+The wind from afar on her cheek reminded her poignantly that she was a
+prisoner. She could not go to the clustered village on the left, nor into
+the saltings on the right, nor even on to the sea-wall where the new rushes
+and grasses were showing. All the estuary was barred, and the winding road
+that mounted the slope towards Colchester. Her revolt against injustice
+was savage. Hatred of her father surged up in her like glittering lava. She
+had long since ceased to try to comprehend him. She despised herself
+because she was unreasonably afraid of him, ridiculously mute before him.
+She could not understand how anybody could be friendly with him--for was he
+not notorious? Yet everywhere he was greeted with respect and smiles, and
+he would chat at length with all manner of people on a note of mild and
+smooth cordiality. He and Miss Ingate would enjoy together the most
+enormous talks. She was, however, aware that Miss Ingate's opinion of him
+was not very different from her own. Each time she saw her father and Miss
+Ingate in communion she would say in her heart to Miss Ingate: "You are
+disloyal to me." ...
+
+Was it possible that she had confided to Miss Ingate her fearful secret?
+The conversation appeared to her unreal now. She went over her plan. In the
+afternoon her father was always out, and to-morrow afternoon her mother
+would be out too. She would have a few things in a light bag that she could
+carry--her mother's bag! She would put on her best clothes and a veil from
+her mother's wardrobe. She would take the 4.5 p.m. train. The stationmaster
+would be at his tea then. Only the booking-clerk and the porter would see
+her, and neither would dare to make an observation. She would ask for a
+return ticket to Ipswich; that would allay suspicion, and at Ipswich she
+would book again. She had cut out the addresses of the boarding-houses.
+She would have to buy things in London. She knew of two shops--Harrod's and
+Shoolbred's; she had seen their catalogues. And the very next morning after
+arrival she would go to Pitman's School. She would change the first of the
+£5 notes at the station and ask for plenty of silver. She glanced at the
+unlimited wealth still crushed in her hand, and then she carefully dropped
+the fortune down the neck of her frock.... Stealing? She repulsed the idea
+with violent disdain. What she had accomplished against her father was not
+a crime, but a vengeance.... She would never be found in London. It was
+impossible. Her plan seemed to her to be perfect in each detail, except
+one. She was not the right sort of girl to execute it. She was very shy.
+She suspected that no other girl could really be as shy as she was. She
+recalled dreadful rare moments with her mother in strange drawing-rooms.
+Still, she would execute the plan even if she died of fright. A force
+within her would compel her to execute it. This force did not make for
+happiness; on the contrary, it uncomfortably scared her; but it was
+irresistible.
+
+Something on the brow of the road from Colchester attracted her attention.
+It was a handcart, pushed by a labourer and by Police Inspector Keeble,
+whom she liked. Following the handcart over the brow came a loose
+procession of villagers, which included no children, because the children
+were in school. Except on a Sunday Audrey had never before seen a
+procession of villagers, and these villagers must have been collected out
+of the fields, for the procession was going in the direction of, and not
+away from, the village. The handcart was covered with a tarpaulin.... She
+knew what had happened; she knew infallibly. Skirting the boundary of the
+grounds, she reached the main entrance to Flank Hall thirty seconds before
+the handcart. The little dog, delighted in a new adventure, yapped
+ecstatically at her heels, and then bounded onwards to meet the Inspector
+and the handcart.
+
+"Run and tell yer mother, Miss Moze," Inspector Keeble called out in a
+carrying whisper. "There's been an accident. He ditched the car near
+Ardleigh cross-roads, trying to avoid some fowls."
+
+Mr. Moze, hurrying too fast to meet the Bishop of Colchester, had met a
+greater than the Bishop.
+
+Audrey glanced an instant with a sick qualm at the outlines of the shape
+beneath the tarpaulin, and ran.
+
+In the dining-room, over the speck of fire, Mrs. Moze and Miss Ingate were
+locked in a deep intimate gossip.
+
+"Mother!" cried Audrey, and then sank like a sack.
+
+"Why! The little thing's fainted!" Miss Ingate exclaimed in a voice
+suddenly hoarse.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LEGACY
+
+
+Audrey and Miss Ingate were in the late Mathew Moze's study, fascinated--as
+much unconsciously as consciously--by the thing which since its owner's
+death had grown every hour more mysterious and more formidable--the safe.
+It was a fine afternoon. The secondary but still grandiose enigma of the
+affair, Mr. Cowl, could be heard walking methodically on the gravel in the
+garden. Mr. Cowl was the secretary of the National Reformation Society.
+
+Suddenly the irregular sound of crunching receded.
+
+"He's gone somewhere else," said Audrey.
+
+"I'm so relieved," said Miss Ingate. "I hope he's gone a long way off."
+
+"Are you?" murmured Audrey, with an air of surprised superiority.
+
+But in secret Audrey felt just as relieved as Miss Ingate, despite the fact
+that, her mother being prostrate, she was the mistress of the situation,
+and could have ordered Mr. Cowl to leave, with the certainty of being
+obeyed. She was astonished at her illogical sensations, and she had been
+frequently so astonished in the previous four days.
+
+For example, she was free; she knew that she could impose herself on her
+mother; never again would she be the slave of an unreasoning tyrant; yet
+she was gloomy and without hope. She had hated the unreasoning tyrant; yet
+she felt very sorry for him because he was dead. And though she felt very
+sorry for him, she detested hearing the panegyrics upon him of the village,
+and particularly of those persons with whom he had quarrelled; she actually
+stopped Miss Ingate in the midst of an enumeration of his good
+qualities--his charm, his smile, his courtesy, his integrity, et cetera;
+she could not bear it. She thought that no child had ever had such a
+strange attitude to a deceased parent as hers to Mr. Moze. She had
+anticipated the inquest with an awful dread; it proved to be a trifle, and
+a ridiculous trifle. In the long weekly letter which she wrote to her
+adored school-friend Ethel at Manningtree she had actually likened the
+coroner to a pecking fowl! Was it possible that a daughter could write in
+such a strain about the inquest on her father's body?
+
+The funeral had seemed a function by itself, with some guidance from the
+undertaker and still more from Mr. Cowl. Villagers and district
+acquaintances had been many at the ceremony, but relatives rare. Mr. Moze's
+four younger brothers were all in the Colonies; Mrs. Moze had apparently no
+connections. Madame Piriac, daughter of Mr. Moze's first wife by that
+lady's first husband, had telegraphed sympathies from Paris. A cousin or so
+had come in person from Woodbridge for the day.
+
+It was from the demeanour of these cousins, grave men twice her age or
+more, that Audrey had first divined her new importance in the world. Their
+deference indicated that in their opinion the future mistress of Flank Hall
+was not Mrs. Moze, but Audrey. Audrey admitted that they were right.  Yet
+she took no pleasure in issuing commands. She spoke firmly, but she said to
+herself: "There is no backbone to this firmness, and I am a fraud." She had
+always yearned for responsibility, yet now that it was in her hand she
+trembled, and she would have dropped it and run away from it as from a
+bomb, had she not been too cowardly to show her cowardice.
+
+The instance of Aguilar, the head-gardener and mechanic, well illustrated
+her pusillanimity. She loathed Aguilar; her mother loathed him; the
+servants loathed him. He had said at the inquest that the car was in
+perfect order, but that Mr. Moze was too excitable to be a good driver.
+His evidence was true, but the jury did not care for his manner. Nor did
+the village. He had only two good qualities--honesty and efficiency; and
+these by their rarity excited jealousy rather than admiration. Audrey
+strongly desired to throw the gardener-mechanic upon the world; it
+nauseated her to see his disobliging face about the garden. But he remained
+scathless, to refuse demanded vegetables, to annoy the kitchen, to
+pronounce the motor-car utterly valueless, and to complain of his own
+liver. Audrey had legs; she had a tongue; she could articulate. Neither
+wish nor power was lacking in her to give Aguilar the supreme experience of
+his career. And yet she did not walk up to him and say: "Aguilar, please
+take a week's notice." Why? The question puzzled her and lowered her
+opinion of herself.
+
+She was similarly absurd in the paramount matter of the safe. The safe
+could not be opened. The village, having been thrilled by four stirring
+days of the most precious and rare fever, had suffered much after the
+funeral from a severe reaction of dullness. It would have suffered much
+more had the fact not escaped that the safe could not be opened. In the
+deep depression of the day following the funeral the village could still
+say to itself: "Romance and excitement are not yet over, for the key of the
+Moze safe is lost, and the will is in the safe!"
+
+The village did not know that there were two keys to the safe and that they
+were both lost. Nobody knew that except Audrey and Miss Ingate and Mr.
+Cowl. The official key was lost because Mr. Moze's key-ring was lost. The
+theory was that it had been jerked out of his pocket in the accident.
+Persistent search for it had been unsuccessful. As for the unofficial or
+duplicate key, Audrey could not remember where she had put it after her
+burglary, the conclusion of which had been disturbed by Miss Ingate. At one
+moment she was quite sure that she had left the key in the safe, but at
+another moment she was equally sure that she was holding the key in her
+right hand (the bank-notes being in her left) when Miss Ingate entered the
+room; at still another moment she was almost convinced that before Miss
+Ingate's arrival she had run to the desk and slipped the key back into its
+drawer. In any case the second key was irretrievable. She discussed the
+dilemma very fully with Miss Ingate, who had obligingly come to stay in the
+house. They examined every aspect of the affair, except Audrey's guiltiness
+of theft, which both of them tacitly ignored. In the end they decided that
+it might be wiser not to conceal Audrey's knowledge of the existence of a
+second key; and they told Mr. Cowl, because he happened to be at hand. In
+so doing they were ill-advised, because Mr. Cowl at once acted in a
+characteristic and inconvenient fashion which they ought to have foreseen.
+
+On the day before the funeral Mr. Cowl had telegraphed from some place in
+Devonshire that he should represent the National Reformation Society at the
+funeral, and asked for a bed, on the pretext that he could not get from
+Devonshire to Moze in time for the funeral if he postponed his departure
+until the next morning. The telegram was quite costly. He arrived for
+dinner, a fat man about thirty-eight, with chestnut hair, a low, alluring
+voice, and a small handbag for luggage. Miss Ingate thought him very
+interesting, and he was. He said little about the National Reformation
+Society, but a great deal about the late Mr. Moze, of whom he appeared to
+be an intimate friend; presumably the friendship had developed at meetings
+of the Society. After dinner he strolled nonchalantly to the sideboard and
+opened a box of the deceased's cigars, and suggested that, as he was well
+acquainted with the brand, having often enjoyed the hospitality of Mr.
+Moze's cigar-case, he should smoke a cigar now to the memory of the
+departed. Miss Ingate then began to feel alarmed. He smoked four cigars to
+the memory of the departed, and on retiring ventured to take four more for
+consumption during the night, as he seldom slept.
+
+In the morning he went into the bathroom at eight o'clock and remained
+there till noon, reading and smoking in continually renewed hot water. He
+descended blandly, begged Miss Moze not to trouble about his breakfast, and
+gently assumed a certain control of the funeral. After the funeral he
+announced that he should leave on the morrow; but the mystery of the safe
+held him to the house. When he heard of the existence of the second key he
+organised and took command of a complete search of the study, and in the
+course of the search he inspected every document in the study. He said he
+knew that the deceased had left a legacy to the Society, and he should not
+feel justified in quitting Moze until the will was found.
+
+Now in these circumstances Audrey ought certainly to have telegraphed to
+her father's solicitor at Chelmsford at once. In the alternative she ought
+to have hired a safe-opening expert or a burglar from Colchester. She had
+accomplished neither of these downright things. With absolute power, she
+had done nothing but postpone. She wondered at herself, for up to her
+father's death she had been a great critic of absolute power.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The heavy policemanish step of Mr. Cowl was heard on the landing.
+
+"He's coming down on us!" exclaimed Miss Ingate, partly afraid, and partly
+ironic at her own fear. "I'm sure he's coming down on us. Audrey, I liked
+that man at first, but now I tremble before him. And I'm sure his moustache
+is dyed. Can't you ask him to leave?"
+
+"Is his moustache dyed, Winnie? Oh, what fun!"
+
+Miss Ingate's apprehension was justified. There was a knock at the study
+door, discreet, insistent, menacing, and it was Mr. Cowl's knock. He
+entered, smiling gravely and yet, as it were, teasingly. His easy bigness,
+florid and sinister, made a disturbing contrast with the artless and pure
+simplicity of Audrey in her new black robe, and even with Miss Ingate's
+pallid maturity, which, after all, was passably innocent and ingenuous. Mr.
+Cowl resembled a great beast good-humouredly lolloping into the cage in
+which two rabbits had been placed for his diversion and hunger.
+
+Pulling a key from the pocket of his vast waistcoat, he said in his quiet
+voice, so seductive and ominous:
+
+"Is this the key of the safe?"
+
+He offered it delicately to Audrey.
+
+It was the key of the safe.
+
+"Did they find it in the ditch?" Audrey demanded, blushing, for she knew
+that the key had not been found in the ditch; she knew by a certain
+indentation on it that it was the duplicate key which she herself had
+mislaid.
+
+"No," said Mr. Cowl. "I found it myself, and not in the ditch. I remembered
+you had said that you had changed at the dressmaker's in the village and
+had left there an old frock."
+
+"Did I?" murmured Audrey, with a deeper blush.
+
+Mr. Cowl nodded.
+
+"I had the happy idea that you might have had the key and left it in the
+pocket of the frock. So I trotted down to the dressmaker's and asked for
+the frock, in your name, and lo! the result!"
+
+He pointed to the key lying in Audrey's long hand.
+
+"But how should I have had the key, Mr. Cowl? Why should I have had the
+key?" Audrey burst out like a simpleton.
+
+"That, Miss Moze," said he, with a peculiar grin and in an equally peculiar
+tone, "is a matter about which obviously you are better informed than I am.
+Shall we try the key?"
+
+With a smooth undeniable gesture he took the key again from Audrey, and
+bent his huge form to open the safe. As he did so Miss Ingate made a
+sarcastic and yet affrighted face at Audrey, and Audrey tried to send a
+signal in reply, but failed, owing to imperfect self-control. However, she
+managed to say to Mr. Cowl's curved back:
+
+"You couldn't have found the key in the pocket of my old frock, Mr. Cowl."
+
+"And why?" he inquired benevolently, raising and turning his chestnut head.
+Even in that exciting instant Audrey could debate within herself whether or
+not his superb moustache was dyed.
+
+"Because it has no pocket."
+
+"So I discovered," said Mr. Cowl, after a little pause. "I merely stated
+that I had the happy idea--for it proved to be a happy idea--that you might
+have left the key in the pocket. I discovered it, as a fact, in a slit of
+the lining of the belt.... Conceivably you had slipped it in there--in a
+hurry." He put strange implications into the last three words. "Yes, it is
+the authentic key," he concluded, as the door of the safe swung heavily and
+silently open.
+
+Audrey, for the first time, felt rather like a thief as she beheld the
+familiar interior of the safe which a few days earlier she had so
+successfully rifled. "Is it possible," she thought, "that I really took
+bank-notes out of that safe, and that they are at this very moment in my
+bedroom between the leaves of 'Pictures of Palestine'?"
+
+Mr. Cowl was cautiously fumbling among the serried row of documents which,
+their edges towards the front, filled the steel shelf above the drawers.
+Audrey had never experienced any curiosity concerning the documents. Lucre
+alone had interested the base creature. No documents would have helped her
+to freedom. But now she thought apprehensively: "My fate may be among those
+documents." She was quite prepared to learn that her father had done
+something silly in his will.
+
+"This resembles a testament," said Mr. Cowl, smiling to himself, and
+pulling out a foolscap scrip, folded and endorsed. "Yes. Dated last year."
+
+He unfolded the document; a letter slipped from the interior of it; he
+placed the letter on the small occasional table next to the desk, and
+offered the will to Audrey with precisely the same gesture as he had
+offered the key.
+
+Audrey tried to decipher the will, and completely failed.
+
+"Will you read it, Miss Ingate?" she muttered.
+
+"I can't! I can't!" answered Miss Ingate in excitement. "I'm sure I can't.
+I never could read wills. They're so funny, somehow. And I haven't got my
+spectacles." She flushed slightly.
+
+"May _I_ venture to tell you what it contains?" Mr. Cowl suggested. "There
+can be no indiscretion on my part, as all wills after probate are public
+property and can be inspected by any Tom, Dick or Harry for a fee of one
+shilling."
+
+He took the document and gazed at it intently, turning over a page and
+turning back, for an extraordinarily long time.
+
+Audrey said to herself again and again, with exasperated impatience: "He
+knows now, and I don't know. He knows now, and I don't know. He knows now,
+and I don't know."
+
+At length Mr. Cowl spoke:
+
+"It is a perfectly simple will. The testator leaves the whole of his
+property to Mrs. Moze for life, and afterwards to you, Miss Moze. There are
+only two legacies. Ten pounds to James Aguilar, gardener. And the
+testator's shares in the Zacatecas Oil Development Corporation to the
+National Reformation Society. I may say that the testator had expressed to
+me his intention of leaving these shares to the Society. We should have
+preferred money, free of legacy duty, but the late Mr. Moze had a reason
+for everything he did. I must now bid you good-bye, ladies," he went on
+strangely, with no pause. "Miss Moze, will you convey my sympathetic
+respects to your mother and my thanks for her most kind hospitality? My
+grateful sympathies to yourself. Good-bye, Miss Ingate.... Er, Miss
+Ingate, why do you look at me in that peculiar way?"
+
+"Well, Mr. Cowl, you're a very peculiar man. May I ask whether you were
+born in this part of the country?"
+
+"At Clacton, Miss Ingate," answered Mr. Cowl imperturbably.
+
+"I knew it," said Miss Ingate, and the corners of her lips went
+sardonically down.
+
+"Please don't trouble to come downstairs," said Mr. Cowl. "My bag is
+packed. I have tipped the parlourmaid, and there is just time to catch the
+train."
+
+He departed, leaving the two women speechless.
+
+After a moment, Miss Ingate said dryly:
+
+"He was so very peculiar I knew he must belong to these parts."
+
+"How did he know I left my blue frock at Miss Pannell's?" cried Audrey. "I
+never told him."
+
+"He must have been eavesdropping!" cried Miss Ingate. "He never found the
+key in your frock. He must have found it here somewhere; I feel sure it
+must have dropped by the safe, and I lay anything he had opened the safe
+before and read the will before. I could tell from the way he looked."
+
+"And why should he suppose that I'd the key?" Audrey put in.
+
+"Eavesdropping! I'm convinced that man knows too much." Audrey reddened
+once more. "I believe he thought you'd be capable of burning the will.
+That's why he made you handle it in his presence and mine."
+
+"Well, Winnie," said Audrey, "I think you might have told him all that
+while he was here, instead of letting him go off so triumphant."
+
+"I did begin to," said Miss Ingate with a snigger. "But you wouldn't back
+me up, you little coward."
+
+"I shall never be a coward again!" Audrey said violently.
+
+They read the will together. They had no difficulty at all in comprehending
+it now that they were alone.
+
+"I do think it's a horrid shame Aguilar should have that ten pounds," said
+Audrey. "But otherwise I don't care. You can't guess how relieved I am,
+Winnie. I imagined the most dreadful things. I don't know what I imagined.
+But now we shall have all the property and everything, just as much as ever
+there was, and only me and mother to spend it." Audrey danced an embryonic
+jig. "Won't I keep mother in order! Winnie, I shall make her go with me to
+Paris. I've always wanted to know that Madame Piriac--she does write such
+funny English in her letters."
+
+"What's that you're saying?" murmured Miss Ingate, who had picked up the
+letter which Mr. Cowl had laid on the small table.
+
+"I say I shall make mother go to Paris with me."
+
+"You won't," said Miss Ingate. "Because she won't go. I know your mother
+better than you do.... Oh!  Audrey!"
+
+Audrey saw Miss Ingate's face turn scarlet from the roots of her hair to
+her chin.
+
+Miss Ingate had dropped the letter. Audrey snatched it.
+
+"My dear Moze," the letter ran. "I send you herewith a report of the
+meeting of the Great Mexican Oil Company at New York. You will see that
+they duly authorised the contract by which the Zacatecas Oil Corporation
+transfers our property to them in exchange for shares at the rate of four
+Great Mexican shares for one Zacatecas share. As each of the Development
+Syndicate shares represents ten of the Corporation shares, and as on my
+recommendation you put £4,500 into the Syndicate, you will therefore own
+180,000 Great Mexican shares. They are at present above par. Mark my
+words, they will be worth from seven to ten dollars apiece in a year's
+time. I think you now owe me a good turn, eh?"
+
+The letter was signed with a name unknown to either of them, and it was
+dated from Coleman Street, E.C.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MR. FOULGER
+
+
+Half an hour later the woman and the girl, still in the study and severely
+damaged by the culminating events of Mr. Cowl's visit, were almost
+prostrated by the entirely unexpected announcement of the arrival of Mr.
+Foulger. Mr. Foulger was the late Mr. Moze's solicitor from Chelmsford.
+Audrey's first thought was: "Has heaven telegraphed to him on my behalf?"
+But her next was that all the solicitors in the world would now be useless
+in the horrible calamity that had befallen.
+
+It is to be noted that Audrey was no worse off than before the discovery of
+the astounding value of the Zacatecas shares. The Moze property, inherited
+through generations and consisting mainly in farms and tithe-rents, was not
+in the slightest degree impaired. On the contrary, the steady progress of
+agriculture in Essex indicated that its yield must improve with years.
+Nevertheless Audrey felt as though she and her mother were ruined, and as
+though the National Reformation Society had been guilty of a fearful crime
+against a widow and an orphan. The lovely vision of immeasurable wealth had
+flashed and scintillated for a month in front of her dazzled eyes--and then
+blackness, nothingness, the dark void! She knew that she would never be
+happy again.
+
+And she thought, scornfully, "How could father have been so preoccupied and
+so gloomy, with all those riches?" She could not conceive anybody as rich
+as her father secretly was not being day and night in a condition of pure
+delight at the whole spectacle of existence. Her opinion of Mathew Moze
+fell lower than ever, and fell finally.
+
+The parlourmaid, in a negligence of attire indicating that no man was left
+alive in the house, waited at the door of the study to learn whether or not
+Miss Moze was in.
+
+"You'll _have_ to see him," said Miss Ingate firmly. "It'll be all right.
+I've known him all my life. He's a very nice man."
+
+After the parlourmaid had gone, and while Audrey was upbraiding her for not
+confessing earlier her acquaintance with Mr. Foulger, Miss Ingate added:
+
+"Only his wife has a wooden leg."
+
+Then Mr. Foulger entered. He was a shortish man of about fifty, with a
+paunch, but not otherwise fat; dressed like a sportsman. He trod very
+lightly. The expression on his ruddy face was amiable but extremely alert,
+hardening at intervals into decision or caution. He saw before him a
+nervous, frowning girl in inelegant black, and Miss Ingate with a curious
+look in her eyes and a sardonic and timid twitching of her lips. For an
+instant he was discountenanced; but he at once recovered, accomplishing a
+bright salute.
+
+"Here you are at last, Mr. Foulger!" Miss Ingate responded. "But you're too
+late."
+
+These mysterious words, and the speechlessness of Audrey, upset him again.
+
+"I was away in Somersetshire for a little fishing," he said, after he had
+deplored the death of Mr. Moze, the illness of Mrs. Moze, and the
+bereavement of Miss Moze, and had congratulated Miss Moze on the protective
+friendship of his old friend, Miss Ingate. "I was away for a little
+fishing, and I only heard the sad news when I got back home at noon to-day.
+I came over at once." He cleared his throat and looked first at Audrey and
+then at Miss Ingate. He felt that he ought to be addressing Audrey, but
+somehow he could not help addressing Miss Ingate instead. His grey legs
+were spread abroad as he sat very erect on a chair, and between them his
+dependent paunch found a comfortable space for itself.
+
+"You must have been getting anxious about the will. I have brought it with
+me," he said. He drew a white document from the breast-pocket of his
+cutaway coat, and he perched a pair of eyeglasses carelessly on his nose.
+"It was executed before your birth, Miss Moze. But a will keeps like wine.
+The whole of the property of every description is left to Mrs. Moze, and
+she is sole executrix. If she should predecease the testator, then
+everything is left to his child or children. Not perhaps a very
+businesslike will--a will likely to lead to unforeseen complications, but
+the sort of will that a man in the first flush of marriage often does make,
+and there is no stopping him. Your father had almost every quality, but he
+was not businesslike--if I may say so with respect. However, I confess that
+for the present I see no difficulties. Of course the death duties will have
+to be paid, but your father always kept a considerable amount of money at
+call. When I say 'considerable,' I mean several thousands. That was a point
+on which he and I had many discussions."
+
+Mr. Foulger glanced around with satisfaction. Already the prospect of legal
+business and costs had brought about a change in his official demeanour of
+an adviser truly bereaved by the death of a client. He saw the young girl,
+gazing fiercely at the carpet, suddenly begin to weep. This phenomenon, to
+which he was not unaccustomed, did not by itself disturb him; but the face
+of Miss Ingate gave him strange apprehensions, which reached a climax when
+Miss Ingate, obviously not at all at ease, muttered:
+
+"There is a later will, Mr. Foulger. It was made last year."
+
+"I see," he breathed, scarcely above a whisper.
+
+He thought he did see. He thought he understood why he had been kept
+waiting, why Mrs. Moze pretended to be ill, why the girl had frowned, why
+the naively calm Miss Ingate was in such a state of nerves. The explanation
+was that he was not wanted. The explanation was that Mr. Moze had changed
+his solicitor. His face hardened, for he and his uncle between them had
+"acted" for the Moze family for over seventy years.
+
+He rose from the chair.
+
+"Then I need not trouble you any longer," he said in a firm tone, and
+turned with real dignity to leave.
+
+He was exceedingly astonished when with one swift movement Audrey rose, and
+flashed like a missile to the door, and stood with her back to it. The fact
+was that Audrey had just remembered her vow never again to be afraid of
+anybody. When Miss Ingate with extraordinary agility also jumped up and
+approached him, he apprehended, recalling rumours of Miss Ingate's advanced
+feminism, that the fate of an anti-suffragette Cabinet Minister might be
+awaiting him, and he prepared his defence.
+
+"You mustn't go," said Miss Ingate.
+
+"You are my solicitor, whatever mother may say, and you mustn't go," added
+Audrey in a soft voice.
+
+The man was entranced. It occurred to him that he would have a tale to tell
+and to re-tell at his club for years, about "a certain fair client who
+shall be nameless."
+
+The next minute he had heard a somewhat romantic, if not hysterical,
+version of the facts of the case, and he was perusing the original
+documents. By chance he read first the letter about the Zacatecas shares.
+That Mathew Moze had made a will without his aid was a shock; that Mathew
+Moze had invested money without his advice was another shock quite as
+severe. But he knew the status of the Great Mexican Oil Company, and his
+countenance lighted as he realised the rich immensity of the business of
+proving the will and devolving the estate; his costs would run to the most
+agreeable figures. As soon as he glanced at the testament which Mr. Cowl
+had found, he muttered, with satisfaction and disdain:
+
+"H'm! He made this himself."
+
+And he gazed at it compassionately, as a cabinetmaker might gaze at a piece
+of amateur fretwork.
+
+Standing, he read it slowly and with extreme care. And when he had finished
+he casually remarked, in the classic legal phrase:
+
+"It isn't worth the paper it's written on."
+
+Then he sat down again, and his neat paunch resumed its niche between his
+legs. He knew that he had made a tremendous effect.
+
+"But--but----" Miss Ingate began.
+
+"Not worth the paper it's written on," he repeated. "There is only one
+witness, and there ought to be two, and even the one witness is a bad
+one--Aguilar, because he profits under the will. He would have to give up
+his legacy before his attestation could count, and even then it would be no
+good alone. Mr. Moze has not even expressly revoked the old will. If there
+hadn't been a previous will, and if Aguilar was a thoroughly reliable man,
+and if the family had wished to uphold the new will, I dare say the Court
+_might_ have pronounced for it. But under the circumstances it hasn't the
+ghost of a chance."
+
+"But won't the National Reformation Society make trouble?" demanded Miss
+Ingate faintly.
+
+"Let 'em try!" said Mr. Foulger, who wished that the National Reformation
+Society would indeed try.
+
+Even as he articulated the words, he was aware of Audrey coming towards him
+from the direction of the door; he was aware of her black frock and of her
+white face, with its bulging forehead and its deliciously insignificant
+nose. She held out her hand.
+
+"You are a dear!" she whispered.
+
+Her lips seemed to aim uncertainly for his face. Did they just touch, with
+exquisite contact, his bristly chin, or was it a divine illusion? ... She
+blushed in a very marked manner. He blinked, and his happy blinking seemed
+to say: "Only wills drawn by me are genuine.... Didn't I tell you Mr. Moze
+was not a man of business?"
+
+Audrey ran to Miss Ingate.
+
+Mr. Foulger, suddenly ashamed, and determined to be a lawyer, said sharply:
+
+"Has Mrs. Moze made a will?"
+
+"Mother made a will? Oh no!"
+
+"Then she should make one at once, in your favour, of course. No time
+should be lost."
+
+"But Mrs. Moze is ill in bed," protested Miss Ingate.
+
+"All the more reason why she should make a will. It may save endless
+trouble. And it is her duty. I shall suggest that I be the executor and
+trustee, of course with the usual power to charge costs." His face was hard
+again. "You will thank me later on, Miss Moze," he added.
+
+"Do you mean _now?_" shrilled Miss Ingate.
+
+"I do," said he. "If you will give me some paper, we might go to her at
+once. You can be one of the witnesses. I could be a witness, but as I am
+to act under the will for a consideration somebody else would be
+preferable."
+
+"I should suggest Aguilar," answered Miss Ingate, the corners of her lips
+dropping.
+
+Miss Ingate went first, to prepare Mrs. Moze.
+
+When Audrey was alone in the study--she had not even offered to accompany
+her elders to the bedroom--she made a long sound: "Ooo!" Then she gave a
+leap and stood still, staring out of the window at the estuary. She tried
+to force her mood to the colour of her dress, but the sense of propriety
+was insufficient for the task. The magnificence of all the world was
+unfolding itself to her soul. Events had hitherto so dizzyingly beaten down
+upon her head that she had scarcely been conscious of feeling. Now she
+luxuriously felt. "I am at last born," she thought. "Miracles have
+happened.... It's incredible.... I can do what I like with mother.... But
+if I don't take care I shall die of relief this very moment!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE DEAD HAND
+
+
+Audrey was wakened up that night, just after she had gone to sleep, by a
+touch on the cheek. Her mother, palely indistinct in the darkness, was
+standing by the bedside. She wore a white wrap over her night attire, and
+the customary white bandage from which emanated a faint odour of
+eau-de-Cologne, was around her forehead.
+
+"Audrey, darling, I must speak to you."
+
+Instantly Audrey became the wise directress of her poor foolish mother's
+existence.
+
+"Mother," she said, with firm kindness, "please do go back to bed at once.
+This sort of thing is simply frightful for your neuralgia. I'll come to you
+in one moment."
+
+And Mrs. Moze meekly obeyed; she had gone even before Audrey had had time
+to light her candle. Audrey was very content in thus being able to control
+her mother and order everything for the best. She guessed that the old lady
+had got some idea into her head about the property, or about her own will,
+or about the solicitor, or about a tombstone, and that it was worrying her.
+She and Miss Ingate (who had now returned home) had had a very extensive
+palaver, in low voices that never ceased, after the triumphant departure of
+Mr. Foulger. Audrey had cautiously protested; she was afraid her mother
+would be fatigued, and she saw no reason why her mother should be
+acquainted with all the details of a complex matter; but the gossiping
+habit of a quarter of a century was too powerful for Audrey.
+
+In the large parental bedroom the only light was Audrey's candle. Mrs. Moze
+was lying on the right half of the great bed, where she had always lain.
+She might have lain luxuriously in the middle, with vast spaces at either
+hand, but again habit was too powerful.
+
+The girl, all in white, held the candle higher, and the shadows everywhere
+shrunk in unison. Mrs. Moze blinked.
+
+"Put the candle on the night-table," said Mrs. Moze curtly.
+
+Audrey did so. The bedroom, for her, was full of the souvenirs of parental
+authority. Her first recollections were those of awe in regard to the
+bedroom. And when she thought that on that bed she had been born, she had a
+very queer sensation.
+
+"I've decided," said Mrs. Moze, lying on her back, and looking up at the
+ceiling, "I've decided that your father's wishes must be obeyed."
+
+"What about, mother?"
+
+"About those shares going to the National Reformation Society. He meant
+them to go, and they must go to the Society. I've thought it well over and
+I've quite decided. I didn't tell Miss Ingate, as it doesn't concern her.
+But I felt I must tell you at once."
+
+"Mother!" cried Audrey. "Have you taken leave of your senses?" She
+shivered; the room was very cold, and as she shivered her image in the
+mirror of the wardrobe shivered, and also her shadow that climbed up the
+wall and bent at right-angles at the cornice till it reached the middle of
+the ceiling.
+
+Mrs. Moze replied obstinately:
+
+"I've not taken leave of my senses, and I'll thank you to remember that I'm
+your mother. I have always carried out your father's wishes, and at my time
+of life I can't alter. Your father was a very wise man. We shall be as well
+off as we always were. Better, because I can save, and I shall save. We
+have no complaint to make; I should have no excuse for disobeying your
+father. Everything is mine to do as I wish with it, and I shall give the
+shares to the Society. What the shares are worth can't affect my duty.
+Besides, perhaps they aren't worth anything. I always understood that
+things like that were always jumping up and down, and generally worthless
+in the end.... That's all I wanted to tell you."
+
+Why did Audrey seize the candle and walk straight out of the bedroom,
+leaving darkness behind her? Was it because the acuteness of her feelings
+drove her out, or was it because she knew instinctively that her mother's
+decision would prove to be immovable? Perhaps both.
+
+She dropped back into her own bed with a soundless sigh of exhaustion. She
+did not blow out the candle, but lay staring at it. Her dream was
+annihilated. She foresaw an interminable, weary and futile future in and
+about Moze, and her mother always indisposed, always fretful, and curiously
+obstinate in weakness. But Audrey, despite her tragic disillusion, was less
+desolated than made solemn. In the most disturbing way she knew herself to
+be the daughter of her father and her mother; and she comprehended that her
+destiny could not be broken off suddenly from theirs. She was touched
+because her mother deemed her father a very wise man, whereas she, Audrey,
+knew that he was nothing of the sort. She felt sorry for both of them. She
+pitied her father, and she was a mother to her mother. Their relations
+together, and the mystic posthumous spell of her father over her mother,
+impressed her profoundly.... And she was proud of herself for having
+demonstrated her courage by preventing the solicitor from running away, and
+extraordinarily ashamed of her sentimental and brazen behaviour to the
+solicitor afterwards. These various thoughts mitigated her despair as she
+gazed at the sinking candle. Nevertheless her dream was annihilated.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE YOUNG WIDOW
+
+
+It was early October. Audrey stood at the garden door of Flank Hall.
+
+The estuary, in all the colours of unsettled, mild, bright weather, lay at
+her feet beneath a high arch of changing blue and white. The capricious
+wind moved in her hair, moved in the rich grasses of the sea-wall, bent at
+a curtseying angle the red-sailed barges, put caps on the waves in the
+middle distance, and drew out into long horizontal scarves the smoke of
+faint steamers in the offing.
+
+Audrey was dressed in black, but her raiment had obviously not been
+fashioned in the village, nor even at Colchester, nor yet at Ipswich, that
+great and stylish city. She looked older; she certainly had acquired
+something of an air of knowledge, assurance, domination, sauciness and
+challenge, which qualities were all partly illustrated in her large,
+audacious hat. The spirit which the late Mr. Moze had so successfully
+suppressed was at length coming to the surface for all beholders to see,
+and the process of evolution begun at the moment when Audrey had bounced up
+and prevented an authoritative solicitor from leaving the study was already
+advanced. Nevertheless, at frequent intervals Audrey's eyes changed, and
+she seemed for an instant to be a very naive, very ingenuous and wistful
+little thing--and this though she had reached the age of twenty. Perhaps
+she was feeling sorry for the girl she used to be.
+
+And no doubt she was also thinking of her mother, who had died within eight
+hours of their nocturnal interview. The death of Mrs. Moze surprised
+everyone, except possibly Mrs. Moze. As an unsuspected result of the
+operation upon her, an embolism had been wandering in her veins; it reached
+the brain, and she expired, to the great loss of the National Reformation
+Society. Such was the brief and simple history. When Audrey stood by the
+body, she had felt that if it could have saved her mother she would have
+enriched the National Reformation Society with all she possessed.
+
+Gradually the sense of freedom had grown paramount in her, and she had
+undertaken the enterprise of completely subduing Mr. Foulger to her own
+ends.
+
+The back hall was carpetless and pictureless, and the furniture in it was
+draped in grey-white. Every room in the abode was in the same state, and,
+since all the windows were shuttered, every room lay moribund in a ghostly
+twilight. Only the clocks remained alive, probably thinking themselves
+immortal. The breakfast things were washed up and stored away. The last two
+servants had already gone. Behind Audrey, forming a hilly background, were
+trunks and boxes, a large bunch of flowers encased in paper, and a case of
+umbrellas and parasols; the whole strikingly new, and every single item
+except the flowers labelled "Paris via Charing Cross and Calais."
+
+Audrey opened her black Russian satchel, and the purse within it. Therein
+were a little compartment full of English gold, another full of French
+gold, another full of multicoloured French bank-notes; and loose in the
+satchel was a blue book of credit-notes, each for five hundred francs, or
+twenty pounds--a thick book! And she would not have minded much if she had
+lost the whole satchel--it would be so easy to replace the satchel with
+all its contents.
+
+Then a small brougham came very deliberately up the drive. It was the
+vehicle in which Miss Ingate went her ways; in accordance with Miss
+Ingate's immemorial command, it travelled at a walking pace up all the
+hills to save the horse, and at a walking pace down all hills lest the
+horse should stumble and Miss Ingate be destroyed. It was now followed by
+a luggage-cart on which was a large trunk.
+
+At the same moment Aguilar, the gardener, appeared from somewhere--he who
+had been robbed of a legacy of ten pounds, but who by his ruthless and
+incontestable integrity had secured the job of caretaker of Flank Hall.
+
+The drivers touched their hats to Audrey and jumped down, and Miss Ingate,
+with a blue veil tied like a handkerchief round her bonnet and chin--sign
+that she was a traveller--emerged from the brougham, sardonically smiling
+at her own and everybody's expense, and too excited to be able to give
+greetings. The three men started to move the trunks, and the two women
+whispered together in the back-hall.
+
+"Audrey," demanded Miss Ingate, with a start, "what are those rings on your
+finger?"
+
+Audrey replied:
+
+"One's a wedding ring and the other's a mourning ring. I bought them
+yesterday at Colchester.... Hsh!" She stilled further exclamations from
+Miss Ingate until the men were out of the hall.
+
+"Look here! Quick!" she whispered, hastily unlocking a large hat-case that
+was left. And Miss Ingate looked and saw a block toque, entirely unsuitable
+for a young girl, and a widow's veil.
+
+"I look bewitching in them," said Audrey, relocking the case.
+
+"But, my child, what does it mean?"
+
+"It means that I'm not silly enough to go to Paris as a girl. I've had more
+than enough of being a girl. I'm determined to arrive in Paris as a young
+widow. It will be much better in every way, and far easier for you. In
+fact, you'll have no chaperoning to do at all. I shall be the chaperon. Now
+don't say you won't go, because you will."
+
+"You ought to have told me before."
+
+"No, I oughtn't. Nothing could have been more foolish."
+
+"But who are you the widow of?"
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Audrey. "You are a sport, Winnie!  I'll tell you all the
+interesting details in the train."
+
+In another minute Aguilar, gloomy and unbending, had received the keys of
+Flank Hall, and the procession crunched down the drive on its way to the
+station.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE CIGARETTE GIRL
+
+
+Audrey did not deem that she had begun truly to live until the next
+morning, when they left London, after having passed a night in the Charing
+Cross Hotel. During several visits to London in the course of the summer
+Audrey had learnt something about the valuelessness of money in a
+metropolis chiefly inhabited by people who were positively embarrassed by
+their riches. She knew, for example, that money being very plentiful and
+stylish hats very rare, large quantities of money had to be given for
+infinitesimal quantities of hats. The big and glittering shops were full of
+people whose pockets bulged with money which they were obviously anxious to
+part with in order to obtain goods, while the proud shop-assistants, secure
+in the knowledge that money was naught and goods were everything, did their
+utmost, by hauteur and steely negatives, to render any transaction
+possible. It was the result of a mysterious "Law of Exchange." She was
+aware of this. She had lost her childhood's naive illusions about the
+sovereignty of money.
+
+Nevertheless she received one or two shocks on the journey, which was
+planned upon the most luxurious scale that the imagination of Messrs.
+Thomas Cook & Son could conceive. There was four pounds and ninepence to
+pay for excess luggage at Charing Cross. Half a year earlier four pounds
+would have bought all the luggage she could have got together. She very
+nearly said to the clerk at the window: "Don't you mean shillings?" But in
+spite of nervousness, blushings, and all manner of sensitive reactions to
+new experiences, her natural sang-froid and instinctive knowledge of the
+world saved her from such a terrible lapse, and she put down a bank-note
+without the slightest hint that she was wondering whether it would not be
+more advantageous to throw the luggage away.
+
+The boat was crowded, and the sea and wind full of menace. Fighting their
+way along the deck after laden porters, Audrey and Miss Ingate
+simultaneously espied the private cabin list hung in a conspicuous spot.
+They perused it as eagerly as if it had been the account of a _cause
+célèbre._ Among the list were two English lords, an Honourable Mrs., a
+baroness with a Hungarian name, several Teutonic names, and Mrs. Moncreiff.
+
+Audrey blushed deeply at the sign of Mrs. Moncreiff, for she was Mrs.
+Moncreiff. Behind the veil, and with the touch of white in her toque, she
+might have been any age up to twenty-eight or so. It would have been
+impossible to say that she was a young girl, that she was not versed in the
+world, that she had not the whole catechism of men at her finger-ends. All
+who glanced at her glanced again--with sympathy and curiosity; and the
+second glance pricked Audrey's conscience, making her feel like a thief.
+But her moods were capricious. At one moment she was a thief, a clumsy
+fraud, an ignorant ninny, and a suitable prey for the secret police; and at
+the next she was very clever, self-confident, equal to the situation, and
+enjoying the situation more than she had ever enjoyed anything, and
+determined to prolong the situation indefinitely.
+
+The cabin was very spacious, yet not more so than was proper, considering
+that the rent of it came to about sixpence a minute. There was room, even
+after all the packages were stowed, for both of them to lie down. But
+instead of lying down they eagerly inspected the little abode. They found a
+lavatory basin with hot and cold water taps, but no hot water and no cold
+water, no soap and no towels. And they found a crystal water-bottle, but it
+was empty. Then a steward came and asked them if they wanted anything, and
+because they were miserable poltroons they smiled and said "No." They were
+secretly convinced that all the other private cabins, inhabited by titled
+persons and by financiers, were superior to their cabin, and that the
+captain of the steamer had fobbed them off with an imitation of a real
+cabin.
+
+Then it was that Miss Ingate, who since Charing Cross had been a little
+excited by a glimpsed newspaper contents-bill indicating suffragette riots
+that morning, perceived, through the open door of the cabin, a most
+beautiful and most elegant girl, attired impeccably in that ritualistic
+garb of travel which the truly cosmopolitan wear on combined rail-and-ocean
+journeys and on no other occasions. It was at once apparent that the
+celestial creature had put on that special hat, that special veil, that
+special cloak, and those special gloves because she was deeply aware of
+what was correct, and that she would not put them on again until destiny
+took her again across the sea, and that if destiny never did take her again
+across the sea never again would she show herself in the vestments, whose
+correctness was only equalled by their expensiveness.
+
+The young woman, however, took no thought of her impressive clothes. She
+was existing upon quite another plane. Miss Ingate, preoccupied by the
+wrongs and perils of her sex, and momentarily softened out of her sardonic
+irony, suspected that they might be in the presence of a victim of
+oppression or neglect. The victim lay Half-prone upon the hard wooden seat
+against the ship's rail. Her dark eyes opened piteously at times, and her
+exquisite profile, surmounted by the priceless hat all askew, made a
+silhouette now against the sea and now against the distant white cliffs of
+Albion, according to the fearful heaving of the ship. Spray occasionally
+dashed over her. She heeded it not. A few feet farther off she would have
+been sheltered by a weather-awning, but, clinging fiercely to the rail, she
+would not move.
+
+Then a sharp squall of rain broke, but she entirely ignored the rain.
+
+The next moment Miss Ingate and Audrey, rushing forth, had gently seized
+her and drawn her into their cabin. They might have succoured other martyrs
+to the modern passion for moving about, for there were many; but they chose
+this particular martyr because she was so wondrously dressed, and also
+perhaps a little because she was so young. As she lay on the cabin sofa she
+looked still younger; she looked a child. Yet when Miss Ingate removed her
+gloves in order to rub those chill, fragile, and miraculously manicured
+hands, a wedding ring was revealed. The wedding ring rendered her intensely
+romantic in the eyes of Audrey and Miss Ingate, who both thought, in
+private:
+
+"She must be the wife of one of those lords!"
+
+Every detail of her raiment, as she was put at her ease, showed her to be
+clothed in precisely the manner which Audrey and Miss Ingate thought
+peeresses always were clothed. Hence, being English, they mingled respect
+with their solacing pity. Nevertheless, their respect was tempered by a
+peculiar pride, for both of them, in taking lemonade on the Pullman, had
+taken therewith a certain preventive or remedy which made them loftily
+indifferent to the heaving of ships and the eccentricities of the sea. The
+specific had done all that was claimed for it--which was a great deal--so
+much so that they felt themselves superwomen among a cargo of flaccid and
+feeble sub-females. And they grew charmingly conceited.
+
+"Am I in my cabin?" murmured the martyr, about a quarter of an hour after
+Miss Ingate, having obtained soda water, had administered to her a dose of
+the miraculous specific.
+
+Her delicious cheeks were now a delicate crimson. But they had been of a
+delicate crimson throughout.
+
+"No," said Audrey. "You're in ours. Which is yours?"
+
+"It's on the other side of the ship, then. I came out for a little air. But
+I couldn't get back. I'd just as lief have died as shift from that seat out
+there by the railings."
+
+Something in the accent, something in those fine English words "lief" and
+"shift," destroyed in the minds of Audrey and Miss Ingate the agreeable
+notion that they had a peeress on their hands.
+
+"Is your husband on board?" asked Audrey.
+
+"He just is," was the answer. "He's in our cabin."
+
+"Shall I fetch him?" Miss Ingate suggested. The corners of her lips had
+begun to fall once more.
+
+"Will you?" said the young woman. "It's Lord Southminster. I'm Lady
+Southminster."
+
+The two saviours were thrilled. Each felt that she had misinterpreted the
+accent, and that probably peeresses did habitually use such words as "lief"
+and "shift." The corners of Miss Ingate's lips rose to their proper
+position.
+
+"I'll look for the number on the cabin list," said she hastily, and went
+forth with trembling to summon the peer.
+
+As Audrey, alone in the cabin with Lady Southminster, bent curiously over
+the prostrate form, Lady Southminster exclaimed with an air of childlike
+admiration:
+
+"You're real ladies, you are!"
+
+And Audrey felt old and experienced. She decided that Lady Southminster
+could not be more than seventeen, and it seemed to be about half a century
+since Audrey was seventeen.
+
+"He can't come," announced Miss Ingate breathlessly, returning to the
+cabin, and supporting herself against the door as the solid teak sank under
+her feet. "Oh yes! He's there all right. It was Number 12. I've seen him. I
+told him, but I don't think he heard me--to understand, that is. If you ask
+me, he couldn't come if forty wives sent for him."
+
+"Oh, couldn't he!" observed Lady Southminster, sitting up. "Couldn't he!"
+
+When the boat was within ten minutes of France, the remedy had had such an
+effect upon her that she could walk about. Accompanied by Audrey she
+managed to work her way round the cabin-deck to No. 12. It was empty, save
+for hand-luggage! The two girls searched, as well as they could, the whole
+crowded ship for Lord Southminster, and found him not. Lady Southminster
+neither fainted nor wept. She merely said:
+
+"Oh! All right! If that's it....!"
+
+Hand-luggage was being collected. But Lady Southminster would not collect
+hers, nor allow it to be collected. She agreed with Miss Ingate and Audrey
+that her husband must ultimately reappear either on the quay or in the
+train. While they were all standing huddled together in the throng waiting
+for the gangway to put ashore, she said in a low casual tone, ˆ propos of
+nothing:
+
+"I only married him the day before yesterday. I don't know whether you
+know, but I used to make cigarettes in Constantinopoulos's window in
+Piccadilly. I don't see why I should be ashamed of it, d'you?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Miss Ingate. "But it _is_ rather romantic, isn't it,
+Audrey?"
+
+Despite the terrific interest of the adventure of the cigarette girl,
+disappointment began immediately after landing. This France, of which
+Audrey had heard so much and dreamed so much, was a very ramshackle and
+untidy and one-horse affair. The custom-house was rather like a battlefield
+without any rules of warfare; the scene in the refreshment-room was rather
+like a sack after a battle; the station was a desert with odd files of
+people here and there; the platforms were ridiculous, and you wanted a pair
+of steps to get up into the train. Whatever romance there might be in
+France had been brought by Audrey in her secret heart and by Lady
+Southminster.
+
+Audrey had come to France, and she was going to Paris, solely because of a
+vision which had been created in her by the letters and by the photographs
+of Madame Piriac. Although Madame Piriac and she had absolutely no tie of
+blood, Madame Piriac being the daughter by a first husband of the French
+widow who became the first Mrs. Moze--and speedily died, Audrey persisted
+privately in regarding Madame Piriac as a kind of elder sister. She felt a
+very considerable esteem for Madame Piriac, upon whom she had never set
+eyes, and Madame Piriac had certainly given her the impression that France
+was to England what paradise is to purgatory. Further, Audrey had fallen in
+love with Madame Piriac's portraits, whose elegance was superb. And yet,
+too, Audrey was jealous of Madame Piriac, and especially so since the
+attainment of freedom and wealth. Madame Piriac had most warmly invited
+her, after the death of Mrs. Moze, to pay a long visit to Paris as a guest
+in her home. Audrey had declined--from jealousy. She would not go to Madame
+Piriac's as a raw girl, overdone with money, who could only speak one
+language and who knew nothing at all of this our planet. She would go, if
+she went, as a young woman of the world who could hold her own in any
+drawing-room, be it Madame Piriac's or another. Hence Miss Ingate had
+obtained the address of a Paris boarding-house, and one or two preliminary
+introductions from political friends in London.
+
+Well, France was not equal to its reputation; and Miss Ingate's sardonic
+smile seemed to be saying: "So this is your France!"
+
+However, the excitement of escorting the youngest English peeress to Paris
+sufficed for Audrey, even if it did not suffice for Miss Ingate with her
+middle-aged apprehensions. They knew that Lady Southminster was the
+youngest English peeress because she had told them so. At the very moment
+when they were dispatching a telegram for her to an address in London, she
+had popped out the remark: "Do you know I'm the youngest peeress in
+England?" And truth shone in her candid and simple smile. They had not
+found the peer, neither on the ship, nor on the quay, nor in the station.
+And the peeress would not wait. She was indeed obviously frightened at the
+idea of remaining in Calais alone, even till the next express. She said
+that her husband's "man" would meet the train in Paris. She ate plenteously
+with Audrey and Miss Ingate in the refreshment-room, and she would not
+leave them nor allow them to leave her. The easiest course was to let her
+have her way, and she had it.
+
+By dint of Miss Ingate's unscrupulous tricks with small baggage they
+contrived to keep a whole compartment to themselves. As soon as the train
+started the peeress began to cry. Then, wiping her heavenly silly eyes, and
+upbraiding herself, she related to her protectresses the glory of a new
+manicure set. Unfortunately she could not show them the set, as it had been
+left in the cabin. She was actually in possession of nothing portable
+except her clothes, some English magazines bought at Calais, and a handbag
+which contained much money and many bonbons.
+
+"He's done it on purpose," she said to Audrey as soon as Miss Ingate went
+off to take tea in the tea-car. "I'm sure he's done it on purpose. He's
+hidden himself, and he'll turn up when he thinks he's beaten me. D'you know
+why I wouldn't bring that luggage away out of the cabin?  Because we had a
+quarrel about it, at the station, and he said things to me. In fact we
+weren't speaking. And we weren't speaking last night either. The radiator
+of his--our--car leaked, and we had to come home from the Coliseum in a
+motor-bus. He couldn't get a taxi. It wasn't his fault, but a friend of
+mine told me the day before I was married that a lady always ought to be
+angry when her husband can't get a taxi after the theatre--she says it does
+'em good. So first I told him he mustn't leave me to look for one.  Then I
+said I'd wait where I was, and then I said we'd walk on, and then I said we
+must take a motor-bus. It was that that finished him. He said: 'Did I
+expect him to invent a taxi when there wasn't one?' And he swore. So of
+course I sulked. You must, you know. And my shoes were too thin and I felt
+chilly. But only a fortnight before I was making cigarettes in the window
+of Constantinopoulos's. Funny, isn't it? Otherwise he's behaved splendid.
+Still, what I do say is a man's no right to be ill when he's taking you to
+Paris on your honeymoon. I knew he was going to be ill when I left him in
+the cabin, but he stuck me out he wasn't. A man that's so bad he can't come
+to his wife when _she's_ bad isn't a man--that's what I say. Don't you
+think so? You know all about that sort of thing, I lay."
+
+Audrey said briefly that she did think so, glad that the peeress's intense
+and excusable interest in herself kept her from being curious about others.
+
+"Marriage ain't all chocolate-creams," said the peeress after a pause.
+"Have one?" And she opened her bag very hospitably.
+
+Then she turned to her magazines. And no sooner had she glanced at the
+cover of the second one than she gave a squeal, and, fetching deep breaths,
+passed the periodical to Audrey. At the top of the cover was printed in
+large letters the title of a story by a famous author of short tales. It
+ran:
+
+"MAN OVERBOARD."
+
+Henceforward a suspicion that had lain concealed in the undergrowth of the
+hearts of the two girls stalked boldly about in full daylight.
+
+"He's done it, and he's done it to spite me!" murmured Lady Southminster
+tearfully.
+
+"Oh no!" Audrey protested. "Even if he had fallen overboard he'd have been
+seen and the captain would have stopped the boat."
+
+"Where do you come from?" Lady Southminster retorted with disdain. "That's
+an _omen_, that is"--pointing to the words on the cover of the magazine.
+"What else could it be? I ask you."
+
+When Miss Ingate returned the child was fast asleep. Miss Ingate was paler
+than usual. Having convinced herself that the sleeper did genuinely sleep,
+she breathed to Audrey:
+
+"He's in the next compartment! ... He must have hidden himself till nearly
+the last minute on the boat and then got into the train while we were
+sending off that telegram."
+
+Audrey blenched.
+
+"Shall you wake her?"
+
+"Wake her, and have a scene--with us here? No, I shan't. He's a fool."
+
+"How d'you know?" asked Audrey.
+
+"Well, he must have been a fool to marry her."
+
+"Well," whispered Audrey. "If I'd been a man I'd have married that face
+like a shot."
+
+"It might be all right if he'd only married the face. But he's married what
+she calls her mind."
+
+"Is he young?"
+
+"Yes. And as good-looking in his own way as she is."
+
+"Well--"
+
+But the Countess of Southminster stirred, and the slight movement stopped
+conversation.
+
+The journey was endless, but it was no longer than the sleep of the
+Countess. At length dusk and mist began to gather in the hollows of the
+land; stations succeeded one another more frequently. The reflections of
+the electric lights in the compartment could be seen beyond the glass of
+the windows. The train still ruthlessly clattered and shook and swayed and
+thundered; and weary lords, ladies and financiers had read all the
+illustrated magazines and six-penny novels in existence, and they lolled
+exhausted and bored amid the debris of literature and light refreshments.
+Then the speed of the convoy slackened, and Audrey, looking forth, saw a
+pale cathedral dome resting aloft amid dark clouds. It was a magical
+glimpse, and it was the first glimpse of Paris. "Oh!" cried Audrey, far
+more like a girl than a widow. The train rattled through defiles of high
+twinkling houses, roared under bridges, screeched, threaded forests of cold
+blue lamps, and at last came to rest under a black echoing vault.
+
+Paris!
+
+And, mysteriously, all Audrey's illusions concerning France had been born
+again. She was convinced that Paris could not fail to be paradisiacal.
+
+Lady Southminster awoke.
+
+Almost simultaneously a young man very well dressed passed along the
+corridor. Lady Southminster, with an awful start, seized her bag and sprang
+after him, but was impeded by other passengers. She caught him only after
+he had descended to the platform, which was at the bottom of a precipice
+below the windows. He had just been saluted by, and given orders to, a
+waiting valet. She caught him sharply by the arm. He shook free and walked
+quickly away up the platform, guided by a wise instinct for avoiding a
+scene in front of fellow-travellers. She followed close after him, talking
+with rapidity. They receded. Audrey and Miss Ingate leaned out of the
+windows to watch, and still farther and farther out. Just as the
+honeymooning pair disappeared altogether their two forms came into contact,
+and Audrey's eyes could see the arm of Lord Southminster take the arm of
+Lady Southminster. They vanished from view like one flesh. And Audrey and
+Miss Ingate, deserted, forgotten utterly, unthanked, buffeted by passengers
+and by the valet who had climbed up into the carriage to take away the
+impedimenta of his master, gazed at each other and then burst out laughing.
+
+"So that's marriage!" said Audrey.
+
+"No," said Miss Ingate. "That's love. I've seen a deal of love in my time,
+ever since my sister Arabella's first engagement, but I never saw any that
+wasn't vehy, vehy queer."
+
+"I do hope they'll be happy," said Audrey.
+
+"Do you?" said Miss Ingate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD
+
+
+The carriage had emptied, and the two adventurers stood alone among empty
+compartments. The platform was also empty. Not a porter in sight. One after
+the other, the young widow and the elderly spinster, their purses bulging
+with money, got their packages by great efforts down on to the platform.
+
+An employee strolled past.
+
+"_Porteur?_" murmured Audrey timidly.
+
+The man sniggered, shrugged his shoulders, and vanished.
+
+Audrey felt that she had gone back to her school days. She was helpless,
+and Miss Ingate was the same. She wished ardently that she was in Moze
+again. She could not imagine how she had been such a fool as to undertake
+this absurd expedition which could only end in ridicule and disaster. She
+was ready to cry. Then another employee appeared, hesitated, and picked up
+a bag, scowling and inimical. Gradually the man, very tousled and dirty,
+clustered all the bags and parcels around his person, and walked off.
+Audrey and Miss Ingate meekly following. The great roof of the station
+resounded to whistles and the escape of steam and the clashing of wagons.
+
+Beyond the platforms there were droves of people, of whom nearly every
+individual was preoccupied and hurried. And what people! Audrey had in her
+heart expected a sort of glittering white terminus full of dandiacal men
+and elegant Parisiennes who had stepped straight out of fashion-plates, and
+who had no cares--for was not this Paris? Whereas, in fact, the multitude
+was the dingiest she had ever seen. Not a gleam of elegance! No hint of
+dazzling colour! No smiling and satiric beauty! They were just persons.
+
+At last, after formalities, Audrey and Miss Ingate reached the foul and
+chilly custom-house appointed for the examination of luggage.
+Unrecognisable peers and other highnesses stood waiting at long counters,
+forming bays, on which was nothing at all. Then, far behind, a truck hugely
+piled with trunks rolled in through a back door and men pitched the trunks
+like toys here and there on the counters, and officials came into view, and
+knots of travellers gathered round trunks, and locks were turned and lids
+were lifted, and the flash of linen showed in spots on the drabness of the
+scene. Miss Ingate observed with horror the complete undoing of a lady's
+large trunk, and the exposure to the world's harsh gaze of the most
+intimate possessions of that lady. Soon the counters were like a fair. But
+no trunk belonging to Audrey or to Miss Ingate was visible. They knew then,
+what they had both privately suspected ever since Charing Cross, that their
+trunks would be lost on the journey.
+
+"Oh! My trunk!" cried Miss Ingate.
+
+Beneath a pile of other trunks on an incoming truck she had espied her
+property. Audrey saw it, too. The vision was magical. The trunk seemed like
+a piece of home, a bit of Moze and of England. It drew affection from them
+as though it had been an animal. They sped towards it, forgetting their
+small baggage. Their _porteur_ leaped over the counter from behind and made
+signs for a key. All Audrey's trunks in turn joined Miss Ingate's; none was
+missing. And finally an official, small and fierce, responded to the
+invocations of the _porteur_ and established himself at the counter in
+front of them. He put his hand on Miss Ingate's trunk.
+
+"Op-en," he said in English.
+
+Miss Ingate opened her purse, and indicated to the official by signs that
+she had no key for the trunk, and she also cried loudly, so that he should
+comprehend:
+
+"No key! ... Lost!"
+
+Then she looked awkwardly at Audrey.
+
+"I've been told they only want to open one trunk when there's a lot. Let
+him choose another one," she murmured archly.
+
+But the official merely walked away, to deal with the trunks of somebody
+else close by.
+
+Audrey was cross.
+
+"Miss Ingate," she said formally, "you had the key when we started, because
+you showed it to me. You can't possibly have lost it."
+
+"No," answered Winnie calmly and knowingly. "I haven't lost it. But I'm not
+going to have the things in my trunk thrown about for all these foreigners
+to see. It's simply disgraceful. They ought to have women officials and
+private rooms at these places. And they would have, if women had the vote.
+Let him open one of your trunks. All your things are new."
+
+The _porteur_ had meanwhile been discharging French into Audrey's other
+ear.
+
+"Of course you must open it, Winnie," said she. "Don't be so absurd!"
+There was a persuasive lightness in her voice, but there was also command.
+For a moment she was the perfect widow.
+
+"I'd rather not."
+
+"The _porteur_ says we shall be here all night," Audrey persisted.
+
+"Do you know French?"
+
+"I learnt French at school, Winnie," said the perfect widow. "I can't
+understand every word, but I can make out the drift." And Audrey went on
+translating the porter according to her own wisdom. "He says there have
+been dreadful scenes here before, when people have refused to open their
+trunks, and the police have had to be called in. He says the man won't
+upset the things in your trunk at all."
+
+Miss Ingate gazed into the distance, and privately smiled. Audrey had
+never guessed that in Miss Ingate were such depths of obstinate stupidity.
+She felt quite distinctly that her understanding of human nature was
+increasing.
+
+"Oh! Look!" said Miss Ingate casually. "I'm sure those must be real
+Parisians!" Her offhandedness, her inability to realise the situation, were
+exasperating to the young widow. Audrey glanced where Miss Ingate had
+pointed, and saw in the doorway of the custom-house two women and a lad,
+all cloaked but all obviously in radiant fancy dress, laughing together.
+
+"Don't they look French!" said Miss Ingate.
+
+Audrey tapped her foot on the asphalt floor, while people whose luggage had
+been examined bumped strenuously against her in the effort to depart. She
+was extremely pessimistic; she knew she could do nothing with Miss Ingate;
+and the thought of the vast, flaring, rumbling city beyond the station
+intimidated her. The _porteur_, who had gone away to collect their
+neglected small baggage, now returned, and nudged her, pointing to the
+official who had resumed his place behind the trunks. He was certainly a
+fierce man, but he was a little man, and there was an agreeable peculiarity
+in his eye.
+
+Audrey, suddenly inspired and emboldened, faced him; she shrugged her
+shoulders Gallically at Miss Ingate's trunk, and gave a sad, sweet, wistful
+smile, and then put her hand with an exquisite inviting gesture on the
+smallest of her own trunks. The act was a deliberate exploitation of
+widowhood. The official fiercely shrugged his shoulders and threw up his
+arms, and told the _porteur_ to open the small trunk.
+
+"I told you they would," said Miss Ingate negligently.
+
+Audrey would have turned upon her and slain her had she not been busy with
+the tremendous realisation of the fact that by a glance and a gesture she
+had conquered the customs official--a foreigner and a stranger. She wanted
+to be alone and to think.
+
+Just as the trunk was being relocked, Audrey heard an American girlish
+voice behind her:
+
+"Now, you must be Miss Ingate!"
+
+"I am," Miss Ingate almost ecstatically admitted.
+
+The trio in cloaked fancy dress were surrounding Miss Ingate like a
+bodyguard.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LIFE IN PARIS
+
+
+Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall were a charm to dissipate all the
+affrighting menace of the city beyond the station. Miss Thompkins had
+fluffy red hair, with the freckles which too often accompany red hair, and
+was addressed as Tommy. Miss Nickall had fluffy grey hair, with warm,
+loving eyes, and was addressed as Nick. The age of either might have been
+anything from twenty-four to forty. The one came from Wyoming, the other
+from Arizona; and it was instantly clear that they were close friends. They
+had driven up to the terminus before going to a fancy-dress ball to be
+given that night in the studio of Monsieur Dauphin, a famous French painter
+and a delightful man. They had met Monsieur Dauphin on the previous evening
+on the terrace of the Café de Versailles, and Monsieur had said, in
+response to their suggestion, that he would be enchanted and too much
+honoured if they would bring their English friends to his little
+"leaping"--that was, hop.
+
+Also they had thought that it would be nice for the travellers to be met at
+the terminus, especially as Miss Ingate had been very particularly
+recommended to Miss Thompkins by a whole group of people in London. It was
+Miss Thompkins who had supplied the address of reliable furnished rooms,
+and she and Nick would personally introduce the ladies to their landlady,
+who was a sweet creature.
+
+Tommy and Nick and Miss Ingate were at once on terms of cordial
+informality; but the Americans seemed to be a little diffident before the
+companion. Their voices, at the introduction, had reinforced the surprise
+of their first glances. "Oh! _Mrs._ Moncreiff!" The slightest insistence,
+no more, on the "Mrs."! Nothing said, but evidently they had expected
+somebody else!
+
+Then there was the boy, whom they called Musa. He was dark, slim, with
+timorous great eyes, and attired in red as a devil beneath his student's
+cloak. He apologised slowly in English for not being able to speak English.
+He said he was very French, and Tommy and Nick smiled, and he smiled back
+at them rather wistfully. When Tommy and Nick had spoken with the
+chauffeurs in French he interpreted their remarks. There were two
+motor-taxis, one for the luggage.
+
+Miss Thompkins accompanied the luggage; she insisted on doing so. She could
+tell sinister tales of Paris cabmen, and she even delayed the departure in
+order to explain that once in the suburbs and in the pre-taxi days a cabman
+had threatened to drive her and himself into the Seine unless she would be
+his bride, and she saved herself by promising to be his bride and telling
+him that she lived in the Avenue de l'Opéra; as soon as the cab reached a
+populous thoroughfare she opened the cab door and squealed and was rescued;
+she had let the driver go free because of his good taste.
+
+As the procession whizzed through nocturnal streets, some thunderous with
+traffic, others very quiet, but all lined with lofty regular buildings,
+Audrey was penetrated by the romance of this city where cabmen passionately
+and to the point of suicide and murder adored their fares. And she thought
+that perhaps, after all, Madame Piriac's impression of Paris might not be
+entirely misleading. Miss Ingate and Nick talked easily, very charmed with
+one another, both excited. Audrey said little, and the dark youth said
+nothing. But once the dark youth murmured shyly to Audrey in English:
+
+"Do you play at ten-nis, Madame?"
+
+They crossed a thoroughfare that twinkled and glittered from end to end
+with moving sky-signs. Serpents pursued burning serpents on the heights of
+that thoroughfare, invisible hands wrote mystic words of warning and
+invitation, and blazing kittens played with balls of incandescent wool.
+Throngs of promenaders moved under theatrical trees that waved their pale
+emerald against the velvet sky, and the ground floor of every edifice was a
+glowing café, whose tables, full of idle sippers and loungers, bulged out
+on to the broad pavements.... The momentary vision was shut off instantly
+as the taxis shot down the mouth of a dark narrow street; but it had been
+long enough to make Audrey's heart throb.
+
+"What is that?" she asked.
+
+"That?" exclaimed Nick kindly. "Oh! That's only the _grand boulevard_."
+
+Then they crossed the sombre, lamp-reflecting Seine, and soon afterwards
+the two taxis stopped at a vast black door in a very wide street of serried
+palatial façades that were continually shaken by the rushing tumult of
+electric cars. Tommy jumped out and pushed a button, and the door
+automatically split in two, disclosing a vast and dim tunnel. Tommy ran
+within, and came out again with a coatless man in a black-and-yellow
+striped waistcoat and a short white apron. This man, Musa, and the two
+chauffeurs entered swiftly into a complex altercation, which endured until
+Audrey had paid the chauffeurs and all the trunks had been transported
+behind the immense door and the door bangingly shut.
+
+"Vehy amusing, isn't it?" whispered Miss Ingate caustically to Audrey.
+"Aren't they dears?"
+
+"Madame Dubois's establishment is on the third and fourth floors," said
+Nick.
+
+They climbed a broad, curving, carpeted staircase.
+
+"We're here," said Audrey to Miss Ingate after scores of stairs.
+
+Miss Ingate, breathless, could only smile.
+
+And Audrey profoundly felt that she was in Paris. The mere shape of the
+doorknob by the side of a brass plate lettered "Madame Dubois" told her
+that she was in an exotic land.
+
+And in the interior of Madame Dubois's establishment Tommy and Nick
+together drew apart the curtains, opened the windows, and opened the
+shutters of a pleasantly stuffy sitting-room. Everybody leaned out, and
+they saw the superb thoroughfare, straight and interminable, and the moving
+roofs of the tram-cars, and dwarfs on the pavements. The night was mild
+and languorous.
+
+"You see that!" Nick pointed to a blaze of electricity to the left on the
+opposite side of the road. "That's where we shall take you to dine, after
+you've spruced yourselves up. You needn't bother about fancy dress.
+Monsieur Dauphin always has stacks of kimonos--for his models, you know."
+
+While the travellers spruced themselves up in different bedrooms, Tommy
+chattered through one pair of double doors ajar, and Nick through the
+other, and Musa strummed with many mistakes on an antique Pleyel piano. And
+as Audrey listened to the talk of these acquaintances, Tommy and Nick, who
+in half an hour had put on the hue of her lifelong friends, and as she
+heard the piano, and felt the vibration of cars far beneath, she decided
+that she was still growing happier and happier, and that life and the world
+were marvellous.
+
+A little later they passed into the café-restaurant through a throng of
+seated sippers who were spread around its portals like a defence. The
+interior, low, and stretching backwards, apparently endless, into the
+bowels of the building, was swimming in the brightest light. At a raised
+semicircular counter in the centre two women were enthroned, plump, sedate,
+darkly dressed, and of middle age. To these priestesses came a constant
+succession of waiters, in the classic garb of waiters, bearing trays which
+they offered to the gaze of the women, and afterwards throwing down coins
+that rang on the marble of the counter. One of the women wrote swiftly in a
+great tome. Both of them, while performing their duties, glanced
+continually into every part of the establishment, watching especially each
+departure and each arrival.
+
+At scores of tables were the most heterogeneous collection of people that
+Audrey had ever seen; men and women, girls and old men, even a few children
+with their mothers. Liquids were of every colour, ices chromatic, and the
+scarlet of lobster made a luscious contrast with the shaded tints of
+salads. In the extreme background men were playing billiards at three
+tables. Though nearly everybody was talking, no one talked loudly, so that
+the resulting monotone of conversation was a gentle drone, out of which
+shot up at intervals the crash of crockery or a hoarse command. And this
+drone combined itself with the glittering light, and with the mild warmth
+that floated in waves through the open windows, and with the red plush of
+the seats, and with the rosiness of painted nymphs on the blue walls, and
+with the complexions of women's faces, and their hats and frocks, and with
+the hues of the liquids--to produce a totality of impression that made
+Audrey dizzy with ecstasy. This was not the Paris set forth by Madame
+Piriac, but it was a wondrous Paris, and in Audrey's esteem not far removed
+from heaven.
+
+Miss Ingate, magnificently pale, followed Tommy and Nick with ironic
+delight up the long passage between the tables. Her eyes seemed to be
+saying: "I am overpowered, and yet there is something in me that is not
+overpowered, and by virtue of my kind-hearted derision I, from Essex, am
+superior to you all!" Audrey, with glance downcast, followed Miss Ingate,
+and Musa came last, sinuously. Nobody looked up at them more than casually,
+but at intervals during the passage Tommy and Nick nodded and smiled: "How
+d'ye do? How d'ye do?" "_Bon soir,_" and answers were given in American or
+French voices.
+
+They came to rest near the billiard tables, and near an aperture with a
+shelf where all the waiters congregated to shout their orders. A
+grey-haired waiter, with the rapidity and dexterity of a conjurer, laid a
+cloth over the marble round which they sat, Audrey and Miss Ingate on the
+plush bench, and Tommy and Nick, with Musa between them, on chairs
+opposite. The waiter then discussed with them for five minutes what they
+should eat, and he argued the problem seriously, wisely, helpfully, as
+befitted. It was Audrey, in full view of a buffet laden with shell-fish and
+fruit, who first suggested lobster, and lobster was chosen, nothing but
+lobster. Miss Ingate said that she was not a bit tired, and that lobster
+was her dream. The sentiment was universal at the table. When asked what
+she would drink, Audrey was on the point of answering "lemonade." But a
+doubt about the propriety of everlasting lemonade for a widow with much
+knowledge of the world, stopped her.
+
+"I vote we all have grenadines," said Nick.
+
+Grenadine was agreeable to Audrey's ear, and everyone concurred.
+
+The ordering was always summarised and explained by Musa in a few phrases
+which, to Audrey, sounded very different from the French of Tommy and Nick.
+And she took oath that she would instantly begin to learn to speak French,
+not like Tommy and Nick, whose accent she cruelly despised, but like Musa.
+
+Then Tommy and Nick removed their cloaks, and sat displayed as a geisha and
+a contadina, respectively. Musa had already unmasked his devilry. The café
+was not in the least disturbed by these gorgeous and strange apparitions.
+An orchestra began to play. Lobster arrived, and high glasses full of
+glinting green. Audrey ate and drank with gusto, with innocence, with the
+intensest love of life. And she was the most beautiful and touching sight
+in the café-restaurant. Miss Ingate, grinning, caught her eye with joyous
+mockery. "We are going it, aren't we, Audrey?" shrieked Miss Ingate.
+
+Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall began slowly to differentiate themselves in
+Audrey's mind. At first they were merely two American girls--the first
+Audrey had met. They were of about the same age--whatever that age might
+be--and if they were not exactly of the same age, then Tommy with red hair
+was older than Nick with grey hair. Indeed, Nick took the earliest
+opportunity to remark that her hair had turned grey at nineteen. They both
+had dreamy eyes that looked through instead of looking at; they were both
+hazy concerning matters of fact; they were both attached like a couple of
+aunts to Musa, who nestled between them like a cat between two cushions;
+they were both extraordinarily friendly and hospitable; they both painted
+and both had studios--in the same house; they both showed quite a
+remarkable admiration and esteem for all their acquaintances; and they both
+lacked interest in their complexions and their hair.
+
+The resemblance did not go very much farther. Tommy, for all her praising
+of friends, was of a critical, curious, and analytical disposition, and her
+greenish eyes were always at work qualifying in a very subtle manner what
+her tongue said, when her tongue was benevolent, as it often was. Feminism
+and suffragism being the tie between the new acquaintances, these subjects
+were the first material of conversation, and an empress of militancy known
+to the world as "Rosamund" having been mentioned, Miss Ingate said with
+enthusiasm:
+
+"She lives only for one thing."
+
+"Yes," replied Tommy. "And if she got it, I guess no one would be more
+disgusted than she herself."
+
+There was an instant's silence.
+
+"Oh, Tommy!" Nick lovingly protested.
+
+Said Miss Ingate with a comprehending satiric grin:
+
+"I see what you mean. I quite see. I quite see. You're right, Miss
+Thompkins. I'm sure you're right."
+
+Audrey decided she would have to be very clever in order to be equal to
+Tommy's subtlety. Nick, on the other hand, was not a bit subtle, except
+when she tried to imitate Tommy. Nick was kindness, and sympathy, and
+vagueness. You could see these admirable qualities in every curve of her
+face and gleam of her eyes. She was very sympathetic, but somewhat shocked
+when Audrey blurted out that she had not come to Paris in order to paint.
+
+"There are at least fifty painters in this café this very minute," said
+Tommy. And somehow it was just as if she had said: "If you haven't come to
+Paris to paint, what have you come for?"
+
+"Does Mr. Musa paint, too?" asked Audrey.
+
+"Oh _no_!" Both his protectresses answered together, pained. Tommy added:
+"Musa plays the violin--of course."
+
+And Musa blushed. Later, he murmured to Audrey across the table, while
+Tommy was ordering a salad, that there were tennis courts in the Luxembourg
+gardens.
+
+"I used to paint," Miss Ingate broke out. "And I'm beginning to think I
+should like to paint again."
+
+Said Nick, enraptured:
+
+"I'll let you use my studio, if you will. I'd just love you to, now! Where
+did you study?"
+
+"Well, it was like this," said Miss Ingate with satisfaction. "It was a
+long time ago. I finished painting a dog-kennel because the house-painter's
+wife died and he had to go to her funeral, and the dog didn't like being
+kept waiting. That gave me the idea. I went into water-colours, but
+afterwards I went back to oils. Oils seemed more real. Then I started on
+portraits, and I did a portrait of my Aunt Sarah from memory. After she saw
+it she tore up her will, and before I could get her into a good temper
+again she married her third husband and she had to make a new will in
+favour of him. So I found painting very expensive. Not that it would have
+made any difference, I suppose, would it? After that I went into
+miniatures. The same dog that I painted the kennel for ate up the best
+miniature I ever did. It killed him. I put a cross over his grave in the
+garden. All that made me see what a fool I'd been, and I exchanged my
+painting things for a lawn-mower, but it never turned out to be any good."
+
+"You dear! You precious! You priceless!" cooed Nick. "I shall fix up my
+second best easel for you to-morrow."
+
+"Isn't she just too lovely!" Tommy murmured aside to Audrey.
+
+"I not much understand," said Musa.
+
+Tommy translated to him, haltingly, and Audrey was moved to say, with
+energy:
+
+"What I want most is to learn French, and I'm going to begin to-morrow
+morning."
+
+Nick was kindly confusing and shaming Miss Ingate with a short history and
+catechism of modern art, including such names as Vuillard, Bonnard,
+Picasso, Signac, and Matisse--all very eagerly poured out and all very
+unnerving for Miss Ingate, whose directory of painting was practically
+limited to the names of Raphael, Sir Joshua, Rembrandt, Rubens,
+Gainsborough, Turner, Leighton, Millais, Gustave Doré and Frank Dicksee.
+When, however, Nick referred to Monsieur Dauphin, Miss Ingate was as it
+were washed safely ashore and said with assurance: "Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh
+yes!"
+
+Tommy listened for a few moments, and then, leaning across the table and
+lighting a cigarette, she said in an intimate undertone to Audrey: "I hope
+you don't _mind_ coming to the ball to-night. We really didn't know------"
+She stopped. Her eyes, ferreting in Audrey's black, completed the
+communication.
+
+Unnerved for the tenth of a second, Audrey recovered and answered:
+
+"Oh, no! I shall like it very much."
+
+"You've been up against life!" murmured Tommy in a melting voice, gazing at
+her. "But how wonderful all experience is, isn't it. I once had a husband.
+We separated--at least, he separated. But I know the feel of being a wife."
+
+Audrey blushed deeply. She wanted to push away all that sympathy, and she
+was exceedingly alarmed by the revelation that Tommy was an initiate. The
+widow was the merest schoolgirl once more. But her blush had saved her from
+a chat in which she could not conceivably have held her own.
+
+"Excuse me being so clumsy," said Tommy contritely. "Another time." And
+she waved her cigarette to the waiter in demand for the bill.
+
+It was after the orchestra had finished a tango, and while Tommy was
+examining the bill, that the first violin and leader, in a magenta coat,
+approached the table, and with a bow offered his violin deferentially to
+Musa. Many heads turned to watch what would happen. But Musa only shrugged
+his shoulders and with an exquisite gesture of refusal signified that he
+had to leave. Whereupon the magenta coat gracefully retired, starting a
+Hungarian dance as he went.
+
+"Musa is supposed to be the greatest violinist in Paris--perhaps in the
+world," Tommy whispered casually to Audrey. "He used to play here, till
+Dauphin discovered him."
+
+Audrey, overcome by this prodigious blow, trembled at the contemplation of
+her blind stupidity.
+
+Beyond question, Musa now looked extremely important, vivid, masterful. She
+had been mistaking him for a nice, ornamental, useless boy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+FANCY DRESS
+
+
+Just as the café-restaurant had been an intensification of ordinary life,
+so was the ball in Dauphin's studio an intensification of the
+café-restaurant. It had more colour, more noise, more music, more heat,
+more varied kinds of people, and, of course, far more riotous movement than
+the café-restaurant. The only quality in which the café-restaurant stood
+first was that of sustenance. Monsieur Dauphin had not attempted to rival
+the café-restaurant in the matter of food and drink. And that there was no
+general hope of his doing so could be deduced from the fact that many of
+the more experienced guests arrived with bottles, fruit, sausages, and
+sandwiches of their own.
+
+When Audrey and her friends entered the precincts of the vast new white
+building in the Boulevard Raspail, upon whose topmost floor Monsieur
+Dauphin painted the portraits of the women of the French, British, and
+American plutocracies and aristocracies, a lift full of gay-coloured
+figures was just shooting upwards past the wrought-iron balustrades of the
+gigantic staircase. Tommy and Nick stopped to speak to a columbine who
+hovered between the pavement and the threshold of the house.
+
+"I don't know whether it's the grenadine or the lobster, or whether it's
+Paris," said Miss Ingate confidentially in the interval; "but I can
+scarcely tell whether I'm standing on my head or my heels."
+
+Before the Americans rejoined them, the lift had returned and ascended with
+another covey of fancy costumes, including a man with a nose a foot long
+and a girl with bright green hair, dressed as an acrobat. On its next
+journey the lift held Tommy and Nick's party, and it held no more.
+
+When the party emerged from it, they were greeted with a cheer, hoarse and
+half human, by a band of light amateur mountebanks of both sexes who were
+huddled in a doorway. Within a quarter of an hour Audrey and Miss Ingate,
+after astounding struggles in a dressing-room in which Nick alone saved
+their lives and reputations, appeared in Japanese disguise according to
+promise, and nobody could tell whether Audrey was maid, wife, or widow. She
+might have been a creature created on the spot, for the celestial purpose
+of a fancy-dress ball in Monsieur Dauphin's studio.
+
+The studio was very large and rather lofty. Its walls had been painted by
+gifted pupils of Monsieur Dauphin and by fellow-artists, with scenes of
+life according to Catullus, Theocritus, Propertius, Martial, Petronius, and
+other classical writers. It is not too much to say that the walls of the
+studio constituted a complete novelty for Audrey and Miss Ingate. Miss
+Ingate opened her mouth to say something, but, saying nothing, forgot for a
+long time to shut it again.
+
+Chinese lanterns, electrically illuminated, were strung across the studio
+at a convenient height so that athletic dancers could prodigiously leap up
+and make them swing. Beneath this incoherent but exciting radiance the
+guests swayed and glided, in a joyous din, under the influence of an
+orchestra of men snouted like pigs and raised on a dais. In a corner was a
+spiral staircase leading to the flat roof of the studio and a view of all
+Paris. Up and down this corkscrew contending parties fought amiably for the
+right of way.
+
+Tommy and Nick began instantly to perform introductions between Audrey and
+Miss Ingate and the other guests. In a few moments Audrey had failed to
+catch the names of a score and a half of people--many Americans, some
+French, some Argentine, one or two English. They were all very talented
+people, and, according to Miss Ingate, the most characteristically French
+were invariably either Americans or Argentines.
+
+A telephone bell rang in the distance, and presently a toreador stood on a
+chair and pierced the music with a message of yells in French, and the room
+hugely guffawed and cheered.
+
+"Where is the host?" Audrey asked.
+
+"That's what the telephoning was about," said Tommy, speaking loudly
+against the hubbub. "He hasn't come yet. He had to rush off this afternoon
+to do pastel portraits of two Russian princesses at St. Germain, and he
+hasn't got back yet. The telephone was to say that he's started."
+
+Then one of the introduced--it was a girl wearing a mask--took Audrey by
+the waist and whirled her strongly away and she was lost in the maze.
+Audrey's first impulse was to protest, but she said to herself: "Why
+protest? This is what we're here for." And she gave herself up to the
+dance. Her partner held her very firmly, somewhat bending over her.
+Neither spoke. Gyrating in long curves, with the other dancers swishing
+mysteriously about them like the dancers of a dream, and the music as far
+off as another world, they clung together in the rhythm and in the
+enchantment, until the music ceased.... The strong girl threw Audrey
+carelessly off, and walked away, breathing hard. And there was something in
+the strong girl's nonchalant and curt departure which woke a chord in
+Audrey's soul that had never been wakened before. Audrey could scarcely
+credit that she was on the same planet as Essex. She had many dances with
+men whom she hoped and believed she had been introduced to by Tommy, and no
+less than seventeen persons of either sex told her in unusual English that
+they had heard she wanted to learn French and that they would like to teach
+her; and then she met Musa, the devil.
+
+Musa, with an indolent and wistful smile, suggested the roof. Audrey was
+now just one of the throng, and quite unconscious of herself; she fought
+archly and gaily on the spiral staircase exactly as she had seen others do,
+and at last they were on the roof, and the silhouettes of other fantastic
+figures and of cowled chimney pots stood out dark against the vague yellow
+glow of the city beneath. While Musa was pointing out the historic
+landmarks to her, she was thinking how she could never again be the girl
+who had left Moze on the previous morning. And yet Musa was so natural and
+so direct that it was impossible to take him for anything but a boy, and
+hence Audrey sank back into early girlhood, talking spasmodically to Musa
+as she used in school days to talk to the brother of her school friend.
+
+"I will teach you French," said Musa, unaware that he had numerous
+predecessors in the offer. "But will you play tennis with me in the gardens
+of the Luxembourg?"
+
+Audrey said she would, and that she would buy a racket.
+
+"Tell me about all those artists Miss Nickall spoke of," she said. "I must
+know about all the artists, and all the musicians, and all the authors. I
+must know all about them at once. I shan't sleep until I know all their
+names and I can talk French. I shan't _sleep_."
+
+Musa began the catalogue. When a girl came and chucked him under the chin,
+he angrily slapped her face. Then, to avoid complications, they descended.
+
+In the middle of the studio, wearing a silk hat, a morning coat, striped
+trousers, yellow gloves, and boots with spats, stood a smiling figure.
+
+"_VoilĂ _ Dauphin!" said Musa.
+
+"Musa!" called Monsieur Dauphin, espying the youth on the staircase. Then
+he made a gesture to the orchestra: "Give him a violin!"
+
+Audrey stood by Musa while he played a dance that nobody danced to, and
+when he had finished she was rather ashamed, under the curtain of wild
+cheering, because with her Essex incredulity she had not sufficiently
+believed in Musa's greatness.
+
+"Permit your host to introduce himself," said a voice behind her, not in
+the correct English of a linguistic Frenchman, but in utterly English
+English. She had now descended to the floor of the studio.
+
+Emile Dauphin raised his glossy hat, and then asked to be allowed to put it
+on again, as the company had decided that it was part of his costume. He
+had a delicious smile, at once respectful and intimate. Audrey had read
+somewhere that really great men were always simple and unaffected--indeed
+that it was often impossible to guess from their demeanour that, etc.,
+etc.--and this experience of the first celebrity with whom she had ever
+spoken (except Musa, who was somehow only Musa) confirmed the statement,
+and confirmed also her young instinctive belief that what is printed must
+be true. She was beginning to feel the stealthy on-comings of fatigue, and
+certainly she was very nervous, but Monsieur Dauphin's quite particularly
+sympathetic manner, and her own sudden determination not to be a little
+blushing fool gave her new power.
+
+"I can't express to you," he said, moving towards the dais and mesmerising
+her to keep by his side. "I can't express to you how sorry I was to be so
+late." He made the apology with lightness, but with sincerity. Audrey knew
+how polite the French were. "But truly circumstances were too much for me.
+Those two Russian princesses--they came to me through a mutual friend, a
+dear old friend of mine, very closely attached also to them. They leave
+to-morrow morning by the St. Petersburg express, on which they have engaged
+a special coach. What was I to do? I tried to tear myself away earlier, but
+of course there were the portrait sketches to finish, and no doubt you know
+the usage of the best society in Russia."
+
+"Yes," murmured Audrey.
+
+"Come up on the dais, will you?" he suggested. "And let us survey the scene
+together."
+
+They surveyed the scene together. The snouted band was having supper on the
+floor in a corner, and many of the guests also were seated on the floor.
+Miss Ingate, intoxicated by the rapture of existence, and Miss Thompkins
+were carefully examining the frescoes on the walls. A young woman covered
+from head to foot with gold tinsel was throwing chocolates into Musa's
+mouth, or as near to it as she could.
+
+"What a splendid player Mr. Musa is!" Audrey inaugurated her career as a
+woman of the world. "I doubt if I have ever heard such violin playing."
+
+"I'm so glad you think so," replied Monsieur Dauphin. "Of course you know
+I'm very conceited about my painting. Anybody will tell you so. But beneath
+all that I'm not so sure. I often have the gravest doubts about my work.
+But I never had any doubt that when I took Musa out of the orchestra in the
+Café de Versailles I was giving a genius to the world. And perhaps that's
+how I shall be remembered by posterity. And if it is I shall be content."
+
+Never before had Audrey heard anybody connect himself with posterity, and
+she was very much impressed. Monsieur Dauphin was resigned and yet brave.
+By no means convinced that posterity would do the right thing, he
+nevertheless had no grudge against posterity.
+
+Just then there was a sharp scream at the top of the spiral staircase. With
+a smile that condoned the scream and excused his flight, Monsieur Dauphin
+ran to the staircase, and up it, and disappeared on to the roof. Nobody
+seemed to be perturbed. Audrey was left alone and conspicuous on the dais.
+
+"Charming, isn't he?" said Miss Thompkins, arriving with Miss Ingate in
+front of the flower-screened platform.
+
+"Oh! he is!" answered Audrey with sincerity, leaning downwards.
+
+"Has he told you all about the Russian princesses?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Audrey, pleased.
+
+"I thought he would," said Miss Thompkins, with a peculiar intonation.
+
+Audrey knew then that Miss Thompkins, having first maliciously made sure
+that she was a ninny, was now telling her to her face that she was a ninny.
+
+Tommy continued:
+
+"Then I guess he told you he'd given Musa to the world."
+
+Audrey nodded.
+
+"Ah! I knew he would. Well, when he comes back he'll tell you that you must
+come to one of his _real_ entertainments here, and that this one is
+nothing. Then he'll tell you about all the nobs he knows in London. And at
+last he'll say that you have a strangely expressive face, and he'd like to
+paint it and show the picture in the Salon. But he won't tell you it'll
+cost you forty thousand francs. So I'll tell you that, because perhaps
+later on, if you don't know, you might find yourself making a noise like a
+tenderfoot. You see, Miss Ingate hasn't concealed that you're a lady
+millionaire."
+
+"No, I haven't," said Miss Ingate, glowing and yet sarcastic. "I couldn't
+bring myself to, because I was so anxious to see if human nature in Paris
+is anything like what it is in Essex."
+
+"And why should you hide it, Winnie?" Audrey stoutly demanded.
+
+"Well, au revoir," Tommy murmured delicately, with a very original gesture.
+"He's coming back."
+
+As Monsieur Dauphin, having apparently established peace on the roof,
+approached again, Audrey discreetly examined his face and his demeanour, to
+see if she could perceive in him any of the sinister things that Tommy had
+implied. She was unable to make up her mind whether she could or not. But
+in the end she decided that she was as shrewd as anybody in the place.
+
+"Have you been to my roof-garden, Mrs. Moncreiff?" he asked in a persuasive
+voice, raising his eyebrows.
+
+She said she had, and that she thought the roof was heavenly.
+
+Then from the corner of her eye she saw Miss Ingate and Tommy sidling
+mischievously away, like conspirators who have lighted a time fuse. She
+considered that Tommy, with her red hair and freckles, and strange glances
+and strange tones full of a naughty and malicious sweetness, was even more
+peculiar than Miss Ingate. But she was not intimidated by them nor by the
+illustrious Monsieur Dauphin, so perfectly master of his faculties. Rather
+she was exultant in the contagion of their malice. Once more she felt as if
+she had ceased to be a girl a very long time ago. And she was aware of
+agreeable and exciting temptations.
+
+"Are you taking a house in Paris?" inquired Monsieur Dauphin.
+
+Audrey answered primly:
+
+"I haven't decided. Should you advise me to do so?"
+
+He waved a hand.
+
+"Ah! It depends on the life you wish to lead. Who knows--with a young woman
+who has all experience behind her and all life before her! But I do hope I
+may see you again. And I trust I may persuade you to come to my studio
+again." Audrey felt the thrill of drama as he proceeded. "This is scarcely
+a night for you. I ought to tell you that I give three entertainments
+during the autumn. To-night is the first. It is for students and those
+English and Americans who think they are seeing Paris here. Then I give
+another for the political and dramatic worlds. Each is secretly proud to
+meet the other. The third I reserve to my friends. Some of my many friends
+in London are good enough to come over specially for it. It is on
+Christmas Eve. I do wish you would come to that one."
+
+"I suppose," she said, catching the diabolic glances of Miss Ingate and
+Tommy, "I suppose you know almost more people in London than in Paris?"
+
+He answered:
+
+"Well, I count among my friends more than two-thirds of the subscribers to
+Covent Garden Opera.... By the way, do you happen to be connected with the
+Moncreiffs of Suddon Wester? They have a charming house in Hyde Park
+Terrace. But probably you know it?"
+
+Audrey burst out laughing. She laughed loud and violently till the tears
+stood in her eyes.
+
+"Well," he said, at a loss, deprecatingly. "Perhaps these Moncreiffs _are_
+rather weird."
+
+"I was only laughing," she said in gasps, but with a complete secret
+composure. "Because we had such an awful quarrel with them last year. I
+couldn't tell you the details. They're too shocking."
+
+He gave a dubious smile.
+
+"D'you know, dear young lady," he recommenced after a brief pause, "I
+should adore to paint a portrait of you laughing. It would be very well
+hung in the Salon. Your face is so strangely expressive. It is utterly
+different, in expression, from any other face I ever saw--and I have
+studied faces."
+
+Heedless of the general interest which she was arousing, Audrey leaned on
+the rail of the screen of flowers, and gave herself up afresh to laughter.
+Monsieur Dauphin was decidedly puzzled. The affair might have ended in
+hysteria and confusion had not Miss Ingate, with Nick and Tommy, come
+hurrying up to the dais.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A POLITICAL REFUGEE
+
+
+"Rosamund has come to my studio and wants to see me at once. _She has sent
+for me._ Miss Ingate says she shall go, too."
+
+It was these words in a highly emotionalised voice from Miss Nickall that,
+like a vague murmured message of vast events, drew the entire quartet away
+from the bright inebriated scene created by Monsieur Dauphin.
+
+The single word "Rosamund" sufficed to break one mood and induce another in
+all bosoms save that of Audrey, who was in a state of permanent joyous
+exultation that she scarcely even attempted to control. The great militant
+had a surname, but it was rarely used save by police magistrates. Her
+Christian name alone was more impressive than the myriad cognomens of
+queens and princesses. Miss Nickall ran away home at once. Miss Thompkins
+was left to deliver Miss Ingate and Audrey at Nick's studio, which, being
+in the Rue Delambre, was not far away. And not the shedding of the kimono
+and the re-assumption of European attire could affect Audrey's spirits. Had
+she been capable of regret in that hour, she would have regretted the
+abandonment of the ball, where the refined, spiritual, strange faces of the
+men, and the enigmatic quality of the women, and the exceeding novelty of
+the social code had begun to arouse in her sentiments of approval and
+admiration. But she quitted the staggering frolic without a sigh; for she
+carried within her a frolic surpassing anything exterior or physical.
+
+The immense flickering boulevard with its double roadway stretched away to
+the horizon on either hand, empty.
+
+"What time is it?" asked Miss Ingate.
+
+Tommy looked at her wrist-watch.
+
+"Don't tell me! Don't tell me!" cried Audrey.
+
+"We might get a taxi in the Rue de Babylone," Tommy suggested. "Or shall we
+walk?"
+
+"We _must_ walk," cried Audrey.
+
+She knew the name of the street. In the distance she could recognise the
+dying lights of the café-restaurant where they had eaten. She felt already
+like an inhabitant of the dreamed-of city. It was almost inconceivable to
+her that she had been within it for only a few hours, and that England lay
+less than a day behind her in the past, and Moze less than two days. And
+Aguilar the morose, and the shuttered rooms of Flank Hall, shot for an
+instant into her mind and out again.
+
+The other two women walked rather quickly, mesmerised possibly by the magic
+of the illustrious Christian name, and Audrey gave occasional schoolgirlish
+leaps by their side. A little policeman appeared inquisitive from a
+by-street, and Audrey tossed her head as if saying: "Pooh! I belong here.
+All the mystery of this city is mine, and I am as at home as in Moze
+Street."
+
+And as they surged through the echoing solitude of the boulevard, and as
+they crossed the equally tremendous boulevard that cut through it east and
+west, Tommy told the story of Nick's previous relations with Rosamund. Nick
+had met Rosamund once before through her English chum, Betty Burke, an art
+student who had ultimately sacrificed art to the welfare of her sex, but
+who with Mrs. Burke had shared rooms and studio with Nick for many months.
+Tommy's narrative was spotted with hardly perceptible sarcasms concerning
+art, women, Betty Burke, Mrs. Burke, and Nick; but she put no barb into
+Rosamund. And when Miss Ingate, who had never met Rosamund, asked what
+Rosamund amounted to in the esteem of Tommy, Tommy evaded the question.
+Miss Ingate remembered, however, what she had said in the café-restaurant.
+
+Then they turned into the Rue Delambre, and Tommy halted them in the deep
+obscurity in front of another of those huge black doors which throughout
+Paris seemed to guard the secrets of individual life. An automobile was
+waiting close by. A little door in the huge one clicked and yielded, and
+they climbed over a step into black darkness.
+
+"Thompkins!" called Miss Thompkins loudly to the black darkness, to
+reassure the drowsy concierge in his hidden den, shutting the door with a
+bang behind them; and, groping for the hands of the others, she dragged
+them forward stumbling.
+
+"I never have a match," she said.
+
+They blundered up tenebrous stairs.
+
+"We're just passing my door," said Tommy. "Nick's is higher up."
+
+Then a perpendicular slit of light showed itself--and a portal slightly
+open could be distinguished.
+
+"I shall quit here," said Tommy. "You go right in."
+
+"You aren't leaving us?" exclaimed Miss Ingate in alarm.
+
+"I won't go in," Tommy persisted in a quiet satiric tone. "I'll leave my
+door open below, and see you when you come down."
+
+She could be heard descending.
+
+"Why, I guess they're here," said a voice, Nick's, within, and the door was
+pulled wide open.
+
+"My legs are all of a tremble!" muttered Miss Ingate.
+
+Nick's studio seemed larger than reality because of its inadequate
+illumination. On a small paint-stained table in the centre was an oil-lamp
+beneath a round shade that had been decorated by some artist's hand with a
+series of reclining women in many colours. This lamp made a moon in the
+midnight of the studio, but it was a moon almost without rays; the shade
+seemed to imprison the light, save that which escaped from its superior
+orifice. Against the table stood a tall thin woman in black. Her face was
+lit by the rays escaping upward; a pale, firm, bland face, with rather
+prominent cheeks, loose grey hair above, surmounted by a toque. The dress
+was dark, and the only noticeable feature of it was that the sleeves were
+finished in white linen; from these the hands emerged calm and veined under
+the lampshade; in one of them a pair of gloves were clasped. On the table
+lay a thin mantle.
+
+At the back of the studio there sat another woman, so engloomed that no
+detail of her could be distinguished.
+
+"As I was saying," the tall upright woman resumed as soon as Miss Ingate
+and Audrey had been introduced. "Betty Burke is in prison. She got six
+weeks this morning. She may never come out again. Almost her last words
+from the dock were that you, Miss Nickall, should be asked to go to London
+to look after Mrs. Burke, and perhaps to take Betty's place in other ways.
+She said that her mother preferred you to anybody else, and that she was
+sure you would come. Shall you?"
+
+The accents were very clear, the face was delicately smiling, the little
+gestures had a quite tranquil quality. Rosamund did not seem to care
+whether Miss Nickall obeyed the summons or not. She did not seem to care
+about anything whatever except her own manner of existing. She was the
+centre of Paris, and Paris was naught but a circumference for her. All
+phenomena beyond the individuality of the woman were reduced to the
+irrelevant and the negligible. It would have been absurd to mention to her
+costume balls. The frost of her indifference would have wilted them into
+nothingness.
+
+"Yes, of course, I shall go," Nick answered.
+
+"When?" was the implacable question.
+
+"Oh! By the first train," said Nick eagerly. As she approached the lamp,
+the gleam of the devotee could be seen in her gaze. In one moment she had
+sacrificed Paris and art and Tommy and herself, and had risen to the sacred
+ardour of a vocation. Rosamund was well accustomed to watching the process,
+and she gave not the least sign of satisfaction or approval.
+
+"I ought to tell you," she went on, "that I came over from London suddenly
+by the afternoon service in order to escape arrest. I am now a political
+refugee. Things have come to this pass. You will do well to leave by the
+first train. That is why I decided to call here before going to bed."
+
+"Where's Tommy?" asked Nick, appealing wildly to Miss Ingate and Audrey.
+Upon being answered she said, still more wildly: "I must see her. Can
+you--No, I'll run down myself." In the doorway she turned round: "Mrs.
+Moncreiff, would you and Miss Ingate like to have my studio while I'm away?
+I should just love you to. There's a very nice bed over there behind the
+screen, and a fair sort of couch over here. Do say you will! _Do_!"
+
+"Oh! We will!" Miss Ingate replied at once, reassuringly, as though in
+haste to grant the supreme request of some condemned victim. And indeed
+Miss Nickall appeared ready to burst into tears if she should be thwarted.
+
+As soon as Nick had gone, Miss Ingate's smiling face, nervous, intimidated,
+audacious, sardonic, and good humoured, moved out of the gloom nearer to
+Rosamund.
+
+"You knew I played the barrel organ all down Regent Street?" she ventured,
+blushing.
+
+"Ah!" murmured Rosamund, unmoved. "It was you who played the barrel-organ?
+So it was."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Ingate. "But I'm like you. I don't care passionately for
+prison. Eh! Eh! I'm not so vehy, vehy fond of it. I don't know Miss Burke,
+but what a pity she has got six weeks, isn't it? Still, I was vehy much
+struck by what someone said to me to-day--that you'd be vehy sorry if women
+_did_ get the vote. I think I should be sorry, too--you know what I mean."
+
+"Perfectly," ejaculated Rosamund, with a pleasant smile.
+
+"I hope I'm not skidding," said Miss Ingate still more timidly, but also
+with a sardonic giggle, looking round into the gloom. "I do skid sometimes,
+you know, and we've just come away from a----"
+
+She could not finish.
+
+"And Mrs. Moncreiff, if I've got the name right, is she with us, too?"
+asked Rosamund, miraculously urbane. And added: "I hear she has wealth and
+is the mistress of it."
+
+Audrey jumped up, smiling, and lifting her veil. She could not help
+smiling. The studio, the lamp, Rosamund with her miraculous
+self-complacency, Nick with her soft, mad eyes and wistful voice, the
+blundering ruthless Miss Ingate, all seemed intensely absurd to her.
+Everything seemed absurd except dancing and revelry and coloured lights and
+strange disguises and sensuous contacts. She had the most careless
+contempt, stiffened by a slight loathing, for political movements and every
+melancholy effort to reform the world. The world did not need reforming and
+did not want to be reformed.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know my story," Audrey began, not realising how she
+would continue. "I am a widow. I made an unhappy marriage. My husband on
+the day after our wedding-day began to eat peas with his knife. In a week I
+was forced to leave him. And a fortnight later I heard that he was dead of
+blood-poisoning. He had cut his mouth."
+
+And she thought:
+
+"What is the matter with me? I have ruined myself." All her exultation had
+collapsed.
+
+But Rosamund remarked gravely:
+
+"It is a common story."
+
+Suddenly there was a movement in the obscure corner where sat the unnamed
+and unintroduced lady. This lady rose and came towards the table. She was
+very elegant in dress and manner, and she looked maturely young.
+
+"Madame Piriac," announced Rosamund.
+
+Audrey recoiled.... Gazing hard at the face, she saw in it a vague but
+undeniable resemblance to certain admired photographs which had arrived at
+Moze from France.
+
+"Pardon me!" said Madame Piriac in English with a strong French accent. "I
+shall like very much to hear the details of this story of _petits pois_."
+The tone of Madame Piriac's question was unexceptionable; it took account
+of Audrey's mourning attire, and of her youthfulness; but Audrey could
+formulate no answer to it. Instead of speaking she gave a touch to her
+veil, and it dropped before her piquant, troubled, inscrutable face like a
+screen.
+
+Miss Ingate said with noticeable calm, but also with the air of a
+conspirator who sees danger to a most secret machination:
+
+"I'm afraid Mrs. Moncreiff won't care to go into details."
+
+It was neatly done. Madame Piriac brought the episode to a close with a
+sympathetic smile and an apposite gesture. And Audrey, safe behind her
+veil, glanced gratefully and admiringly at Miss Ingate, who, taken quite
+unawares, had been so surprisingly able thus to get her out of a scrape.
+She felt very young and callow among these three women, and the mere
+presence of Madame Piriac, of whom years ago she had created for herself a
+wondrous image, put her into a considerable flutter. On the whole she was
+ready to believe that the actual Madame Piriac was quite equal to the image
+of her founded on photographs and letters. She set her teeth, and decided
+that Madame Piriac should not learn her identity--yet! There was little
+risk of her discovering it for herself, for no photograph of Audrey had
+gone to Paris for a dozen years, and Miss Ingate's loyalty was absolute.
+
+As Audrey sat down again, the illustrious Rosamund took a chair near her,
+and it could not be doubted that the woman had the mien and the carriage of
+a leader.
+
+"You are very rich, are you not?" asked Rosamund, in a tone at once
+deferential and intimate, and she smiled very attractively in the gloom.
+Impossible not to reckon with that smile, as startling as it was seductive!
+
+Evidently Nick had been communicative.
+
+"I suppose I am," murmured Audrey, like a child, and feeling like a child.
+Yet at the same time she was asking herself with fierce curiosity: "What
+has Madame Piriac got to do with this woman?"
+
+"I hear you have eight or ten thousand a year and can do what you like with
+it. And you cannot be more than twenty-three.... What a responsibility it
+must be for you!  You are a friend of Miss Ingate's and therefore on our
+side. Indeed, if a woman such as you were not on our side, I wonder whom
+we _could_ count on. Miss Ingate is, of course, a subscriber to the
+Union--"
+
+"Only a very little one," cried Miss Ingate.
+
+Audrey had never felt so abashed since an ex-parlourmaid at Flank Hall, who
+had left everything to join the Salvation Army, had asked her once in the
+streets of Colchester whether she had found salvation. She knew that she,
+if any one, ought to subscribe to the Suffragette Union, and to subscribe
+largely. For she was a convinced suffragette by faith, because Miss Ingate
+was a convinced suffragette. If Miss Ingate had been a Mormon, Audrey also
+would have been a Mormon. And, although she hated to subscribe, she knew
+also that if Rosamund demanded from her any subscription, however
+large--even a thousand pounds--she would not know how to refuse. She felt
+before Rosamund as hundreds of women, and not a few men, had felt.
+
+"I may be leaving for Germany to-morrow," Rosamund proceeded. "I may not
+see you again--at any rate for many weeks. May I write to London that you
+mean to support us?"
+
+Audrey was giving herself up for lost, and not without reason. She
+foreshadowed a future of steely self-sacrifice, propaganda, hammers, riots,
+and prison; with no self-indulgence in it, no fine clothes, no art, and no
+young men save earnest young men. She saw herself in the iron clutch of her
+own conscience and sense of duty. And she was frightened. But at that
+moment Nick rushed into the room, and the spell was broken. Nick considered
+that she had the right to monopolise Rosamund, and she monopolised her.
+
+Miss Ingate prudently gathered Audrey to her side, and was off with her.
+Nick ran to kiss them, and told them that Tommy was waiting for them in the
+other studio. They groped downstairs, guided by a wisp of light from
+Tommy's studio.
+
+"Why didn't you come up?" asked Miss Ingate of Tommy in Tommy's
+antechamber. "Have you and _she_ quarrelled?"
+
+"Oh no!" said Tommy. "But I'm afraid of her. She'd grab me if she had the
+least chance, and I don't want to be grabbed."
+
+Tommy was arranging to escort them home, and had already got out on the
+landing, when Rosamund and Madame Piriac, followed by Nick holding a candle
+aloft, came down the stairs. A few words of explanation, a little innocent
+blundering on the part of Nick, a polite suggestion by Madame Piriac, and
+an imperious affirmative by Rosamund--and the two strangers to Paris found
+themselves in Madame Piriac's waiting automobile on the way to their rooms!
+
+In the darkness of the car the four women could not distinguish each
+other's faces. But Rosamund's voice was audible in a monologue, and Miss
+Ingate trembled for Audrey and for the future.
+
+"This is the most important political movement in the history of the
+world," Rosamund was saying, not at all in a speechifying manner, but quite
+intimately and naturally. "Everybody admits that, and that's what makes it
+so extraordinarily interesting, and that is why we have had such
+magnificent help from women in the very highest positions who wouldn't
+dream of touching ordinary politics. It's a marvellous thing to be in the
+movement, if we can only realise it. Don't you think so, Mrs. Moncreiff?"
+
+Audrey made no response. The other two sat silent. Miss Ingate thought:
+
+"What's the girl going to do next? Surely she could mumble something."
+
+The car curved and stopped.
+
+"Here we are," said Miss Ingate, delighted. "And thank you so much. I
+suppose all we have to do is just to push the bell and the door opens. Now
+Audrey, dear."
+
+Audrey did not stir.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" murmured Madame Piriac, "What has she, little one?"
+
+Rosamund said stiffly and curtly:
+
+"She is asleep.... It is very late. Four o'clock."
+
+Excellent as was Audrey's excuse for her lapse, Rosamund was not at all
+pleased. That slumber was one of Rosamund's rare defeats.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO
+
+
+Audrey was in a white piqué coat and short skirt, with pale blue blouse and
+pale blue hat--and at the extremity blue stockings and white tennis shoes.
+She picked up a tennis racket in its press, and prepared to leave the
+studio. She had bought the coat, the skirt, the blouse, the hat, the
+tennis shoes, the racket, the press, and practically all she wore, visible
+and invisible, at that very convenient and immense shop, the Bon Marché,
+whose only drawback was that it was always full. Everybody in the Quarter,
+except a few dolls not in earnest, bought everything at the Bon Marché,
+because the Bon Marché was so comprehensive and so reliable. If you desired
+a toothbrush, the Bon Marché not only supplied it, but delivered it in a
+30-h.p. motor-van manned by two officials in uniform. And if you desired a
+bedroom suite, a pair of corsets, a box of pastels, an anthracite stove, or
+a new wallpaper, the Bon Marché would never shake its head.
+
+And Audrey was now of the Quarter. Many simple sojourners in the Quarter
+tried to imply the Latin Quarter when they said the Quarter. But the
+Quarter was only the Montparnasse Quarter. Nevertheless, it sufficed. It
+had its own boulevards, restaurants, cafés, concerts, theatres, palaces,
+shops, gardens, museums, and churches. There was no need to leave it, and
+if you were a proper amateur of the Quarter, you never did leave it save to
+scoff at other Quarters. Sometimes you fringed the Latin Quarter in the big
+cafés of the Boulevard St. Michel, and sometimes you strolled northwards as
+far as the Seine, and occasionally even crossed the Seine in order to enter
+the Louvre, which lined the other bank, but you did not go any farther. Why
+should you?
+
+Audrey had become so acclimatised to the Quarter that Miss Nickall's studio
+seemed her natural home. It was very typically a woman's studio of the
+Quarter. About thirty feet each way and fourteen feet high, with certain
+irregularities of shape, it was divided into corners. There were the two
+bed-corners, which were lounge-corners during the day; the afternoon-tea
+corner, with a piece or two of antique furniture and some old silk
+hangings, where on high afternoons tea was given to droves of visitors; and
+there was the culinary corner, with spirit-lamps, gas-rings, kettles, and a
+bowl or two over which you might spend a couple of arduous hours in
+ineffectually whipping up a mayonnaise for an impromptu lunch. Artistic
+operations were carried out in the middle of the studio, not too far from
+the stove, which never went out from November to May. A large mirror hung
+paramount on one wall. The remaining spaces of the studio were filled with
+old easels, canvases, old frames, old costumes and multifarious other
+properties for pictures, trunks, lamps, boards, tables, and bric-Ă -brac
+bought at the Ham-and-Old-Iron Fair. There were a million objects in the
+studio, and their situations had to be, and were, learnt off by heart. The
+scene of the toilette was a small attached chamber.
+
+The housekeeping combined the simplicity of the early Christians with the
+efficient organising of the twentieth century. It began at about half-past
+seven, when unseen but heard beings left fresh rolls and the _New York
+Herald_ or the _Daily Mail_ at the studio door. You made your own bed, just
+as you cleaned your own boots or washed your own face. The larder
+consisted of tins of coffee, tea, sugar, and cakes, with an intermittent
+supply of butter and lemons. The infusing of tea and coffee was practised
+in perfection. It mattered not in the least whether toilette or breakfast
+came first, but it was exceedingly important that the care of the stove
+should precede both. Between ten and eleven the concierge's wife arrived
+with tools and utensils; she swept and dusted under a considerable
+percentage of the million objects--and the responsibilities of housekeeping
+were finished until the next day, for afternoon tea, if it occurred, was a
+diversion and not a toil.
+
+A great expanse of twelve to fifteen hours lay in front of you. It was not
+uncomfortably and unchangeably cut into fixed portions by the incidence of
+lunch and dinner. You ate when you felt inclined to eat, and nearly always
+at restaurants where you met your acquaintances. Meals were the least
+important happenings of the day. You had no reliable watch, and you needed
+none, for you had no fixed programme. You worked till you had had enough of
+work. You went forth into the world exactly when the idea took you. If you
+were bored, you found a friend and went to sit in a café. You were ready
+for anything. The word "rule" had been omitted from your dictionary. You
+retired to bed when the still small voice within murmured that there was
+naught else to do. You woke up in the morning amid cups and saucers,
+lingerie, masterpieces, and boots. And the next day was the same. All the
+days were the same. Weeks passed with inexpressible rapidity, and all
+things beyond the Quarter had the quality of vague murmurings and noises
+behind the scenes.
+
+May had come. Audrey and Miss Ingate had lived in the studio for six months
+before they realised that they had settled down there and that habits had
+been formed. Still, they had accomplished something. Miss Ingate had gone
+back into oils and was attending life classes, and Audrey, by terrible
+application and by sitting daily at the feet of an oldish lady in black,
+and by refusing to speak English between breakfast and dinner, had acquired
+a good accent and much fluency in the French tongue. Now, when she spoke
+French, she thought in French, and she was extremely proud of the
+achievement. Also she was acquainted with the names and styles of all known
+modern painters from pointillistes to cubistes, and, indeed, with the
+latest eccentricities in all the arts. She could tell who was immortal, and
+she was fully aware that there was no real painting in England. In brief,
+she was perhaps more Parisian even than she had hoped. She had absorbed
+Paris into her system. It was still not the Paris of her early fancy; in
+particular, it lacked elegance; but it richly satisfied her.
+
+She had on this afternoon of young May an appointment with a young man. And
+the appointment seemed quite natural, causing no inward disturbance. Less
+than ever could she understand her father's ukases against young men and
+against every form of self-indulgence. Now, when she had the idea of doing
+a thing, she merely did it. Her instincts were her only guide, and, though
+her instincts were often highly complex, they seldom puzzled her. The old
+instinct that the desire to do a thing was a sufficient reason against
+doing it, had expired. For many weeks she had lived with a secret fear that
+such unbridled conduct must lead to terrible catastrophes, but as nothing
+happened this fear also expired. She was constantly with young men, and
+often with men not young; she liked it, but just as much she liked being
+with women. She never had any difficulties with men. Miss Thompkins
+insinuated at intervals that she flirted, but she had the sharpest contempt
+for flirtation, and as a practice put it on a level with embezzlement or
+arson. Miss Thompkins, however, kept on insinuating. Audrey regarded
+herself as decidedly wiser than Miss Thompkins. Her opinions on vital
+matters changed almost weekly, but she was always absolutely sure that the
+new opinion was final and incontrovertible. Her scorn of the old English
+Audrey, though concealed, was terrific.
+
+And it is to be remembered that she was a widow. She was never half a
+second late, now, in replying when addressed as "Mrs. Moncreiff."
+Frequently she thought that she in fact was a widow. Widowhood was a very
+advantageous state. It had a free pass to all affairs of interest. It
+opened wide the door of the world. It recked nothing of girlish codes. It
+abolished discussions concerning conventional propriety. Its chief defect,
+for Audrey, was that if she met another widow, or even a married woman, she
+had to take heed lest she stumbled. Fortunately, neither widows nor wives
+were very prevalent in the Quarter. And Audrey had attained skill in the
+use of the state of widowhood. She told no more infantile perilous tales
+about husbands who ate peas with a knife. In her thankfulness that the
+tyrannic Rosamund had gone to Germany, and that Madame Piriac had vanished
+back into unknown Paris, Audrey was at pains to take to heart the lesson of
+a semi-hysterical blunder.
+
+She descended the dark, dusty oak stairs utterly content. And at the door
+of the gloomy den of the concierge the concierge's wife was standing. She
+was a new wife, the young mate of a middle-aged husband, and she had only
+been illuminating the den (which was kitchen, parlour, and bedroom in a
+space of ten feet by eight) for about a month. She was plump and pretty,
+and also she was fair, which was unusual for a Frenchwoman. She wore a
+striped frock and a little black apron, and her yellow hair was waved with
+art. Audrey offered her the key of the studio with a smile, and, as Audrey
+expected, the concierge's wife began to chatter. The concierge's wife loved
+to chatter with Anglo-Saxon tenants, and she specially enjoyed chattering
+with Audrey, because of the superior quality of Audrey's French and of her
+tips. Audrey listened, proud because she could understand so well and
+answer so fluently.
+
+The sun, which in May shone on the courtyard for about forty minutes in the
+afternoon on clear days, caught these two creatures in the same beam. They
+made a delicious sight--Audrey dark, with her large forehead and negligible
+nose, and the concierge's wife rather doll-like in the regularity of her
+features. They were delicious not only because of their varied charm, but
+because they were so absurdly wise and omniscient, and because they had
+come to settled conclusions about every kind of worldly problem. Youth and
+vitality equalised their ranks, and the fact that Audrey possessed many
+ascertained ancestors, and a part of the earth's surface, and much money,
+and that the concierge's wife possessed nothing but herself and a few bits
+of furniture, was not of the slightest importance.
+
+The concierge's wife, after curiosity concerning tennis, grew confidential
+about herself, and more confidential. And at last she lowered her tones,
+and with sparkling eyes communicated information to Audrey in a voice that
+was little more than a whisper.
+
+"Oh! truly? I must go," hastily said Audrey, blushing, and off she ran,
+reduced in an instant to the schoolgirl. Her departure was a retreat.
+These occasional discomfitures made a faint blot on the excellence of being
+a widow.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SWOON
+
+
+In the north-east corner of the Luxembourg Gardens, where the lawn-tennis
+courts were permitted by a public authority which was strangely impartial
+and cosmopolitan in the matter of games, Miss Ingate sat sketching a group
+of statuary with the Rue de Vaugirard behind it. She was sketching in the
+orthodox way, on the orthodox stool, with the orthodox combined paint-box
+and easel, and the orthodox police permit in the cover of the box.
+
+The bright and warm weather was tonic; it accounted for the whole
+temperament of Parisians. Under such a sky, with such a delicate pricking
+vitalisation in the air, it was impossible not to be Parisian. The trees,
+all arranged in beautiful perspectives, were coming into leaf, and through
+their screens could be seen everywhere children shouting as they played at
+ball and top, and both kinds of nurses, and scores of perambulators and
+mothers, and a few couples dallying with their sensations, and old men
+reading papers, and old women knitting and relating anecdotes or entire
+histories. And nobody was curious beyond his own group. The people were
+perfectly at home in this grandiose setting of gardens and fountains and
+grey palaces, with theatres, boulevards and the odour and roar of
+motor-buses just beyond the palisades. And Miss Ingate in the exciting
+sunshine gazed around with her subdued Essex grin, as if saying: "It's the
+most topsy-turvy planet that I was ever on, and why am I, of all people,
+trying to make this canvas look like a piece of sculpture and a street?"
+
+"Now, Miss Ingate," said tall red-haired Tommy, who was standing over her.
+"Before you go any farther, do look at the line of roofs and see how
+interesting it is; it's really full of interest. And you've simply not got
+on speaking terms with it yet."
+
+"No more I have! No more I have!" cried Miss Ingate, glancing round at
+Audrey, who was swinging her racket. "Thank you, Tommy. I ought to have
+thought of it for my own sake, because roofs are so much easier than
+statues, and I must get an effect somewhere, mustn't I?"
+
+Tommy winked at Audrey. But Tommy's wink was as naught to the great
+invisible wink of Miss Ingate, the everlasting wink that derided the
+universe and the sun himself.
+
+Then Musa appeared, with paraphernalia, at the end of a path. Accompanying
+him was a specimen of the creature known on tennis lawns as "a fourth." He
+was almost nameless, tall, very young, with the seedlings of a moustache
+and a space of nude calf between his knickerbockers and his socks. He was
+very ceremonious, shy, ungainly and blushful. He played a fair-to-middling
+game; and nothing more need be said of him.
+
+Musa by contrast was an accomplished man of the world, and the fact that
+the fourth obviously regarded him as a hero helped Musa to behave in a
+manner satisfactory to himself in front of these English and American
+women, so strange, so exotic, so kind, and so disconcerting. Musa looked
+upon Britain as a romantic isle where people died for love. And as for
+America, in his mind it was as sinister, as wondrous, and as fatal as the
+Indies might seem to a bank clerk in Bradford. He had need of every moral
+assistance in this or any other social ordeal. For, though he was still the
+greatest violinist in Paris, and perhaps in the world, he could not yet
+prove this profound truth by the only demonstration which the world
+accepts.
+
+If he played in studios he was idolised. If he played at small concerts in
+unknown halls he was received with rapture. But he was never lionised. The
+great concert halls never saw him on their platforms; his name was never in
+the newspapers; and hospitable personages never fought together for his
+presence at their tables, even if occasionally they invited him to perform
+for charity in return for a glass of claret and a sandwich. Monsieur
+Dauphin had attempted to force the invisible barriers for him, but without
+success. All his admirers in the Quarter stuck to it that he was in the
+rank of Kreisler and Ysaye; at the same time they were annoyed with him
+inasmuch as he did not force the world to acknowledge the prophetic good
+taste of the Quarter. And Musa made mistakes. He ought to have arrived at
+studios in a magnificent automobile, and to have given superb and
+uproarious repasts, and to have rendered innumerable women exquisitely
+unhappy. Whereas he arrived by tube or bus, never offered hospitality of
+any sort, and was like a cat with women. Hence the attitude of the Quarter
+was patronising, as if the Quarter had said: "Yes, he is the greatest
+violinist in Paris and perhaps in the world; but that's all, and it isn't
+enough."
+
+The young man and the boy made ready for the game as for a gladiatorial
+display. Their frowning seriousness proved that they had comprehended the
+true British idea of sport. Musa came round the net to Audrey's side, but
+Audrey said in French:
+
+"Miss Thompkins and I will play together. See, we are going to beat you and
+Gustave."
+
+Musa retired. A few indifferent spectators had collected. Gustave, the
+fourth, had to serve.
+
+"Play!" he muttered, in a thick and threatening voice, whose depth was the
+measure of his nervousness.
+
+He served a double fault to Tommy, and then a fault to Audrey. The fourth
+ball he got over. Audrey played it. The two males rushed with appalling
+force together on the centre line in pursuit, and a terrible collision
+occurred. Musa fell away from Gustave as from a wall. When he arose out of
+the pebbly dust his right arm hung very limp from the shoulder. No sooner
+had he risen than he sank again, and the blood began to leave his face, and
+his eyes closed. The fourth, having recovered from the collision, knelt
+down by his side, and gazed earnestly at him. Tommy and Audrey hurried
+towards the statuesque group, and Audrey was thinking: "Why did I refuse to
+let him play with me? If he had played with me there would have been no
+accident." She reproached herself because she well knew that only out of
+the most absurd contrariness had she repulsed Musa. Or was it that she had
+repulsed him from fear of something that Tommy might say or look?
+
+In a few seconds, strongly drawn by this marvellous piece of luck,
+promenaders were darting with joyous rapidity from north, south, east and
+west to witness the tragedy. There were nurses with coloured streamers six
+feet long, lusty children, errand boys, lads, and sundry nondescript men,
+some of whom carefully folded up their newspapers as they hurried to the
+cynosure. They beheld the body as though it were a corpse, and the corpse
+of an enemy; they formulated and discussed theories of the event; they
+examined minutely the rackets which had been thrown on the ground. They
+were exercising the immemorial rights of unmoved curiosity; they held
+themselves as indifferent as gods, and the murmur of their impartial voices
+floated soothingly over Musa, and the shadow of their active profiles
+covered him from the sparkling sunshine. Somebody mentioned policemen, in
+the plural, but none came. All remarked in turn that the ladies were
+English, as though that were a sufficient explanation of the whole affair.
+
+No one said:
+
+"It is Musa, the greatest violinist in Paris and perhaps in Europe."
+
+Desperately Audrey stooped and seized Musa beneath the armpits to lift him
+to a sitting position.
+
+"You'd better leave him alone," said Tommy, with a kind of ironic warning
+and innuendo.
+
+But Audrey still struggled with the mass, convinced that she was showing
+initiative and firmness of character. The fourth with fierce vigour began
+to aid her, and another youth from the crowd was joining the enterprise
+when Miss Ingate arrived from her stool.
+
+"Drop him, you silly little thing!" adjured Miss Ingate. "Instead of
+lifting his head you ought to lift his feet."
+
+Audrey stared uncertain for a moment, and then let the mass subside.
+Whereupon Miss Ingate with all her strength lifted both legs to the height
+of her waist, giving Musa the appearance of a wheelless barrow.
+
+"You want to let the blood run _into_ his head," said Miss Ingate with a
+self-conscious grin at the increasing crowd. "People only faint because the
+blood leaves their heads--that's why they go pale."
+
+Musa's cheeks showed a tinge of red. You could almost see the precious
+blood being decanted by Miss Ingate out of the man's feet into his head. In
+a minute he opened his eyes. Miss Ingate lowered the legs.
+
+"It was only the pain that made him feel queer," she said.
+
+The episode was over, and the crowd very gradually and reluctantly
+scattered, disappointed at the lack of a fatal conclusion. Musa stood up,
+smiling apologetically, and Audrey supported him by the left arm, for the
+right could not be touched.
+
+"Hadn't you better take him home, Mrs. Moncreiff?" Tommy suggested. "You
+can get a taxi here in the Rue de Vaugirard." She did not smile, but her
+green eyes glinted.
+
+"Yes, I will," said Audrey curtly.
+
+And Tommy's eyes glinted still more.
+
+"And I shall get a doctor," said Audrey. "His arm may be broken."
+
+"I should," Tommy concurred with gravity.
+
+"Well, if it is, _I_ can't set it," said Miss Ingate quizzically. "I was
+getting on so well with the high lights on that statue. I'll come along
+back to the studio in about half an hour."
+
+The fourth, who had been hovering near like a criminal magnetised by his
+crime, bounded off furiously at the suggestion that he should stop a taxi
+at the entrance to the gardens.
+
+"I hope he has broken his arm and he can never play any more," thought
+Audrey, astoundingly, as she and the fourth helped pale Musa into the open
+taxi. "It will just serve those two right." She meant Miss Ingate and
+Tommy.
+
+No sooner did the taxi start than Musa began to cry. He did not seem to
+care that he was in the midst of a busy street, with a piquant widow by his
+side.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MISS INGATE POINTS OUT THE DOOR
+
+
+"Why did you cry this afternoon, Musa?"
+
+Musa made no reply.
+
+Audrey was lighting the big lamp in the Moncreiff-Ingate studio. It made
+exactly the same moon as it had made on the night in the previous autumn
+when Audrey had first seen it. She had brought Musa to the studio because
+she did not care to take him to his own lodgings.  (As a fact, nobody that
+she knew, except Musa, had ever seen Musa's lodgings.) This was almost the
+first moment they had had to themselves since the visit of the little
+American doctor from the Rue Servandoni. The rumour of Musa's misfortune
+had spread through the Quarter like the smell of a fire, and various
+persons of both sexes had called to inspect, to sympathise, and to take
+tea, which Audrey was continually making throughout the late afternoon.
+Musa had had an egg for his tea, and more than one girl had helped to
+spread the yolk and the white on pieces of bread-and-butter, for the victim
+of destiny had his right arm in a sling. Audrey had let them do it, as a
+mother patronisingly lets her friends amuse her baby.
+
+In the end they had all gone; Tommy had enigmatically looked in and gone,
+and Miss Ingate had gone to dine at the favourite restaurant of the hour in
+the Rue LĂ©opold Robert. Audrey had refused to go, asserting that which was
+not true; namely, that she had had an enormous tea, including far too many
+_petits fours_. Miss Ingate in departing had given a glance at her sketch
+(fixed on the easel), and another at Audrey, and another at Musa, all
+equally ironic and kindly.
+
+Musa also had declined dinner, but he had done nothing to indicate that he
+meant to leave. He sat mournful and passive in a basket chair, his sling
+making a patch of white in the gloom. The truth was that he suffered from a
+disability not uncommon among certain natures: he did not know how to go.
+He could arrive with ease, but he was no expert at vanishing. Audrey was
+troubled. As suited her age and condition, she was apt to feel the
+responsibility of the whole universe. She knew that she was responsible for
+Musa's accident, and now she was beginning to be aware that she was
+responsible for his future as well. She was sure that he needed
+encouragement and guidance. She pictured him with his fiddle under his
+chin, masterful, confident, miraculous, throwing a spell over everyone
+within earshot. But actually she saw him listless and vanquished in the
+basket chair, and she perceived that only a strongly influential and
+determined woman, such as herself, could save him from disaster. No man
+could do it. His tears had shaken her. She was willing to make allowances
+for a foreigner, but she had never seen a man cry before, and the spectacle
+was very disturbing. It inspired her with a fear that even she could not be
+the salvation of Musa.
+
+"I demanded something of you," she said, after lowering the wick of the
+lamp to exactly the right point, and staring at it for a greater length of
+time than was necessary or even seemly. She spoke French, and as she
+listened to her French accent she heard that it was good.
+
+"I am done for!" came the mournful voice of Musa out of the obscurity
+behind the lamp.
+
+"What! You are done for? But you know what the doctor said. He said no bone
+was broken. Only a little strain, and the pain from your----" Admirable
+though her French accent was, she could not think of the French word for
+"funny-bone." Indeed she had never learnt it. So she said it in English.
+Musa knew not what she meant, and thus a slight chasm was opened between
+them which neither could bridge. She finished: "In one week you are going
+to be able to play again."
+
+Musa shook his head.
+
+Relieved as she was to discover that Musa had cried because he was done
+for, and not because he was hurt, she was still worried by his want of
+elasticity, of resiliency. Nevertheless she was agreeably worried. The
+doctor had disappointed her by his light optimism, but he could not smile
+away Musa's moral indisposition. The large vagueness of the studio, the
+very faint twilight still showing through the great window, the silence and
+intimacy, the sounds of the French language, the gleam of the white sling,
+all combined to permeate her with delicious melancholy. And not for
+everlasting bliss would she have had Musa strong, obstinate, and certain of
+success.
+
+"A week!" he murmured. "It is for ever. A week of practice lost is
+eternally lost. And on Wednesday one had invited me to play at Foa's. And I
+cannot."
+
+"Foa? Who is Foa?"
+
+"What! You do not know Foa? In order to succeed it is necessary, it is
+essential, to play at Foa's. That alone gives the _cachet_. Dauphin told me
+last week. He arranged it. After having played at Foa's all is possible.
+Dauphin was about to abandon me when he met Foa. Now I am ruined. This
+afternoon after the tennis I was going to Durand's to get the new Caprice
+of Roussel--he is an intimate friend of Foa. I should have studied it in
+five days. They would have been ravished by the attention .... But why talk
+I thus? No, I could not have played Caprice to please them. I am cursed. I
+will never again touch the violin, I swear it. What am I?  Do I not live on
+the money _lent_ to me regularly by Mademoiselle Thompkins and Mademoiselle
+Nickall?"
+
+"You don't, Musa?" Audrey burst out in English.
+
+"Yes, yes!" said Musa violently. "But last month, from Mademoiselle
+Nickall--nothing! She is in London; she forgets. It is better like that.
+Soon I shall be playing in the Opéra orchestra, fourth desk, one hundred
+francs a month. That will be the end. There can be no other."
+
+Instead of admiring the secret charity of Tommy and Nick, which she had
+never suspected, Audrey was very annoyed by it. She detested it and
+resented it. And especially the charity of Miss Thompkins. She considered
+that from a woman with eyes and innuendoes like Tommy's charity amounted to
+a sneer.
+
+"It is extremely unsatisfactory," she said, dropping on to Miss Ingate's
+sofa.
+
+Not another word was spoken. Audrey tapped her foot. Musa creaked in the
+basket chair. He avoided her eyes, but occasionally she glared at him like
+a schoolmistress. Then her gaze softened--he looked so ill, so helpless,
+so hopeless. She wanted to light a cigarette for him, but she was somehow
+bound to the sofa. She wanted him to go--she hated the prospect of his
+going. He could not possibly go, alone, to his solitary room. Who would
+tend him, soothe him, put him to bed? He was an infant....
+
+Then, after a long while, Miss Ingate entered sharply. Audrey coughed and
+sprang up.
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Miss Ingate.
+
+"I--I think I shall just change my boots," said Audrey, smoothing out the
+short white skirt. And she disappeared into the dressing-room that gave on
+to the studio.
+
+As soon as she was gone, Miss Ingate went close up to Musa's chair. He had
+not moved.
+
+She said, smiling, with the corners of her mouth well down:
+
+"Do you see that door, young man?"
+
+And she indicated the door.
+
+When Audrey came back into the studio.
+
+"Audrey," cried Miss Ingate shrilly. "What you been doing to Musa? As soon
+as you went out he up vehy quickly and ran away."
+
+At this information Audrey was more obviously troubled and dashed than Miss
+Ingate had ever seen her, in Paris. She made no answer at all.
+Fortunately, lying on the table in front of the mirror was a letter for
+Miss Ingate which had arrived by the evening post. Audrey went for it,
+pretending to search, and then handed it over with a casual gesture.
+
+"It looks as if it was from Nick," she murmured.
+
+Miss Ingate, as she was putting on her spectacles, remarked:
+
+"I hope you weren't hurt--me not coming with you and Musa in the taxi from
+the gardens this afternoon, dear."
+
+"Me? Oh no!"
+
+"It wasn't that I was so vehy interested in my sketch. But to my mind
+there's nothing more ridiculous than several women all looking after one
+man. Miss Thompkins thought so, too."
+
+"Oh! Did she?... What does Nick say?"
+
+Miss Ingate had put the letter flat on the table in the full glare of the
+lamp, and was leaning over it, her grey hair brilliantly illuminated.
+Audrey kept in the shadow and in the distance. Miss Ingate had a habit of
+reading to herself under her breath. She read slowly, and turned pages over
+with a deliberate movement.
+
+"Well," said Miss Ingate twisting her head sideways so as to see Audrey
+standing like a ghost afar off. "Well, she _has_ been going it! She's
+broken a window in Oxford Street with a hammer; she had one night in the
+cells for that. And she'd have had to go to prison altogether only some
+unknown body paid the fine for her. She says: 'There are some mean persons
+in the world, and he was one. I feel sure it was a man, and an American,
+too. The owners of the shops are going to bring a law action against me
+for the value of the plate-glass. It is such fun. And our leaders are
+splendid and so in earnest. They say we are doing a great historical work,
+and we are. The London correspondent of the _New York Times_ interviewed me
+because I am American. I did not want to be interviewed, but our
+instructions are--never to avoid publicity. There is to be no more window
+breaking for the present. Something new is being arranged. The hammer is
+so heavy, and sometimes the first blow does not break the window. The
+situation is _very_ serious, and the Government is at its wits' end. This
+we _know_. We have our agents everywhere. All the most thoughtful people
+are strongly in favour of votes for women; but of course some of them are
+afraid of our methods. This only shows that they have not learnt the
+lessons of history. I wonder that you and dear Mrs. Moncreiff do not come
+and help. Many women ask after you, and everybody at Kingsway is very
+curious to know Mrs. Moncreiff. Since Mrs. Burke's death, Betty has taken
+rooms in this house, but perhaps Tommy has told you this already. If so,
+excuse. Betty's health is very bad since they let her out last. With regard
+to the rent, will you pay the next quarter direct to the concierge
+yourselves? It will save so much trouble. I must tell you----'"
+
+Slowly Audrey moved up to the table and leaned over the letter by Miss
+Ingate's side.
+
+"So you see!" said Miss Ingate. "Well, we must show it to Tommy in the
+morning. 'Not learnt the lessons of history,' eh? I know who's been talking
+to Nick. _I_ know as well as if I could hear them speaking."
+
+"Do you think we ought to go to London?" Audrey demanded bluntly.
+
+"Well," Miss Ingate answered, with impartial irony on her long upper lip.
+"I don't know. Of course I played the organ all the way down Regent Street.
+I feel very strongly about votes for women, and once when I was helping in
+the night and day vigil at the House of Commons and some Ministers came out
+smoking their _cigahs_ and asked us how we liked it, I was vehy, vehy
+angry. However, the next morning I had a cigarette myself and felt better.
+But I'm not a professional reformer, like a lot of them are at Kingsway.
+It isn't my meat and drink. And I don't think it matters much whether we
+get the vote next year or in ten years. I'm Winifred Ingate before I'm
+anything else. And so long as I'm pretty comfortable no one's going to make
+me believe that the world's coming to an end. I know one thing--if we did
+get the vote it would take me all my time to keep most of the women I know
+from, voting for something silly."
+
+"Winnie," said Audrey. "You're very sensible sometimes."
+
+"I'm always very sensible," Winnie retorted, "until I get nervous. Then I'm
+apt to skid."
+
+Without more words they transformed the studio, by a few magical strokes,
+from a drawing-room into a bedroom. Audrey, the last to retire,
+extinguished the lamp, and tripped to her bed behind her screen. Only a few
+slight movements disturbed the silence.
+
+"Winnie," said Audrey suddenly. "I do believe you're one of those awful
+people who compromise. You're always right in the middle of the raft."
+
+But Miss Ingate, being fast asleep, offered no answer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE RIGHT BANK
+
+
+The next day, after a studio lunch which contained too much starch and was
+deficient in nitrogen, Miss Ingate, putting on her hat and jacket, said
+with a caustic gesture:
+
+"Well, I must be off to my life class. And much good may it do me!"
+
+The astonishing creature had apparently begun existence again, and begun it
+on the plane of art, but this did not prevent the observer within her from
+taking the same attitude towards her second career as she had taken towards
+her first. Nothing seemed more meet for Miss Ingate's ironic contemplation
+than the daily struggle for style and beauty in the academies of the
+Quarter.
+
+Audrey made no reply. The morning had been unusually silent, giving
+considerable scope for Miss Ingate's faculty for leaving well alone.
+
+"I suppose you aren't coming out?" added Miss Ingate.
+
+"No. I went out a bit this morning. You know I have my French lesson in
+twenty minutes."
+
+"Of course."
+
+Miss Ingate seized her apparatus and departed. The instant she was alone
+Audrey began in haste to change into all her best clothes, which were
+black, and which the Quarter seldom saw. Fashionably arrayed, she sat down
+and wrote a note to Madame Schmitt, her French instructress, to say that
+she had been suddenly called away on urgent business, and asking her
+nevertheless to count the time as a lesson given. This done, she put her
+credit notes and her cheque-book into her handbag, and, leaving the note
+with the concierge's wife, who bristled with interesting suspicions, she
+vanished into Paris.
+
+The weather was even more superb than on the previous day. Paris glittered
+around her as she drove, slowly, in a horse-taxi, to the Place de l'Opéra
+on the right bank, where the _grand boulevard_ meets the Avenue de l'Opéra
+and the Rue de la Paix. Here was the very centre of the fashionable and
+pleasure-ridden district which the Quarter held in noble scorn. She had
+seen it before, because she had started a banking account (under advice
+from Mr. Foulger), and the establishment of her bankers was situate at the
+corner of the Avenue de l'Opéra and the Rue de la Paix. But she knew
+little of the district, and such trifling information as she had acquired
+was tinged by the natural hostility of a young woman who for over six
+months, with no compulsion to do so, had toiled regularly and fiercely in
+the pursuit of knowledge. She paid off the cab, and went to test the
+soundness of her bankers. The place was full of tourists, and in one
+department of it young men in cages, who knew not the Quarter, were
+counting, and ladling, and pinning together, and engorging, and dealing
+forth, the currency and notes of all the great nations of the earth. The
+spectacle was inspiring.
+
+In half a year the restive but finally obedient Mr. Foulger had sent three
+thousand pounds to Paris in the unpoetic form of small oblong pieces of
+paper signed with his own dull signature. Audrey desired to experience the
+thrill of authentic money. She waited some time in front of a cage, with
+her cheque-book open on the counter, until a young man glanced at her
+interrogatively through the bars.
+
+"How much money have I got here, please?" she asked. She ought to have
+said: "What is my balance, please?" But nobody had taught her the sacred
+formula.
+
+"What name?" said the clerk.
+
+"Moze--Audrey Moze," she answered, for she had not dared to acquaint Mr.
+Foulger with her widowhood, and his cheques were made out to herself.
+
+The clerk vanished, and in a moment reappeared, silently wrote something on
+a little form, and pushed it to her under the grille. She read:
+
+                            "73,065 frs. 50c."
+
+The fact was that in six months she had spent little more than the amount
+which she had brought with her from London. Having begun in simplicity, in
+simplicity she had continued, partly because she had been too industrious
+and too earnest for luxurious caprices, partly because she had never been
+accustomed to anything else but simplicity, and partly from wilfulness. It
+had pleased her to think that she was piling tens of thousands upon tens of
+thousands--in francs.
+
+But in the night she had decided that the moment had arrived for a change
+in the great campaign of seeing life and tasting it.
+
+She timorously drew a cheque for eleven thousand francs, and asked for ten
+thousand in notes and a thousand in gold. The clerk showed no trace of
+either astonishment or alarm; but he insisted on her endorsing the cheque.
+When she saw the gold, she changed half of it for ten notes of fifty francs
+each.
+
+Emerging with false but fairly plausible nonchalance from the crowded
+establishment, where other clerks were selling tickets to Palestine,
+Timbuctoo, Bagdad, Berlin, and all the abodes of happiness in the world,
+she saw at the newspaper kiosk opposite the little blue poster of an
+English daily. It said: "More Suffragette Riots." She had a qualm, for her
+conscience was apt to be tyrannic, and its empire over her had been
+strengthened by the long, steady course of hard work which she had
+accomplished. Miss Ingate's arguments had not placated that conscience.
+It had said to her in the night: "If ever there was a girl who ought to
+assist heartily in the emancipation of women, that girl is you, Audrey
+Moze."
+
+"Pooh!" she replied to her conscience, for she could always confute it with
+a sharp word--for a time.
+
+And she crossed to the _grand boulevard_, and turned westward along the
+splendid, humming, roaring thoroughfare gay with flags and gleaming with
+such plate-glass as Nick the militant would have loved to shatter.
+Certainly there was nothing like this street in the Quarter. The Quarter
+could equal it neither in shops, nor in cafés, nor in vehicles, nor in
+crowds. It was an exultant thoroughfare, and Audrey caught its buoyancy,
+which could be distinctly seen in the feather on her hat. At the end of it
+she passed into the cool shade of a music-shop with the name "Durand" on
+its façade. She had found the address, and another one, in the telephone
+book at the Café de Versailles that morning. It was an immense shop
+containing millions of pieces of music for all instruments and all tastes.
+Yet when she modestly asked for the Caprice for violin of Roussel, the
+_morceau_ was brought to her without the slightest hesitation, together
+with the pianoforte accompaniment. The price was twelve francs.
+
+Her gloved hand closed round the slim roll with the delicate firmness which
+was actuating all her proceedings on that magnificent afternoon. She was
+determined to save Musa not merely from himself, but from Miss Thompkins
+and everybody. It was not that she was specially interested in Musa. No!
+She was interested in a clean, neat job--that was all. She had begun to
+take charge of Musa, and she intended to carry the affair through. He had
+the ability to succeed, and he should succeed. It would be ridiculous for
+him not to succeed. From certain hints, and from a deeply sagacious
+instinct, she had divined that money and management were the only
+ingredients lacking to Musa's triumph. She could supply both these
+elements; and she would. And her reward would be the pride of the workman
+in his job.
+
+Now her firmness hesitated. She retraced the boulevard to the Place de
+l'Opéra, and then took the Rue de la Paix. In the first shop on the
+left-hand side, next to her bankers, she saw amid a dazzling collection of
+jewelled articles for travellers and letter-writers and diary-keepers, a
+sublime gold handbag, or, as the French say, hand-sack. Its clasp was set
+with a sapphire. Impulse sent her gliding right into the shop, with the
+words already on her lips: "How much is that gold hand-sack in the window?"
+But when she reached the hushed and shadowed interior, which was furnished
+like a drawing-room with soft carpets and tapestried chairs, she beheld
+dozens of gold hand-sacks glinting like secret treasure in a cave; and she
+was embarrassed by the number and variety of them. A well-dressed and
+affable lady and gentleman, with a quite remarkable similarity of prominent
+noses, welcomed her in general terms, and seemed surprised, and even a
+little pained, when she talked about buying and selling. She came out of
+the shop with a gold hand-sack which had cost twelve hundred francs, and
+all her money was in it.
+
+Fortified by the impressive bauble, she walked along the street to the
+Place VendĂ´me, where she descried in the distance the glittering signs and
+arms of the HĂ´tel du Danube. Then she walked up the opposite pavement of
+the Rue de la Paix, and down again and up again until she had grasped its
+significance.
+
+It was a street of jewellery, perfumes, antiques, gloves, hats, frocks, and
+furs. It was a street wherein the lily was painted and gold was gilded.
+Every window was a miracle of taste, refinement, and costliness. Every
+article in every window was so dear that no article was ticketed with its
+price, save a few wafer-like watches and jewelled rings that bore tiny
+figures, such as 12,500 francs, 40,000 francs. Despite her wealth, Audrey
+felt poor. The upper windows of nearly all the great buildings were arrayed
+with plants in full bloom. The roadway was covered with superb automobiles,
+some of them nearly as long as trains. About half of them stood in repose
+at the kerb, and Audrey as she strolled could see through their panes of
+bevelled glass the complex luxury within of toy dogs, clocks, writing-pads,
+mirrors, powder boxes, parasols, and the lounging arrogance of uniformed
+menials. At close intervals women passed rapidly across the pavements to or
+from these automobiles. If they were leaving a shop, the automobile sprang
+into life, dogs, menials, and all, the door was opened, the woman slipped
+in like a mechanical toy, the door banged, the menial jumped, and with
+trumpet tones the entire machine curved and swept away. The aspect of these
+women made Audrey feel glad that she was wearing her best clothes, and
+simultaneously made her feel that her best clothes were worse than useless.
+
+She saw an automobile shop with a card at the door: "Town and touring cars
+for hire by day, week, or month." A gorgeous Mercédès, too spick, too span,
+altogether too celestial for earthly use, occupied most of the shop.
+
+"Good afternoon, Madame," said a man in bad English. For Audrey had
+misguided herself into the emporium. She did not care to be addressed in
+her own tongue; she even objected to the instant discovery of her
+nationality, of which at the moment she was ashamed. And so it was with
+frigidity that she inquired whether cars were to be hired.
+
+The shopman hesitated. Audrey knew that she had committed an indiscretion.
+It was impossible that cars should be handed out thus unceremoniously to
+anybody who had the fancy to enter the shop! Cars were naturally the
+subject of negotiations and references.... And then the shopman, espying
+the gold bag, and being by it and by the English frigidity humbled to his
+proper station, fawned and replied that he had cars for hire, and the best
+cars. Did the lady want a large car or a small car? She wanted a large car.
+Did she want a town or a touring car? She wanted a town car, and by the
+week. When did she want it? She wanted it at once--in half an hour.
+
+"I can hire you a car in half an hour, with liveried chauffeur," said the
+shopman, after telephoning. "But he cannot speak English."
+
+"_Ça m'est égal_," answered Audrey with grim satisfaction. "What kind of a
+car will it be?"
+
+"Mercédès, Madame."
+
+The price was eight hundred francs a week, inclusive. As Audrey was paying
+for the first week the man murmured:
+
+"What address, Madame?"
+
+"HĂ´tel du Danube," she answered like lightning--indeed far quicker than
+thought. "But I shall call here for the car. It must be waiting outside."
+
+The dispenser of cars bowed.
+
+"Can you get a taxi for me?" Audrey suggested. "I will leave this roll here
+and this bag," producing her old handbag which she had concealed under her
+coat. And she thought: "All this is really very simple."
+
+At the other address which she had found in the telephone book--a house in
+the Rue d'Aumale--she said to an aged concierge:
+
+"Monsieur Foa--which floor?"
+
+A very dark, rather short and negligently dressed man of nearly middle-age
+who was descending the staircase, raised his hat with grave ceremony:
+
+"Pardon, Madame. Foa--it is I."
+
+Audrey was not prepared for this encounter. She had intended to compose her
+face and her speech while mounting the staircase. She blushed.
+
+"I come from Musa--the violinist," she began hesitatingly. "You invited
+him to play at your flat on Friday night, Monsieur."
+
+Monsieur Foa gave a sudden enchanting smile:
+
+"Yes, Madame. I hear much good of him from my friend Dauphin, much good.
+And we long to hear him play. It appears he is a great artist."
+
+"He has had an accident," said Audrey. Monsier Foa's face grew serious. "It
+is nothing--a few days. The elbow--a trifle. He cannot play next Friday.
+But he will be desolated if he may not play to you later. He has so few
+friends.... I came.... I...."
+
+"Madame, every Friday we are at home, every Friday. My wife will be
+ravished. I shall be ravished. Believe me. Let him be reassured."
+
+"Monsieur, you are too amiable. I shall tell Musa."
+
+"Musa, he may have few friends--it is possible, Madame--but he is
+nevertheless fortunate. Madame is English, is it not so? My wife and I
+adore England and the English. For us there is only England. If Madame
+would do us the honour of coming when Musa plays.... My wife will send an
+invitation, to the end of remaining within the rules. You, Madame, and any
+of your friends."
+
+"Monsieur is too amiable, truly."
+
+In the end they were standing together on the pavement by the waiting taxi.
+She gave him her card, and breathed the words "HĂ´tel du Danube." He was
+enchanted. She offered her hand. He took it, raised it, and kissed the
+back of it. Then he stood with his hat off until she had passed from his
+sight.
+
+Audrey was burning with excitement. She said to herself:
+
+"I have discovered Paris."
+
+When the taxi turned again into the Rue de la Paix, she thought:
+
+"The car will not be waiting. It would be too lovely if it were."
+
+But there the car was, huge, glistening, unreal, incredible. And a
+chauffeur gloved and liveried in brown, to match the car, stood by its
+side, and the shopman was at the door, holding the Caprice of Roussel and
+the old handbag ready in his hand.
+
+"Here is Madame," said he.
+
+The chauffeur saluted.
+
+The car was closed.
+
+"Will Madame have the carriage open or closed?"
+
+"Closed."
+
+Having paid the taxi-driver, Audrey entered the car, and as she did so, she
+threw over her shoulder:
+
+"HĂ´tel du Danube."
+
+While the chauffeur started the engine, the shopman with brilliant smiles
+delivered the music and the bag. The door clicked. Audrey noticed the
+clock, the rug, the powder-box, the speaking-tube, and the mirror. She
+gazed, and saw a face triumphant and delicious in the mirror. The car began
+to glide forward. She leaned back against the pale grey upholstery, but in
+her soul she was standing and crying with a wild wave of the hand, to the
+whole street:
+
+"It is a miracle!"
+
+In a moment the gigantic car stopped in front of the HĂ´tel du Danube. Two
+attendants rushed out in uniforms of delicate blue. They did not touch
+their hats--they raised them. Audrey descended and penetrated into the
+portico, where a tall dandy saluted and inquired her will. She wanted
+rooms; she wanted a flat? Certainly. They had nothing but flats. A large
+flat on the ground-floor was at her disposal absolutely. Two bedrooms,
+sitting-room, bathroom. It had its own private entrance in the courtyard.
+She inspected it. The suite was furnished in the Empire style. Herself and
+maid? No. A friend! Well, the maids could sleep upstairs. It could arrange
+itself. She had no maid? Her friend had no maid? Ah! So much the better.
+Sixty francs a day.
+
+"Where is the dining-room?" demanded Audrey.
+
+"Madame," said the dandy, shocked. "We have no dining-room. All meals are
+specially cooked to order and served in the private rooms. We have the
+reputation...." He opened his arms and bowed.
+
+Good! Good! She would return with her friend in one hour or so.
+
+"106 Rue Delambre," she bade the chauffeur, after being followed to the
+pavement by the dandy and a suite.
+
+"Rue de Londres?" said the chauffeur.
+
+"No. Rue Delambre."
+
+It had to be looked out on the map, but the chauffeur, trained to the hour,
+did not blench. However, when he found the Rue Delambre, the success with
+which he repudiated it was complete.
+
+"Winnie!" began Audrey in the studio, with assumed indifference. Miss
+Ingate was at tea.
+
+"Oh! You are a swell. Where you been?"
+
+"Winnie! What do you say to going and living on the right bank for a bit?"
+
+"Well, well!" said Miss Ingate. "So that's it, is it?  I've been ready to
+go for a long time. Of course you want to go first thing to-morrow morning.
+I know you."
+
+"No, I don't," said Audrey. "I want to go to-night. Now! Pack the trunks
+quick. I've got the finest auto you ever saw waiting at the door."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ROBES
+
+
+On the second following Friday evening, Audrey's suite of rooms at the
+HĂ´tel du Danube glowed in every corner with pink-shaded electricity.
+According to what Audrey had everywhere observed to be the French custom,
+there was in this flat the minimum of corridor and the maximum of doors.
+Each room communicated directly with all the other rooms. The doors were
+open, and three women continually in a feverish elation passed to and fro.
+Empire chairs and sofas were covered with rich garments of every colour and
+form and material, from the transparent blue silk _matinée_ to the dark
+heavy cloak of velvet ornamented with fur. The place was in fact very like
+the showrooms of a cosmopolitan dressmaker after a vast trying-on. Sundry
+cosmopolitan dressmakers had contributed to the rich confusion. None had
+hesitated for an instant to execute Audrey's commands. They had all been
+waiting, apparently since the beginning of time, to serve her. All that
+district of Paris had been thus waiting. The flat had been waiting, the
+automobile had been waiting, the chauffeur had been waiting, and purveyors
+of every sort. A word from her seemed to have released them from an
+enchantment. For the most part they were strange people, these magical
+attendants, never mentioning money, but rather deprecating the sound of it,
+and content to supply nothing but the finest productions of their
+unquestionable genius. Still, Audrey reckoned that she owed about
+twenty-five thousand francs to Paris.
+
+The third woman was the maid, Elise. The hotel had invented and delivered
+Elise, and thereafter seemed easier in its mind. Elise was thirty years of
+age and not repellent of aspect. On a black dress she wore the smallest
+white muslin apron that either Audrey or Miss Ingate had ever seen. She
+kept pins in her mouth, but in other respects showed few eccentricities
+beyond an extreme excitability. When at eight o'clock Mademoiselle's new
+gown, promised for seven, had not arrived, Elise begged permission to use
+Madame's salts. When the bell rang at eight-thirty, and a lackey brought in
+an oval-shaped box with a long loop to it of leathern strap, she only just
+managed not to kiss the lackey. The rapid movement of Mademoiselle and
+Elise with the contents of the box from the drawing-room into
+Mademoiselle's bedroom was the last rushing and swishing that preceded a
+considerable peace.
+
+Madame was absolutely ready, in her bedroom. In the large mirror of the
+dark wardrobe she surveyed her victoriously young face, the magnificent
+grey dress, the coiffure, the jewels, the spangled shoes, the fan; and the
+ensemble satisfied her. She was intensely and calmly happy. No thought of
+the past nor of the future, nor of what was going on in other parts of the
+earth's surface could in the slightest degree impair her happiness. She had
+done nothing herself, she had neither earned money nor created any of the
+objects which adorned her; nor was she capable of doing the one or the
+other. Yet she felt proud as well as happy, because she was young and
+superbly healthy, and not unattractive. These were her high virtues. And
+her attitude was so right that nobody would have disagreed with her.
+
+Her left ear was listening for the sound, through the unlatched window, of
+the arrival of the automobile with Musa and his fiddle inside it.
+
+Then the door leading from Mademoiselle's bedroom opened sharply, and
+Mademoiselle appeared, with her grey hair, her pale shining forehead, her
+sardonic grin, and the new dress of those Empire colours, magenta and
+green. Elise stood behind, trembling with satisfaction.
+
+"Well----" Audrey began. But she heard the automobile, and told Elise to
+run and be ready to open the front door of the flat.
+
+"Rather showy, isn't it? Rather daring?" said Miss Ingate, advancing
+self-consciously and self-deprecating.
+
+"Winnie," answered Audrey. "It's a nice question between you and the Queen
+of Sheba."
+
+Suddenly Miss Ingate beheld in the mirror the masterpiece of an illustrious
+male dressmaker-a masterpiece in which no touch of the last fashion was
+abated-and little Essex Winnie grinning from within it.
+
+She screamed. And forthwith putting her hands behind her neck she began to
+unhook the corsage.
+
+"What are you doing, Winnie?"
+
+"I'm taking it off."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I'm not going to wear it."
+
+"But you've nothing else to wear."
+
+"I can't help that."
+
+"But you can't come. What on earth shall you do?"
+
+"I dare say I shall go to bed. Or I might shoot myself. But if you think
+that I'm going outside this room in this dress, you're a perfect simpleton,
+Audrey. I don't mind being a fool, but I won't look one."
+
+Audrey heard Musa enter the drawing-room.
+
+She pulled the door to, keeping her hand on the knob.
+
+"Very well, Winnie," she said coldly, and swept into the drawing-room.
+
+As she and Musa left the pink rose-shaded flat, she heard a burst of tears
+from Elise in the bedroom.
+
+"21 Rue d'Aumale," she curtly ordered the chauffeur, who sat like a god
+obscurely in front of the illuminated interior of the carriage. Musa's
+violin case lay amid the cushions therein.
+
+The chauffeur approvingly touched his hat. The Rue d'Aumale was a good
+street.
+
+"I wonder what his surname is?" Audrey thought curiously. "And whether he's
+in love or married, and has children." She knew nothing of him save that
+his Christian name was Michel.
+
+She was taciturn and severe with Musa.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+SOIRÉE
+
+
+"Monsieur Foa--which floor?" Audrey asked once again of the aged concierge
+in the Rue d'Aumale. This time she got an answer. It was the fifth or top
+floor. Musa said nothing, permitting himself to be taken about like a
+parcel, though with a more graceful passivity. There was no lift, but at
+each floor a cushioned seat for travellers to use and a palm in a coloured
+pot in a niche for travellers to gaze upon as they rested. The quality of
+the palms, however, deteriorated floor by floor, and on the fourth and
+fifth floors the niches were empty. A broad embroidered bell-pull,
+twitched, gave rise to one clanging sound within the abode of the Foas, and
+the clanging sound reacted upon a small dog which yapped loudly and
+continued to yap until the visitors had entered and the door been closed
+again. Monsieur came out of a room into the small entrance-hall,
+accompanied by a considerable noise of conversation. He beamed his
+ravishment; he kissed hands; he helped with the dark blue cloak.
+
+"I brought Monsieur Musa in my car," said Audrey. "The weather----"
+
+Monsieur Foa bowed low to Monsieur Musa, and Monsieur Musa bowed low to
+Monsieur Foa.
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+"Monsieur, your accident I hope...."
+
+And so on.
+
+Cloak, overcoat, hat, stick--everything except the violin case--were thrown
+pell-mell on to a piece of furniture in the entrance-hall. Monsieur Foa,
+instead of being in evening dress, was in exactly the same clothes as he
+had worn at his first meeting with Audrey.
+
+Madame Foa appeared in the doorway. She was a slim blonde Italian of pure
+descent, whereas only the paternal grandfather of Monsieur Foa had been
+Italian. Madame Foa, who had called on Audrey at the Danube, exhibited the
+same symptoms of pleasure as her husband.
+
+"But your friend? But your friend?" cried she.
+
+Audrey, being led gradually into the drawing-room, explained that Miss
+Ingate had been prevented at the last moment, etc., etc.
+
+The distinction of Madame Foa's simple dress had reassured Audrey to a
+certain extent, but the size of the drawing-room disconcerted her again.
+She had understood that the house of the Foas was the real esoteric centre
+of musical Paris, and she had prepared herself for vast and luxurious
+salons, footmen, fountains of wine, rare flowers, dandies, and the divine
+shoulders of operatic sopranos who combined wit with the most seductive
+charm. The drawing-room of the Foas was not as large as her own
+drawing-room at the Danube. Still it was full, and double doors leading to
+an unseen dining-room at right angles to its length produced an illusion of
+space. Some of the men and some of the women were elegant, and even very
+elegant; others were not. Audrey instantly with her expert eye saw that the
+pictures on the walls were of the last correctness, and a few by
+illustrious painters. Here and there she could see scrawled on them "Ă  mon
+ami, André Foa." Such phenomena were balm. Everybody in the room was
+presented to her, and with the greatest particularity, and the host and
+hostess gazed on her as on an idol, a jewel, an exquisite and startling
+discovery. Musa found two men he knew. The conversation was resumed with
+energy.
+
+"And now," said Madame Foa in English, sitting down intimately beside
+Audrey, with a loving gesture, "We will have a little talk, you and I. I
+find our friend Madame Piriac met you last year."
+
+"Ah! Yes," murmured Audrey, fatally struck, but admirably dissembling, for
+she was determined to achieve the evening successfully. "Madame Piriac,
+will she come to-night?"
+
+"I fear not," replied Madame Foa. "She would if she could."
+
+"I should so like to have seen her again," said Audrey eagerly. She was so
+relieved at Madame Piriac's not coming that she felt she could afford to be
+eager.
+
+And Monsieur Foa, a little distance off, threw a sign into the duologue,
+and called:
+
+"You permit me? Your dress ... _Exquise! Exquise!_ And these pigs of French
+persist in saying that the English lack taste!" He clapped his hand to his
+forehead in despair of the French.
+
+Then the clanging sound supervened, and the little fox-terrier yapped, and
+Monsieur Foa went out, ejaculating "Ah!" and Madame Foa went into the
+doorway. Audrey glanced round for Musa, but he was out of sight in the
+dining-room. Several people turned at once and spoke to her, including two
+composers who had probably composed more impossibilities for amateur
+pianists than any other two men who ever lived, and a musical critic with
+large dark eyes and an Eastern air, who had come from the Opera very
+sarcastic about the Opera. One of the composers asked the critic whether he
+had not heard Musa play.
+
+"Yes," said the critic. "I heard him in the Ternes Quarter--somewhere. He
+plays very agreeably. Madame," he addressed Audrey. "I was discussing with
+these gentlemen whether it be not possible to define the principle of
+beauty in music. Once it is defined, my trade will be much simplified, you
+see. What say you?"
+
+How could she discourse on the principle of beauty in music when she had
+the whole weight of the evening on her shoulders? Musa was the whole weight
+of the evening. Would he succeed? She was his mother, his manager, his
+creator. He was her handiwork. If he failed she would have failed. That was
+her sole interest in him, but it was an overwhelming interest. When would
+he be asked to play? Useless for them to flatter her about her dress, to
+treat her like a rarity, if they offered callous, careless, off-hand
+remarks, such as "He plays very agreeably."
+
+She stammered:
+
+"I--I only know what I like."
+
+One of the composers jumped up excitedly:
+
+"_VoilĂ _ Madame has said the final word. You hear me, the final word, the
+most profound. Argue as you will, perfect the art of criticism to no matter
+what point, and you will never get beyond the final word of Madame."
+
+The critic shrugged his shoulders, and with a smile bowed to the ravishing
+utterer of last words on the most baffling of subjects. This fluttered
+person soon perceived that she had been mistaken in supposing that the room
+was full. The clanging sound kept recurring, the dog kept barking, and new
+guests continually poured into the room, thereby proving that it was not
+full. All comers were introduced to Audrey, whose head was a dizzy riot of
+strange names. Then at last a girl sang, and was applauded. Madame Foa
+played for her. "Now," thought Audrey, "they will ask Musa." Then one of
+the composers played the piano, his themes punctuated by the clanging sound
+and by the dog. The room was asphyxiating, but no one except Audrey seemed
+to be inconvenienced. Then several guests rang in quick succession.
+
+"Madame!" the suave and ardent voice of Foa could be heard in the
+entrance-hall. "And thou, Roussel ... Ippolita, Ippolita!" he called to
+his wife. "It is Roussel."
+
+Audrey did not turn her head. She could not. But presently Roussel, in a
+blue suit with a wonderful flowing bow of a black necktie in _crĂªpe de
+Chine_, was led before her. And Musa was led before Roussel. Audrey, from
+nervousness, was moved to relate the history of Musa's accident to Roussel.
+
+The moment had arrived. Roussel sat down to the piano. Musa tuned his
+fiddle.
+
+"From what appears," murmured Monsieur Foa to nobody in particular, with an
+ecstatic expectant smile on his face, "this Musa is all that is most
+amazing."
+
+Then, in the silence, the clanging sound was renewed, and the fox-terrier
+reacted.
+
+"André, my friend," cried Madame Foa, skipping into the hall. "Will you do
+me the pleasure of exterminating this dog?"
+
+Delicate osculatory explosions and pretty exclamations in the hall! The
+hostess was encountering an old friend. There was also a man's deep
+English voice. Then a hush. The man's voice produced a very strange effect
+upon Audrey. Roussel began to play. Musa held his bow aloft. Creeping
+steps in the doorway made Audrey look round. A lady smiled and bowed to
+her. It was Madame Piriac, resplendent and serene.
+
+Musa played the Caprice. Audrey did not hear him, partly because the vision
+of Madame Piriac, and the man's deep voice, had extremely perturbed her,
+and partly because she was so desperately anxious for Musa's triumph. She
+had decided that she could make his triumph here the prelude to tremendous
+things. When he had finished she held her breath....
+
+The applause, after an instant, was sudden and extremely cordial. Monsieur
+Foa loudly clapped, smiling at Audrey. Roussel patted Musa on the back and
+chattered to him fondly. On each side of her Audrey could catch murmured
+exclamations of delight. Musa himself was certainly pleased and happy....
+He had played at Foa's, where it was absolutely essential to play if one
+intended to conquer Paris and to prove one's pretensions; and he had found
+favour with this satiated and fastidious audience.
+
+"_Ouf!"_ sighed the musical critic Orientally lounging on a chair. "André,
+has it occurred to you that we are expiring for want of air?"
+
+A window was opened, and a shiver went through the assembly.
+
+The clanging sounded again, but no dog, for the dog had been exterminated.
+
+"Dauphin, my old pig!" Foa's greeting from the entrance floated into the
+drawing-room, and then a very impressed: "Mademoiselle" from Madame Foa.
+
+"What?" cried Dauphin. "Musa has played? He played well? So much the
+better. What did I tell you?"
+
+And he entered the drawing-room with the satisfied air of having fed Musa
+from infancy and also of having taught him all he knew about the violin.
+
+Madame Foa followed him, and with her was Miss Ingate, gorgeous and
+blushing. The whole company was now on its feet and moving about. Miss
+Ingate scuttered to Audrey.
+
+"Well," she whispered. "Here I am. I came partly to satisfy that hysterical
+Elise, and Monsieur Dauphin met me on the stairs. But really I came because
+I've had another letter from Miss Nickall. She's been and got her arm
+broken in a street row. I knew those policemen would do it one day. I
+always said they would."
+
+But Audrey seemed not to be listening. With a side-long gaze she saw Madame
+Piriac talking with a middle-aged Englishman, whose back alone was visible
+to her. Madame Piriac laughed and vanished out of sight into the
+dining-room. The Englishman turned and met Audrey's glance.
+
+Abruptly leaving Miss Ingate, Audrey walked straight up to the Englishman.
+
+"Good evening," she said in a low voice. "What is your name?"
+
+"Gilman," he answered, with a laugh. "I only this instant recognised you."
+
+"Well, Mr. Gilman," said Audrey, "will you oblige me very much by not
+recognising me? I want us to be introduced. I am most particularly anxious
+that no one should know I'm the same girl who helped you to jump off your
+yacht at Lousey Hard last year."
+
+And she moved quickly away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A DECISION
+
+
+The entire company was sitting or standing round the table in the
+dining-room. It was a table at which eight might have sat down to dinner
+with a fair amount of comfort; and perhaps thirty-eight now were
+successfully claiming an interest in it. Not at the end, but about a third
+of the way down one side, Madame Foa brewed tea in a copper receptacle over
+a spirit lamp. At the other extremity was a battalion of glasses, some
+syphons and some lofty bottles. Except for a border of teacups and glasses
+the rest of the white expanse was empty, save that two silver biscuit boxes
+and a silver cigarette box wandered up and down it according to the needs
+of the community. Audrey was sitting next to the Oriental musical critic,
+on her left, and on her right she had a beautiful stout woman who could
+speak nothing but Polish, but who expressed herself very clearly in the
+language of smiles, nods, and shrugs; to Audrey she seemed to be extremely
+romantic; the musical critic could converse somewhat in Polish, and
+occasionally he talked across Audrey to the Pole. Several other languages
+were flying about. The subject of discussion was feminism, chiefly as
+practised in England. It was Miss Ingate who had begun it; her striking and
+peculiar appearance, and in particular her frock, had given importance to
+her lightest word. People who comprehended naught of English listened to
+her entranced. The host, who was among these, stood behind her in a state
+of ecstasy. Her pale forehead reddened; her sardonic grin became
+deliciously self-conscious. "I know I'm skidding," she cried. "I know I'm
+skidding."
+
+"What does she say? Skeed--skeed?" demanded the host.
+
+Audrey interpreted. Shouts of laughter!
+
+"Oh! These English! These Englishwomen!" said the host. "I adore them. I
+adore them all. They alone exist."
+
+"It's vehy serious!" protested Miss Ingate. "It's vehy serious!"
+
+"We shall go to London to-morrow, shan't we, Winnie?" said Audrey across
+the table to her.
+
+"Yes," agreed Miss Ingate. "I think we ought. We're as free as birds. When
+the police have broken our arms we can come back to Paris to recover. I
+shan't feel comfortable until I've been and had my arm broken--it's vehy
+serious."
+
+"What does she say? What is it that she says?" from the host.
+
+More interpretation. More laughter, but this time an impressed laughter.
+And Audrey perceived that just as she was regarding the Polish woman as
+romantic, so the whole company was regarding herself and Miss Ingate as
+romantic. She could feel the polite, curious eyes of twenty men upon her;
+and her mind seemed to stiffen into a formidable resolve. She grew
+conscious of the lifting of all depression, all anxiety. Her conscience was
+at rest. She had been thinking for more than a week past: "I ought to go to
+London." How often had she not said to herself: "If any woman should be in
+this movement, I should be in this movement. I am a coward as long as I
+stay here, dallying my time away." Now the decision was made, absolutely.
+
+The Oriental musical critic turned to glance upward behind his chair. Then
+he vacated it. The next instant Madame Piriac was sitting in his place.
+
+She said:
+
+"Are you really going to London to-morrow, Madame?"
+
+"Yes, Madame, really!" answered Audrey firmly, without the least
+hesitation.
+
+"How I regret it! For this reason. I wished so much to make your
+acquaintance. I mean--to know you a little. You go perhaps in the
+afternoon? Could you not do me the great pleasure of coming to lunch with
+me? I inhabit the Quai Voltaire. It is all that is most convenient."
+
+Audrey was startled and suspicious, but she could not deny the
+persuasiveness of the invitation.
+
+"Ah! Madame!" she said. "I know not at what hour we go. But even if it
+should be in the afternoon there is the packing--you know--in a word...."
+
+"Listen," Madame Piriac proceeded, bending even more intimately towards
+her. "Be very, very kind. Come to see me to-night. Come in my car. I will
+see that you reach the Rue Delambre afterwards."
+
+"But Madame, we are at the HĂ´tel du Danube. I have my own car. You are very
+amiable."
+
+Madame Piriac was a little taken aback.
+
+"So much the better," she said, in a new tone. "The HĂ´tel du Danube is
+nearer still. But come in my car. Mademoiselle Ingate can return in yours.
+Do not desolate me."
+
+"Does she know who I am?" thought Audrey, and then: "What do I care if she
+does?"
+
+And she said aloud:
+
+"Madame, it is I who would be desolated to deprive myself of this
+pleasure."
+
+A considerable period elapsed before they could leave, because of the
+complex discussion concerning feminism which was delicately raging round
+the edge of the table. The animation was acute, but it was purely
+intellectual. The guests discussed the psychology of English suffragettes,
+sympathetically, admiringly; they were even wonderstruck; yet they might
+have been discussing the psychology of the ancient Babylonians, so perfect
+was their detachment, so completely unclouded by any prejudice was their
+desire to reach the truth. Many of the things which they imperturbably and
+politely said made Audrey feel glad that she was a widow. Had she not been
+a widow, possibly they would not have been uttered.
+
+And when Madame Piriac and Audrey did rise to go, both host and hostess
+began to upbraid. The host, indeed, barred the doorway with his urbane
+figure. They were not kind, they were not true friends, to leave so soon.
+The morrow had no sort of importance. The hour was scarcely one o'clock.
+Other guests were expected.... Madame Piriac alone knew how to handle the
+situation; she appealed privately to Madame Foa. Having appealed to Madame
+Foa, she disappeared with Madame Foa, and could not be found when Audrey
+and Miss Ingate were ready to leave. While these two waited in the
+antechamber, Monsieur Foa said suddenly in a confidential tone to Audrey:
+
+"He is charming, Musa, quite charming."
+
+"Did you like his playing?" Audrey demanded boldly.
+
+She could not understand why it should be necessary for a violinist to play
+and to succeed at this house before he could capture Paris. She was
+delighted excessively with the home, but positively it bore no resemblance
+to what she had anticipated; nor did it seem to her to possess any of the
+attributes of influence; for one of her basic ideas about the world was
+that influential people must be dull and formal, moving about with
+deliberation in sombrely magnificent interiors.
+
+"Yes," said Monsieur Foa. "I like it. He plays admirably." And he spoke
+sincerely. Audrey, however, was a little disappointed because Monsieur Foa
+did not assert that Musa was the most marvellous genius he had ever
+listened to.
+
+"I am very, very content to have heard him," said Monsieur Foa.
+
+"Do you think he will succeed in Paris?"
+
+"Ah! Madame! There is the Press. There are the snobs.... In fine...."
+
+"I suppose if he had money?" Audrey murmured.
+
+"Ah! Madame! In Paris, if one has money, one has everything. Paris--it is
+not London, where to succeed one must be truly successful. But he is a
+player very highly accomplished. It is miraculous that he should have
+played so long in a café--Dauphin told me the history."
+
+Musa appeared, and after him Madame Piriac. More appeals, more reproaches,
+more asseverations that friends who left so early as one o'clock in the
+morning were not friends--and the host at length consented to open the
+door. At that very instant the bell clanged. Another guest had arrived.
+
+When, after the long descent of the stairs (which, however, unlike the
+stairs of the Rue Delambre, were lighted), Audrey saw seven automobiles in
+the street, she veered again towards the possibility that the Foas might
+after all be influential. Musa and Mr. Gilman, the yachtsman, had left with
+the women. Audrey told Miss Ingate to drive Musa home. She said not a word
+to him about her departure the next afternoon, and he made no reference to
+it. As the most imposing automobile moved splendidly away, Mr. Gilman held
+open the door of Madame Piriac's vehicle.
+
+Mr. Gilman sat down opposite to the women. In the enclosed space the rumour
+of his heavy breathing was noticeable. Madame Piriac began to speak in
+English--her own English--with a unique accent that Audrey at once loved.
+
+"You commence soon the yachting, my oncle?" said she, and turning to
+Audrey: "Mistair Gilman is no oncle to me. But he is a great friend of my
+husband. I call always him oncle. Do not I, oncle? Mistair Gilman lives
+only for the yachting. Every year in May we lose him, till September."
+
+"Really!" said Audrey.
+
+Her heart was apprehensively beating. She even suspected for an instant
+that both of them knew who she was, and that Mr. Gilman, before she had
+addressed him in the drawing-room, had already related to Madame Piriac the
+episode of Mozewater. Then she said to herself that the idea was absurd;
+and lastly, repeating within her breast that she didn't care, she became
+desperately bold.
+
+"I should love to buy a yacht," she said, after a pause. "We used to live
+far inland and I know nothing of the sea; in fact I scarcely saw it till I
+crossed the Channel, but I have always dreamed about it."
+
+"You must come and have a look at my new yacht, Mrs. Moncreiff," said Mr.
+Gilman in his solemn, thick voice. "I always say that no yacht is herself
+without ladies on board, a yacht being feminine, you see." He gave a little
+laugh.
+
+"Ah! My oncle!" Madame Piriac broke in. "I see in that no reason. If a
+yacht was masculine then I could see the reason in it."
+
+"Perhaps not one of my happiest efforts," said Mr. Gilman with
+resignation. "I am a dull man."
+
+"No, no!" Madame Piriac protested. "You are a dear. But why have you said
+nothing to-night at the Foas in the great discussion about feminism? Not
+one word have you said!"
+
+"I really don't understand it," said Mr. Gilman. "Either everybody is mad,
+or I am mad. I dare say I am mad."
+
+"Well," said Madame Piriac. "I said not much myself, but I enjoyed it. It
+was better than the music, music, which they talk always there. People talk
+too much shops in these days. It is out-to-place and done over."
+
+"Do you mean overdone?" asked Mr. Gilman mildly.
+
+"Well, overdone, if you like better that."
+
+"Do you mean shop, Hortense?" asked Mr. Gilman further.
+
+"Shop, shop! The English is impossible!"
+
+The automobile crossed the Seine and arrived in the deserted Quai Voltaire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE BOUDOIR
+
+
+In the setting of her own boudoir Madame Piriac equalled, and in some ways
+surpassed, the finest pictures which Audrey had imagined of her. Her
+evening dress made Audrey doubt whether after all her own was the genuine
+triumph which she had supposed; in Madame Piriac's boudoir, and close by
+Madame Piriac, it had disconcertingly the air of being an ingenious but
+unconvincing imitation of the real thing.
+
+But Madame Piriac's dress had the advantage of being worn with the highest
+skill and assurance; Madame Piriac knew what the least fold of her dress
+was doing, in the way of effect, on the floor behind her back. And Madame
+Piriac was mistress, not only of her dress, but of herself and all her
+faculties. A handsome woman, rather more than slim, but not plump, she had
+an expression of confidence, of knowing exactly what she was about, of
+foreseeing all her effects, which Audrey envied more than she had ever
+envied anything.
+
+As soon as Audrey came into the room she had said to herself: "I will have
+a boudoir like this." It was an interior in which every piece of furniture
+was loaded with objects personal to its owner. So many signed photographs,
+so much remarkable bric-Ă -brac, so many intimate contrivances of ornamental
+comfort, Audrey had never before seen within four walls. The chandelier,
+comprising ten thousand crystals, sparkled down upon a complex aggregate of
+richness overwhelming to everybody except Madame Piriac, who subdued it,
+understood it, and had the key to it. Audrey wondered how many servants
+took how many hours to dust the room. She was sure, however, that whatever
+the number of servants required, Madame Piriac managed them all to
+perfection. She longed violently to be as old as Madame Piriac, whom she
+assessed at twenty-nine and a half, and to be French, and to know all about
+everything in life as Madame Piriac did. Yet at the same time she was
+extremely determined to be Audrey, and not to be intimidated by Madame
+Piriac or by anyone.
+
+Just as they were beginning to suck iced lemonade up straws--a delightful
+caprice of Madame Piriac's, well suited to catch Audrey's taste--the door
+opened softly, and a tall, very dark, bearded man, appreciably older than
+Madame Piriac, entered with a kind of soft energy, and Mr. Gilman followed
+him.
+
+"Ah! My friend!" murmured Madame Piriac. "You give me pleasure. This is
+Madame Moncreiff, of whom I have spoken to you. Madame--my husband. We have
+just come from the Foas."
+
+Monsieur Piriac bent over Audrey's hand, and smiled with vivacity, and they
+talked a little of the evening, carelessly, as though time existed not. And
+then Monsieur Piriac said to his wife:
+
+"Dear friend. I have to work with this old Gilman. We shall therefore ask
+you to excuse us. Till to-morrow, then. Good night."
+
+"Good night, my friend. Do not do harm to yourself. Good night, my oncle."
+
+Monsieur Piriac saluted with formality but with sincerity.
+
+"Oh!" thought Audrey, as the men went away. "I should want to marry exactly
+him if I did want to marry. He doesn't interfere; he isn't curious; he
+doesn't want to know. He leaves her alone. She leaves him alone. How clever
+they are!"
+
+"My husband is now chief of the Cabinet of the Foreign Minister," said
+Madame Piriac with modest pride. "They kill themselves, you know, in that
+office--especially in these times. But I watch. And I tell Monsieur Gilman
+to watch.... How nice you are when you sit in a chair like that!  Only
+Englishwomen know how to use an easy chair.... To say nothing of the
+frock."
+
+"Madame Piriac," Audrey brusquely demanded with an expression of ingenuous
+curiosity. "Why did you bring me here?" It was the cry of an animal at once
+rash and rather desperate, determined to unmask all the secret dangers that
+might be threatening.
+
+"I much desired to see you," Madame Piriac answered very smoothly, "in
+order to apologise to you for my indiscreet question on the night when we
+first met. Your fairy tale about your late husband was a very proper reply
+to the attitude of Madame Rosamund--as you all call her. It was very
+clever--so clever that I myself did not appreciate it until after I had
+spoken. Ever since that moment I have wanted to explain, to know you more.
+Also your pretence of going to sleep in the automobile showed what in a
+woman I call distinguished talent."
+
+"But, Madame, I assure you that I really was asleep."
+
+"So much the better. The fact proves that your instinct for the right thing
+is quite exceptional. It is not that I would criticise Madame Rosamund, who
+has genius. Nevertheless her genius causes her to commit errors of which
+others would be incapable.... So she has captured you, too."
+
+"Captured me!" Audrey protested--and she was made stronger by the
+flattering reference to her distinguished talent. "I've never seen her from
+that day to this!"
+
+"No. But she has captured you. You are going."
+
+"Going where?"
+
+"To London, to take part in these riots."
+
+"I shan't have anything to do with riots."
+
+"Within a month you will have been in a riot, Madame ... and I shall
+regret it."
+
+"And even if I am, Madame! You are a friend of Rosamund's. You must be in
+sympathy."
+
+"In sympathy with what?"
+
+"With--with all this suffragism, feminism. I am anyway!" Audrey sat up
+straight. "It's horrible that women don't have the Vote. And it's horrible
+the things they have to suffer in order to get it. But they _will_ get it!"
+
+"Why do you say 'they'?"
+
+"I mean 'we.'"
+
+"Supposing you meant 'they,' after all? And you did, Madame. Let me tell
+you. You ask me if I sympathise with suffragism. You might as well ask me
+if I sympathise with a storm or with an earthquake, or with a river running
+to the sea. Perhaps I do. But perhaps I do not. That has no importance.
+Feminism is a natural phenomenon; it was unavoidable. You Englishwomen will
+get your vote. Even we in France will get it one day. It cannot be
+denied.... Sympathy is not required. But let us suppose that all women
+joined the struggle. What would happen to women?  What would happen to the
+world? Just as nunneries were a necessity of other ages, so even in this
+age women must meditate. Far more than men they need to understand
+themselves. Until they understand themselves how can they understand men?
+The function of women is to understand. Their function is also to
+preserve. All the beautiful and luxurious things in the world are in the
+custody of women. Men would never of themselves keep a tradition. If there
+is anything on earth worth keeping, women must keep it. And the tradition
+will be lost if every woman listens to Madame Rosamund. That is what she
+cannot see. Her genius blinds her. You say I am a friend of Madame
+Rosamund. I am. Madame Rosamund was educated in Paris, at the same school
+as my aunt and myself. But I have never helped her in her mission. And I
+never will. My vocation is elsewhere. When she fled over here from the
+English police, she came to me. I received her. She asked me to drive her
+to certain addresses. I did so. She was my guest. I surrounded her with all
+that she had abandoned, all that her genius had forced her to abandon. But
+I never spoke to her of her work, nor she to me of it. Still, I dare to
+think that I was of some value to the woman in Madame Rosamund."
+
+Audrey felt very young and awkward and defiant. She felt defiant because
+Madame Piriac had impressed her, and she was determined not to be
+impressed.
+
+"So you wanted to tell me all this," said she, putting down her glass, with
+the straws in it, on a small round table laden with tiny figures in silver.
+"Why did you want to tell me, Madame?"
+
+"I wanted to tell you because I want you to do nothing that you will
+regret. You greatly interested me the moment I saw you. And when I saw you
+in that studio, in that Quarter, I feared for you."
+
+"Feared what?"
+
+"I feared that you might mistake your vocation--that vocation which is so
+clearly written on your face. I saw a woman young and free and rich, and I
+was afraid that she might waste everything."
+
+"But do you know anything about me?"
+
+Madame Piriac paused before replying.
+
+"Nothing but what I see. But I see that you are in a high degree what all
+women are to a greater extent than men--an individualist. You know the
+feeling that comes over a woman in hours of complete intimacy with a man?
+You know what I mean?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" Audrey agreed, blushing.
+
+"In those moments we perceive that only the individual counts with us. And
+with you, above all, the individual should count. Unless you use your youth
+and your freedom and your money for some individual, you will never be
+content; you will eternally regret. All that is in your face."
+
+Audrey blushed more, thinking of certain plans formed in that head of hers.
+She said nothing. She was both very pleased and very exasperated.
+
+"I have a relative in England, a young girl," Madame Piriac proceeded, "in
+some unpronounceable county. We write to each other. She is excessively
+English."
+
+Audrey was scarlet. Several times during the sojourn in Paris she had sent
+letters (to Madame Piriac) to be posted in Essex by Mr. Foulger. These
+letters were full of quaint inventions about winter life in Essex, and
+other matters.
+
+Madame Piriac, looking reflectively at the red embers of wood in the grate,
+went on:
+
+"She says she may come to Paris soon. I have often asked her to come, but
+she has refused. Perhaps next month I shall go to England to fetch her. I
+should like her to know you--very much. She is younger than you are, but
+only a little, I think."
+
+"I shall be delighted, if I am here," Audrey stammered, and she rose. "You
+are a very kind woman. Very, very amiable. You do not know how much I
+admire you. I wish I was like you. But I am not. You have seen only one
+side of me. You should see the inside. It is very strange. I must go to
+London. I am forced to go to London. I should be a coward if I did not go
+to London. Tell me, is my dress really good? Or is it a deception?"
+
+Madame Piriac smiled, and kissed her on both cheeks.
+
+"It is good," said Madame Piriac. "But your maid is not all that she ought
+to be. However, it is good."
+
+"If you had simply praised it, and only that, I should not have been
+content," said Audrey, and kissed Madame Piriac in the English way, the
+youthful and direct way.
+
+Not another word about the male sex, the female sex, tradition or
+individualism, passed between them.
+
+Mr. Gilman was summoned to take Audrey across the river to the right bank.
+They went in a taxi. He was protective and very silent. But just as the cab
+was turning out of the Rue de Rivoli into the Rue Castiglione he said:
+
+"I shall obey you absolutely, Mrs. Moncreiff. It is a great pleasure for an
+old, lonely man to keep a secret for a young and charming woman. A greater
+pleasure than you can possibly imagine. You may count on me. I am not a
+talker, but you have put me under an obligation, and I am very grateful."
+
+She took care that her thanks should reward him.
+
+"Winnie," she burst out in the rose-coloured secrecy of the bedroom, "has
+Elise gone to bed? ... All right. Well, I'm lost. Madame Piniac is going
+to England to fetch me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+PAGET GARDENS
+
+
+"Has anything happened in this town?" asked Audrey of Miss Ingate.
+
+It was the afternoon of the day following their arrival in London from
+Paris, and it was a fine afternoon. They were walking from the Charing
+Cross Hotel, where they had slept, to Paget Gardens.
+
+"Anything happened?" repeated Miss Ingate. "What you mean? I don't see
+anything vehy particular on the posters."
+
+"Everybody looks so sad and worried, compared with people in Paris."
+
+"So they do! So they do!" cried Miss Ingate. "Oh, yes! So they do! I
+wondered what it was seemed so queer. That's it. Well, of course you
+mustn't forget we're in England. I always did say it was a vehy peculiar
+place."
+
+"Do _we_ look like that?" Audrey suggested.
+
+"I expect we do."
+
+"I'm quite sure that I don't, Winnie, anyway. I'm really very cheerful. I'm
+surprisingly cheerful."
+
+It was true. Also she both looked and felt more girlish than ever in Paris.
+Impossible to divine, watching her in her light clothes, and with her airy
+step, that she was the relict of a man who had so tragically died of
+blood-poisoning caused by bad table manners.
+
+"I've a good mind to ask a policeman," said she.
+
+"You'd better not," Miss Ingate warned her.
+
+Audrey instantly turned into the roadway, treating the creosoted wood as
+though it had been rose-strewn velvet, and reached a refuge where a
+policeman was standing. The policeman bent with benevolence and politeness
+to listen to her tale.
+
+"Excuse me," she said, smiling innocently up at him, "but is anything the
+matter?"
+
+"_What_ street, miss?" he questioned, bending lower.
+
+"Is anything the matter? All the people round here are so gloomy."
+
+The policeman glanced at her.
+
+"There will be something the matter," he remarked calmly. "There will be
+something the matter pretty soon if I have much more of that suffragette
+sauce. I thought you was one of them the moment I saw you, but I wasn't
+sure."
+
+This was the first time Audrey had ever spoken to a policeman, save
+Inspector Keeble, at Moze, who was a friendly human being. And she had a
+little pang of fear. The policeman was like a high wall of blue cloth,
+with a marvellous imitation of a human face at the top, and above the face
+a cupola.
+
+"Thank you," she murmured reproachfully, and hastened back to Miss Ingate,
+who heard the tale with a grinning awe that was, nevertheless, sardonic.
+They pressed onwards to Piccadilly Circus, where the only normal and
+cheerful living creatures were the van horses and the flower-women; and up
+Regent Street, through crowds of rapt and mystical women and romantical men
+who had apparently wandered out of a play by Henrik Ibsen.
+
+They then took a motor-bus, which was full of the same enigmatic,
+far-gazing heroines and heroes. When they got off, the conductor pointed
+dreamily in a certain direction and murmured the words: "Paget Square."
+Their desire was Paget Gardens, and, after finding Paget Square, Paget
+Mansions, Paget Houses, Paget Street, Paget Mews, and Upper Paget Street,
+they found Paget Gardens. It was a terrace of huge and fashionable houses
+fronting on an immense, blank brick wall. The houses were very lofty; so
+lofty that the architect, presumably afraid of hitting heaven with his
+patent chimney cowls, had sunk the lowest storey deep into the earth.
+Looking over the high palisades which protected the pavement from the
+precipice thus made, one could plainly see the lowest storey and all that
+was therein.
+
+"Whoever can she be staying with?" exclaimed Miss Ingate. "It's a
+marchioness at least. There's no doubt the very best people are now in the
+movement."
+
+Audrey went first up massive steps, and, choosing with marked presence of
+mind the right bell, rang it, expecting to see either a butler or a
+footman.
+
+A young woman, however, answered the ring. She wore a rather shabby serge
+frock, but no apron, and she did not resemble any kind of servant. Her
+ruddy, heavy, and slightly resentful face fronted the visitors with a
+steady, challenging stare.
+
+"Does Miss Nickall live here?" asked Audrey.
+
+"Aye! She does!" came the answer, with a northern accent.
+
+"We've come to see how she is."
+
+"Happen ye'd better step inside, then," said the young woman.
+
+They stepped inside to an enormous and obscure interior; the guardian
+banged the door, and negligently led them forward.
+
+"It is a large house," Miss Ingate ventured, against the silent
+intimidation of the place.
+
+"One o' them rich uns," said the guardian. "She lends it to the Cause when
+she doesn't want it herself, to show her sympathy. Saves her a
+caretaker--they all know I'm one to look right well after a house."
+
+Having passed two very spacious rooms and a wide staircase, she opened the
+door of a smaller but still a considerable room.
+
+"Here y'are," she muttered.
+
+This room, like the others, was thoroughly sheeted, and thus presented a
+misty and spectral appearance. All the chairs, the chandelier, and all the
+pictures, were masked in close-fitting pale yellow. The curtains were down,
+the carpet was up, and a dust sheet was spread under the table in the
+middle of the floor.
+
+"Here's some friends of yours," said the guardian, throwing her words
+across the room.
+
+In an easy chair near the fireplace sat Miss Nickall, her arm in splints
+and in a sling. She was very thin and very pallid, and her eyes brightly
+glittered. The customary kind expression of her face was modified, though
+not impaired, by a look of vague apprehension.
+
+"Mind how ye handle her," the guardian gave warning, when Nick yielded
+herself to be embraced.
+
+"You're just a bit of my Paris come to see me," said Nick, with her
+American accent. Then through her tears: "How's Tommy, and how's Musa, and
+how's--how's my studio? Oh! This is Miss Susan Foley, sister of Jane Foley.
+Jane will be here for tea. Susan--Miss Ingate and Mrs. Moncreiff."
+
+Susan gave a grim bob.
+
+"Is Jane Foley coming? Does she live here?" asked Miss Ingate, properly
+impressed by the name of her who was the St. George of Suffragism, and
+perhaps the most efficient of all militants. "Audrey, we are in luck!"
+
+When Nick had gathered items of information about Paris, she burst out:
+
+"I can't believe I've only met you once before. You're just like old
+friends."
+
+"So we are old friends," said Audrey. "Your letters to Winnie have made us
+old friends."
+
+"And when did you come over?"
+
+"Last night," Miss Ingate replied. "We should have called this morning to
+see you, but Mrs. Moncreiff had so much business to do and people to see. I
+don't know what it all was. She's very mysterious."
+
+As a fact, Audrey had had an interview with Mr. Foulger, who, with
+laudable obedience, had come up to town from Chelmsford in response to a
+telegram. Miss Ingate was aware of this, but she was not aware of other and
+more recondite interviews which Audrey had accomplished.
+
+"And how did this happen?" eagerly inquired Miss Ingate, at last, pointing
+to the bandaged arm.
+
+Nick's face showed discomfort.
+
+"Please don't let us talk about that," said Nick. "It was a policeman. I
+don't think he meant it. I had chained myself to the railings of St.
+Margaret's Church."
+
+Susan Foley put in laconically:
+
+"She's not to be worried. I hope ye'll stay for tea. We shall have tea at
+five sharp. Janey'll be in."
+
+"Can't they sleep here, Susan?" Nick whimpered.
+
+"Of course they can, and welcome," said Susan. "There's more empty beds in
+this barracks than they could sleep in if they slept all day and all
+night."
+
+"But we're staying at an hotel. We can't possibly put you to all this
+trouble," Audrey protested.
+
+"No trouble. It's my business. It's what I'm here for," said Susan Foley.
+"I'd sooner have it than mill work any day o' the week."
+
+"You're just going to be very mean if you don't stay here," Nick faltered.
+Tears stood in her eyes again. "You don't know how I feel." She murmured
+something about Betty Burke's doings.
+
+"We will stay! We will stay!" Miss Ingate agreed hastily. And, unperceived
+by Nick, she gave Audrey a glance in which irony and tenderness were
+mingled. It was as if she had whispered, "The nerves of this angel have all
+gone to pieces. We must humour the little sentimental simpleton."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+JANE
+
+
+"We've begun, ye see," said Susan Foley.
+
+It was two minutes past five, and Miss Ingate and Audrey, followed by Nick
+with her slung arm, entered the sheeted living-room. Tremendous feats had
+been performed. All the Moncreiff and Ingate luggage, less than two hours
+earlier lying at the Charing Cross Hotel, was now in two adjoining rooms on
+the third floor of the great house in Paget Gardens. Drivers and loiterers
+had assisted, under the strict and taciturn control of Susan Foley. Also
+Nick, Miss Ingate, and Audrey had had a most intimate conversation, and the
+two latter had changed their attire to suit the station of campers in a
+palace.
+
+"It's lovely to be quite free and independent," Audrey had said, and the
+statement had been acclaimed.
+
+Jane Foley was seated opposite her sister at the small table plainly set
+for five. She rose vivaciously, and came forward with outstretched hand.
+She wore a blue skirt and a white blouse and brown boots. She was
+twenty-eight, but her rather small proportions and her plentiful golden,
+fluffy hair made her seem about twenty. Her face was less homely than
+Susan's, and more mobile. She smiled somewhat shyly, with an extraordinary
+radiant cheerfulness. It was impossible for her to conceal the fact that
+she was very good-natured and very happy. Finally, she limped.
+
+"Susan _will_ have the meals prompt," she said, as they all sat down. "And
+as Susan left home on purpose to look after me, of course she's the
+mistress. As far as that goes, she always was."
+
+Susan was spreading jam on a slice of bread-and-butter for the one-armed
+Nick.
+
+"I dare say you don't remember me playing the barrel organ all down Regent
+Street that day, do you?" said Miss Ingate.
+
+"Oh, yes; quite well. You were magnificent!" answered Jane, with blue eyes
+sparkling.
+
+"Well, though I only just saw you--I was so busy--I should remember you
+anywhere, Miss Foley," said Miss Ingate.
+
+"Do you notice any difference in her?" questioned Susan Foley harshly.
+
+"N-o," said Miss Ingate. "Except, perhaps, she looks even younger."
+
+"Didn't you notice she's lame?"
+
+"Oh, well--yes, I did. But you didn't expect me to mention that, did you? I
+thought your sister had just sprained her ankle, or something."
+
+"No," said Susan. "It's for life. Tell them about it, Jenny. They don't
+know."
+
+Jane Foley laughed lightly.
+
+"It was all in the day's work," she said. "It was at my last visit to
+Holloway."
+
+Audrey, gazing at her entranced, like a child, murmured with awe:
+
+"Have you been to prison, then?"
+
+"Three times," said Jane pleasantly. "And I shall be going again soon. I'm
+only out while they're trying to think of some new way of dealing with me,
+poor things!  I'm generally watched. It must cost them a fearful lot of
+money. But what are they to do?"
+
+"But how were you lamed? I can't eat any tea if you don't tell me--really I
+can't!"
+
+"Oh, all right!" Jane laughed. "It was after that Liberal mass meeting in
+Peel Park, at Bradford. I'd begun to ask questions, as usual, you
+know--questions they can't answer--and then some Liberal stewards, with
+lovely rosettes in their buttonholes, came round me and started cutting my
+coat with their penknives. They cut it all to pieces. You see that was the
+best argument they could think of in the excitement of the moment. I
+believe they'd have cut up every stitch I had, only perhaps it began to
+dawn on them that it might be awkward for them. Then two of them lifted me
+up, one by the feet and the other by the shoulders, and carried me off.
+They wouldn't let me walk. I told them they'd hurt my leg, but they were
+too busy to listen. As soon as they came across a policeman they said they
+had done it all to save me from being thrown into the lake by a brutal and
+infuriated mob. I just had enough breath left to thank them. Of course, the
+police weren't going to stand that, so I was taken that night to London.
+Everything was thought of except my tea. But I expect they forgot that on
+purpose so that I should be properly hungry when I got to Holloway.
+However, I said to myself, 'If I can't eat and drink when _I_ want, I won't
+eat and drink when _they_ want!' And I didn't.
+
+"After I'd paid my respects at Bow Street, and was back at Holloway, I just
+stamped on everything they offered me, and wrote a petition to the Governor
+asking to be treated as a political prisoner. Instead of granting the
+petition he kept sending me more and more beautiful food, and I kept
+stamping on it. Then three magistrates arrived and sat on my case, and
+sentenced me to the punishment cells. They ran off as soon as they'd
+sentenced me. I said I wouldn't go to their punishment cells. I told
+everybody again how lame I was. So five wardresses carried me there, but
+they dropped me twice on the way. It was a very interesting cell, the
+punishment cell was. If it had been in the Tower, everybody would go to
+look at it because of its quaintness. There were two pools of water near to
+the bed. I was three days in the cell, and those pools of water were always
+there; I could see them because from where I lay on the bed the light
+glinted on them. Just one gleam from the tiny cobwebby window high up. I
+hadn't anything to read, of course, but even if I'd had something I
+couldn't see to read. The bed was two planks, just raised an inch or two
+above the water, and the pillow was wooden. Never any trouble about making
+beds like that! The entire furniture of this cosy drawing-room was--you'll
+never guess--a tree-stump, meant for a chair, I think. And on this
+tree-stump was an india-rubber cup. I could just see it across the cell.
+
+"At night the wardresses were struck with pity, or perhaps it was the
+Governor. Anyhow, they brought me a mattress and a rug. They told me to get
+up off the bed, and I told them I couldn't get up, couldn't even turn over.
+So they said, 'Very well, then; you can do without these things,' and they
+took them away. The funny thing was that I really couldn't get up. If I
+tried to move, my leg made me want to shriek.
+
+"After three days they decided to take me to the prison hospital. I
+shrieked all the way--couldn't help it. They laughed. So then I laughed. In
+the hospital, the doctor decided that my left ankle was sprained and my
+right thigh broken. So I had the best of them, after all. They had to admit
+they were wrong. It was most awkward for them. Then I thought I might as
+well begin to eat. But they had to be very careful what they gave me. I
+hadn't had anything for nearly six days, you see. They were in a fearful
+stew. Doctor was there day and night. And it wasn't his fault. I told him
+he had all my sympathies. He said he was very sorry I should be lame for
+life, but it couldn't be helped, as the thigh had been left too long. I
+said, 'Please don't mention it.'"
+
+"But did they keep you after that?"
+
+"Keep me! They implored my friends to take me away. No man was ever more
+relieved that the poor dear Governor of Holloway Prison, and the Home
+Secretary himself, too, when I left in a motor ambulance. The Governor
+raised his hat to two of my friends. He would have eaten out of my hand if
+I'd had a few more days to tame him."
+
+Audrey's childlike and intense gaze had become extremely noticeable. Jane
+Foley felt it upon herself, and grew a little self-conscious. Susan Foley
+noticed it with eager and grim pride, and she made a sharp movement instead
+of saying: "Yes, you do well to stare. You've got something worth staring
+at."
+
+Nick noticed it, with moisture in her glittering, hysteric eyes. Miss
+Ingate noticed it ironically. "You, pretending to be a widow, and so
+knowing and so superior! Why, you're a schoolgirl!" said the expressive
+curve of Miss Ingate's shut lips.
+
+And, in fact, Audrey was now younger than she had ever been in Paris. She
+was the girl of six or seven years earlier, who, at night at school, used
+to insist upon hearing stories of real people, either from a sympathetic
+teacher or from the other member of the celebrated secret society. But she
+had never heard any tale to compare with Jane Foley's. It was incredible
+that this straightforward, simple girl at the table should be the
+world-renowned Jane Foley. What most impressed Audrey in Jane was Jane's
+happiness. Jane was happy, as Audrey had not imagined that anyone could be
+happy. She had within her a supply of happiness that was constantly
+bubbling up. The ridiculousness and the total futility of such matters as
+motor-cars, fine raiment, beautiful boudoirs and correctness smote Audrey
+severely. She saw that there was only one thing worth having, and that was
+the mysterious thing that Jane Foley had. This mysterious thing rendered
+innocuous cruelty, stupidity and injustice, and reduced them to rather
+pathetic trifles.
+
+"But I never saw all this in the papers!" Audrey exclaimed.
+
+"No paper--I mean no respectable paper--would print it. Of course, we
+printed it in our own weekly paper."
+
+"Why wouldn't any respectable paper print it?"
+
+"Because it's not nice. Don't you see that I ought to have been at home
+mending stockings instead of gallivanting round with Liberal stewards and
+policemen and prison governors?"
+
+"And why aren't you mending stockings?" asked Audrey, with a delicious
+quizzical smile that crept gradually through the wonder and admiration in
+her face.
+
+"You pal!" cried Jane Foley impulsively. "I must hug you!" And she did.
+"I'll tell you why I'm not mending' stockings, and why Susan has had to
+leave off mending stockings in order to look after me. Susan and I worked
+in a mill when she was ten and I was eleven. We were 'tenters.' We used to
+get up at four or five in the morning and help with the housework, and then
+put on our clogs and shawls and be at the mill at six. We worked till
+twelve, and then in the afternoon we went to school. The next day we went
+to school in the morning and to the mill in the afternoon. When we were
+thirteen we left school altogether, and worked twelve hours a day in the
+mill. In the evenings we had to do housework. In fact, all our housework
+was done before half-past five in the morning and after half-past six in
+the evening. We had to work just as hard as the men and boys in the mill.
+We got a great deal less money and a great deal less decent treatment; but
+to make up we had to slave in the early morning and late at night, while
+the men either snored or smoked. I was all right. But Susan wasn't. And a
+lot of women weren't, especially young mothers with babies. So I learnt
+typewriting on the quiet, and left it all to try and find out whether
+something couldn't be done. I soon found out--after I'd heard Rosamund
+speak. That's the reason I'm not mending stockings. I'm not blaming
+anybody. It's no one's fault, really. It certainly isn't men's fault. Only
+something has to be altered, and most people detest alterations. Still,
+they do get done somehow in the end. And so there you are!"
+
+"I should love to help," said Audrey. "I expect I'm not much good, but I
+should love to."
+
+She dared not refer to her wealth, of which, in fact, she was rather
+ashamed.
+
+"Well, you can help, all right," said Jane Foley, rising. "Are you a
+member?"
+
+"No. But I will be to-morrow."
+
+"They'll give you something to do," said Jane Foley.
+
+"Oh yes!" remarked Miss Ingate. "They'll keep you busy enough--_and_ charge
+you for it."
+
+Susan Foley began to clear the table.
+
+"Supper at nine," said she curtly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE DETECTIVE
+
+
+Audrey and Miss Ingate were writing letters to Paris. Jane Foley had gone
+forth again to a committee meeting, which was understood to be closely
+connected with a great Liberal demonstration shortly to be held in a
+Midland fortress of Liberalism. Miss Nickall, in accordance with medical
+instructions, had been put to bed. Susan Foley was in the basement, either
+clearing up tea or preparing supper.
+
+Miss Ingate, putting her pen between her teeth and looking up from a
+blotting-pad, said to Audrey across the table:
+
+"Are you writing to Musa?"
+
+"Certainly not!" said Audrey, with fire. "Why should I write to Musa?" She
+added: "But you can write to him, if you like."
+
+"Oh! Can I?" observed Miss Ingate, grinning.
+
+Audrey knew of no reason why she should blush before Miss Ingate, yet she
+began to blush. She resolved not to blush; she put all her individual force
+into the enterprise of resisting the tide of blood to her cheeks, but the
+tide absolutely ignored her, as the tide of ocean might have ignored her.
+
+She rose from the table, and, going into a corner, fidgeted with the
+electric switches, turning certain additional lights off and on.
+
+"All right," said Miss Ingate; "I'll write to him. I'm sure he'll expect
+something. Have you finished your letters?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, what's this one on the table, then?"
+
+"I shan't go on with that one."
+
+"Any message for Musa?"
+
+"You might tell him," said Audrey, carefully examining the drawn curtains
+of the window, "that I happened to meet a French concert agent this morning
+who was very interested in him."
+
+"Did you?" cried Miss Ingate. "Where?"
+
+"It was when I was out with Mr. Foulger. The agent asked me whether I'd
+heard a man named Musa play in Paris. Of course I said I had. He told me he
+meant to take him up and arrange a tour for him. So you might tell Musa he
+ought to be prepared for anything."
+
+"Wonders will never cease!" said Miss Ingate. "Have I got enough stamps?"
+
+"I don't see anything wonderful in it," Audrey sharply replied. "Lots of
+people in Paris know he's a great player, and those Jew concert agents are
+always awfully keen--at least, so I'm told. Well, perhaps, after all, you'd
+better not tell him. It might make him conceited.... Now, look here,
+Winnie, do hurry up, and let's go out and post those letters. I can't stand
+this huge house. I keep on imagining all the empty rooms in it. Hurry up
+and come along."
+
+Shortly afterwards Miss Ingate shouted downstairs into the earth:
+
+"Miss Foley, we're both just going out to post some letters."
+
+The faint reply came:
+
+"Supper at nine."
+
+At the farther corner of Paget Square they discovered a pillar-box standing
+solitary in the chill night among the vast and threatening architecture.
+
+"Do let's go to a café," suggested Audrey.
+
+"A café?"
+
+"Yes. I want to be jolly. I must break loose somewhere to-night. I can't
+wait till to-morrow. I was feeling splendid till Jane Foley went. Then the
+house began to get on my nerves, not to mention Susan Foley, with her
+supper at nine. Do all people in London fix their meals hours and hours
+beforehand? I suppose they do. We used to at Moze. But I'd forgotten. Come
+_along_, Winnie."
+
+"But there are no cafés in London."
+
+"There must be some cafés somewhere."
+
+"Only public-houses and restaurants. Of course, we could go to a teashop,
+but they're all shut up now."
+
+"Well, then, what do people do in London when they want to be jolly? I
+always thought London was a terrific town."
+
+"They never want to be jolly," said Miss Ingate. "If they feel as if they
+couldn't help being jolly, then they hire a private room somewhere and draw
+the blinds down."
+
+With no more words, Audrey seized Miss Ingate by the arm and they walked
+off, out of the square and into empty and silent streets where highly
+disciplined gas-lamps kept strict watch over the deportment of colossal
+houses. In their rapid stroll they seemed to cover miles, but they could
+not escape from the labyrinth of tremendous and correct houses, which in
+squares and in terraces and in crescents displayed the everlasting
+characteristics of comfort, propriety and self-satisfaction. Now and then a
+wayfarer passed them. Now and then a taxicab sped through the avenues of
+darkness like a criminal pursued by the impalpable. Now and then a red
+light flickered in a porch instead of a white one. But there was no
+surcease from the sinister spell until suddenly they emerged into a long,
+wide, illumined thoroughfare of shut shops that stretched to infinity on
+either hand. And a vermilion motor-bus meandered by, and this motor-bus was
+so sad, so inexpressibly wistful, in the solemn wilderness of the empty
+artery, that the two women fled from the strange scene and penetrated once
+more into the gigantic and fearful maze from which they had for an instant
+stood free. Soon they were quite lost. Till that day and night Audrey had
+had a notion that Miss Ingate, though bizarre, did indeed know every street
+in London. The delusion was destroyed.
+
+"Never mind," said Miss Ingate. "If we keep on we're bound to come to a
+cabstand, and then we can take a taxi and go wherever we like--Regent
+Street, Piccadilly, anywhere. That's the convenience of London. As soon as
+you come to a cabstand you're all right."
+
+And then, in the distance, Audrey saw a man apparently tampering with a
+gate that led to an area.
+
+"Why," she said excitedly, "that's the house we're staying in!"
+
+"Of course it isn't!" said Miss Ingate. "This isn't Paget Gardens, because
+there are houses on both sides of it and there's a big wall on one side of
+Paget Gardens. I'm sure we're at least two miles off our beds."
+
+"Well, then, how is it Nick's hairbrushes are on the window-sill there,
+where she put them when she went to bed? I can see them quite plain. This
+is the side street--what's-its-name?  There's the wall over there at the
+end. Don't you remember--it's a corner house. This is the side of it."
+
+"I believe you're right," admitted Miss Ingate. "What can that man be doing
+there?"
+
+They plainly saw him open the gate and disappear down the area steps.
+
+"It's a burglar," said Audrey. "This part must be a regular paradise for
+burglars."
+
+"More likely a detective," Miss Ingate suggested.
+
+Audrey was thrilled.
+
+"I do hope it is!" she murmured. "How heavenly!  Miss Foley said she was
+being watched, didn't she?"
+
+"What had we better do?" Miss Ingate faltered.
+
+"Do, Winnie?" Audrey whispered, tugging at her arm. "We must run in at the
+front door and tell Supper-at-nine-o'clock."
+
+They kept cautiously on the far side of the street until the end of it,
+when they crossed over, nipped into the dark porch of the house and rang
+the bell.
+
+Susan Foley opened for them. There was no light in the hall.
+
+"Oh, is there?" said Susan Foley, very calmly, when she heard the news. "I
+think I know who it is. I've seen him hanging round my scullery door
+before. How did he climb over those railings?"
+
+"He didn't. He opened the gate."
+
+"Well, I locked the gate myself this afternoon. So he's got a key. I shall
+manage him all right. We'll get the fire-extinguishers. There's about a
+dozen of 'em, I should think, in this house. They're rather heavy, but we
+can do it."
+
+Turning on the light in the hall, she immediately lifted from its hook a
+red-coloured metal cone about twenty inches long and eight inches in
+diameter at the base. "In case of fire drive in knob by hard blow against
+floor, and let liquid play on flames," she read the instructions on the
+side. "I know them things," she said. "It spurts out like a fountain, and
+it's a rather nasty chemistry sort of a fluid. I shall take one downstairs
+to the scullery, and the others we'll have upstairs in the room over Miss
+Nickall's. We can put 'em in the housemaid's lift.... I shall open the
+scullery door and leave it a bit open like, and when he comes in I'll be
+ready for him behind the door with this. If he thinks he can come spying
+after our Janey like this----"
+
+"But----" Miss Ingate began.
+
+"You aren't feeling very well, are ye, miss?" Susan Foley demanded, as she
+put two extinguishers into the housemaid's lift. "Better go and sit down in
+the parlour. You won't be wanted. Mrs. Moncreiff and me can manage."
+
+"Yes, we can!" agreed Audrey enthusiastically. "Run along, Winnie."
+
+After about two minutes of hard labour Susan ran away and brought a key to
+Audrey.
+
+"You sneak out," she said, "and lock the gate on him. I lay he'll want a
+new suit of clothes when I done with him!"
+
+Ecstatically, joyfully, Audrey took the key and departed. Miss Ingate was
+sitting in the hall, staring about her like an undecided bird. Audrey crept
+round into the side street. Nobody was in sight. She could not see over
+the railings, but she could see between them into the abyss of the area.
+The man was there. She could distinguish his dark form against the inner
+wall. With every conspiratorial precaution, she pulled the gate to,
+inserted the key, and locked it.
+
+A light went up in the scullery window, of which the blind was drawn. The
+man peeped at the sides of the blind. Then the scullery door was opened.
+The man started. A piece of wood was thrown out on to the floor of the
+area, and the door swung outwards. Then the light in the scullery was
+extinguished. The man waited a few moments. He had noticed that the door
+was not quite closed, and the interstice irresistibly fascinated him. He
+approached and put his hand against the door. It yielded. He entered. The
+next instant there was a bang and a cry, and a strong spray of white liquid
+appeared, in the middle of which was the man's head. The door slammed and a
+bolt was shot. The man, spluttering, coughing, and swearing, rubbed his
+eyes and wiped water from his face with his hands. His hat was on the
+ground. At first he could not see at all, but presently he felt his way
+towards the steps and began to climb them. Audrey ran off towards the
+corner. She could see and hear him shaking the gate and then trying to get
+a key into it. But as Audrey had left her key in the other side of the
+lock, he failed in the attempt.
+
+The next thing was that a window opened in the high wall-face of the house
+and an immense stream of liquid descended full on the man's head. Susan
+Foley was at the window, but only the nozzle of the extinguisher could be
+seen. The man tried to climb over the railings; he did not succeed; they
+had been especially designed to prevent such feats. He ran down the steps.
+The shower faithfully followed him. In no corner of his hiding did the
+bountiful spray neglect him. As soon as one supply of liquid slackened
+another commenced. Sometimes there were two at once. The man ran up the
+steps again and made another effort to reach the safety of the street.
+Audrey could restrain herself no more. She came, palpitating with joyous
+vitality, towards the area gate with the innocent mien of a passer-by.
+
+"Whatever is the matter?" she exclaimed, stopping as if thunderstruck. But
+in the gloom her eyes were dancing fires. She was elated as she had never
+been.
+
+The man only coughed.
+
+"You oughtn't to take shower-baths like this in the street," she said,
+veiling the laughter in her voice. "It's not allowed. But I suppose you're
+doing it for a bet or something."
+
+The downpour ceased.
+
+"Here, miss," said he, between coughs, "unlock this gate for me. Here's the
+key."
+
+"I shall do no such thing," Audrey replied. "I believe you're a burglar. I
+shall fetch a policeman."
+
+And she turned back.
+
+In the house, Miss Ingate was coming slowly down the stairs, a
+fire-extinguisher in her arms, like a red baby. She had a sardonic smile,
+but there was diffidence in it, which showed, perhaps, that it was directed
+within.
+
+"I've saved one," she said, pointing to an extinguisher, "in case there
+should be a fire in the night."
+
+A little later Susan Foley appeared at the door of the living-room.
+
+"Nine o'clock," she announced calmly. "Supper's ready. We shan't wait for
+Jane."
+
+When Jane Foley arrived, a reconnaissance proved that the martyrised
+detective had contrived to get away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE BLUE CITY
+
+
+In the following month, on a Saturday afternoon, Audrey, Miss Ingate, and
+Jane Foley were seated at an open-air café in the Blue City.
+
+The Blue City, now no more, was, as may be remembered, Birmingham's reply
+to the White City of London, and the imitative White City of Manchester.
+Birmingham, in that year, was not imitative, and, with its chemical
+knowledge, it had discovered that certain shades of blue would resist the
+effects of smoke far more successfully than any shade of white. And
+experience even showed that these shades of blue were improved, made more
+delicate and romantic, by smoke. The total impression of the show--which it
+need hardly be said was situated in the polite Edgbaston district--was
+ethereal, especially when its minarets and towers, all in accordance with
+the taste of the period, were beheld from a distance. Nor was the
+exhibition entirely devoted to pleasure. It had a moral object, and that
+object was to demonstrate the progress of civilisation in our islands. Its
+official title, indeed, was "The National Progress Exhibition," but the
+citizens of Birmingham and the vicinity never called it anything but the
+Blue City.
+
+On that Saturday afternoon a Cabinet Minister historically hostile to the
+idols of Birmingham was about to address a mass meeting in the Imperial
+Hall of the Exhibition, which held seven thousand people, in order to prove
+to Birmingham that the Government of which he was a member had done far
+more for national progress than any other Government had done for national
+progress in the same length of time. The presence of the Cabinet Minister
+accounted for the presence of Jane Foley; the presence of Jane Foley
+accounted for the presence of Audrey; and the presence of Audrey accounted
+for the presence of Miss Ingate.
+
+Although she was one of the chief organisers of victory, and perhaps--next
+to Rosamund and the family trio whose Christian names were three sweet
+symphonies--the principal asset of the Suffragette Union, Jane Foley had
+not taken an active part in the Union's arrangements for suitably welcoming
+the Cabinet Minister; partly because of her lameness, partly because she
+was writing a book, and partly for secret reasons which it would be unfair
+to divulge. Nearly at the last moment, however, in consequence of news
+that all was not well in the Midlands, she had been sent to Birmingham,
+and, after evading the watch of the police, she had arrived on the previous
+day in Audrey's motor-car, which at that moment was waiting in the
+automobile park outside the principal gates of the Blue City.
+
+The motor-car had been chosen as a means of transit for the reason that the
+railway stations were being watched for notorious suffragettes by members
+of a police force whose reputations were at stake. Audrey owed her
+possession of a motor-car to the fact that the Union officials had seemed
+both startled and grieved when, in response to questions, she admitted that
+she had no car. It was communicated to her that members of the Union as
+rich as she reputedly was were expected to own cars for the general good.
+Audrey thereupon took measures to own a car. Having seen in many
+newspapers an advertisement in which a firm of middlemen implored the
+public thus: "Let us run your car for you. Let us take all the worry and
+responsibility," she interviewed the firm, and by writing out a cheque
+disembarrassed herself at a stroke of every anxiety incident to defective
+magnetos, bad petrol, bad rubber, punctures, driving licences, bursts,
+collisions, damages, and human chauffeurs. She had all the satisfactions of
+owning a car without any of the cares. One of the evidences of progress in
+the Blue City was an exhibit of this very firm of middlemen.
+
+From the pale blue tripod table at which sat the three women could be
+plainly seen the vast Imperial Hall, flanked on one side by the great
+American Dragon Slide, a side-show loudly demonstrating progress, and on
+the other by the unique Joy Wheel side-show. At the doorway of the latter a
+man was bawling proofs of progress through a megaphone.
+
+Immense crowds had been gathering in the Imperial Hall, and the lines of
+political enthusiasts bound thither were now thinning. The Blue City was
+full of rumours, as that the Cabinet Minister was too afraid to come, as
+that he had been smuggled to the hall inside a tea-chest, and as that he
+had walked openly and unchallenged through the whole Exhibition. It was no
+rumour, but a sure fact, that two women had been caught hiding on the roof
+of the Imperial Hall, under natural shelters formed by the beams and
+boarding supporting the pediment of the eastern façade, and that they were
+ammunitioned with flags and leaflets and a silk ladder, and had made a hole
+in the roof exactly over the platform. These two women had been seen in
+charge of policemen at the Exhibition police-station. It was understood by
+many that they were the last hope of militancy that afternoon; many others,
+on the contrary, were convinced that they had been simply a feint.
+
+"Well," said Miss Ingate suddenly, glancing up at the Imperial clock, "I
+think I shall move outside and sit in the car. I think that'll be the best
+place for me. I said that night in Paris that I'd get my arm broken, but
+I've changed my mind about that." She rose.
+
+"Winnie," protested Audrey, "aren't you going to see it out?"
+
+"No," said Miss Ingate.
+
+"Are you afraid?"
+
+"I don't know that I'm afraid. I played the barrel organ all the way down
+Regent Street, and it was smashed to pieces. But I don't want to go to
+prison. Really, I don't _want_ to. If me going to prison would bring the
+Vote a single year nearer, I should say: 'Let it wait a year.' If me not
+going to prison meant no Vote for ever and ever, I should say: 'Well,
+struggle on without the Vote.' I've no objection to other people going to
+prison, if it suits them, but it wouldn't suit me. I know it wouldn't. So I
+shall go outside and sit in the car. If you don't come, I shall know what's
+happened, and you needn't worry about me."
+
+The dame duly departed, her lips and eyes equally ironic about her own
+prudence and about the rashness of others.
+
+"Let's have some more lemonade--shall we?" said Jane Foley.
+
+"Oh, let's!" agreed Audrey, with rapture. "And more sponge-cake, too! You
+do look lovely like that!"
+
+"Do I?"
+
+Jane Foley had her profuse hair tightly bound round her head and powdered
+grey. It was very advisable for her to be disguised, and her bright hair
+was usually the chief symptom of her in those disturbances which so
+harassed the police. She now had the appearance of a neat old lady kept
+miraculously young by a pure and cheerful nature. Audrey, with a plain
+blue frock and hat which had cost more than Jane Foley would spend on
+clothes in twelve months, had a face dazzling by its ingenuous excitement
+and expectation. Her little nose was extraordinarily pert; her forehead
+superb; and all her gestures had the same vivacious charm as was in her
+eyes. The white-aproned, streamered girl who took the order for lemonade
+and sponge-cakes to a covered bar ornamented by advertisements of whisky,
+determined to adopt a composite of the styles of both the customers on her
+next ceremonious Sunday. And a large proportion of the other sippers and
+nibblers and of the endless promenading crowds regarded the pair with
+pleasure and curiosity, never suspecting that one of them was the most
+dangerous woman in England.
+
+The new refreshments, which had been delayed by reason of an altercation
+between the waitress and three extreme youths at a neighbouring table, at
+last arrived, and were plopped smartly down between Audrey and Miss Foley.
+Having received half a sovereign from Audrey, the girl returned to the bar
+for change. "None o' your sauce!" she threw out, as she passed the youths,
+who had apparently discovered new arguments in support of their case.
+Audrey was fired by the vigorous independence of the girl against three
+males.
+
+"I don't care if we are caught!" she murmured low, looking for the future
+through the pellucid tumbler. She added, however: "But if we are, I shall
+pay my own fine. You know I promised that to Miss Ingate."
+
+"That's all right, so long as you don't pay mine, my dear," said Jane Foley
+with an affectionate smile.
+
+"Jenny!" Audrey protested, full of heroine-worship. "How could you think I
+would ever do such a mean thing!"
+
+There came a dull, vague, voluminous sound from the direction of the
+Imperial Hall. It lasted for quite a number of seconds.
+
+"He's beginning," said Jane Foley. "I do feel sorry for him."
+
+"Are we to start now?" Audrey asked deferentially.
+
+"Oh, no!" Jane laughed. "The great thing is to let them think everything's
+all right. And then, when they're getting careless, let go at them full
+bang with a beautiful surprise. There'll be a chance of getting away like
+that. I believe there are a hundred and fifty stewards in the meeting, and
+they'll every one be quite useless."
+
+At intervals a muffled roar issued from the Imperial Hall, despite the fact
+that the windows were closely shut.
+
+In due time Jane Foley quietly rose from the table, and Audrey did
+likewise. All around them stretched the imposing blue architecture of the
+Exhibition, forming vistas that ended dimly either in the smoke of
+Birmingham or the rustic haze of Worcestershire. And, although the Imperial
+Hall was crammed, every vista was thickly powdered with pleasure-seekers
+and probably pleasure-finders. Bands played. Flags waved. Brass glinted.
+Even the sun feebly shone at intervals through the eternal canopy of soot.
+It was a great day in the annals of the Blue City and of Liberalism.
+
+And Jane Foley and Audrey turned their backs upon all that, and--Jane
+concealing her limp as much as possible--sauntered with affected
+nonchalance towards the precincts of the Joy Wheel enclosure. Audrey was
+inexpressibly uplifted. She felt as if she had stepped straight into
+romance. And she was right--she had stepped into the most vivid romance of
+the modern age, into a world of disguises, flights, pursuits, chicane,
+inconceivable adventures, ideals, martyrs and conquerors, which only the
+Renaissance or the twenty-first century could appreciate.
+
+"Lend me that, will you?" said Jane persuasively to the man with the
+megaphone at the entrance to the enclosure.
+
+He was, quite properly, a very loud man, with a loud thick voice, a loud
+purple face, and a loud grey suit. To Audrey's astonishment, he smiled and
+winked, and gave up the megaphone at once.
+
+Audrey paid sixpence at the turnstile, admittance for two persons, and they
+were within the temple, which had a roof like an umbrella over the central,
+revolving portion of it, but which was somewhat open to the skies around
+the rim. There were two concentric enclosing walls, the inner one was
+unscalable, and the outer one about five feet six inches high. A second
+loud man was calling out: "Couples please. Ladies _and_ gentlemen. Couples
+if _you_ please." Obediently, numbers of the crowd disposed themselves in
+pairs in the attitudes of close affection on the circling floor which had
+just come to rest, while the remainder of the numerous gathering gazed upon
+them with sarcastic ecstasy. Then the wheel began slowly to turn, and girls
+to shriek in the plenitude of happiness. And progress was proved
+geometrically.
+
+Jane, bearing the megaphone, slipped by an aperture into the space between
+the two walls, and Audrey followed. Nobody gave attention to them except
+the second loud man, who winked the wink of knowledge. The fact was that
+both the loud men, being unalterable Tories, had been very willing to
+connive at Jane Foley's scheme for the affliction of a Radical Minister.
+
+The two girls over the wall had an excellent and appetising view of the
+upper part of the side of the Imperial Hall, and of its high windows, the
+nearest of which was scarcely thirty feet away.
+
+"Hold this, will you?" said Jane, handing the megaphone to Audrey.
+
+Jane drew from its concealment in her dress a small piece of iron to which
+was attached a coloured streamer bearing certain words. She threw, with a
+strong movement of the left arm, because she was left-handed. She had
+practised throwing; throwing was one of her several specialties. The bit of
+iron, trailing its motto like a comet its tail, flew across space and
+plumped into the window with a pleasing crash and disappeared, having
+triumphed over uncounted police on the outskirts and a hundred and fifty
+stewards within. A roar from the interior of the hall supervened, and
+varied cries.
+
+"Give me the meg," said Jane gently.
+
+The next instant she was shouting through the megaphone, an instrument
+which she had seriously studied:
+
+"Votes for women. Why do you torture women?  Votes for women. Why do you
+torture women?"
+
+The uproar increased and subsided. A masterful voice resounded within the
+interior. Many people rushed out of the hall. And there was a great scurry
+of important and puzzled feet within a radius of a score of yards.
+
+"I think I'll try the next window," said Jane, handing over the megaphone.
+"You shout while I throw."
+
+Audrey's heart was violently beating. She took the megaphone and put it to
+her lips, but no sound would come. Then, as though it were breaking
+through an obstacle, the sound shot forth, and to Audrey it was a gigantic
+voice that functioned quite independently of her will. Tremendously excited
+by the noise, she bawled louder and still louder.
+
+"I've missed," said Jane calmly in her ear. "That's enough, I think. Come
+along."
+
+"But they can't possibly see us," said Audrey, breathless, lowering the
+instrument.
+
+"Come along, dear," Jane Foley insisted.
+
+People with open mouths were crowding at the aperture of the inner wall,
+but, Jane going first, both girls pushed safely through the throng. The
+wheel had stopped. The entire congregation was staring agog, and in two
+seconds everybody divined, or had been nudged to the effect, that Jane and
+Audrey were the authoresses of the pother.
+
+Jane still leading, they made for the exit. But the first loud man rushed
+chivalrously in.
+
+"Perlice!" he cried. "Two bobbies a-coming."
+
+"Here!" said the second loud man. "Here, misses. Get on the wheel. They'll
+never get ye if ye sit in the middle back to back." He jumped on to the
+wheel himself, and indicated the mathematical centre. Jane took the
+suggestion in a flash; Audrey was obedient. They fixed themselves under
+directions, dropping the megaphone. The wheel started, and the megaphone
+rattled across its smooth surface till it was shot off. A policeman ran in,
+and hesitated; another man, in plain clothes, and wearing a rosette, ran
+in.
+
+"That's them," said the rosette. "I saw her with the grey hair from the
+gallery."
+
+The policeman sprang on to the wheel, and after terrific efforts fell
+sprawling and was thrown off. The rosette met the same destiny. A second
+policeman appeared, and with the fearless courage of his cloth, undeterred
+by the spectacle of prostrate forms, made a magnificent dash, and was
+equally floored.
+
+As Audrey sat very upright, pressing her back against the back of Jane
+Foley and clutching at Jane Foley's skirts with her hands behind her--the
+locked pair were obliged thus to hold themselves exactly over the axis of
+the wheel, for the slightest change of position would have resulted in
+their being flung to the circumference and into the blue grip of the
+law--she had visions of all her life just as though she had been drowning.
+She admitted all her follies and wondered what madness could have prompted
+her remarkable escapades both in Paris and out of it. She remembered Madame
+Piriac's prophecy. She was ready to wish the past year annihilated and
+herself back once more in parental captivity at Moze, the slave of an
+unalterable routine imposed by her father, without responsibility, without
+initiative and without joy. And she lived again through the scenes in which
+she had smiled at the customs official, fibbed to Rosamund, taken the
+wounded Musa home in the taxi, spoken privily with the ageing yacht-owner,
+and laughed at the drowned detective in the area of the palace in Paget
+Gardens.
+
+Everything happened in her mind while the wheel went round once, showing
+her in turn to the various portions of the audience, and bringing her at
+length to a second view of the sprawling policemen. Whereupon she thought
+queerly: "What do I care about the vote, really?" And finally she thought
+with anger and resentment: "What a shame it is that women haven't got the
+vote!" And then she heard a gay, quiet sound. It was Jane Foley laughing
+gently behind her.
+
+"Can you see the big one now, darling?" asked Jane roguishly. "Has he
+picked himself up again?"
+
+Audrey laughed.
+
+And at last the audience laughed also. It laughed because the big
+policeman, unconquerable, had made another intrepid dash for the centre of
+the wheel and fallen upon his stomach as upon a huge india-rubber ball. The
+audience did more than laugh--it shrieked, yelled, and guffawed. The
+performance to be witnessed was worth ten times the price of entry. Indeed
+no such performance had ever before been seen in the whole history of
+popular amusement. And in describing the affair the next morning as
+"unique" the _Birmingham Daily Post_ for once used that adjective with
+absolute correctness. The policemen tried again and yet again. They got
+within feet, within inches, of their prey, only to be dragged away by the
+mysterious protector of militant maidens--centrifugal force. Probably never
+before in the annals of the struggle for political freedom had maidens
+found such a protection, invisible, sinister and complete. Had the
+education of policemen in England included a course of mechanics, these
+particular two policemen would have known that they were seeking the
+impossible and fighting against that which was stronger than ten thousand
+policemen. But they would not give up. At each fresh attempt they hoped by
+guile to overcome their unseen enemy, as the gambler hopes at each fresh
+throw to outwit chance. The jeers of the audience pricked them to
+desperation, for in encounters with females like Jane Foley and Audrey they
+had been accustomed to the active sympathy of the public. But centrifugal
+force had rendered them ridiculous, and the public never sympathises with
+those whom ridicule has covered. The strange and side-splitting effects of
+centrifugal force had transformed about a hundred indifferent young men and
+women into ardent and convinced supporters of feminism in its most advanced
+form.
+
+In the course of her slow revolution Audrey saw the rosetted steward
+arguing with the second loud man, no doubt to persuade him to stop the
+wheel. Then out of the tail of her eye she saw the steward run violently
+from the tent. And then while her back was towards the entrance she was
+deafened by a prodigious roar of delight from the mob. The two policemen
+had fled also--probably for reinforcements and appliances against
+centrifugal force. In their pardonable excitement they had, however,
+committed the imprudence of departing together. An elementary knowledge of
+strategy should have warned them against such a mistake. The wheel stopped
+immediately. The second loud man beckoned with laughter to Jane Foley and
+Audrey, who rose and hopefully skipped towards him. Audrey at any rate was
+as self-conscious as though she had been on the stage.
+
+"Here's th' back way," said the second loud man, pointing to a coarse
+curtain in the obscurity of the nether parts of the enclosure.
+
+They ran, Jane Foley first, and vanished from the regions of the Joy Wheel
+amid terrific acclamations given in a strong Midland accent.
+
+The next moment they found themselves in a part of the Blue City which
+nobody had taken the trouble to paint blue. The one blue object was a small
+patch of sky, amid clouds, overhead. On all sides were wooden flying
+buttresses, supporting the boundaries of the Joy Wheel enclosure to the
+south-east, of the Parade Restaurant and Bar to the south-west, and of a
+third establishment of good cheer to the north. Upon the ground were
+brick-ends, cinders, bits of wood, bits of corrugated iron, and all the
+litter and refuse cast out of sight of the eyes of visitors to the
+Exhibition of Progress.
+
+With the fear of the police behind them they stumbled forward a few yards,
+and then saw a small ramshackle door swinging slightly to and fro on one
+hinge. Jane Foley pulled it open. They both went into a narrow passage. On
+the mildewed wall of the passage was pinned up a notice in red ink: "Any
+waitress taking away any apron or cap from the Parade Restaurant and Bar
+will be fined one shilling." Farther on was another door, also ajar. Jane
+Foley pushed against it, and a tiny room of irregular shape was disclosed.
+In this room a stout woman in grey was counting a pile of newly laundered
+caps and aprons, and putting them out of one hamper into another. Audrey
+remembered seeing the woman at the counter of the restaurant and bar.
+
+"The police are after us. They'll be here in a minute," said Jane Foley
+simply.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the woman in grey, with the carelessness of fatigue. "Are
+you them stone-throwing lot?  They've just been in to tell me about it.
+What d'ye do it for?"
+
+"We do it for you--amongst others," Jane Foley smiled.
+
+"Nay! That ye don't!" said the woman positively. "I've got a vote for the
+city council, and I want no more."
+
+"Well, you don't want us to get caught, do you?"
+
+"No, I don't know as I do. Ye look a couple o' bonny wenches."
+
+"Let's have two caps and aprons, then," said Jane Foley smoothly. "We'll
+pay the shilling fine." She laughed lightly. "And a bit more. If the police
+get in here we shall have to struggle, you know, and they'll break the
+place up."
+
+Audrey produced another half-sovereign.
+
+"But what shall ye do with yer hats and coats?" the woman demanded.
+
+"Give them to you, of course."
+
+The woman regarded the hats and coats.
+
+"I couldn't get near them coats," she said. "And if I put on one o' them
+there hats my old man 'ud rise from the grave--that he would. Still, I
+don't wish ye any harm."
+
+She shut and locked the door.
+
+In about a minute two waitresses in aprons and streamered caps of
+immaculate purity emerged from the secret places of the Parade Restaurant
+and Bar, slipped round the end of the counter, and started with easy
+indifference to saunter away into the grounds after the manner of
+restaurant girls who have been gifted with half an hour off. The tabled
+expanse in front of the Parade erection was busy with people, some sitting
+at the tables and supporting the establishment, but many more merely taking
+advantage of the pitch to observe all possible exciting developments of the
+suffragette shindy.
+
+And as the criminals were modestly getting clear, a loud and imperious
+voice called:
+
+"Hey!"
+
+Audrey, lacking experience, hesitated.
+
+"Hey there!"
+
+They both turned, for the voice would not be denied. It belonged to a man
+sitting with another man at a table on the outskirts of the group of
+tables. It was the voice of the rosetted steward, who beckoned in a not
+unfriendly style.
+
+"Bring us two liqueur brandies, miss," he cried. "And look slippy, if ye
+please."
+
+The sharp tone, so sure of obedience, gave Audrey a queer sensation of
+being in reality a waitress doomed to tolerate the rough bullying of
+gentlemen urgently desiring alcohol. And the fierce thought that
+women--especially restaurant waitresses--must and should possess the Vote
+surged through her mind more powerfully than ever.
+
+"I'll never have the chance again," she muttered to herself. And marched
+to the counter.
+
+"Two liqueur brandies, please," she said to the woman in grey, who had left
+her apron calculations. "That's all right," she murmured, as the woman
+stared a question at her. Then the woman smiled to herself, and poured out
+the liqueur brandies from a labelled bottle with startling adroitness, and
+dashed the full glasses on to a brass tray.
+
+As Audrey walked across the gravel carefully balancing the tray, she
+speculated whether the public eye would notice the shape of her small
+handbag, which was attached by a safety pin to her dress beneath the apron,
+and whether her streamers were streaming out far behind her head.
+
+Before she could put the tray down on the table, the rosetted steward, who
+looked pale, snatched one of the glasses and gulped down its entire
+contents.
+
+"I wanted it!" said he, smacking his lips. "I wanted it bad. They'll catch
+'em all right. I should know the young 'un again anywhere. I'll swear to
+identify her in any court. And I will. Tasty little piece o' goods, too!...
+But not so good-looking as you," he added, gazing suddenly at Audrey.
+
+"None o' your sauce," snapped Audrey, and walked off, leaving the tray
+behind.
+
+The two men exploded into coarse but amiable laughter, and called to her to
+return, but she would not. "You can pay the other young lady," she said
+over her shoulder, pointing vaguely to the counter where there was now a
+bevy of other young ladies.
+
+Five minutes later Miss Ingate, and the chauffeur also, received a very
+appreciable shock. Half an hour later the car, having called at the
+telegraph office, and also at the aghast lodgings of the waitresses to
+enable them to reattire and to pack, had quitted Birmingham.
+
+That night they reached Northampton. At the post office there Jane Foley
+got a telegram. And when the three were seated in a corner of the curtained
+and stuffy dining-room of the small hotel, Jane said, addressing herself
+specially to Audrey:
+
+"It won't be safe for us to return to Paget Gardens to-morrow. And perhaps
+not to any of our places in London."
+
+"That won't matter," said Audrey, who was now becoming accustomed to the
+world of conspiracy and chicane in which Jane Foley carried on her
+existence with such a deceiving air of the matter-of-fact. "We'll go
+anywhere, won't we, Winnie?"
+
+And Miss Ingate assented.
+
+"Well," said Jane Foley. "I've just had a telegram arranging for us to go
+to Frinton."
+
+"You don't mean Frinton-on-Sea?" exclaimed Miss Ingate, suddenly excited.
+
+"It _is_ on the sea," said Jane. "We have to go through Colchester. Do you
+know it?"
+
+"Do I know it!" repeated Miss Ingate. "I know everybody in Frinton, except
+the Germans. When I'm at home I buy my bacon at Frinton. Are you going to
+an hotel there?"
+
+"No," said Jane. "To some people named Spatt."
+
+"There's nobody that is anybody named Spatt living at Frinton," said Miss
+Ingate.
+
+"They haven't been there long."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Miss Ingate. "Of course if that's it...! I can't guarantee
+what's happened since I began my pilgrimages. But I think I shall wriggle
+off home quietly as soon as we get to Colchester. This afternoon's business
+has been too feverish for me. When the policeman held up his hand as we
+came through Ellsworth I thought you were caught. I shall just go home."
+
+"I don't care much about going to Frinton, Jenny," said Audrey.
+
+Indeed, Moze lay within not many miles of Frinton-on-Sea.
+
+Then Audrey and Miss Ingate observed a phenomenon that was both novel and
+extremely disturbing. Tears came into the eyes of Jane Foley.
+
+"Don't say it, Audrey, don't say it!" she appealed in a wet voice. "I shall
+have to go myself. And you simply can't imagine how I hate going all alone
+into these houses that we're invited to. I'd much sooner be in lodgings, as
+we were last night. But these homes in quiet places here and there are very
+useful sometimes. They all belong to members of the Union, you know; and we
+have to use them. But I wish we hadn't. I've met Mrs. Spatt once. I didn't
+think you'd throw me over just at the worst part. The Spatts will take all
+of us and be glad."
+
+("They won't take me," said Miss Ingate under her breath.)
+
+"I shall come with you," said Audrey, caressing the recreant who, while
+equal to trifles such as policemen, magistrates, and prisons, was miserably
+afraid of a strange home. In fact Audrey now liked Jane much more than
+ever, liked her completely--and perhaps admired her rather less, though her
+admiration was still intense. And the thought in Audrey's mind was: "Never
+will I desert this girl! I'm a militant, too, now, and I shall stick by
+her." And she was full of a happiness which she could not understand and
+which she did not want to understand.
+
+The next morning all the newspaper posters in Northhampton bore the words:
+"Policemen and suffragettes on Joy Wheel," or some variation of these
+words. And they bore nothing else. And in all the towns and many of the
+villages through which they passed on the way to Colchester, the same
+legend greeted their flying eyes. Audrey and Miss Ingate, in the motor-car,
+read with great care all the papers. Audrey blushed at the descriptions of
+herself, which were flattering. It seemed that the Cabinet Minister's
+political meeting had been seriously damaged by the episode, for the reason
+that rumours of the performance on the Joy Wheel had impaired the spell of
+eloquence and partially emptied the hall. And this was the more
+disappointing in that the police had been sure that nothing untoward would
+occur. It seemed also that the police were on the track of the criminals.
+
+"Are they!" exclaimed Jane Foley with a beautiful smile.
+
+Then the car approached a city of towers on a hill, and as it passed by the
+station, which was in the valley, Miss Ingate demanded a halt. She got out
+in the station yard and transferred her belongings to a cab.
+
+"I shall drive home from here," she said. "I've often done it before. After
+all, I did play the barrel organ all the way down Regent Street. Surely I
+can rest on the barrel organ, can't I, Miss Foley--at my age? ... What a
+business I shall have when I _do_ get home, and nobody expecting me!"
+
+And when certain minor arrangements had been made, the car mounted the hill
+into Colchester and took the Frinton road, leaving Miss Ingate's fly far
+behind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE SPATTS
+
+
+The house of the Spatts was large, imposing and variegated. It had
+turrets, balconies, and architectural nooks in such quantity that the
+unaided individual eye could not embrace it all at once. It overlooked,
+from a height, the grounds of the Frinton Sports Club, and a new member of
+this club, upon first beholding the residence, had made the immortal
+remark: "It wants at least fourteen people to look at it." The house stood
+in the middle of an unfinished garden, which promised ultimately to be as
+heterogeneous as itself, but which at present was merely an expanse of
+sorely wounded earth.
+
+The time was early summer, and therefore the summer dining-room of the
+Spatts was in use. This dining-room consisted of one white, windowed wall,
+a tiled floor, and a roof of wood. The windows gave into the winter
+dining-room, which was a white apartment, sparsely curtained and cushioned
+with chintz, and containing very few pieces of furniture or pictures. The
+Spatts considered, rightly, that furniture and pictures were unhygienic and
+the secret lairs of noxious germs. Had the Spatts flourished twenty-five
+years earlier their dining-room would have been covered with brown paper
+upon which would have hung permanent photographs of European masterpieces
+of graphic art, and there would have been a multiplicity of draperies and
+specimens of battered antique furniture, with a warming-pan or so suspended
+here and there in place of sporting trophies. But the Spatts had not begun
+to flourish twenty-five years ago. They flourished very few years ago and
+they still flourish.
+
+As the summer dining-room had only one wall, it follows that it was open to
+the powers of the air. This result had been foreseen by the Spatts--had
+indeed been expressly arranged, for they believed strongly in the powers of
+the air, as being beneficent powers. It is true that they generally had
+sniffling colds, but their argument was that these maladies had no
+connection whatever with the powers of the air, which, according to their
+theory, saved them from much worse.
+
+They and their guests were now seated at dinner. Twilight was almost lost
+in night. The table was illuminated by four candles at the corners, and
+flames of these candles flickered in the healthful evening breeze, dropping
+pink wax on the candlesticks. They were surrounded by the mortal remains of
+tiny moths, but other tiny moths would not heed the warning and continually
+shot themselves into the flames. On the outskirts of the table moved with
+silent stealth the forms of two middle-aged and ugly servants.
+
+Mrs. Spatt was very tall and very thin, and the simplicity of her pale
+green dress--sole reminder of the brown-paper past--was calculated to draw
+attention to these attributes. She had an important reddish nose, and a
+mysterious look of secret confidence, which never left her even in the most
+trying crises. Mr. Spatt also was very tall and very thin. His head was
+several sizes too small, and part of his insignificant face, which one was
+apt to miss altogether in contemplating his body, was hidden under a short
+grey beard. Siegfried Spatt, the sole child of the union, though but
+seventeen, was as tall and as thin as his father and his mother; he had a
+pale face and red hands.
+
+The guests were Audrey, Jane Foley, and a young rubicund gentleman,
+beautifully clothed, and with fair curly locks, named Ziegler. Mr. Ziegler
+was far more perfectly at ease than anybody else at the table, which indeed
+as a whole was rendered haggard and nervous by the precarious state of the
+conversation, expecting its total decease at any moment. At intervals
+someone lifted the limp dying body--it sank back--was lifted
+again--struggled feebly--relapsed. Young Siegfried was excessively
+tongue-tied and self-conscious, and his demeanour frankly admitted it. Jane
+Foley, acknowledged heroine in certain fields, sat like a schoolgirl at her
+first dinner-party. Audrey maintained her widowhood, but scarcely with
+credit. Mr. and Mrs. Spatt were as usual too deeply concerned about the
+awful condition of the universe to display that elasticity of mood which
+continuous chatter about nothing in particular demands. And they were too
+worshipful of the best London conventions not to regard silence at table as
+appalling. In the part of the country from which Jane Foley sprang, hosts
+will sit mute through a meal and think naught of it. But Mr. and Mrs. Spatt
+were of different stuff. All these five appeared to be in serious need of
+conversation pills. Only Mr. Ziegler beheld his companions with a satisfied
+equanimity that was insensible to spiritual suffering. Happily at the most
+acute moments the gentle night wind, meandering slowly from the east across
+leagues of North Sea, would induce in one or another a sneeze which gave
+some semblance of vitality and vigour to the scene.
+
+After one of these sneezes it was that Jane Foley, conscience-stricken,
+tried to stimulate the exchanges by an effort of her own.
+
+"And what are the folks like in Frinton?" she demanded, blushing, and
+looking up. As she looked up young Siegfried looked down, lest he might
+encounter her glance and be utterly discountenanced.
+
+Jane Foley's question was unfortunate.
+
+"We know nothing of them," said Mrs. Spatt, pained. "Of course I have
+received and paid a few purely formal calls. But as regards friends and
+acquaintances, we prefer to import them from London. As for the
+holiday-makers, one sees them, naturally. They appear to lead an
+exclusively physical existence."
+
+"My dear," put in Mr. Spatt stiffly. "The residents are no better. The
+women play golf all day on that appalling golf course, and then after tea
+they go into the town to change their library books. But I do not believe
+that they ever read their library books. The mentality of the town is truly
+remarkable. However, I am informed that there are many towns like it."
+
+"You bet!" murmured Siegfried Spatt, and then tried, vainly, to suck back
+the awful remark whence it had come.
+
+Mr. Ziegler, speaking without passion or sorrow, added his views about
+Frinton. He asserted that it was the worst example of stupid waste of
+opportunities he had ever encountered, even in England. He pointed out that
+there was no band, no pier, no casino, no shelters--and not even a tree;
+and that there were no rules to govern the place. He finished by remarking
+that no German state would tolerate such a pleasure resort. In this
+judgment he employed an excellent English accent, with a scarcely
+perceptible thickening of the t's and thinning of the d's.
+
+Mr. Ziegler left nothing to be said.
+
+Then the conversation sighed and really did expire. It might have survived
+had not the Spatts had a rule, explained previously to those whom it
+concerned, against talking shop. Their attachment to this rule was heroic.
+In the present instance shop was suffragism. The Spatts had developed into
+supporters of militancy in a very curious way. Mrs. Spatt's sister, a
+widow, had been mixed up with the Union for years. One day she was fined
+forty shillings or a week's imprisonment for a political peccadillo
+involving a hatpin and a policeman. It was useless for her to remind the
+magistrate that she, like Mrs. Spatt, was the daughter of the celebrated
+statesman B----, who in the fifties had done so much for Britain. (Lo!  The
+source of that mysterious confidence that always supported Mrs. Spatt!) The
+magistrate had no historic sense. She went to prison. At least she was on
+the way thither when Mr. Spatt paid the fine in spite of her. The same
+night Mr. Spatt wrote to his favourite evening paper to point out the
+despicable ingratitude of a country which would have imprisoned a daughter
+of the celebrated B----, and announced that henceforward he would be an
+active supporter of suffragism, which hitherto had interested him only
+academically. He was a wealthy man, and his money and his house and his pen
+were at the service of the Union--but always with discretion.
+
+Audrey and Jane Foley had learnt all this privately from Mrs. Spatt on
+their arrival, after they had told such part of their tale as Jane Foley
+had deemed suitable, and they had further learnt that suffragism would not
+be a welcome topic at their table, partly on account of the servants and
+partly on account of Mr. Ziegler, whose opinions were quite clearly opposed
+to the movement, but whom they admired for true and rare culture. He was a
+cousin of German residents in First Avenue and, visiting them often, had
+been discovered by Mr. Spatt in the afternoon-tea train.
+
+And just as the ices came to compete with the night wind, the postman
+arrived like a deliverer. The postman had to pass the dining-room _en
+route_ by the circuitous drive to the front door, and when dinner was afoot
+he would hand the letters to the parlourmaid, who would divide them into
+two portions, and, putting both on a salver, offer the salver first to Mrs.
+and then to Mr. Spatt, while Mr. or Mrs. Spatt begged guests, if there were
+any, to excuse the quaint and indeed unusual custom, pardonable only on the
+plea that any tidings from London ought to be savoured instantly in such a
+place as Frinton.
+
+After leaving his little pile untouched for some time, Mr. Spatt took
+advantage of the diversion caused by the brushing of the cloth and the
+distribution of finger-bowls to glance at the topmost letter, which was
+addressed in a woman's hand.
+
+"She's coming!" he exclaimed, forgetting to apologise in the sudden
+excitement of news, "Good heavens!" He looked at his watch. "She's here. I
+heard the train several minutes ago! She must be here! The letter's been
+delayed."
+
+"Who, Alroy?" demanded Mrs. Spatt earnestly. "Not that Miss Nickall you
+mentioned?"
+
+"Yes, my dove." And then in a grave tone to the parlourmaid: "Give this
+letter to your mistress."
+
+Mr. Spatt, cheered by the new opportunity for conversation, and in his
+eagerness abrogating all rules, explained how he had been in London on the
+previous day for a performance of Strauss's _Elektra_, and according to his
+custom had called at the offices of the Suffragette Union to see whether he
+could in any manner aid the cause. He had been told that a house in Paget
+Gardens lent to the Union had been basely withdrawn from service by its
+owner on account of some embroilment with the supreme police authorities at
+Scotland Yard, and that one of the inmates, a Miss Nickall, the poor young
+lady who had had her arm broken and was scarcely convalescent, had need of
+quietude and sea air. Mr. Spatt had instantly offered the hospitality of
+his home to Miss Nickall, whom he had seen in a cab and who was very sweet.
+Miss Nickall had said that she must consult her companion. It now appeared
+that the companion was gone to the Midlands. This episode had occurred
+immediately before the receipt of the telegram from head-quarters asking
+for shelter for Miss Jane Foley and Mrs. Moncreiff.
+
+Mr. Spatt's excitement had now communicated itself to everybody except Mr.
+Ziegler and Siegfried Spatt. Jane Foley almost recovered her presence of
+mind, and Mrs. Spatt was extraordinarily interested to learn that Miss
+Nickall was an American painter who had lived long in Paris, and that
+Audrey had first made her acquaintance in Paris, and knew Paris well.
+Audrey's motor-car had produced a considerable impression on Aurora Spatt,
+and this impression was deepened by the touch about Paris. After breathing
+mysterious orders into the ear of the parlourmaid Mrs. Spatt began to talk
+at large about music in Paris, and Mr. Spatt made comparisons between the
+principal opera houses in Europe. He proclaimed for the Scala at Milan; but
+Mr. Ziegler, who had methodically according to a fixed plan lived in all
+European capitals except Paris--whither he was soon going, said that Mr.
+Spatt was quite wrong, and that Milan could not hold a candle to Munich.
+Mrs. Spatt inquired whether Audrey had heard Strauss's _Elektra_ at the
+Paris Opera House. Audrey replied that Strauss's _Elektra_ had not been
+given at the Paris Opera House.
+
+"Oh!" said Mrs. Spatt. "This prejudice against the greatest modern
+masterpieces because they are German is a very sad sign in Paris. I have
+noticed it for a long time."
+
+Audrey, who most irrationally had begun to be annoyed by the blandness of
+Mr. Ziegler's smile, answered with a rival blandness:
+
+"In Paris they do not reproach Strauss because he is German, but because he
+is vulgar."
+
+Mrs. Spatt had a martyrised expression. In her heart she felt a sick
+trembling of her religious belief that _Elektra_ was the greatest opera
+ever composed. For Audrey had the prestige of Paris and of the automobile.
+Mrs. Spatt, however, said not a word. Mr. Ziegler, on the other hand, after
+shuffling some seconds for utterance, ejaculated with sublime anger:
+
+"Vulgar!"
+
+His rubicundity had increased and his blandness was dissolved. A terrible
+sequel might have occurred, had not the crunch of wheels on the drive been
+heard at that very instant. The huge, dim form of a coach drawn by a
+ghostly horse passed along towards the front door, just below the diners.
+Almost simultaneously the electric light above the front door was turned
+on, casting a glare across a section of the inchoate garden, where no
+flower grew save the dandelion. Everybody sprang up. Host and hostess,
+urged by hospitality, spun first into the drive, and came level with the
+vehicle precisely as the vehicle opened its invisible interior. Jane Foley
+and Audrey saw Miss Nickall emerge from it rather slowly and cautiously,
+with her white kind face and her arm all swathed in white.
+
+"Well, Mr. Spatt," came the American benevolent voice of Nick. "How glad I
+am to see you. And this is Mrs. Spatt? Mrs. Spatt! Delighted. Your husband
+is the kindest, sweetest man, Mrs. Spatt, that I've met in years. It is
+perfectly sweet of you to have me. I shouldn't have inflicted myself on
+you--no, I shouldn't--only you know we have to obey orders. I was told to
+come here, and here I've come, with a glad heart."
+
+Audrey was touched by the sight and voice of grey-haired Nick, with her
+trick of seeing nothing but the best in everybody, transforming everybody
+into saints, angels, and geniuses. Her smiles and her tones were
+irresistible. They were like the wand of some magical princess come to
+break a sinister thrall. They nearly humanised the gaunt parlourmaid, who
+stood grimly and primly waiting until these tedious sentimental
+preliminaries should cease from interfering with her duties in regard to
+the luggage.
+
+"We have friends of yours here, Miss Nickall," simpered Mrs. Spatt, after
+she had given a welcome. She had seen Jane Foley and Audrey standing
+expectant just behind Mr. Spatt, and outside the field of the electric
+beam.
+
+Nick glanced round, hesitated, and then with a sudden change of all her
+features rushed at the girls regardless of her arm. Her joy was enchanting.
+
+"I was afraid--I was afraid----" she murmured as she kissed them. Her eyes
+softly glistened.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, after a moment. "And I _have_ got a surprise for you!
+I have just! You may say it's some surprise." She turned towards the cab.
+"Musa, now do come out of that wagon."
+
+And from the blackness of the cab's interior gingerly stepped Musa, holding
+a violin case in his hand.
+
+"Mrs. Spatt," said Nick. "Let me introduce Mr. Musa. Mr. Musa is perhaps
+the greatest violinist in Paris--or in Europe. Very old friend of ours. He
+came over to London unexpectedly just as I was starting for Liverpool
+Street station this afternoon. So I did the only thing I could do. I
+couldn't leave him there--I brought him along, and we want Mr. Spatt to
+recommend us an hotel in Frinton for him." And while Musa was shyly in his
+imperfect English greeting Mr. and Mrs. Spatt, she whispered to Audrey:
+"You don't know. You'd never guess. A big concert agent in Paris has taken
+him up at last. He's going to play at a lot of concerts, and they actually
+paid him two thousand five hundred francs in advance. Isn't it a perfect
+dream?"
+
+Audrey, who had seen Musa's trustful glance at Nick as he descended from
+the cab, was suddenly aware of a fierce pang of hate for the benignant
+Nick, and a wave of fury against Musa. The thing was very disconcerting.
+
+After self-conscious greetings, Musa almost dragged Audrey away from the
+others.
+
+"It's you I came to London to see," he muttered in an unusual voice.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MUTE
+
+
+It was upon this evening that Audrey began alarmingly to develop the
+quality of being incomprehensible--even to herself. Like most young women
+and men, she had been convinced from an early age that she was mysteriously
+unlike all other created beings, and--again like most young men and
+women--she could find, in the secrecy of her own heart, plenty of proof of
+a unique strangeness. But now her unreason became formidable. There she sat
+with her striking forehead and her quite unimportant nose, in the large
+austere drawing-room of the Spatts, which was so pervaded by artistic
+chintz that the slightest movement in it produced a crackle--and wondered
+why she was so much queerer than other girls could possibly be.
+
+Neither the crackling of chintz nor the aspect of the faces in the
+drawing-room was conducive to clear psychological analysis. Mr. Ziegler,
+with a glass of Pilsener by his side on a small table and a cigar in his
+richly jewelled hand, reposed with crossed legs in an easy chair. He had
+utterly recovered from the momentary irritation caused by Audrey's attack
+on Strauss, and his perfect beaming satisfaction with himself made a
+spectacle which would have distracted an Indian saint from the
+contemplation of eternity and nothingness. Mr. and Mrs. Spatt, seated as
+far as was convenient from one another on a long sofa, their emaciated
+bodies very upright and alert, gazed with intense expectation at Musa. Musa
+stood in the middle of the room, tuning his violin with little twangs and
+listening to the twangs as to a secret message.
+
+Miss Nickall, being an invalid, had excusably gone to bed, and Jane Foley,
+sharer of her bedroom, had followed. The happy relief on Jane's face as
+she said good night to her hosts had testified to the severity of the
+ordeal of hospitality through which she had so heroically passed. She
+might have been going out of prison instead of going out of the most
+intellectual drawing-room in Frinton.
+
+Audrey, too, would have liked to retire, for automobiles and sensations had
+exhausted her; but just at this point her unreason had begun to operate.
+She would not leave Musa alone, because Miss Nickall was leaving him alone.
+Yet she did not feel at all benevolent towards Musa. She was angry with him
+for having quitted Paris. She was angry with him for having said to her, in
+such a peculiar tone: "It's you I came to London to see." She was angry
+with him for not having found an opportunity, during the picnic meal
+provided for the two new-comers after the regular dinner, to explain why he
+had come to London to see her. She was angry with him for that dark
+hostility which he had at once displayed towards Mr. Ziegler, though she
+herself hated the innocent Mr. Ziegler with the ferocity of a woman of the
+Revolution. And further, she was glad, ridiculously glad, that Musa had
+come to London to see her. Lastly she was aware of a most irrational
+objection to the manner in which Miss Nickall and Musa said good night to
+one another, and the obvious fact that Musa in less than an hour had
+reached terms of familiarity with Jane Foley.
+
+She thought:
+
+"I haven't the faintest idea why he has given up his practising in Paris to
+come to see me. But if it is what I feel sure it is, there will be
+trouble.... Why do I stay in this ghastly drawing-room? I am dying to go to
+sleep, and I simply detest everybody in the room. I detest Musa more than
+all, because as usual he has been acting like a child.... Why can't you
+smile at him, Audrey Moze? Why frown and pretend you're cross when you know
+you aren't, Audrey Moze? ... I am cross, and he shall suffer. Was this a
+time to leave his practising--and the concerts soon coming on? I positively
+prefer this Ziegler man to him. Yes, I do." So ran her reflections, and
+they annoyed her.
+
+"What would you wish me to play?" asked Musa, when he had definitely
+finished twanging. Audrey noticed that his English accent was getting a
+little less French. She had to admit that, though his appearance was
+extravagantly un-British, it was distinguished. The immensity of his black
+silk cravat made the black cravat of Mr. Spatt seem like a bootlace round
+his thin neck.
+
+"Whatever you like, Mr. Musa," replied Aurora Spatt. "_Please!_"
+
+And as a fact the excellent woman, majestic now in spite of her red nose
+and her excessive thinness, did not care what Musa played. He had merely to
+play. She had decided for herself, from the conversation, that he was a
+very celebrated performer, and she had ascertained, by direct questioning,
+that he had never performed in England. She was determined to be able to
+say to all comers till death took her that "Musa--the great Musa, you
+know--first played in England in my own humble drawing-room." The thing
+itself was actually about to occur; nothing could stop it from occurring;
+and the thought of the immediate realisation of her desire and ambition
+gave Mrs. Spatt greater and more real pleasure than she had had for years;
+it even fortified her against the possible resentment of her cherished Mr.
+Ziegler.
+
+"French music--would you wish?" Musa suggested.
+
+"Is there any French music? That is to say, of artistic importance?" asked
+Mr. Ziegler calmly. "I have never heard of it."
+
+He was not consciously being rude. Nor was he trying to be funny. His
+question implied an honest belief. His assertion was sincere. He glanced,
+blinking slightly, round the room, with a self-confidence that was either
+terrible or pathetic, according to the degree of your own self-confidence.
+
+Audrey said to herself.
+
+"I'm glad this isn't my drawing-room." And she was almost frightened by the
+thought that that skull opposite to her was absolutely impenetrable, and
+that it would go down to the grave unpierced with all its collection of
+ideas intact and braggart.
+
+As for Mr. and Mrs. Spatt they were both in the state of not knowing where
+to look. Immediately their gaze met another gaze it leapt away as from
+something dangerous or obscene.
+
+"I will play Debussy's Toccata for violin solo," Musa announced tersely. He
+had blushed; his great eyes were sparkling. And he began to play.
+
+And as soon as he had played a few bars, Audrey gave a start, fortunately
+not a physical start, and she blushed also. Musa sternly winked at her.
+Frenchmen do not make a practice of winking, but he had learnt the
+accomplishment for fun from Miss Thompkins in Paris. The wink caused
+Audrey surreptitiously to observe Mr. and Mrs. Spatt. It was no relief to
+her to perceive that these two were listening to Debussy's Toccata for solo
+violin with the trained and appreciative attention of people who had heard
+it often before in the various capitals of Europe, who knew it by heart,
+and who knew at just what passages to raise the head, to give a nod of
+recognition or a gesture of ecstasy. The bare room was filled with the
+sound of Musa's fiddle and with the high musical culture of Mr. and Mrs.
+Spatt. When the piece was over they clapped discreetly, and looked with
+soft intensity at Audrey, as if murmuring: "You, too, are a cultured
+cosmopolitan. You share our emotion." And across the face of Mrs. Spatt
+spread a glow triumphant, for Musa now positively had played for the first
+time in England in her drawing-room, and she foresaw hundreds of occasions
+on which she could refer to the matter with a fitting air of casualness.
+The glow triumphant, however, paled somewhat as she felt upon herself the
+eye of Mr. Ziegler.
+
+"Where is Siegfried, Alroy?" she demanded, after having thanked Musa. "I
+wouldn't have had him miss that Debussy for anything, but I hadn't noticed
+that he was gone. He adores Debussy."
+
+"I think it is like bad Bach," Mr. Ziegler put in suddenly. Then he raised
+his glass and imbibed a good portion of the beer specially obtained and
+provided for him by his hostess and admirer, Mrs. Spatt.
+
+"Do you _really_?" murmured Mrs. Spatt, with deprecation.
+
+"There's something in the comparison," Mr. Spatt admitted thoughtfully.
+
+"Why not like good Bach?" Musa asked, glaring in a very strange manner at
+Mr. Ziegler.
+
+"Bosh!" ejaculated Mr. Ziegler with a most notable imperturbability. "Only
+Bach himself could com-pose good Bach."
+
+Musa's breathing could be heard across the drawing-room.
+
+"_Eh bien!_" said Musa. "Now I will play for you Debussy's Toccata. I was
+not playing it before. I was playing the Chaconne of Bach, the most famous
+composition for the violin in the world."
+
+He did not embroider the statement. He left it in its nakedness. Nor did he
+permit anybody else to embroider it. Before a word of any kind could be
+uttered he had begun to play again. Probably in all the annals of artistic
+snobbery, no cultured cosmopolitan had ever been made to suffer a more
+exquisite moral torture of humiliation than Musa had contrived to inflict
+upon Mr. and Mrs. Spatt in return for their hospitality. Their sneaped
+squirmings upon the sofa were terrible to witness. But Mr. Ziegler's
+sensibility was apparently quite unaffected. He continued to smile, to
+drink, and to smoke. He seemed to be saying to himself: "What does it
+matter to me that this miserable Frenchman has caught me in a mistake?  I
+could eat him, and one day I shall eat him."
+
+After a little while Musa snatched out of his right-hand lower waistcoat
+pocket the tiny wooden "mute" which all violinists carry without fail upon
+all occasions in all their waistcoats; and, sticking it with marvellous
+rapidity upon the bridge of the violin, he entered upon a pianissimo, but
+still lively, episode of the Toccata. And simultaneously another melody
+faint and clear could be heard in the room. It was Mr. Ziegler humming "The
+Watch on the Rhine" against the Toccata of Debussy. Thus did it occur to
+Mr. Ziegler to take revenge on Musa for having attempted to humiliate him.
+Not unsurprisingly, Musa detected at once the competitive air. He continued
+to play, gazing hard at his violin and apparently entranced, but edging
+little by little towards Mr. Ziegler. Audrey desired either to give a cry
+or to run out of the room. She did neither, being held to inaction by the
+spell of Mr. Ziegler's perfect unconcern as, with the beer glass lifted
+towards his mouth, he proceeded steadily to work through "The Watch on the
+Rhine," while Musa lilted out the delicate, gay phrases of Debussy. The
+enchantment upon the whole room was sinister and painful. Musa got closer
+to Mr. Ziegler, who did not blench nor cease from his humming. Then
+suddenly Musa, lowering his fiddle and interrupting the scene, snatched the
+mute from the bridge of the violin.
+
+"I have put it on the wrong instrument," he said thickly, with a very
+French intonation, and simultaneously he shoved the mute with violence into
+the mouth of Mr. Ziegler. In doing so, he jerked up Mr. Ziegler's elbow,
+and the remains of the beer flew up and baptised Mr. Ziegler's face and
+vesture. Then he jammed the violin into its case, and ran out of the room.
+
+"_Barbare! Imbécile! Sauvage!_" he muttered ferociously on the threshold.
+
+The enchantment was broken. Everybody rose, and not the least precipitately
+the streaming Mr. Ziegler, who, ejecting the mute with much spluttering,
+and pitching away his empty glass, sprang towards the door, with
+justifiable homicide in every movement.
+
+"Mr. Ziegler!" Audrey appealed to him, snatching at his dress-coat and
+sticking to it.
+
+He turned, furious, his face still dripping the finest Pilsener beer.
+
+"If your dress-coat is not wiped instantly, it will be ruined," said
+Audrey.
+
+"_Ach! Meiner Frack!_" exclaimed Mr. Ziegler, forgetting his deep knowledge
+of English. His economic instincts had been swiftly aroused, and they
+dominated all the other instincts. "_Meiner Frack!_ Vill you vipe it?" His
+glance was imploring.
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Spatt will attend to it," said Audrey with solemnity, and walked
+out of the room into the hall. There was not a sign of Musa; the
+disappearance of the violinist was disquieting; and yet it made her
+glad--so much so that she laughed aloud. A few moments later Mr. Ziegler
+stalked forth from the house which he was never to enter again, and his
+silent scorn and the grandeur of his displeasure were terrific. He entirely
+ignored Audrey, who had nevertheless been the means of saving his _Frack_
+for him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+NOCTURNE
+
+
+Soon afterwards Audrey, who had put on a hat, went out with Mr. Spatt to
+look for Musa. Not until shortly before the musical performance had the
+Spatts succeeded in persuading Musa to "accept their hospitality for the
+night." (The phrase was their own. They were incapable of saying "Let us
+put you up.") Meanwhile his bag had been left in the hall. This bag had now
+vanished. The parlourmaid, questioned, said frigidly that she had not
+touched it because she had received no orders to touch it. Musa himself
+must therefore have removed it. With bag in one hand and fiddle case in the
+other, he must have fled, relinquishing nothing but the mute in his flight.
+He knew naught of England, naught of Frinton, and he was the least
+practical creature alive. Hence Audrey, who was in essence his mother, and
+who knew Frinton as some people know London, had said that she would go and
+look for him. Mr. Spatt, ever chivalrous, had impulsively offered to
+accompany her. He could indeed do no less. Mrs. Spatt, overwhelmed by the
+tragic sequel to her innocent triumphant, had retired to the first floor.
+
+The wind blew, and it was very dark, as Audrey and her squire passed along
+Third Avenue to the front. They did not converse--they were both too shy,
+too impressed by the peculiarity of the predicament. They simply peered.
+They peered everywhere for the truant form of Musa balanced on one side by
+a bag and on the other by a fiddle case. From the trim houses, each without
+exception new, twinkled discreet lights, with glimpses of surpassingly
+correct domesticity, and the wind rustled loudly through the foliage of the
+prim gardens, ruffling them as it might have ruffled the unwilling hair of
+the daughters of an arch-deacon. Nobody was abroad. Absurd thoughts ran
+through Audrey's head. A letter from Mr. Foulger had followed her to
+Birmingham, and in the letter Mr. Foulger had acquainted her with the fact
+that Great Mexican Oil shares had just risen to £2 3s. apiece. She knew
+that she had 180,000 of them, and now under the thin protection of Mr.
+Spatt she tried to reckon 180,000 times £2 3s. She could not do the sum. At
+any rate she could not be sure that she did it correctly. However, she was
+fairly well convinced beneath the dark, impenetrable sky that the answer
+totalled nearly £400,000, that was, ten million francs. And the
+ridiculousness of an heiress who owned over ten million francs wandering
+about a place like Frinton with a man like Mr. Spatt, searching for another
+man like Musa, struck her as exceeding the bounds of the permissible. She
+considered that she ought to have been in a magnificent drawing-room of her
+own in Park Lane or the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, welcoming counts,
+princes, duchesses, diplomats and self-possessed geniuses of finished
+manners, with witty phrase that displayed familiarity with all that was
+profoundest and most brilliant in European civilisation. Life seemed to be
+disappointing her, and assuredly money was not the thing that she had
+imagined it to be.
+
+She thought:
+
+"If this walking lamp-post does not say something soon I shall scream."
+
+Mr. Spatt said:
+
+"It seems to be blowing up for rain."
+
+She screamed in the silent solitude of Frinton.
+
+"I'm so sorry," she apologised quickly. "I thought I saw something move."
+
+"One does," faltered Mr. Spatt.
+
+They were now in the shopping street, where in the mornings the elect
+encounter each other on expeditions to purchase bridge-markers, chocolate,
+bathing costumes and tennis balls. It was a black and empty canyon through
+which the wind raced.
+
+"He may be down--down on the shore," Mr. Spatt timidly suggested. He seemed
+to be suggesting suicide.
+
+They turned and descended across the Greensward to the shore, which was
+lined with hundreds of bathing huts, each christened with a name, and each
+deserted, for the by-laws of the Frinton Urban District Council judiciously
+forbade that the huts should be used as sleeping-chambers. The tide was
+very low. They walked over the wide flat sands, and came at length to the
+sea's roar, the white tumbling of foamy breakers, and the full force of the
+south-east wind. Across the invisible expanse of water could be discerned
+the beam of a lightship. And Audrey was aware of mysterious sensations such
+as she had not had since she inhabited Flank Hall and used to steal out at
+nights to watch the estuary. And she thought solemnly: "Musa is somewhere
+near, existing." And then she thought: "What a silly thought! Of course he
+is!"
+
+"I see somebody coming!" Mr. Spatt burst out in a dramatic whisper. But the
+precaution of whispering was useless, because the next instant, in spite of
+himself, he loudly sneezed.
+
+And about two hundred yards off on the sands Audrey made out a moving
+figure, which at that distance did in fact seem to have vague appendages
+that might have resembled a bag and a fiddle case. But the atmosphere of
+the night was deceptive, and the figure as it approached resolved itself
+into three figures--a black one in the middle of two white ones. A girl's
+coarse laugh came down the wind. It could not conceivably have been the
+laugh of any girl who went into the shopping street to buy bridge-markers,
+chocolate, bathing costumes or tennis balls. But it might have been--it not
+improbably was--the laugh of some girl whose mission was to sell such
+things. The trio meandered past, heedless. Mr. Spatt said no word, but he
+appreciably winced. The black figure in the midst of the two white ones was
+that of his son Siegfried, reputedly so fond of Debussy. As the group
+receded and faded, a fragment of a music-hall song floated away from it
+into the firmament.
+
+"I'm afraid it's not much use looking any longer," said Mr. Spatt weakly.
+"He--he may have gone back to the house. Let us hope so."
+
+At the chief garden gate of the Spatt residence they came upon Miss
+Nickall, trying to open it. The sling round her arm made her unmistakable.
+And Miss Nickall having allowed them to recover from a pardonable
+astonishment at the sight of her who was supposed to be exhausted and in
+bed, said cheerfully:
+
+"I've found him, and I've put him up at the Excelsior Hotel."
+
+Mrs. Spatt had related the terrible episode to her guest, who had wilfully
+risen at once. Miss Nickall had had luck, but Audrey had to admit that
+these American girls were stupendously equal to an emergency. And she hated
+the angelic Nick for having found Musa.
+
+"We tried first to find a café," said Nick. "But there aren't any in this
+city. What do you call them in England--public-houses, isn't it?"
+
+"No," agreed Mr. Spatt in a shaking voice. "Public-houses are not permitted
+in Frinton, I am glad to say." And he began to form an intention, subject
+to Aurora's approval, to withdraw altogether from the suffrage movement,
+which appeared to him to be getting out of hand.
+
+As they were all separating for the night Audrey and Nick hesitated for a
+moment in front of each other, and then they kissed with a quite unusual
+effusiveness.
+
+"I don't think I've ever really liked her," said Audrey to herself.
+
+What Nick said to herself is lost to history.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+IN THE GARDEN
+
+
+The next morning, after a night spent chiefly in thought, Audrey issued
+forth rather early. Indeed she was probably the first person afoot in the
+house of the Spatts, the parlour-maid entering the hall just as Audrey had
+managed to open the front door. As the parlour-maid was obviously not yet
+in that fullness and spruceness of attire which parlour-maids affect when
+performing their mission in life, Audrey decided to offer no remark,
+explanatory or otherwise, and passed into the garden with nonchalance as
+though her invariable habit when staying in strange houses was to get up
+before anybody else and spy out the whole property while the helpless hosts
+were yet in bed and asleep.
+
+Now it was a magnificent morning: no wind, no cloud, and the sun rising
+over the sea; not a trace of the previous evening's weather. Audrey had not
+been in the leafy street more than a moment when she forgot that she was
+tired and short of sleep, and also very worried by affairs both private and
+public. Her body responded to the sun, and her mind also. She felt almost
+magically healthy, strong and mettlesome, and, further, she began to feel
+happy; she rather blamed herself for this tendency to feel happy, calling
+herself heedless and indifferent. She did not understand what it is to be
+young. She had risen partly because of the futility of bed, but more
+because of a desire to inspect again her own part of the world after the
+unprecedented absence from it.
+
+Frinton was within the borders of her own part of the world, and, though
+she now regarded it with the condescending eyes of a Parisian and Londoner,
+she found pleasure in looking upon it and in recognising old landmarks and
+recent innovations. She saw, on the Greensward separating the promenade
+from the beach, that a rustic seat had been elaborately built by the
+Council round the great trunk of the only tree in Frinton; and she decided
+that there had been questionable changes since her time. And in this way
+she went on. However, the splendour and reality of the sun, making such an
+overwhelming contrast with the insubstantial phenomena of the gloomy night,
+prevented undue cerebral activity. She reflected that Frinton on a dark
+night and Frinton on a bright morning were not like the same place, and she
+left it at that, and gazed at the façade of the Excelsior Hotel, wondering
+for an instant why she should be interested in it, and then looking swiftly
+away.
+
+She had to glance at all the shops, though none of them was open except the
+dairy-shop; and in the shopping street, which had a sunrise at one end and
+the railway station at the other, she lit on the new palatial garage.
+
+"My car may be in there," she thought.
+
+After the manner of most car-owners on tour, she had allowed the chauffeur
+to disappear with the car in the evening where he listed, confident that
+the next morning he and it would reappear cleansed and in good running
+order.
+
+The car was in the garage, almost solitary on a floor of asphalt under a
+glass roof. An untidy youth, with the end of a cigarette clinging to his
+upper lip in a way to suggest that it had clung there throughout the night
+and was the last vestige of a jollification, seemed to be dragging a length
+of hose from a hydrant towards the car, the while his eyes rested on a
+large notice: "Smoking absolutely prohibited. By order."
+
+Then from the other extremity of the garage came a jaunty, dapper,
+quasi-martial figure, in a new grey uniform, with a peaked grey cap, bright
+brown leggings, and bright brown boots to match--the whole highly brushed,
+polished, smooth and glittering. This being pulled out of his pocket a
+superb pair of kid gloves, then a silver cigarette-case, and then a silver
+match-box, and he ignited a cigarette--the unrivalled, wondrous first
+cigarette of the day--casting down the match with a large, free gesture. At
+sight of him the untidy youth grew more active.
+
+"Look 'ere," said the being to the youth, "what the 'ell time did I tell
+you to have that car cleaned by, and you not begun it!"
+
+Pointing to the clock, he lounged magnificently to and fro, spreading smoke
+around the intimidated and now industrious youth. The next second he caught
+sight of Audrey, and transformed himself instantaneously into what she had
+hitherto imagined a chauffeur always was; but in those few moments she had
+learnt that the essence of a chauffeur is godlike, and that he toils not,
+neither does he swab.
+
+"Good morning, madam," in a soft, courtly voice.
+
+"Good morning."
+
+"Were you wanting the car, madam?"
+
+She was not, but the suggestion gave her an idea.
+
+"Can we take it as it is?"
+
+"Yes, madam. I'll just look at the petrol gauge ... But ... I haven't had
+my breakfast, madam."
+
+"What time do you have it?"
+
+"Well, madam, when you have yours."
+
+"That's all right, then. You've got hours yet. I want you to take me to
+Flank Hall."
+
+"Flank Hall, madam?" His tone expressed the fact that his mind was a blank
+as to Flank Hall.
+
+As soon as Audrey had comprehended that the situation of Flank Hall was not
+necessarily known to every chauffeur in England, and that a stay of one
+night in Frinton might not have been enough to familiarise this particular
+one with the geography of the entire district, she replied that she would
+direct him.
+
+They were held up by a train at the railway crossing, and a milk-cart and a
+young pedestrian were also held up. When Audrey identified the pedestrian
+she wished momentarily that she had not set out on the expedition. Then she
+said to herself that really it did not matter, and why should she be
+afraid... etc., etc. The pedestrian was Musa. In French they greeted each
+other stiffly, like distant acquaintances, and the train thundered past.
+
+"I was taking the air, simply, Madame," said Musa, with his ingenuous shy
+smile.
+
+"Take it in my car," said Audrey with a sudden resolve. "In one hour at
+the latest we shall have returned."
+
+She had a great deal to say to him and a great deal to listen to, and there
+could not possibly be any occasion equal to the present, which was ideal.
+
+He got in; the chauffeur manoeuvred to oust the milk-cart from its rightful
+precedence, the gates opened, and the car swung at gathering speed into the
+well-remembered road to Moze. And the two passengers said nothing to each
+other of the slightest import. Musa's escape from Paris was between them;
+the unimaginable episode at the Spatts was between them; the sleepless
+night was between them.  (And had she not saved him by her presence of mind
+from the murderous hand of Mr. Ziegler?) They had a million things to
+impart. And yet naught was uttered save a few banalities about the weather
+and about the healthfulness of being up early. They were bashful,
+constrained, altogether too young and inexperienced. They wanted to behave
+in the grand, social, easeful manner of a celebrated public performer and
+an heiress worth ten million francs. And they could only succeed in being a
+boy and a girl. The chauffeur alone, at from thirty to forty miles an hour,
+was worthy of himself and his high vocation. Both the passengers regretted
+that they had left their beds. Happily the car laughed at the alleged
+distance between Frinton and Moze. In a few minutes, as it seemed, with
+but one false turning, due to the impetuosity of the chauffeur, the vehicle
+drew up before the gates of Flank Hall. Audrey had avoided the village of
+Moze. The passengers descended.
+
+"This is my house," Audrey murmured.
+
+The gates were shut but not locked. They creaked as Audrey pushed against
+them. The drive was covered with a soft film of green, as though it were
+gradually being entombed in the past. The young roses, however, belonged
+emphatically to the present. Dewdrops hung from them like jewels, and their
+odour filled the air. Audrey turned off the main drive towards the garden
+front of the house, which had always been the aspect that she preferred,
+and at the same moment she saw the house windows and the thrilling
+perspective of Mozewater. One of the windows was open. She was glad,
+because this proved that the perfect Aguilar, gardener and caretaker, was
+after all imperfect. It was his crusty perfection that had ever set Audrey,
+and others, against Aguilar. But he had gone to bed and forgotten a
+window--and it was the French window. While, in her suddenly revived
+character of a harsh Essex inhabitant, she was thinking of some sarcastic
+word to say to Aguilar about the window, another window slowly opened from
+within, and Aguilar's head became visible. Once more he had exasperatingly
+proved his perfection. He had not gone to bed and forgotten a window.  But
+he had risen with exemplary earliness to give air to the house.
+
+"'d mornin', miss," mumbled the unsmiling Aguilar, impassively, as though
+Audrey had never been away from Moze.
+
+"Well, Aguilar."
+
+"I didn't expect ye so early, miss."
+
+"But how could you be expecting me at all?"
+
+"Miss Ingate come home yesterday. She said you couldn't be far off, miss."
+
+"Not Miss ... _Mrs._--Moncreiff," said Audrey firmly.
+
+"I beg your pardon, madam," Aguilar responded with absolute
+imperturbability. "She never said nothing about that."
+
+And he proceeded mechanically to the next window.
+
+The yard-dog began to bark. Audrey, ignoring Musa, went round the shrubbery
+towards the kennel. The chained dog continued to bark, furiously, until
+Audrey was within six feet of him, and then he crouched and squirmed and
+gave low whines and his tail wagged with extreme rapidity. Audrey bent
+down, trembling.... She could scarcely see.... There was something about
+the green film on the drive, about the look of the house, about the sheeted
+drawing-room glimpsed through the open window, about the view of
+Mozewater...! She felt acutely and painfully sorry for, and yet envious of,
+the young girl in a plain blue frock who used to haunt the house and the
+garden, and who had somehow made the house and the garden holy for evermore
+by her unhappiness and her longings.... Audrey was crying.... She heard a
+step and stood upright. It was Musa's step.
+
+"I have never seen you so exquisite," said Musa in a murmur subdued and yet
+enthusiastic. All his faculties seemed to be dwelling reflectively upon her
+with passionate appreciation.
+
+They had at last begun to talk, really--he in French, and she partly in
+French and partly in English. It was her tears, or perhaps her gesture in
+trying to master them, that had loosed their tongues. The ancient dog was
+forgotten, and could not understand why. Audrey was excusably startled by
+Musa's words and tone, and by the sudden change in his attitude. She
+thought that his personal distinction at the moment was different from and
+superior to any other in her experience. She had a comfortable feeling of
+condescension towards Nick and towards Jane Foley. And at the same time she
+blamed Musa, perceiving that as usual he was behaving like a child who
+cannot grasp the great fact that life is very serious.
+
+"Yes," she said. "That's all very fine, that is. You pretend this, that,
+and the other. But why are you here?  Why aren't you at work in Paris?
+You've got the chance of a lifetime, and instead of staying at home and
+practising hard and preparing yourself, you come gadding over to England
+simply because there's a bit of money in your pocket!"
+
+She was very young, and in the splendour of the magnificent morning she
+looked the emblem of simplicity; but in her heart she was his mother, his
+sole fount of wisdom and energy and shrewdness.
+
+Pain showed in his sensitive features, and then appeal, and then a hot
+determination.
+
+"I came because I could not work," he said.
+
+"Because you couldn't work? Why couldn't you work?" There was no yielding
+in her hard voice.
+
+"I don't know! I don't know! I suppose it is because you are not there,
+because you have made yourself necessary to me; or," he corrected quickly,
+"because _I_ have made you necessary to myself. Oh! I can practise for so
+many hours per day. But it is useless. It is not authentic practice. I
+think not of the music. It is as if some other person was playing, with my
+arm, on my violin. I am not there. I am with you, where you are. It is the
+same day after day, every day, every day. I am done for. I am convinced
+that I am done for. These concerts will infallibly be my ruin, and I shall
+be shamed before all Paris."
+
+"And did you come to England to tell me this?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She was relieved, for she had thought of another explanation of his
+escapade, and had that explanation proved to be the true one, she was very
+ready to make unpleasantness to the best of her ability. Nevertheless,
+though relieved in one direction, she was gravely worried in another. She
+had undertaken the job of setting Musa grandiosely on his artistic career,
+and the difficulties of it were growing more and more complex and
+redoubtable.
+
+She said:
+
+"But you seemed so jolly when you arrived last night. Nobody would have
+guessed you had a care in the world."
+
+"I had not," he replied eagerly, "as soon as I saw you. The surprise of
+seeing you--it was that.... And you left Paris without saying good-bye! Why
+did you leave Paris without saying good-bye? Never since the moment when I
+learnt that you had gone have I had the soul to practise. My violin became
+a wooden box; my fingers, too, were of wood."
+
+He stopped. The dog sniffed round.
+
+Audrey was melting in bliss. She could feel herself dissolving. Her
+pleasure was terrible. It was true that she had left Paris without saying
+good-bye to Musa. She had done it on purpose. Why? She did not know.
+Perhaps out of naughtiness, perhaps.... She was aware that she could be
+hard, like her father. But she was glad, intensely glad, that she had left
+Paris so, because the result had been this avowal. She, Audrey, little
+Audrey, scarcely yet convinced that she was grown up, was necessary to the
+genius whom all the Quarter worshipped! Miss Thompkins was not necessary to
+him, Miss Nickall was not necessary to him, though both had helped to
+provide the means to keep him alive. She herself alone was necessary to
+him. And she had not guessed it. She had not even hoped for it. The effect
+of her personality upon Musa was mysterious--she did not affect to
+understand it--but it was obviously real and it was vital. If anything in
+the world could surpass the pleasure, her pride surpassed it. All tears
+were forgotten. She was the proudest young woman in the world; and she was
+the wisest, and the most harassed, too. But the anxieties were delicious to
+her.
+
+"I am essential to him," she thought ecstatically. "I stand between him and
+disaster. When he has succeeded his success will be my work and nobody
+else's. I have a mission. I must live for it.... If anyone had told me a
+year ago that a great French genius would be absolutely dependent upon me,
+and that I meant for him all the difference between failure and triumph, I
+should have laughed.... And yet!..." She looked at him surreptitiously.
+"He's an angel. But he's also a baby." The feelings of motherhood were as
+naught compared to hers.
+
+Then she remarked harshly, icily:
+
+"Well, I shall be much obliged if you will go back to Paris at
+once--to-day. _Somebody_ must have a little sense."
+
+Just at this point Aguilar interrupted. He came slouching round the corner
+of the clipped bushes, untidy, shabby, implacable, with some set purpose in
+his hard blue eyes. She could have annihilated him with satisfaction, but
+the fellow was indestructible as well as implacable.
+
+"Could I have a word with ye, madam?" he mumbled, putting on his well-known
+air of chicane.
+
+With the unexplained Musa close by her she could not answer: "Wait a
+little. I'm engaged." She had to be careful. She had to make out especially
+that she and the young man were up to nothing in particular, nothing that
+had the slightest importance.
+
+"What is it, Aguilar?" she questioned, inimically.
+
+"It's down here," said Aguilar, who recked not of the implications of a
+tone. And by the mere force of his glance he drew his mistress away, out of
+sight of Musa and the dog.
+
+"Is that your motor-car at the gates, madam?" he demanded gloomily and
+confidentially, his gaze now fixed on the ground or on his patched boots.
+
+"Of course it is," said Audrey. "Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"That's all right then," said he. "But I thought it might belong to another
+person, and I had to make sure. Now if ye'll just step along a bit
+farther, I've a little thing as I want to point out to ye, madam. It's my
+duty to point it out, let others say _what_ they will."
+
+He walked ahead doggedly, and Audrey crossly came after, until they arrived
+nearly at the end of the hedge which, separating the upper from the lower
+garden, hid from those immediately behind it all view of the estuary.
+Here, still sheltered by the hedge, he stopped and Audrey stopped, and
+Aguilar absently plucked up a young plantain from the turf and dropped it
+into his pocket.
+
+"There's been a man a-hanging round this place since yesterday mornin',"
+said Aguilar intimately. "I call him a suspicious character--at least, I
+_did_, till last night. He ain't slept in the village, that I do know, but
+he's about again this morning."
+
+"Well," said Audrey with impatience. "Why don't you tell Inspector Keeble?
+Or have you quarrelled with Inspector Keeble again?"
+
+"It's not that as would ha' stopped me from acquainting Inspector Keeble
+with the circumstances if I thought it my duty so to do," replied Aguilar.
+"But the fact is I saw the chap talking to Inspector Keeble yesterday
+evening. He don't know as I saw him. It was that as made me think; now is
+he a suspicious character or ain't he? Of course Keeble's a rare
+simple-minded 'un, as we all know."
+
+"And what do you want me to do?"
+
+"I thought you might like to have a look at him yeself, madam. And if
+you'll just peep round the end of this hedge casual-like, ye'll see him
+walking across the salting from Lousey Hard. He's a-comin' this way.
+Casual-like now--and he won't see ye."
+
+Audrey had to obey. She peeped casual-like, and she did in fact see a man
+on the salting, and this man was getting nearer. She could see him very
+plainly in the brilliant clearness of the summer morning. After the
+shortest instant of hesitation she recognised him beyond any doubt. It was
+the detective who had been so plenteously baptised by Susan Foley in the
+area of the house at Paget Gardens. Aguilar looked at Audrey, and Audrey
+annoyed herself somewhat by blushing. However, an agreeable elation quickly
+overcame the blush.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+ENCOUNTER
+
+
+"Good morning," Audrey cried, very gaily, to the still advancing detective,
+who, after the slightest hesitation in the world, responded gaily:
+
+"Good morning."
+
+The man's accent struck her. She said to herself, with amusement:
+
+"He's Irish!"
+
+Audrey had left the astonished but dispassionate gardener at the hedge, and
+was now emerging from the scanty and dishevelled plantation close to the
+boundary wall of the estate. She supposed that the police must have been on
+her track and on the track of Jane Foley, and that by some mysterious skill
+they had hunted her down. But she did not care. She was not in the least
+afraid. The sudden vision of a jail did not affright her. On the contrary
+her chief sensation was one of joyous self-confidence, which sensation had
+been produced in her by the remarks and the attitude of Musa. She had
+always known that she was both shy and adventurous, and that the two
+qualities were mutually contradictory; but now it appeared to her that
+diffidence had been destroyed, and that that change which she had ever
+longed for in her constitution had at least really come to pass.
+
+"You don't seem very surprised to see me," said Audrey.
+
+"Well, madam," said the detective, "I'm not paid to be surprised--in my
+business."
+
+He had raised his hat. He was standing on the dyke, and from that height he
+looked somewhat down upon Audrey leaning against the wall. The watercourse
+and the strip of eternally emerald-green grass separated them. Though
+neither tall nor particularly handsome, he was a personable man, with a
+ready smile and alert, agile movements. Audrey was too far off to judge of
+his eyes, but she was quite sure that they twinkled. The contrast between
+this smart, cheerful fellow and the half-drowned victim in the area of the
+house in Paget Gardens was quite acute.
+
+"Now I've a good mind to hold a meeting for your benefit," said Audrey,
+striving to recall the proper phrases of propaganda which she had heard in
+the proper quarters in London during her brief connection with the cause.
+However, she could not recall them, "But there's no need to," she added. "A
+gentleman of your intelligence must be of our way of thinking."
+
+"About what?"
+
+"About the vote, of course. And so your conduct is all the more shocking."
+
+"Why!" he exclaimed, laughing. "If it comes to that, your own sex is
+against you."
+
+Audrey had heard this argument before, and it had the same effect on her as
+on most other stalwarts of the new political creed. It annoyed her, because
+there was something in it.
+
+"The vast majority of women are with us," said she.
+
+"My wife isn't."
+
+"But your wife isn't the vast majority of women," Audrey protested.
+
+"Oh yes, she is," said the detective, "so far as I'm concerned. Every wife
+is, so far as her husband is concerned. Sure, you ought to know that!" In
+his Irish way he doubled the "r" of the word "sure," and somehow this trick
+made Audrey like him still more. "My wife believes," he concluded, "that
+woman's sphere is the home."
+
+("His wife is stout," Audrey decided within herself, on no grounds
+whatever. "If she wasn't, she couldn't be a vast majority.")
+
+Aloud she said:
+
+"Well, then, why can't you leave them alone in their sphere, instead of
+worrying them and spying on them down areas?"
+
+"D'ye mean at Paget Gardens?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Oh!" he laughed. "That wasn't professional--if you'll excuse me being so
+frank. That was just due to human admiration. It's not illegal to admire a
+young woman, I suppose, even if she is a suffragette."
+
+"What young woman are you talking about?"
+
+"Miss Susan Foley, of course. I won't tell you what I think of her, in
+spite of all she did, because I've learnt that it's a mistake to praise one
+woman to another. But I don't mind admitting that her going off to the
+north has made me life a blank. If I'd thought she'd go, I should never
+have reported the affair at the Yard. But I was annoyed, and I'm rather
+hasty." He paused, and ended reflectively: "I committed follies to get a
+word with the young lady, and I didn't get it, but I'd do the same again."
+
+"And you a married man!" Audrey burst out, startled, and diverted, at the
+explanation, but at the same time outraged by a confession so cynical.
+
+The detective pulled a silky moustache.
+
+"When a wife is very strongly convinced that her sphere is the home," he
+retorted slowly and seriously, "you're tempted at times to let her have the
+sphere all to herself. That's the universal experience of married men, and
+ye may believe me, miss--madam."
+
+Audrey said:
+
+"And now Miss Foley's gone north, you've decided to come and admire _me_ in
+_my_ home!"
+
+"So it is your home!" murmured the detective with an uncontrolled quickness
+which wakened Audrey's old suspicions afresh--and which created a new
+suspicion, the suspicion that the fellow was simply playing with her. "I
+assure you I came here to recover; I'd heard it was the finest climate in
+England."
+
+"Recover?"
+
+"Yes, from fire-extinguishers. D'ye know I coughed for twenty-four hours
+after that reception?... And you should have seen my clothes! The doctor
+says my lungs may never get over it.... That's what comes of admiration."
+
+"It's what comes of behaving as no married man ought to behave."
+
+"Did I say I was married?" asked the detective with an ingenuous air.
+"Well, I may be. But I dare say I'm only married just about as much as you
+are yourself, madam."
+
+Upon this remark he raised his hat and departed along the grassy summit of
+the sea-wall.
+
+Audrey flushed for the second time that morning, and more strikingly than
+before. She was extremely discontented with, and ashamed of, herself, for
+she had meant to be the equal of the detective, and she had not been. It
+was blazingly clear that he had indeed played with her--or, as she put it
+in her own mind: "He just stuffed me up all through."
+
+She tried to think logically. Had he been pursuing the motor-car all the
+way from Birmingham? Obviously he had not, since according to Aguilar he
+had been in the vicinity of Moze since the previous morning. Hence he did
+not know that Audrey was involved in the Blue City affair, and he did not
+know that Jane Foley was at Frinton. How he had learnt that Audrey belonged
+to Moze, and why and what he had come to investigate at Moze, she could not
+guess. Nor did these problems appear to her to have an importance at all
+equal to the importance of hiding from the detective that she had been
+staying at Frinton. If he followed her to Frinton he would inevitably
+discover that Jane Foley was at Frinton, and the sequel would be more
+imprisonment for Jane. Therefore Audrey must not return to Frinton. Having
+by a masterly process of ratiocination reached this conclusion, she began
+to think rather better of herself, and ceased blushing.
+
+"Aguilar," she demanded excitedly, having gone back through the plantation.
+"Did Miss Ingate happen to say where I was staying last night?"
+
+"No, madam."
+
+"I must run into the house and write a note to her, and you must take it
+down instantly." In her mind she framed the note, which was to condemn Miss
+Ingate to the torture of complete and everlasting silence about the episode
+at the Blue City and the flight eastwards.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+FLIGHT
+
+
+"Fast, madam, did you say?" asked the chauffeur, bending his head back from
+the wheel as the car left the gates of Flank Hall.
+
+"Fast."
+
+"The Colchester road?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's really just as quick to take the Frinton road for Colchester--it's so
+much straighter."
+
+"No, no, no! On no account. Don't go near Frinton."
+
+Audrey leaned back in the car. And as speed increased the magnificence of
+the morning again had its effect on her. The adventure pleased her far more
+than the perils of it, either for herself or for other people, frightened
+her. She knew that she was doing a very strange thing in thus leaving the
+Spatts and her luggage without a word of explanation before breakfast; but
+she did not care. She knew that for some reason which she did not
+comprehend the police were after her, as they had been after nearly all the
+great ones of the movement; but she did not care. She was alive in the
+rushing car amid the magnificence of the morning. Musa sat next to her. She
+had more or less incompletely explained the situation to him--it was not
+necessary to tell everything to a boy who depended upon you absolutely for
+his highest welfare--such boys must accept, thankfully, what they received.
+And Musa had indeed done so. He appeared to be quite happy and without
+anxieties. That was the worst He had wanted to be with her, and he was with
+her, and he cared for nothing else. He had no interest in what might happen
+next. He yielded himself utterly to the enjoyment of her presence and of the
+magnificent morning.
+
+And yet Musa, whom Audrey considered that she understood as profoundly as
+any mother had ever understood any child--even Musa could surprise.
+
+He said, without any preparation:
+
+"I calculate that I shall have 3,040 francs in hand after the concerts,
+assuming that I receive only the minimum. That is, after paying the
+expenses of my living."
+
+"But do you know how much it costs you to live?" Audrey demanded, with
+careless superiority.
+
+"Assuredly. I write all my payments down in a little book. I have done so
+since some years."
+
+"Every sou?"
+
+"Yes. Every sou."
+
+"But do you save, Musa?"
+
+"Save!" he repeated the word ingenuously. "Till now to save has been
+impossible for me. But I have always kept in hand one month's subsistence.
+I could not do more. Now I shall save. You reproached me with having spent
+money in order to come to see you in England. But I regarded the money so
+spent as part of the finance of the concerts. Without seeing you I could
+not practise. Without practice I could not play. Without playing I could
+not earn money. Therefore I spent money in order to get money. Such,
+Madame, was the commercial side. What a beautiful lawn for tennis you have
+in your garden!"
+
+Audrey was more than surprised, she was staggered by the revelation of the
+attitude of genius towards money. She had not suspected it. Then she
+remembered the simple natural tome in which Musa had once told her that
+both Tommy and Nick contributed to his income. She ought to have
+comprehended from that avowal more than she, in fact, had comprehended. And
+now the first hopes of worldly success were strongly developing that
+unsuspected trait in the young man's character. Audrey was aware of a great
+fear. Could he be a genius, after all? Was it conceivable that an authentic
+musical genius should enter up daily in a little book every sou he spent?
+
+A rapid, spitting, explosive sound, close behind the car and a little to
+the right, took her mind away from Musa and back to the adventure. She
+looked round, half expecting what she should see--and she saw it, namely,
+the detective on a motor-cycle. It was an "Indian" machine and painted red.
+And as she looked, the car, after taking a corner, got into a straight bit
+of the splendid road and the motor-bicycle dropped away from it.
+
+"Can't you shake off that motor-bicycle thing?" Audrey rather
+superciliously asked the chauffeur.
+
+Having first looked at his mirror, the chauffeur, who, like a horse, could
+see in two directions at once, gazed cautiously at the road in front and at
+the motor-bicycle behind, simultaneously.
+
+"I doubt it, madam," he said. And yet his tone and glance expressed deep
+scorn of the motor-bicycle. "As a general rule you can't."
+
+"I should have thought you could beat a little thing like that," said
+Audrey.
+
+"Them things can do sixty when they've a mind to," said the chauffeur, with
+finality, and gave all his attention to the road.
+
+At intervals he looked at his mirror. The motor-bicycle had vanished into
+the past, and as it failed to reappear he gradually grew confident and
+disdainful. But just as the car was going down the short hill into the
+outskirts of Colchester the motor-bicycle came into view once more.
+
+"Where to, madam?" inquired the chauffeur.
+
+"This is Colchester, isn't it?" she demanded nervously, though she knew
+perfectly well that it was Colchester.
+
+"Yes, madam."
+
+"Straight through! Straight through!"
+
+"The London road?"
+
+"Yes. The London road," she agreed. London was, of course, the only
+possible destination.
+
+"But breakfast, madam?"
+
+"Oh! The usual thing," said Audrey. "You'll have yours when I have mine."
+
+"But we shall run out of petrol, madam."
+
+"Never mind," said Audrey sublimely.
+
+The chauffeur, with characteristic skill, arranged that the car should run
+out of petrol precisely in front of the best hotel in Chelmsford, which was
+about half-way to London. The motor-bicycle had not been seen for several
+miles. But scarcely had they resumed the journey, by the Epping road, when
+it came again into view--in front of them. How had the fellow guessed that
+they would take the longer Epping road instead of the shorter Romford road?
+
+"When shall we be arriving in Frinton?" Musa inquired, beatific.
+
+"We shan't be arriving in Frinton any more," said Audrey. "We must go
+straight to London."
+
+"It is like a dream," Musa murmured, as it were in ecstasy. Then his
+features changed and he almost screamed: "But my violin! My violin! We must
+go back for it."
+
+"Violin!" said Audrey. "That's nothing! I've even come without gloves." And
+she had.
+
+She reassured Musa as to the violin, and the chauffeur as to the abandoned
+Gladstone bag containing the chauffeur's personal effects, and herself as
+to many things. An hour and twenty minutes later the car, with three people
+in it, thickly dusted even to the eyebrows, drew up in the courtyard of
+Charing Cross railway station, and the motor-cycle was visible, its glaring
+red somewhat paled, in the Strand outside. The time was ten-fifteen.
+
+"We shall take the eleven o'clock boat train for Paris," she said to Musa.
+
+"You also?"
+
+She nodded. He was in heaven. He could even do without his violin.
+
+"How nice it is not to be bothered with luggage," she said.
+
+The chauffeur was pacified with money, of which Audrey had a sufficiency.
+
+And all the time Audrey kept saying to herself:
+
+"I'm not going to Paris to please Musa, so don't let him think it! I'm only
+going so as to put the detective off and keep Jane Foley out of his
+clutches, because if I stay in London he'll be bound to find everything
+out."
+
+While Musa kept watch for the detective at the door of the telegraph office
+Audrey telegraphed, as laconically as possible, to Frinton concerning
+clothes and the violin, and then they descended to subterranean marble
+chambers in order to get rid of dust, and they came up to earth again, each
+out of a separate cellar, renewed. And, lastly, Audrey slipped into the
+Strand and bought a pair of gloves, and thereafter felt herself to be
+completely equipped against the world's gaze.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+ARIADNE
+
+
+A few days later an automobile--not Audrey's but a large limousine--bumped,
+with slow and soft dignity, across the railway lines which diversify the
+quays of Boulogne harbour and, having hooted in a peculiar manner, came to
+a stop opposite nothing in particular.
+
+"Here we are," said Mr. Gilman, reaching to open the door. "You can see her
+masthead light."
+
+It was getting dark. Behind, over the station, a very faint flush lightened
+the west, and in front, across the water, and reflected in the water, the
+thousand lamps of the town rose in tiers to the lofty church which stood
+out a dark mass against the summer sky. On the quays the forms of men moved
+vaguely among crates and packages, and on the water, tugs and boats flitted
+about, puffing, or with the plash of oars, or with no sound whatever. And
+from the distance arrived the reverberation of electric trams running their
+courses in the maze of the town.
+
+Madame Piriac and Audrey descended, after Mr. Gilman, from the car and Mr.
+Gilman turned off the electric light in the interior and shut the door.
+
+"Do not trouble about the luggage, I beg you," said Mr. Gilman, breathing,
+as usual, rather noticeably. "_Bon soir_, Leroux. Don't forget to meet the
+nine-thirty-five." This last to the white-clad chauffeur, who saluted
+sharply.
+
+At the same moment two sailors appeared over the edge of the quay, and a
+Maltese cross of light burst into radiance at the end of a sloping gangway,
+whose summit was just perched on the solid masonry of the port. The sailors
+were clothed in blue, with white caps, and on their breasts they bore the
+white-embroidered sign: "_Ariadne, R.T.Y.C._"
+
+"Look lively, lads, with the luggage," said Mr. Gilman.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Then another figure appeared under the Maltese cross. It was clad in white
+ducks, with a blue reefer ornamented in gold, and a yachting cap crowned in
+white: a stoutish and middle-aged figure, much like Mr. Gilman himself in
+bearing and costume, except that Mr. Gilman had no gold on his jacket.
+
+"Well, skipper!" greeted Mr. Gilman, jauntily and spryly. In one moment, in
+one second, Mr. Gilman had grown at least twenty years younger.
+
+"Captain Wyatt," he presented the skipper to the ladies. "And this is Mr.
+Price, my secretary, and Doctor Cromarty," as two youths, clothed exactly
+to match Mr. Gilman, followed the skipper up the steep incline of the
+gangway.
+
+And now Audrey could see the _Ariadne_ lying below, for it was only just
+past low water and the tide was scarcely making. At the next berth higher
+up, with lights gleaming at her innumerable portholes and two cranes hard
+at work producing a mighty racket on her, lay a Channel steamer, which, by
+comparison with the yacht, loomed enormous, like an Atlantic liner. Indeed,
+the yacht seemed a very little and a very lowly and a very flimsy flotation
+on the dark water, and her illuminated deck-house was no better than a toy.
+On the other hand, her two masts rose out of the deep high overhead and had
+a certain impressiveness, though not quite enough.
+
+Audrey thought:
+
+"Is this what we're going on? I thought it was a big yacht." And she had a
+qualm.
+
+And then a bell rang twice, extremely sweet and mellow, somewhere on the
+yacht. And Audrey was touched by the beauty of its tone.
+
+"Two bells. Nine o'clock," said Mr. Gilman. "Will you come aboard? I'll
+show you the way." He tripped down the gangway like a boy. Behind could be
+heard the sailors giving one another directions about the true method of
+handling luggage.
+
+Audrey had met Madame Piriac by sheer hazard in a corset shop in the Rue de
+la Chaussée-d'Antin. The fugitive from justice had been obliged, in the
+matter of wardrobe, to begin life again on her arrival trunkless in Paris,
+and the business of doing so was not disagreeable. Madame Piriac had
+greeted her with most affectionate warmth. One of her first suggestions had
+been that Audrey should accompany her on a short yachting trip projected by
+Mr. Gilman. She had said that though the excellent Gilman was her uncle,
+and her adored uncle, he was not her real uncle, and that therefore, of
+course, she was incapable of going unaccompanied, though she would hate to
+disappoint the dear man. As for Monsieur Piriac, the destiny of France was
+in his hands, and the moment being somewhat critical, he would not quit the
+Ministry of Foreign Affairs without leaving a fixed telegraphic address.
+
+On the next day Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac had called on Audrey at the
+HĂ´tel du Danube, and the invitation became formal. It was pressing and
+flattering. Why refuse it? Mr. Gilman was obviously prepared to be her
+slave. She accepted, with enthusiasm. And she said to herself that in doing
+so she was putting yet another spoke in the wheel of the British police.
+Immediately afterwards she learnt that Musa also had been asked. Madame
+Piriac informed her, in reply to a sort of protest, that Musa's first
+concert was postponed by the concert agency until the autumn. "I never
+heard of that!" Audrey had cried. "And why should you have heard of it?
+Have you not been in England?" Madame Piriac had answered, a little
+surprised at Audrey's tone. Whereupon Audrey had said naught. The chief
+point was that Musa could take a holiday without detriment to his career.
+Moreover, Mr. Gilman, who possessed everything, possessed a marvellous
+violin, which he would put at the disposal of Musa on the yacht if Musa's
+own violin had not been found in the meantime. The official story was that
+Musa's violin had been mislaid or lost on the MĂ©tropolitain Railway, and
+the fact that he had been to England somehow did not transpire at all.
+
+Mr. Gilman had gone forward in advance to make sure that his yacht was in a
+state worthy to receive two such ladies, and he had insisted on meeting
+them in his car at Abbeville on the way to Boulogne. He had not insisted on
+meeting Musa similarly. He was a peculiar and in some respects a
+stiff-necked man. He had decided, in his own mind, that he would have the
+two women to himself in the car, and so indeed it fell out. Nevertheless
+his attitude to Musa, and Madame Piriac's attitude to Musa, and everybody's
+attitude to Musa, had shown that the mere prospect of star-concerts in a
+first-class hall had very quickly transformed Musa into a genuine Parisian
+lion. He was positively courted. His presence on the yacht was deemed an
+honour, and that was why Mr. Gilman had asked him. Audrey both resented the
+remarkable change and was proud of it--as a mother perhaps naturally would
+do and be. The admitted genius was to arrive the next morning.
+
+On boarding the _Ariadne_ in the wake of Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac, the
+first thing that impressed Audrey was the long gangway itself. It was made
+of thin resilient steel, and the handrails were of soft white rope, almost
+like silk, and finished off with fancy knots; and at the beginning of the
+gangway, on the dirty quay, lay a beautiful mat bearing the name of the
+goddess, while at the end, on the pale, smooth deck, was another similar
+mat. The obvious costliness of that gangway and those superlative mats made
+Audrey feel poor, in spite of her ten million francs. And the next thing
+that impressed her was that immediately she got down on deck the yacht, in
+a very mysterious manner, had grown larger, and much larger. At the forward
+extremity of the deck certain blue figures lounging about seemed to be
+quite a long way off, indeed in another world. Here and there on the deck
+were circles of yellow or white rope, coiled as precisely and perfectly as
+Audrey could coil her own hair. Mr. Gilman led them to the door of the
+deck-house and they gazed within. The sight of the interior drew out of the
+ravished Audrey an ecstatic exclamation: "What a darling!" And at the words
+she saw that Mr. Gilman, for all his assumed nonchalant spryness, almost
+trembled with pleasure. The deck-house was a drawing-room whose walls were
+of carved and inlaid wood. Orange-shaded electric bulbs hung on short, silk
+cords from the ceiling, and flowers in sconces showed brilliantly between
+the windows, which were draped with curtains of silk matching the thick
+carpet. Several lounge chairs and a table of bird's-eye maple completed the
+place, and over the table were scattered newspapers and illustrated
+weeklies. Everything, except the literature, was somewhat diminished in
+size, but the smallness of the scale only intensified the pleasure derived
+from the spectacle.
+
+Then they went "downstairs," as Audrey said; but Mr. Gilman corrected her
+and said "below," whereupon Audrey retorted that she should call it the
+"ground floor," and Mr. Gilman laughed as she had never heard a man of his
+age laugh. The sight of the ground floor still further increased Audrey's
+notion of the dimensions of the yacht, whose corridors and compartments
+appeared to stretch away endlessly in two directions. At the foot of the
+curving staircase Mr. Gilman, pulling aside a curtain, announced: "This is
+the saloon." When she heard the word Audrey expected a poky cubicle, but
+found a vast drawing-room with more books than she had ever seen in any
+other drawing-room, many pictures, an open piano, with music on it; sofas
+in every quarter, and about a thousand cupboards and drawers, each with a
+silver knob or handle. Above all was a dome of multi-coloured glass, and
+exactly beneath the dome a table set for supper, with the finest napery,
+cutlery and crystal. The apartment was dazzlingly lighted, and yet not a
+single lamp could be detected in the act of illumination. A real
+parlourmaid suddenly appeared at the far end of the room, and behind her
+two stewards in gilt-buttoned white Eton jackets and black trousers. Mr.
+Gilman, with seriousness, bade the parlourmaid take charge of the ladies
+and show them the sleeping-cabins.
+
+"Choose any cabins you like," said he, as Madame Piriac and Audrey rustled
+off.
+
+There might have been hundreds of sleeping-cabins. And there did, in fact,
+appear to be quite a number of them, to say nothing of two bathrooms. They
+inspected all of them save one, which was locked. In an awed voice the
+parlourmaid said, "That is the owner's cabin." At another door she said, in
+a different, disdainful voice, "That only leads to the galley and the
+crew's quarters." Audrey wondered what a galley could be, and the mystery
+of that name, and the mystery of the two closed doors, merely made the
+whole yacht perfect. The sleeping-cabins surpassed all else--they were so
+compact, so complex, so utterly complete. No large bedchamber, within
+Audrey's knowledge, held so much apparatus, and offered so much comfort and
+so much wardrobe room as even the least of these cabins. It was impossible,
+to be sure, that in one's amused researches one had not missed a cupboard
+ingeniously disguised somewhere. And the multiplicity of mirrors, and the
+message of the laconic monosyllable "Hot" on silver taps, and the
+discretion of the lighting, all indicated that the architect and creator of
+these marvellous microcosms had "understood." The cosy virtue of
+littleness, and the entire absurdity of space for the sake of space, were
+strikingly proved, and the demonstration amounted, in Audrey's mind, to a
+new and delicious discovery.
+
+The largest of the cabins had two berths at right angles to one another,
+each a lovely little bed with a running screen of cashmere. Having admired
+it once, they returned to it.
+
+"Do you know, my dear," said Madame Piriac in French, "I have an idea. You
+will tell me if it is not good.... If we shared this cabin...! In this so
+curious machine one feels a satisfaction, somehow, in being very near the
+one to the other. The ceiling is so low.... That gives you
+sensations--human sensations.... I know not if you experience the same...."
+
+"Oh! Let's!" Audrey exclaimed impulsively in English. "Do let's!"
+
+When the parlourmaid had gone, and before the luggage had come down, Madame
+Piriac caught Audrey to her and kissed her fervently on both cheeks, amid
+the glinting confusion of polished woods and draperies and silver mountings
+and bevelled glass.
+
+"I am so content that you came, my little one!" murmured Madame Piriac.
+
+The next minute the cabin and the corridor outside were full of open trunks
+and bags, over which bent the forms of Madame Piriac, Audrey and the
+parlourmaid. And all the drawers were gaping, and the doors of all the
+cupboards swinging, and the narrow beds were hidden under piles of
+variegated garments. And while they were engaged in the breathless business
+of installing themselves in the celestial domain, strange new thoughts
+flitted about like mice in Audrey's head. She felt as though she were in a
+refuge from the world, and as though her conscience was being narcotised.
+In that cabin, firm as solid land and yet floating on the water, with Mr.
+Gilman at hand her absolute slave--in that cabin the propaganda of women's
+suffrage presented itself as a very odd and very remote phenomenon, a
+phenomenon scarcely real. She had positively everything she wanted without
+fighting for it. The lion's share of life was hers. Comfort and luxury were
+desirable and beautiful things, not to be cast aside nor scorned. Madame
+Piriac was a wise woman and a good woman. She was a happy woman.... There
+was a great deal of ugliness in sitting on Joy Wheels and being chased by
+policemen. True, as she had heard, a crew of nineteen human beings was
+necessary to the existence of Mr. Gilman and his guests on board the yacht.
+Well, what then? The nineteen were undoubtedly well treated and in clover.
+And the world was the world; you had to take it as you found it.... And
+then in her mind she had a glimpse of the blissful face of Jane
+Foley--blissful in a different way from any other face she had met in all
+her life. Disconcerting, this glimpse, for an instant, but only for an
+instant! She, Audrey, was blissful, too. The intense desire for joy and
+pleasure surged up in her.... The bell which she had previously heard
+struck three; its delicate note vibrated long through the yacht, unwilling
+to expire. Half-past nine, and supper and the chivalry of Mr. Gilman
+waiting for them in the elegance of the saloon!
+
+As the two women approached the _portière_ which screened the forward
+entrance to the saloon, they heard Mr. Gilman say, in a weary and resigned
+voice:
+
+"Well, I suppose there's nothing better than a whisky and soda."
+
+And the vivacious reply of a steward:
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+The owner was lounging in a corner, with a gloomy, bored look on his face.
+But as soon as the _portière_ stirred and he saw the smiles of Madame
+Piriac and Audrey upon him, his whole demeanour changed in an instant. He
+sprang up, laughed, furtively smoothed his waistcoat, and managed to convey
+the general idea that he had a keen interest in life, and that the keenest
+part of that interest was due to a profound instinctive desire to serve
+these two beautiful benefactors of mankind--the idea apparently being that
+the charming creatures had conferred a favour on the human race by
+consenting to exist. He cooed round them, he offered them cushions, he
+inquired after their physical condition, he expressed his fear lest the
+cabins had not contained every convenience that caprice might expect. He
+was excited; surely he was happy! Audrey persuaded herself that this must,
+after all, be his true normal condition while aboard the yacht, and that
+the ennui visible on his features a moment earlier could only have been
+transient and accidental.
+
+"I am sure the piano is as wonderful as all else on board," said Madame
+Piriac.
+
+"Do play!" he entreated. "I love to hear music here. My secretary plays
+for me when I am alone."
+
+"I, who do not adore music!" Madame Piriac protested against the
+invitation. But she sat down on the clamped music stool and began a waltz.
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Gilman, dropping into a seat by Audrey. "I wish I danced!"
+
+"But you don't mean to say you don't," said Audrey, with fascination. She
+felt that she could fascinate him, and that it was her duty to fascinate
+him.
+
+Mr. Gilman responded to the challenge.
+
+"I suppose I do," he said modestly. "We must have a dance on deck one
+night. I'll tell my secretary to get the gramophone into order. I have a
+pretty good one."
+
+"How lovely!" Audrey agreed. "I do think the _Ariadne's_ the most heavenly
+thing, Mr. Gilman! I'd no idea what a yacht was! I hope you'll tell me the
+proper names for all the various parts--you know what I mean. I hate to
+use the wrong words. It's not polite on a yacht, is it?"
+
+His smile was entranced.
+
+"You and I will go round by ourselves to-morrow morning, Mrs. Moncreiff,"
+he said.
+
+Just then the steward appeared with the whisky and soda, but Mr. Gilman
+dismissed him with a sharp gesture, and he vanished back into the
+unexplored parts of the vessel. The implication was that the society of
+Audrey made whisky and soda a superfluity for Mr. Gilman. Although she was
+so young, he treated her with exactly the same deference as he lavished on
+Madame Piriac, indeed with perhaps a little more. If Madame Piriac was for
+him the incarnation of sweetness and balm and majesty, so also was Audrey,
+and Audrey had the advantage of novelty. She was growing, morally, every
+minute. The confession of Musa had filled her with a good notion of
+herself. The impulsive flattery of Madame Piriac in the joint cabin, and
+now the sincere, grave homage of Mr. Gilman, caused her to brim over with
+consciousness that she was at last somebody.
+
+An automobile hooted on the quay, and at the disturbing sound Madame Piriac
+ceased to play and swung round on the stool.
+
+"That--that must be our other lady guest," said Mr. Gilman, who had
+developed nervousness; his cheeks flushed darkly.
+
+"Ah?" cautiously smiled Madame Piriac, who was plainly taken aback.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Gilman. "Miss Thompkins. Before I knew for certain that
+Mrs. Moncreiff could come with you, Hortense, I asked Miss Thompkins if she
+would care to come. I only got her answer this morning--it was delayed. I
+meant to tell you.... You are a friend of Miss Thompkins, aren't you?" He
+turned to Audrey.
+
+Audrey replied gaily that she knew Tommy very well.
+
+"I'd better go up," said Mr. Gilman, and he departed, and his back, though
+a nervous back, seemed to be defying Madame Piriac and Audrey to question
+in the slightest degree his absolute right to choose his own guests on his
+own yacht.
+
+"Strange man!" muttered Madame Piriac. It was a confidence to Audrey, who
+eagerly accepted it as such. "Imagine him inviting Mees Thompkins without
+a word to us, without a word! But, you know, my dear uncle was always
+bizarre, mysterious. Yet--is he mysterious, or is he ingenuous?"
+
+"But how did he come to know Miss Thompkins?" Audrey demanded.
+
+"Ah! You have not heard that? Miss Thompkins gave a--a musical tea in her
+studio, to celebrate these concerts which are to occur. Musa asked the Foas
+to come. They consented. It was understood they should bring friends. Thus
+I went also, and Monsieur Gilman being at my orders that afternoon, he went
+too. Never have I seen so strange a multitude! But it was amusing. And all
+Paris has begun to talk of Musa. Miss Thompkins and my uncle became friends
+on the instant. I assume that it was her eyes. Also those Americans have
+vivacity, if not always distinction. Do you not think so?"
+
+"Oh, yes! And do you mean to say that on the strength of that he asked her
+to go yachting?"
+
+"Well, he had called several times."
+
+"Aren't you surprised she accepted?" asked Audrey.
+
+"No," said Madame Piriac. "It is another code, that is all. It is a
+surprise, but she will be amusing."
+
+"I'm sure she will," Audrey concurred. "I'm frightfully fond of her
+myself."
+
+They glanced at each other very intimately, like long-established allies
+who fear an aggression--and are ready for it.
+
+Then steps were heard. Miss Thompkins entered.
+
+"Well," drawled Miss Thompkins, gazing first at Audrey and then at Madame
+Piriac. "Of all the loveliest shocks----Say, Musa----"
+
+Behind her stood Musa. It appeared that he had been able to get away by the
+same train as Tommy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE NOSTRUM
+
+
+The hemisphere of heaven was drenched in moonlight, and--rare happening
+either on British earth or on the waters surrounding it, in mid-summer--the
+night was warm. In the midst of the glittering sea the yacht moved without
+the appearance of motion; only by leaning over the rail and watching the
+bubbles glide away from her could you detect her progress. There were no
+waves, no ripples, nothing but a scarcely perceptible swell. The gentle
+breeze, unnoticeable on deck, was abaft; all the sails had been lowered and
+stowed except the large square sail bent on a yard to the mainmast and
+never used except with such a wind. The _Ariadne_ had a strong flood tide
+under her, and her 200-h.p. twin motors were stopped. Hence there was no
+tremor in the ship and no odour of paraffin in the nostrils of those who
+chanced to wander aft of the engine-room. The deck awning had been rolled
+up to the centre, and at the four corners of its frame had been hung four
+temporary electric lights within Chinese lanterns. A radiance ascended from
+the saloon skylight; the windows of the deck-house blazed as usual, but the
+deck-house was empty; a very subdued glow indicated where the binnacle was.
+And, answering these signs of existence, could be distinguished the red and
+green lights of steamers, the firm rays of lighthouses, and the red or
+white warnings of gas-buoys run by clockwork.
+
+The figures of men and women--the women in pale gowns, the men in
+blue-and-white--lounged or strolled on the spotless deck which unseen hands
+swabbed and stoned every morning at 6 o'clock; and among these figures
+passed the figure of a steward with a salver, staying them with flagons,
+comforting them with the finest exotic fruit. Occasionally the huge square
+sail gave an idle flap. "Get that lead out, 'Orace," commanded a grim voice
+from the wheel. A splash followed, as a man straddled himself over the
+starboard bow, swung a weighted line to and fro and threw it from him.
+"Four." Another splash. "Four." Another splash. "Four." Another splash.
+"Three-half." Another splash. "Three-half." Another splash. "Three."
+Another splash. "Two-half." Another splash. "Three." Another splash.
+"Five." "That'll do, 'Orace," came the voice from the wheel. Then an
+entranced silence.
+
+The scene had the air of being ideal. And yet it was not. Something lacked.
+That something was the owner. The owner lay indisposed in the sacred
+owner's cabin. And this was a pity because a dance had been planned for
+that night. It might have taken place without the owner, but the strains of
+the gramophone and especially the shuffling of feet on the deck would have
+disturbed him. True, he had sent up word by Doctor Cromarty that he was not
+to be considered. But the doctor had delivered the message without any
+conviction, and the unanimous decision was that the owner must, at all
+costs, be considered.
+
+It was Ostend, on top of the owner's original offer to Audrey, that had
+brought about the suggestion of a dance. They had coasted up round
+Gris-Nez from Boulogne to Ostend, and had reached the harbour there barely
+in time to escape from the worst of a tempest that had already begun to
+produce in the minds of sundry passengers a grave doubt whether yachting
+was, after all, the most delightful of pursuits. Some miles before the
+white dome of the Kursaal was sighted the process of moral decadence had
+set in, and passengers were lying freely to each other, and boastfully
+lying, just as though somebody had been accusing them of some dreadful
+crime of cowardice or bad breeding instead of merely inquiring about the
+existence of physical symptoms over which they admittedly had no control
+whatever. The security of a harbour, with a railway station not fifty
+yards from the yacht's bowsprit, had restored them, by dint of calming
+secret fears, to their customary condition of righteousness and rectitude.
+Several days of gusty rainstorms had elapsed at Ostend, and the passengers
+had had the opportunity to study the method of managing a yacht, and to
+visit the neighbourhood. The one was as wondrous as the other. They found
+letters and British and French newspapers on their plates at breakfast. And
+the first object they had seen on the quay, and the last object they saw
+there, was the identical large limousine which they had left on the quay at
+Boulogne. It would have taken them to Ghent but for the owner's powerful
+objection to their eating any meal off the yacht. Seemingly he had a great
+and sincere horror of local viands and particularly of local water. He was
+their slave; they might demand anything from him; he was the very symbol of
+hospitality and chivalry, but somehow they could not compass a meal away
+from the yacht. Similarly, he would have them leave the Kursaal not later
+than ten o'clock, when the evening had not veritably begun. They did not
+clearly understand by what means he imposed his will, but he imposed it.
+
+The departure from Ostend was accomplished after the glass had begun to
+rise, but before it had finished rising, and there were apprehensions in
+the saloon and out of it, when the spectacle of the open sea, and the feel
+of it under the feet, showed that, as of old, water was still unstable. The
+process of moral decadence would have set in once more but for the prudence
+and presence of mind of Audrey, who had laid in a large stock of the
+specific which had been of such notable use to herself and Miss Ingate on
+previous occasions. Praising openly its virtues, confessing frankly her own
+weakness and preaching persuasively her own faith, she had distributed the
+nostrum, and in about a quarter of an hour had established a justifiable
+confidence. Mr. Gilman alone would not partake, and indeed she had hardly
+dared to offer the thing to so experienced a sailor. The day had favoured
+her. The sea grew steadily more tranquil, and after skirting the Belgian
+and French coasts for some little distance the _Ariadne_, under orders, had
+turned her nose boldly northward for the estuary of the Thames. The
+_Ariadne_ was now in the midst of that very complicated puzzle of deeps and
+shallows. The passengers, in fact, knew that they were in the region of the
+North Edinburgh, but what or where the North Edinburgh was they had only
+the vaguest idea. The blot on the voyage had been the indisposition of Mr.
+Gilman, who had taken to his berth early, and who saw nobody but his
+doctor, through whom he benignantly administered the world of the yacht.
+Doctor Cromarty had a face which imparted nothing and yet implied
+everything. He said less and meant more than even the average pure-blooded
+Scotsman. It was imparted that Mr. Gilman had a chronic complaint. The
+implications were vast and baffling.
+
+"We shall dance after all," said Miss Thompkins, bending with a mysterious
+gesture over Audrey, who reclined in a deck-chair near the companion
+leading to the deserted engine-room. Miss Thompkins was dressed in lacy
+white, with a string of many tinted beads round her slim neck. Her tawny
+hair was arranged in a large fluffiness, and the ensemble showed to a
+surprised Audrey what Miss Thompkins could accomplish when she deemed the
+occasion to be worthy of an effort.
+
+"Shall we? What makes you think so, dear?" absently asked Audrey, in whom
+the scene had induced profound reflections upon life and the universe.
+
+"He'll come up on deck," said Miss Thompkins, disclosing her teeth in an
+inscrutable smile that the moonbeams made more strange than it actually
+was. "Like to know how I know? Sure you'd like to know, Mrs. Simplicity?"
+Her beads rattled above Audrey's insignificant upturned nose. "Isn't a
+yacht the queerest little self-contained state you ever visited? It's as
+full of party politics as Massachusetts; and that's some. Well, I didn't
+use all my medicine you gave me. Didn't need it. So I've shared it with
+_him_. I got the empty packet with all the instructions on it, and I put
+two of my tablets in it, and if he hasn't swallowed them by this time my
+name isn't Anne Tuckett Thompkins."
+
+"But you don't mean he's been----"
+
+"Audrey, you're making a noise like a goose. 'Course I do."
+
+"But how did you manage to----"
+
+"I gave them to Mr. Price, with instructions to leave them by
+the--er--bedside. Mr. Price is a friend. I hope I've made that plain these
+days to everybody, including Mr. Gilman. Mr. Price is a good sample of
+what painters are liable to come to after they've found out they don't care
+for the smell of oil-tubes. I knew him when he always said 'Puvis' instead
+of 'Puvis de Chavannes.' He's cured now. If I hadn't happened to know he'd
+be on board I shouldn't have dared to come. He's my lifebuoy."
+
+"But I assure you, Tommy, Mr. Gilman refused the stuff from me. He did."
+
+"Oh! Dove! Wood-pigeon! Of course he refused it. He was bound to. Owner of
+a two-hundred-and-fifty-ton yacht taking a remedy for sea-sickness in
+public on the two-hundred-and-fifty-ton yacht! The very idea makes you
+shiver. But he'll take it down there. And he won't ask any questions. And
+he'll hide it from the doctor. And he'll pretend, and he'll expect
+everybody else to pretend, that he's never been within a mile of the
+stuff."
+
+"Tommy, I don't believe you."
+
+"And he's a lovely man, all the same."
+
+"Tommy, I don't believe you."
+
+"Yes, you do. You'd like not to, but you can't help it. I sometimes do
+bruise people badly in their organ of illusions-about-human-nature, but it
+is fun, after all, isn't it?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Getting down to the facts."
+
+Accompanied by the tattoo of her necklace, Miss Thompkins moved away in the
+direction of Madame Piriac, who was engaged with Musa.
+
+"Admit I'm rather brilliant to-night," she threw over her shoulder.
+
+The dice seem to be always loaded in favour of the Misses Thompkins of
+society. Less than a quarter of an hour later Doctor Cromarty, showing his
+head just above the level of the deck, called out:
+
+"Price, ye can wind up that box o' yours. Mr. Gilman is coming on deck.
+He's wonderful better."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+BY THE BINNACLE
+
+
+The owner was at the wheel. But he had not got there at once. This singular
+man, who strangely enough was wearing one of his most effulgent and
+heterogeneous club neckties, had begun by dancing. He danced with all three
+ladies, one after the other; and he did not merely dance--he danced
+modernly, he danced the new dances to the new tunes, given off like
+intoxicating gas from the latest of gramophones. He knew how to hold the
+arm of a woman above her head, while coiling his own around it in the
+manner of a snake, and he knew how to make his very body a vast
+syncopation. The effect of his arrival was as singular as himself. Captain
+Wyatt, Doctor Cromarty and Mr. Price withdrew to that portion of the deck
+about the wheel which convention had always roped off for them with
+invisible ropes. The captain, by custom, messed by himself, whereas the
+other two had their meals in the saloon, entering and leaving quickly and
+saying little while at table. But apart from meals the three formed a
+separate clan on the yacht. The indisposition of the owner had dissolved
+this clan into the general population of the saloon. The recovery of the
+owner re-created it. Mr. Price had suddenly begun to live arduously for the
+gramophone alone. And when summoned by the owner to come and form half of
+the third couple for dancing, Doctor Cromarty had the air of arousing
+himself from a meditation upon medicine. Also, the passengers themselves
+danced with conscientiousness, with elaborate gusto and with an earnest
+desire to reach a high standard. And between dances everybody went up to
+Mr. Gilman and said how lovely it all was. And it really was lovely.
+
+Mr. Gilman had taken the wheel after about the sixth dance. Approaching
+Audrey, who owed him the next dance, he had said that the skipper had
+hinted something about his taking the wheel and he thought he had better
+oblige the old fellow, if Audrey was quite, quite sure she didn't mind, and
+would she come and sit by him instead--for one dance?  ... As soon as two
+sailors had fixed cushions for Audrey, and the skipper had given the owner
+the course, all persons seemed to withdraw respectfully from the pair, who
+were in the shadow of a great spar, with the glimmer of the binnacle just
+in front of them. The square sail had been lowered, and the engines
+started, and a steady, faint throb kept the yacht mysteriously alive in
+every plank of her. The gramophone and the shuffle of feet continued,
+because Mr. Gilman had expressly desired that his momentary defection with
+a lady and in obedience to duty should not bring the ball to an end.
+Laughter and even giggles came from the ballroom. Males were dancing
+together. The power of the moon had increased. The binnacle-light, however,
+threw up a radiance of its own on to Mr. Gilman's lowered face, the face of
+a kind, a good, and a dependably expert individuality who was watching over
+the safety, the welfare and the highest interests of every soul on board.
+
+"I was very sorry to be laid up to-day," Mr. Gilman began suddenly, in a
+very quiet voice, frowning benevolently at the black pointer on the
+compass. "But, of course, you know my great enemy."
+
+"No, I don't," said Audrey gently.
+
+"Hasn't Doc told you?"
+
+"Doctor Cromarty? No, he doesn't tell much."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Gilman, looking round quickly and shyly, rather in the
+manner of a boy, "it's liver."
+
+Audrey seemed to read in his face, first, that Doctor Cromarty had received
+secret orders never to tell anybody anything, and, second, that the great
+enemy was not liver. And she thought: "So this is human nature! Mature
+men, wise men, dignified men, do descend to these paltry deceits just in
+order to keep up appearances, though they must know quite well that they
+don't deceive anyone who is worth deceiving." The remarkable fact was that
+she did not feel in the least shocked or disdainful. She merely
+decided--and found a certain queer pleasure in the decision--that human
+nature was a curious phenomenon, and that there must be a lot of it on
+earth. And she felt kindly towards Mr. Gilman.
+
+"If you'd said gout----" she remarked. "I always understood that men
+generally had gout." And she consciously, with intention, employed a
+simple, innocent tone, knowing that it misled Mr. Gilman, and wanting it to
+mislead him.
+
+"No!" he went on. "Liver. All sailors suffer from it, more or less. It's
+the bugbear of the sea. I have a doctor on board because, with a score or
+so of crew, it's really a duty to have a doctor."
+
+"I quite see that," Audrey agreed, thinking mildly: "You only have a doctor
+on board because you're always worrying about your own health."
+
+"However," said Mr. Gilman, "he's not much use to me personally. He doesn't
+understand liver. Scotsmen never do. Fortunately, I have a very good doctor
+in Paris. I prefer French doctors. And I'm sure they're right on the great
+liver question. All English doctors tell you to take plenty of violent
+exercise if you want to shake off a liver attack. Quite wrong. Too much
+exercise tires the body and so it tires the liver as well--obviously.
+What's the result? You can see, can't you? The liver works worse than ever.
+Now, a French doctor will advise complete rest until the attack is over.
+_Then_ exercise, if you like; but not before. Of course, _you_ don't know
+you've got a liver, and I dare say you think it's very odd of me to talk
+about my liver. I'm sure you do."
+
+"I don't, honestly. I like you to talk like that. It's very interesting."
+And she thought: "Suppose Tommy was wrong, after all! ... She's very
+spiteful."
+
+"That's you all over, Mrs. Moncreiff. You understand men far better than
+any other woman I ever saw, unless, perhaps, it's Madame Piriac."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Gilman! How can you say such a thing?"
+
+"It's not the first time you've heard it, I wager!" said Mr. Gilman. "And
+it won't be the last! Any man who knows women can see at once that you are
+one of the women who understand. Otherwise, do you imagine I should have
+begun upon my troubles?"
+
+Now, at any rate, he was sincere--she was convinced of that. And he looked
+very smart as he spied the horizon for lights and peered at the compass,
+and moved the wheel at intervals with a strong, accustomed gesture. And,
+assuredly, he looked very experienced. Audrey blushed. She just had to
+believe that there must be something in what he said concerning her talent.
+She had noticed it herself several times.
+
+In an interval of the music the sea washed with a long sound against the
+bow of the yacht; then silence.
+
+"I do love that sudden wash against the yacht," said Audrey.
+
+"Yes," agreed Mr. Gilman, "so do I. All doctors tell me that I should be
+better if I gave up yachting. But I won't. I couldn't. Whatever it costs in
+health, yachting's worth it."
+
+"Oh! It must be!" cried Audrey, with enthusiasm. "I've never been on a
+yacht before, but I quite agree with you. I feel as if I could live on a
+yacht for ever--always going to new places, you know; that's how I feel."
+
+"You do?" Mr. Gilman exclaimed and gazed at her for a moment with a sort of
+ecstasy. Audrey instinctively checked herself. "There's a freemasonry among
+those who like yachting." His eyes returned to the compass. "I've kept
+your secret. I've kept it like something precious. I've enjoyed keeping
+it. It's been a comfort to me. Now I wonder if you'll do the same for me,
+Mrs. Moncreiff?"
+
+"Do what?" Audrey asked weakly, intimidated.
+
+"Keep a secret. I shouldn't dream of telling it to Madame Piriac. Will you?
+May I tell you?"
+
+"Yes, if you think you can trust me," said Audrey, concealing, with amazing
+ease and skill, her excitement and her mighty pleasure in the scene.... "He
+wouldn't dream of telling it to Madame Piriac." ...It is doubtful whether
+she had ever enjoyed anything so much, and yet she was as prim as a nun.
+
+"I'm not a happy man, Mrs. Moncreiff. Materially, I've everything a man can
+want, I suppose. But I'm not happy. You may laugh and say it's my liver.
+But it isn't. You're a woman of the world; you know what life is; and yet
+experience hasn't spoilt you. I could say anything to you; anything! And
+you wouldn't be shocked, would you?"
+
+"No," said Audrey, hoping, nevertheless, that he would not say "anything,
+anything," but somehow simultaneously hoping that he would. It was a
+disconcerting sensation.
+
+"I want you always to remember that I'm unhappy and never to tell anybody,"
+Mr. Gilman resumed.
+
+"But why?"
+
+"It will be a kindness to me."
+
+"I mean, why are you unhappy?"
+
+"My opinions have all changed. I used to think I could be independent of
+women. Not that I didn't like women!  I did. But when I'd left them I was
+quite happy. You know what the facts of life are, Mrs. Moncreiff. Young as
+you are you are older than me in some respects, though I have a long life
+before me. It's just because I have a long life before me--dyspeptics are
+always long-lived--that I'm afraid for the future. It wouldn't matter so
+much if I was an old man."
+
+"But," asked Audrey adventurously, "why should you be unhappy because your
+opinions have changed? What opinions?" She endeavoured to be perfectly
+judicial and indifferent, and yet kind.
+
+"What opinions? Well, about Woman Suffrage, for instance. You remember that
+night at the Foas', and what I remarked afterwards about what you all
+said?"
+
+"Yes, I remember," said Audrey. "But can _you_ remember it? Fancy you
+remembering a thing like that!"
+
+"I remember every word that was said. It changed me.... Not at first. Oh,
+no! Not for several days, perhaps weeks. I fought against it. Then I said
+to myself, 'How absurd to fight against it!' ... Well, I've come to believe
+in women having the vote. You've no more stanch supporter than I am. I
+_want_ women to have the vote. And you're the first person I've ever said
+that to. I want _you_ to have the vote."
+
+He smiled at her, and she saw scores and scores of excellent qualities in
+his smile; she could not believe that he had any defect whatever. His
+secret was precious to her. She considered that he had confided it to her
+in a manner both distinguished and poetical. He had shown a quality which
+no youth could have shown. Youths were inferior, crude, incomplete. Not
+that Mr. Gilman was not young! Emphatically he was young, but her
+conception of the number of years comprised in youthfulness had been
+enlarged. She saw, as in a magical enlightenment, that forty was young,
+fifty was young, any age was young provided it had the right gestures. As
+for herself, she was without age. The obvious fact that Mr. Gilman was her
+slave touched her; it saddened her, but sweetly; it gave her a new sense of
+responsibility.
+
+She said:
+
+"I still don't see why this change of view should make you unhappy. I
+should have thought it would have just the opposite effect."
+
+"It has altered all my desires," he replied. "Do you know, I'm not really
+interested in this new yacht now! And that's the truth."
+
+"Mr. Gilman!" she checked him. "How can you say such a thing?"
+
+It now appeared that she was not a nice girl. If she had been a nice girl
+she would not have comprehended what Mr. Gilman was ultimately driving at.
+The word "marriage" would never have sounded in her brain. And she would
+have been startled and shocked had Mr. Gilman even hinted that there was
+such a word in the dictionary. But not being, after all, a nice girl, she
+actually dwelt on the notion of marriage with somebody exactly like Mr.
+Gilman. She imagined how fine and comfortable and final it would be. She
+admitted that despite her riches and her independence she would be and
+could be simply naught until she possessed a man and could show him to the
+world as her own. Strange attitude for a wealthy feminist, but she had the
+attitude! And, moreover, she enjoyed having it; she revelled in it. She
+desired, impatiently, that Mr. Gilman should proceed further. She thirsted
+for his next remark. And her extremely deceptive features displayed only a
+blend of simplicity and soft pity. Those features did not actually lie, for
+she was ingenuous without being aware of it and her pity for the
+fellow-creature whose lot she could assuage with a glance was real enough.
+But they did suppress about nine-tenths of the truth.
+
+"I tell you," said Mr. Gilman, "there is nothing I could not say to you.
+And--and--of course, you'll say I scarcely know you--yet----"
+
+Clearly he was proceeding further. She waited as in a theatre one waits for
+a gun to go off on the stage. And then the gun did go off, but not the gun
+she was expecting.
+
+Skipper Wyatt's head popped up like a cannon shot out of a hole in the
+forward deck, and it gazed sharply and apprehensively around the calm,
+moonlit sea. Mr. Gilman was, beyond question, perturbed by the movements of
+that head, though he could not see the expression of the eyes. This was
+the first phenomenon. The second phenomenon was a swirling of water round
+the after part of the ship, and this swirling went on until the water was
+white with a thin foam.
+
+"Reverse those d----d engines!" shouted Captain Wyatt, quite regardless of
+the proximity of refined women. He had now sprung clear of the hole and
+was running aft. The whole world of the yacht could not but see that he
+was coatless and that his white shirtsleeves, being rather long, were kept
+in position by red elastic rings round his arms. "Is that blithering
+engineer asleep?" continued Captain Wyatt, ignoring the whole system of
+yacht etiquette. "She's getting harder on every second!"
+
+"Ay, ay, skipper!" came a muffled voice from the engine-room.
+
+"And not too soon either!" snapped the captain.
+
+The yacht throbbed more violently; the swirling increased furiously. The
+captain stared over the rail. Then, after an interval, he stamped on the
+deck in disgust.
+
+"Shut off!" he yelled. "It's no good."
+
+The yacht ceased to throb. The swirling came to an end, and the thin white
+foam faded into flat sombre water. Whereupon Captain Wyatt turned back to
+the wheel, which, in his extreme haste, he had passed by.
+
+"You've run her on to the sand, sir," said he to Mr. Gilman, respectfully
+but still accusingly.
+
+"Oh, no! Impossible!" Mr. Gilman defended himself, pained by the charge.
+
+"She's hard on, anyhow, sir. And many a good yacht's left her bones on this
+Buxey."
+
+"But you gave me the course," protested Mr. Gilman, with haughtiness.
+
+Captain Wyatt bent down and looked at the binnacle. He was contentedly
+aware that the compass of a yacht hard aground cannot lie and cannot be
+made to lie. The camera can lie; the speedometer of an automobile after an
+accident can lie--or can conceal the truth and often does, but the compass
+of a yacht aground is insusceptible to any blandishment; it shows the
+course at the moment of striking and nothing will persuade it to alter its
+evidence.
+
+"What course did I give you, sir?" asked Captain Wyatt.
+
+And as Mr. Gilman hesitated in his reply, the skipper pointed silently to
+the compass.
+
+"Where's the chart? Let me see the chart," said Mr. Gilman with sudden
+majesty.
+
+The chart in its little brass frame was handy. Mr. Gilman examined it in a
+hostile manner; one might say that he cross-examined it, and with it the
+horizon. "Ah!" he muttered at length, peering at the print under the chart,
+"'Corrected 1906.' Out of date. Pity they don't re-issue these charts
+oftener."
+
+His observations had no relation whatever to the matter in hand; considered
+as a contribution to the unravelling of the matter in hand they were merely
+idiotic. Nevertheless, such were the exact words he uttered, and he
+appeared to get great benefit and solace from them. They somehow enabled
+him to meet, quite satisfactorily, the gaze of his guests who had now
+gathered in the vicinity of the wheel.
+
+Audrey alone showed a desire to move away from the wheel. The fact was that
+the skipper had glanced at her in a peculiar way and his eyes had seemed to
+say, with disdain: "Women! Women again!" Nothing but that!  The
+implications, however, were plain. Audrey may have been discountenanced by
+the look in the captain's eyes, but at the same time she had an inward
+pride, because it was undeniable that Mr. Gilman, owing to his extreme and
+agitated interest in herself, had put the yacht off the course and was
+thereby imperilling numerous lives. Audrey liked that. And she exonerated
+Mr. Gilman, and she hated the captain for daring to accuse him, and she
+mysteriously nursed the wounded dignity of Mr. Gilman far better than he
+could nurse it himself.
+
+Her feelings were assuredly complex, and they grew more complex when the
+sense of danger began to dominate them. The sense of danger came to her out
+of the demeanour of her companions and out of the swift appearance on deck
+of every member of the crew, including the parlourmaid, and including three
+men who were incompletely clothed. The yacht was no longer a floating
+hotel, automobile and dancing-saloon; it was a stranded wreck. Not a
+passenger on board knew whether the tide was making or ebbing, but,
+secretly, all were convinced that it was ebbing and that they would be left
+on the treacherous sand and ultimately swallowed up therein, even if a
+storm did not supervene and smash the craft to bits in the classical
+manner. The skipper's words about the bones of many a good yacht had
+escaped no ear.
+
+Further, not a passenger knew where the yacht was or whither, exactly, she
+was bound or whether the glass was rising or falling, for guests on yachts
+seldom concern themselves about details. Of course, signals might be made
+to passing ships, but signals were often, according to maritime history,
+unheeded, and the ocean was very large and empty, though it was only the
+German Ocean.... Musa was nervous and angry. Audrey knew from her intimate
+knowledge of him that he was angry and she wondered why he should be angry.
+Madame Piriac, on the other hand, was entirely calm. Her calmness seemed to
+say to those responsible, and even to the not-responsible passenger: "You
+got me into this and it is inconceivable that you should not get me out of
+it. I have always been looked after and protected, and I must be looked
+after and protected now. I absolutely decline to be worried." But Miss
+Thompkins was worried, she was very seriously alarmed; fear was in her
+face.
+
+"I do think it's a shame!" she broke out almost loudly, in a trembling
+voice, to Audrey. "I do think it's a shame you should go flirting with poor
+Mr. Gilman when he's steering." And she meant all she said.
+
+"Me flirting!" Audrey exclaimed, passionately resentful.
+
+Withal, the sense of danger continued to increase. Still there were the
+boats. There were the motor-launch, the cutter and the dinghy. The sea
+was--for the present--calm and the moon encouraging.
+
+"Lower the dinghy there and look lively now!" cried the captain.
+
+This command more than ever frightened all the passengers who, in their
+nervousness and alarm, had tried to pretend to themselves that nervousness
+and alarm were absurd, and that first-class yachts never did, and could
+not, get wrecked. The command was a thunderstroke. It proved that the
+danger was immediate and intense. And the thought of all the beautiful food
+and drink on board, and all the soft cushions and the electric hair-curlers
+and the hot-water supply and the ice gave no consolation whatever. The
+idea of the futility and wickedness of luxury desolated the guests and made
+them austere, and yet even in that moment they speculated upon what goods
+they might take with them.
+
+And why the dinghy, though it was a dinghy of large size? Why not the
+launch?
+
+After the dinghy had been dropped into the sea an old sail was carefully
+spread amidships over her bottom and she was lugged, by her painter,
+towards the bow of the yacht where, with much grating of windlasses and of
+temperaments and voices, an anchor was very gently lowered into her and
+rested on the old sail. The anchor was so immense that it sank the dinghy
+up to Her gunwale, and then she was rowed away to a considerable distance,
+a chain grinding after her, and in due time the anchor was pitched with a
+great splash into the water. The sound of orders and of replies vibrated
+romantically over the surface of the water. Then a windlass was connected
+with the engine, and the passengers comprehended that the intention was to
+drag the yacht off the sand by main force. The chain clacked and strained
+horribly. The shouting multiplied, as though the vessel had been a great
+beast that could be bullied into obedience. The muscles of all passengers
+were drawn taut in sympathy with the chain, and at length there was a lurch
+and the chain gradually slackened.
+
+"She's off!" breathed the captain. "We've saved a good half-hour."
+
+"She'd have floated off by herself," said Mr. Gilman grandly.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the captain. "But if it had happened to be the ebb, sir--"
+He left it at that and began on a new series of orders, embracing the
+dinghy, the engines, the anchor and another anchor.
+
+And all the passengers resumed their courage and their ancient notions
+about the excellence of luxury, and came to the conclusion that navigation
+was a very simple affair, and in less than five minutes were sincerely
+convinced that they had never known fear.
+
+Later, the impressive sight was witnessed of Madame Piriac, on her
+shoulders such a cloak as certainly had never been seen on a yacht before,
+bearing Mr. Gilman's valuable violin like a jewel casket. She had found it
+below and brought it up on deck.
+
+The _Ariadne_, was now passing to port those twinkling cities of delight,
+Clacton and Frinton, and the long pier of Walton stretched out towards it,
+a string of topazes. The moon was higher and brighter than ever, but clouds
+had heaped themselves up to windward, and the surface of the water was
+rippled. Moreover, the yacht was now working over a strong, foul tide. The
+company, with the exception of Mr. Gilman, who had gone below--apparently
+in order to avoid being on the same deck with Captain Wyatt--had decided
+that Musa should be asked to play. Although the sound of his practising had
+escaped occasionally through the porthole of a locked cabin, he had not
+once during the cruise performed for the public benefit. Dancing was
+finished. Why should not the yacht profit by the presence of a great genius
+on board? The doctor and the secretary were of one mind with the women that
+there was no good answer to this question, and even the crew obviously felt
+that the genius ought to show what he was made of.
+
+"Dare we ask you?" said Madame Piriac to the youth, offering him the violin
+case. Her supplicatory tone and attitude, though they were somewhat
+assumed, proved to what a height Musa had recently risen as a personage.
+
+He hesitated, leaning against the rail and nervously fingering it.
+
+"I know it is a great deal to ask. But you would give us so much pleasure,"
+said Madame Piriac.
+
+Musa replied in a dry, curt voice:
+
+"I should prefer not to play."
+
+"Oh! But Musa--" There was a general protest.
+
+"I cannot play," Musa exclaimed with impatience, and moved almost savagely
+away.
+
+The experience was novel for Madame Piriac, left standing there, as it
+were, respectfully presenting the violin case to the rail. This beautiful
+and not unpampered lady was accustomed to see her commands received as an
+honour; and when she condescended to implore, the effect usually was to
+produce a blissful and deprecatory confusion in the person besought. Her
+husband and Mr. Gilman had for a number of years been teaching her that
+whatever she desired was the highest good and the most complete felicity to
+everybody concerned in the fulfilment of the desire. She bore the blow from
+Musa admirably, keeping both her smile and her dignity, and with one
+gesture excusing Musa to all beholders as a capricious and a sensitive
+artist in whom moodiness was lawful. It was exquisitely done. It could not
+have been better done. But not even Madame Piriac's extreme skill could
+save the episode from having the air of a social disaster. The gaiety which
+had been too feverishly resumed after the salvage of the yacht from the
+sandbank expired like a pricked balloon. People silently vanished, and only
+Audrey was left on the after deck.
+
+It was after a long interval that she became aware of the reappearance of
+Musa. Seemingly, he had been in the engine-room; since the beginning of the
+cruise he had shown a fancy for both the engine-room and the engineer. To
+her surprise, he marched straight towards her deckchair.
+
+"I must speak to you," he said with emotion.
+
+"Must you?" Audrey replied, full of hot resentment. "I think you've been
+horrid, Musa. Perfectly horrid! But I suppose you have your own notions of
+politeness now. Everything has been done for you, and--"
+
+"What is that?" he stopped her. "Everything has been done for me. What is
+it that has been done for me? I play for years, I am ignored. Then I
+succeed. I am noticed. Men of affairs offer me immense sums.  But am I
+surprised? Not the least in the world. It is the contrary which would have
+surprised me. It was inevitable that I should succeed. But note well--it is
+I myself who succeed. It is not my friends. It is not the concert agent. Do
+I regard the concert agent as a benefactor? Again, not the least in the
+world. You say everything has been done for me. Nothing has been done for
+me, Madame."
+
+"Yes, yes," faltered Audrey, who was in a dilemma, and therefore more
+resentful than ever. "I--I only mean your friends have always stood by
+you." She gathered courage, sat up erect in her deck-chair, and finished
+haughtily: "And now you're conceited. You're insufferably conceited."
+
+"Because I refused to play?" He laughed stridently and grimly. "No. I
+refused to play because I could not, because I was outside myself with
+jealousy. Yes, jealousy. You do not know jealousy. Perhaps you are
+incapable of it. But permit me to tell you, Madame, that jealousy is one of
+the finest and most terrible emotions. And that is why I must speak to
+you. I cannot live and see you flirt so seriously with that old idiot. I
+cannot live."
+
+Audrey jumped up from the chair.
+
+"Musa! I shall never speak to you again.... Me ... flirt.... And you call
+Mr. Gilman an old idiot!"
+
+"What words would you employ, Madame? He was so agitated by your intimate
+conversation that he brought us all near to death, in any case. Moreover,
+it jumps to the eyes that the decrepit satyr is mad about you. Mad!"
+
+And Musa's voice broke. In the midst of all her fury Audrey was relieved
+that it did break, for the reason that it was getting very loud, and the
+wheel, with Captain Wyatt thereat, was not far off.
+
+There was one thing to do, and Audrey did it. She walked away rapidly. And,
+as she did so, she was startled to discover a sob in her throat. The drawn,
+highly emotionalised face of Musa remained with her. She was angry,
+indignant, infuriated, and yet her feelings were not utterly unpleasant,
+though she wanted them to be so. In the first place, they were exciting.
+And in the second place--what was it?--well, she had the strange, sweet
+sensation of being, somehow, the mainspring of the universe, of being
+immensely important in the scheme of things.
+
+She thought her cup was full. It was not. Staring blankly over the side of
+the ship she saw a buoy float slowly by. She saw it with the utmost
+clearness, and on its round black surface was painted in white letters the
+word "Flank." There could not be two Flank buoys. It was the Flank buoy of
+the Mozewater navigable channel. ... She glanced around. The
+well-remembered shores of Mozewater were plainly visible under the moon. In
+the distance, over the bowsprit, she could discern the mass of the tower of
+Mozewater church. She could not distinguish Flank Hall, but she knew it was
+there. Why were they threading the Mozewater channel? It had been
+distinctly given out that the yacht would make Harwich harbour. Almost
+unconsciously she turned in the direction of the wheel, where Captain Wyatt
+was. Then, controlling herself, she moved away. She knew that she could not
+speak to the captain. She went below, and, before she could escape, found
+the saloon populated.
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Moncreiff!" cried Madame Piriac. "It is a miraculous coincidence.
+You will never guess. One tells me we are going to the village of Moze for
+the night; it is because of the tide. You remember, I told you. It is where
+lives my little friend, Audrey Moze. To-morrow I visit her, and you must
+come with me. I insist that you come with me. I have never seen her. It
+will be all that is most palpitating."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+AGUILAR'S DOUBLE LIFE
+
+Madame Piriac came down into the saloon the next afternoon.
+
+"Oh! You are still hiding yourself here!" she murmured gaily to Audrey, who
+was alone among the cushions.
+
+"I was just resting," said Audrey. "Remember what a night we had!"
+
+It was true that the yacht had not been berthed at Lousey Hard until
+between two and three o'clock in the morning, and that no guest had slept
+until after the job was done, though more than one had tried to sleep. It
+was also true that in consequence the saloon breakfast had been abrogated,
+that even the saloon lunch lacked vicacity, and that at least one passenger
+was at that moment dozing in his cabin. But not on account of fatigue and
+somnolence was Audrey remaining in the saloon instead of taking the
+splendid summer afternoon on deck under the awning. She felt neither tired
+nor sleepy. The true secret was that she feared the crowd of village
+idlers, quidnuncs, tattlers and newsmongers who all day gazed from Lousey
+Hard at the wonder-yacht.
+
+Examining the line of faces as well as she could through portholes, she
+recognised nearly every one of them, and was quite sure that every one of
+them would recognise her face. To go ashore or to stay prominently on deck
+would, therefore, be to give away her identity and to be forced, sooner or
+later, to admit that she had practised a long and naughty deception. She
+could conceive some of those villagers greeting her loudly from the Hard if
+she should appear; for Essex manners were marked by strange freedoms. Her
+situation would be terrible. It, in fact, was terrible. Risks surrounded
+her like angry dogs. Musa, for example, ought surely to have noticed that
+the estuary in which the yacht lay was the same estuary which he had seen
+not long before from the garden of the house stated by Audrey to be her
+own, and he ought to have commented eagerly on the marvellous coincidence.
+Happily, he had not yet done so--no doubt because he had spent most of the
+time in bed. If and when he did so there would naturally be an excited
+outcry and a heavy rain of amazed questions which simply could not be
+answered.
+
+"I am going almost at once to call on my little friend Audrey Moze, at
+Flank Hall," said Madame Piriac. "The house looks delicious from the deck.
+If you will come up I will show it to you. It is precisely like the picture
+post card which the dear little one sent to me last year. Are you ready to
+come with me?"
+
+"But, darling, hadn't you better go alone?"
+
+"But certainly not, darling! You are not serious. The meeting will be very
+agitating. With a third person, however, it will be less so. I count on you
+absolutely, as I have said already. Nay, I insist. I invoke your
+friendship."
+
+"She may be out. She may be away altogether."
+
+"In that case we shall return," said Madame Piriac briefly, and, not giving
+Audrey time to reply further, she vanished, with a firm carriage and an
+obstinate look in her eyes, towards the sleeping-cabins.
+
+The next instant Mr. Gilman himself entered the saloon.
+
+"Mrs. Moncreiff," he started nervously, in a confidential and deprecating
+tone, "this is the first chance I have had to tell you. We came into
+Mozewater without my orders. I won't say against my orders, but certainly
+not with them. On the plea that I had retired, Captain Wyatt changed our
+destination last night without going through the formality of consulting
+me. We ought to have made Harwich, but I am now told that we were running
+short of paraffin, and that if we had continued to Harwich we should have
+had the worst of the tide against us, whereas in coming up Mozewater the
+tide helped us; also that Captain Wyatt did not care about trying to get
+into Harwich harbour at night with the wind in its present quarter, and
+rising as it was then. Of course, Wyatt is responsible for the safety of
+the ship, and it is true that I had her designed with a very light draught
+on purpose for such waters as Mozewater; but he ought to have consulted me.
+We might get away again on this tide, but Hortense will not hear of it. She
+has a call to pay, she says. I can only tell you how sorry I am. And I do
+hope you will forgive me." The sincerity and alarm of his manly apology
+were touching.
+
+"But, Mr. Gilman," said Audrey, with the simplicity which more and more she
+employed in talking to her host, "there is nothing to forgive. What can it
+matter to me whether we come here or go to Harwich?"
+
+"I thought, I was afraid--" Mr. Gilman hesitated.
+
+"In short ... your secret, Mrs. Moncreiff, which you asked me to keep, and
+which I have kept. It was here, at this very spot, with my old barge-yacht,
+that I first had the pleasure of meeting you. And I thought ... perhaps
+you had reasons.... However, your secret is safe."
+
+"How nice you are, Mr. Gilman!" Audrey said, with a gentle smile. "You're
+kindness itself. But there is nothing to trouble about, really. Keep my
+little secret by all means, if you don't mind. As for anything else--that's
+perfectly all right.... Shall we go on deck?"
+
+He thanked her without words.
+
+She was saying to herself, rather desperately:
+
+"After all, what do I care? I haven't committed a crime. It's nobody's
+business but my own. And I'm worth ten million francs. And if the fat's in
+the fire, and anything is found out, and people don't like it--well, they
+must do the other thing."
+
+Thus she went on deck, and her courage was rewarded by the discovery of a
+chair on the starboard side of the deck-house, from which she could not
+possibly be seen by any persons on the Hard. She took this chair like a
+gift from heaven. The deck was busy enough. Mr. Price, the secretary, was
+making entries in an account book. Dr. Cromarty was pacing to and fro,
+expectant. Captain Wyatt was arguing with the chauffeur of a vast motor-van
+from Clacton, and another motor-van from Colchester was also present on the
+Hard. Rows of paraffin cans were ranged against the engine-room hatchway,
+and the odour of paraffin was powerfully conflicting with the odour of
+ozone and possibly ammonia from the marshes. Parcels kept coming down by
+hand from the village of Moze. Fresh water also came in barrels on a lorry,
+and lumps of ice in a dog-cart. The arrival of six bottles of aspirin,
+brought by a heated boy on a bicycle, from Clacton, and seized with gusto
+by Dr. Cromarty, completed the proof that money will not only buy anything,
+but will infallibly draw it to any desired spot, however out of the way the
+spot may be. The probability was that neither paraffin nor ice nor aspirin
+had ever found itself on Lousey Hard before in the annals of the world. Yet
+now these things forgathered with ease and naturalness owing to the magic
+of the word "yacht" in telegrams.
+
+And over the scene floated the wavy, inspiring folds of the yacht's immense
+blue ensign, with the Union Jack in the top inside corner.
+
+Mr. Price went into the deck-house and began to count money.
+
+"Mr. Price," demanded Mr. Gilman urgently, "did you look up the facts about
+this village?"
+
+"I was just looking up the place in 'East Coast Tours,' sir, when the
+paraffin arrived," replied Mr. Price. "It says that Moze is mentioned in
+'Green's Short History of the English People.'"
+
+"Ah! Very interesting. That work is a classic. It really treats of the
+English people, and not solely of their kings and queens. Dr. Cromarty, Mr.
+Price is busy, will you mind bringing me the catalogue of the library up
+here?"
+
+Dr. Cromarty obeyed, and Mr. Gilman examined the typewritten, calf-bound
+volume.
+
+"Yes," said he. "Yes. I thought we had Green on board, and we have. I
+should like extremely to know what Green says about Moze. It must have been
+in the Anglo-Saxon or Norman period. Dr. Cromarty, will you mind bringing
+me up the first three volumes of Green? You will find them on shelf Z8.
+Also the last volume, for the index."
+
+A few moments later Mr. Gilman, with three volumes of Green on his knees
+and one in his hand, said reproachfully to Mr. Price:
+
+"Mr. Price, I requested you to see that the leaves of all our books were
+cut. These volumes are absolutely uncut."
+
+"Well, sir, I'm working through them as fast as I can. But I haven't got
+to shelf Z8 yet."
+
+"I cannot stop to cut them now," said Mr. Gilman, politely displeased.
+"What a pity! It would have been highly instructive to know what Green says
+about Moze. I always like to learn everything I can about the places we
+stop at. And this place must be full of historic interest. Wyatt, have you
+had that paraffin counted properly?" He spoke very coldly to the captain.
+
+It thus occurred that what John Richard Green said about Moze was never
+known on board the yacht _Ariadne_.
+
+Audrey listened to the episode in a reverie. She was thinking about Musa's
+intractability and inexcusable rudeness, and about what she should do in
+the matter of Madame Piriac's impending visit to Audrey Moze at Flank Hall,
+and through the texture of these difficult topics she could see, as it
+were, shining the sprightly simplicity, the utter ingenuousness, the
+entirely reliable fidelity of Mr. Gilman. She felt, rather than
+consciously realised, that he was a dull man. But she liked his dullness;
+it reassured her; it was tranquillising; it was even adorable. She liked
+also his attitude towards Moze. She had never suspected, no one had ever
+hinted to her, that Moze was full of historic interest. But looking at it
+now from the yacht which had miraculously wafted her past the Flank buoy at
+dead of night, she perceived Moze in a quite new aspect--a pleasure which
+she owed to Mr. Gilman's artless interest in things. (Not that he was
+artless in all affairs! No; in the great masculine affairs he must be far
+from artless, for had he not made all his money himself?)
+
+Then Madame Piriac appeared on deck, armed and determined. Audrey found,
+as hundreds of persons had found, that it was impossible to deny Madame
+Piriac. Beautiful, gracious, elegant, kind, when she would have a thing she
+would have it. Audrey had to descend and prepare herself. She had to
+reascend ready for the visit. But at the critical and dreadful moment of
+going ashore to affront the crowd she had a saving idea. She pointed to
+Flank Hall and its sloping garden, and to the sea-wall against which the
+high spring tide was already washing, and she suggested that they should be
+rowed thither in the dinghy instead of walking around by the sea-wall or
+through' the village.
+
+"But we cannot climb over that dyke," Madame Piriac protested.
+
+"Oh, yes, we can," said Audrey. "I can see steps in it from here, and I can
+see a gate at the bottom of the garden."
+
+"What a vision you have, darling!" murmured Madame Piriac. "As you wish,
+provided we get there."
+
+The dinghy, at Audrey's request, was brought round to the side of the yacht
+opposite from the Hard, and, screening her face as well as she could with
+an open parasol, she tripped down by the steps into it. If only Aguilar was
+away from the premises she might be saved, for the place would be shut up,
+and there would be nothing to do but return. Should Madame Piriac suggest
+going into the village to inquire--well, Audrey would positively refuse to
+go into the village. Yes, she would refuse!
+
+As the boat moved away from the yacht, Musa showed himself on deck. Madame
+Piriac signalled to him a salutation of the finest good humour. She had
+forgotten his pettishness. By absolutely ignoring it she had made it as
+though it had never existed. This was her art. Audrey, observing the
+gesture, and Musa's smiling reply to it, acquired wisdom. She saw that she
+must treat Musa as Madame Piriac treated him. She had undertaken the
+enterprise of launching him on a tremendous artistic career, and she must
+carry it through. She wanted to make a neat, clean job of the launching,
+and she would do it dispassionately, like a good workwoman. He had
+admitted--nay, he had insisted--that she was necessary to him. Her pride in
+that fact had a somewhat superior air. He might be the most marvellous of
+violinists, but he was also a child, helpless without her moral support.
+She would act accordingly. It was absurd to be angry with a child, no
+matter what his vagaries.... At this juncture of her reflections she
+noticed that Mr. Gilman and Miss Thompkins had quitted the yacht together
+and were walking seawards. They seemed very intimate, impregnated with
+mutual understanding. And Audrey was sorry that Mr. Gilman was quite so
+simple, quite so straightforward and honest.
+
+When the dinghy arrived at the sea-wall Audrey won the stalled admiration
+of the sailor in charge of the boat by pointing at once to the best--if not
+the only--place fit for a landing. The sailor was by no means accustomed to
+such _flair_ in a yacht's guests. Indeed, it had often astonished him that
+people who, as a class, had so little notion of how to get into or out of a
+dinghy could have succeeded, as they all apparently had, in any department
+of life.
+
+With continuing skill, Audrey guided Madame Piriac over the dyke and past
+sundry other obstacles, including a watercourse, to a gate in the wall
+which formed the frontier of the grounds of Flank Hall. The gate seemed at
+first to be unopenably fastened, but Audrey showed that she possessed a
+genius with gates, and opened it with a twist of the hand. They wandered
+through a plantation and then through an orchard, and at length saw the
+house. There was not a sign of Aguilar, but the unseen yard-dog began to
+bark, hearing which, Madame Piriac observed in French: "The property seems
+a little neglected, but there must be someone at home."
+
+"Aguilar is bound to come now!" thought Audrey. "And I am lost!" Then she
+added to herself: "And I don't care if I _am_ lost. What an unheard-of
+lark!" And to Madame Piriac she said lightly: "Well, we must explore."
+
+The blinds were nearly all up on the garden front. And one window--the
+French window of the drawing-room--was wide open.
+
+"The crisis will be here in one minute at the latest," thought Audrey.
+
+"Evidently Miss Moze is at home," said Madame Piriac, gazing at the house.
+"Yes, it is distinguished. It is what I had expected.... But ought we not
+to go to the front door?"
+
+"I think we ought," Audrey agreed.
+
+They went round the side of the house, into the main drive, and without
+hesitation Madame Piriac rang the front door bell, which they could plainly
+hear. "I must have my cards ready," said she, opening her bag. "One always
+hears how exigent you are in England about such details, even in the
+provinces. And, indeed, why not?"
+
+There was no answer to the bell. Madame Piriac rang again, and there was
+still no answer. And the dog had ceased to bark.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" she muttered. "Have you observed, darling, that all the
+blinds are down on this façade?"
+
+She rang a third time. Then, without a word, they returned slowly to the
+garden front.
+
+"How mysterious! _Mon Dieu!_ How English it all is!" muttered Madame
+Piriac. "It gives me fear."
+
+Audrey had almost decided definitely that she was saved when she happened
+to glance through the open window of the drawing-room. She thought she saw
+a flicker within. She looked again. She could not be mistaken. Then she
+noticed that all the dust sheets had been removed from the furniture, that
+the carpet had been laid, that a table had been set for tea, that there
+were flowers and china and a teapot and bread-and-butter and a kettle and a
+spirit-lamp on the table. The flicker was the flicker of the blue flame of
+the spirit-lamp. The kettle over it was puffing out steam.
+
+Audrey exclaimed, within herself:
+
+"Aguilar!"
+
+She had caught him at last. There were two cups and saucers--the best
+ancient blue-and-white china, out of the glass-fronted china cupboard in
+that very room! The celibate Aguilar, never known to consort with anybody
+at all, was clearly about to entertain someone to tea, and the aspect of
+things showed that he meant to do it very well. True, there was no cake,
+but the bread-and-butter was expertly cut and attractively arranged. Audrey
+felt sure that she was on the track of Aguilar's double life, and that a
+woman was concerned therein. She was angry, but she was also enormously
+amused and uplifted. She no longer cared the least bit about the imminent
+danger threatening her incognito. Her sole desire was to entrap Aguilar,
+and with deep joy she pictured his face when he should come into the room
+with his friend and find the mistress of the house already installed.
+
+"I think we had better go in here, darling," she said to Madame Piriac,
+with her hand on the French window. "There is no other entrance."
+
+Madame Piriac looked at her.
+
+"_Eh bien!_ It is your country, not mine. You know the habits. I follow
+you," said Madame Piriac calmly. "After all, my dear little Audrey ought
+to be delighted to see me. I have several times told her that I should
+come. All the same, I expected to announce myself.... What a charming
+room! So this is the English provinces!"
+
+The room was certainly agreeable to the eye. And Audrey seemed to see it
+afresh, to see it for the first time in her life. And she thought: "Can
+this be the shabby old drawing-room that I hated so?"
+
+The kettle continued to puff vigorously.
+
+"If they don't come soon," said Audrey, "the water will be all boiled away
+and the kettle burnt. Suppose we make the tea?"
+
+Madame Piriac raised her eyebrows.
+
+"It is your country," she repeated. "That appears to be singular, but I
+have not the English habits."
+
+And she sat down, smiling.
+
+Audrey opened the tea caddy, put three spoonfuls of tea into the pot, and
+made the tea.
+
+The clock struck on the mantelpiece. The clock was actually going. Aguilar
+was ever thorough in his actions.
+
+"Four minutes to brew, and if they don't come we'll have tea," said Audrey,
+tranquil in the assurance that the advent of Aguilar could not now be long
+delayed.
+
+"Do you take milk and sugar, darling?" she asked Madame Piriac at the end
+of the four minutes, which they had spent mainly in a curious silence. "I
+believe you do."
+
+Madame Piriac nodded.
+
+"A little bread-and-butter? I'm sorry there's no cake or jam."
+
+It was while Madame Piriac was stirring her first cup that the drawing-room
+door opened, and at once there was a terrific shriek.
+
+"Audrey!"
+
+The invader was Miss Ingate. Close behind Miss Ingate came Jane Foley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE TANK-ROOM
+
+
+"Did you get my letter?" breathed Miss Ingate weakly, after she had a
+little recovered from the shock, which had the appearance of being
+terrific.
+
+"No," said Audrey. "How could I? We're yachting. Madame Piriac, you know
+Miss Ingate, don't you? And this is my friend Jane Foley." She spoke quite
+easily and naturally, though Miss Ingate in her intense agitation had
+addressed her as Audrey, whereas the Christian name of Mrs. Moncreiff, on
+the rare occasions when a Christian name became necessary or advisable, had
+been Olivia--or, infrequently, Olive.
+
+"Yachting!"
+
+"Yes. Haven't you seen the yacht at the Hard?"
+
+"No! I did hear something about it, but I've been too busy to run after
+yachts. We've been too busy, haven't we, Miss Foley? I even have to keep my
+dog locked up. I don't know what you'll say. Aud--Mrs. Moncreiff! I really
+don't! But we acted for the best. Oh! How dreadfully exciting my life does
+get at times! Never since I played the barrel organ all the way down Regent
+Street have I--! Oh! dear!"
+
+"Have my tea, and do sit down, Winnie, and remember you're an Essex woman!"
+Audrey adjured her, going to the china cupboard to get more cups.
+
+"_I'll_ just tell you all about it, Mrs. Moncreiff, if you'll let me," Jane
+Foley began with a serene and happy smile, as she limped to a chair. "I'm
+quite ready to take all the consequences. It's the police again, that's
+all. I don't know how exactly they got on the track of the Spatts at
+Frinton. But I dare say you've seen that the police have seized a lot of
+documents at our head-quarters. Perhaps that explains it. Anyway I caught
+sight of our old friend at Paget Gardens nosing about, and so as soon as it
+was dark I left the Spatts. It's a horrid thing to say, but I never was so
+glad about anything as I was at leaving the Spatts. I didn't tell them
+where I was going, and they didn't ask. I'm sure the poor things were very
+relieved to have me go. Miss Ingate tells me to-day she's heard they've
+both resigned from the Union. Mr. Spatt went up to London on purpose to do
+it. And can you be surprised?"
+
+"Yes, you can, and yet you can't!" exclaimed Miss Ingate. "You can, and yet
+you can't!"
+
+"I met Miss Ingate on Frinton front," Jane Foley proceeded. "She was just
+getting into her carriage. I had my bag and I asked her to drive me to the
+station. 'To the station?' she said. 'What for? There's no train
+to-night.'"
+
+"No more there wasn't!" Miss Ingate put in, "I'd been dining at the
+Proctors' and it was after ten, I know it was after ten because they never
+let me leave until after ten, in spite of the long drive I have. Fancy
+there being a train from Frinton after ten! So of course I brought Miss
+Foley along. Oh! It was vehy interesting. Vehy interesting. You see we had
+to think of the police. I didn't want the police coming poking round my
+house. It would never do, in a little place like Moze. I should never hear
+the last of it. So I--I thought of Flank Hall. I----"
+
+Jane Foley went on:
+
+"Miss Ingate was sure you wouldn't mind, Mrs. Moncreiff. And personally I
+was quite certain you wouldn't mind. We left the carriage at Miss Ingate's,
+and carried the bag in turns. And I stood outside while Miss Ingate woke up
+Mr. Aguilar. It was soon all right."
+
+"I must say Aguilar was vehy reasonable," said Miss Ingate. "Vehy
+reasonable. And he's got a great spite against my dear Inspector Keeble. He
+suggested everything. He never asked any questions, so I told him. You do,
+you know. He suggested Miss Foley should have a bed in the tank-room, so
+that if there was any trouble all the bedrooms should look innocent."
+
+"Did he tell you I'd come here to see him not long since?" Audrey demanded.
+
+"And why didn't you pop in to see _me?_ I was hurt when I got your note."
+
+"Did he tell you?"
+
+"Of course he didn't. He never tells anybody anything. That sort of
+thing's very useful at times, especially when it's combined with a total
+lack of curiosity. He fixed every, thing up. And he keeps the gates locked,
+so that people can't wander in."
+
+"He didn't lock the gate at the bottom of the garden, because it won't
+lock," said Audrey. "And so he didn't keep me from wandering in." She felt
+rather disappointed that Aguilar should once more have escaped her reproof
+and that the dream of his double life should have vanished away, but she
+was determined to prove that he was not perfect.
+
+"Well, I don't know about that," said Miss Ingate. "It wouldn't startle me
+to hear that he knew you were intending to come. All I know is that Miss
+Foley's been here for several days. Not a soul knows except me and Aguilar.
+And it seems to get safer every day. She does venture about the house now,
+though she never goes into the garden while it's light. It was Aguilar had
+the idea of putting this room straight for her."
+
+"And it was he who cut the bread-and-butter," added Jane Foley.
+
+"And this was to be our first tea-party!" Miss Ingate half shrieked. "I'd
+come--I do come, you know, to keep an eye on things as you asked me--I'd
+come, and we were just having a cosy little chat in the tank-room.
+Aguilar's gone to Colchester to get a duplicate key of the front gates. He
+left me his, so I could get in and lock up after myself, and he put the
+water on to boil before leaving. I said to Miss Foley, I said, up in the
+tank-room: 'Was that a ring at the door?' But she said it wasn't."
+
+"I've been a little deaf since I was in prison," said Jane Foley.
+
+"And now we come down and find you here! I--I hope I've done right." This,
+falteringly, from Miss Ingate.
+
+"Of course you have, you silly old thing," Audrey reassured her. "It's
+splendid!"
+
+"Whenever I think of the police I laugh," said Miss Ingate in an unsettled
+voice. "I can't help it. They can't possibly suspect. And they're looking
+everywhere, everywhere!  I can't help laughing." And suddenly she burst
+into tears.
+
+"Oh! Now! Winnie, dear. Don't spoil it all!" Audrey protested, jumping up.
+
+Madame Piriac, who had hitherto maintained the most complete passivity,
+restrained her.
+
+"Leave her tranquil!" murmured Madame Piriac in French. "She is not
+spoiling it. On the contrary! One is content to see that she is a woman!"
+
+And then Miss Ingate laughed, and blushed, and called herself names.
+
+"And so you haven't had my letter," said she. "I wish you had had it. But
+what is this yachting business? I never heard of such goings-on. Is it your
+yacht? This world is getting a bit too wonderful for me."
+
+The answer to these questions was cut short by rather heavy masculine
+footsteps approaching the door of the drawing-room. Miss Ingate grew
+instantly serious. Audrey and Jane looked at each other, and Jane Foley
+went quickly but calmly to the door and opened it.
+
+"Oh! It's Mr. Aguilar--returned!" she said, quietly. "Is anything the
+matter, Mr. Aguilar?"
+
+Aguilar, hat in hand, entered the room.
+
+"Good afternoon, Aguilar," Audrey greeted him.
+
+"'Noon, madam," he responded, exactly as though he had been expecting to
+find the mistress there. "It's like this. I've just seen Inspector Keeble
+and that there detective as was here afore--_you_ know, madam" (nodding to
+Audrey) "and I fancy they're a-coming this way, so I thought I'd better cut
+back and warn ye. I don't think they saw me. I was too quick for 'em. Was
+the bread-and-butter all right, Miss Ingate? Thank ye."
+
+Miss Ingate had risen.
+
+"I ought to go home," she said. "I feel sure it would be wiser for me to go
+home. I never could talk to detectives."
+
+Jane Foley snatched at one of the four cups and saucers on the table, and
+put it back, all unwashed, into the china cupboard.
+
+"Three cups will be enough for them to see, if they come," she said, with a
+bright, happy smile to Audrey. "Yes, Miss Ingate, you go home. I'm ever so
+much obliged to you. Now, I'll go upstairs and Aguilar shall lock me in the
+tank-room and push the key under the door. We are causing you a lot of
+trouble, Mrs. Moncreiff, but you won't mind. It might have been so much
+worse." She laughed as she went.
+
+"And suppose I meet those police on the way out, what am I to say to them?"
+asked Miss Ingate when Jane Foley and Aguilar had departed.
+
+"If they're very curious, tell them you've been here to have tea with me
+and that Aguilar cut the bread-and-butter," Audrey replied. "The detective
+will be interested to see me. He chased me all the way to London not long
+since. Au revoir, Winnie."
+
+"Dear friend," said Madame Piriac, with admirable though false calm. "Would
+it not be more prudent to fly back at once to the yacht--if in truth this
+is the same police agent of whom you recounted to me with such drollness
+the exploits? It is not that I am afraid----"
+
+"Nor I," said Audrey. "There is no danger except to Jane Foley."
+
+"Ah! You cannot abandon her. That is true. Nevertheless I regret ..."
+
+"Well, darling," Audrey exclaimed. "You would insist on my coming!"
+
+The continuing presence of Miss Ingate, who had lost one glove and her
+purse, rendered this brief conversation somewhat artificial. And no sooner
+had Miss Ingate got away--by the window, for the sake of dispatch--than a
+bell made itself heard, and Aguilar came back to the drawing-room in the
+rĂ´le of butler.
+
+"Inspector Keeble and a gentleman to see you, madam."
+
+"Bring them in," said Audrey.
+
+Aguilar's secret glance at Inspector Keeble as he brought in the visitors
+showed that his lifelong and harmless enemy had very little to hope from
+his goodwill.
+
+"Wait a moment, you!" called the detective as Aguilar, like a perfect
+butler, was vanishing. "Good afternoon, ladies. Excuse me, I wish to
+question this man." He indicated Aguilar with a gesture of apologising for
+Aguilar.
+
+Inspector Keeble, an overgrown mass of rectitude and kindliness, greeted
+Audrey with that constraint which always afflicted him when he was beneath
+any roof more splendid than that of his own police-station.
+
+"Now, Aguilar," said the detective, "it's you that'll be telling me. Ye've
+got a woman concealed in the house. Where is she?"
+
+He knew, then, this ferreting and divinatory Irishman!  Of course Miss
+Ingate must have committed some indiscretion, or was it that Aguilar was
+less astute than he gave the impression of being? Audrey considered that
+all was lost, and she was aware of a most unpleasant feeling of
+helplessness and inefficiency. Then she seemed to receive inspiration and
+optimism from somewhere. She knew not exactly from where, but perhaps it
+was from the shy stiffness of the demeanour of her old acquaintance,
+Inspector Keeble. Moreover, the Irishman's twinkling eyes were a challenge
+to her.
+
+"Oh! Aguilar!" she exclaimed. "I'm very sorry to hear this. I knew women
+were always your danger, but I never dreamt you would start carrying on in
+my absence."
+
+Aguilar fronted her, and their eyes met. Audrey gazed at him steadily.
+There was no smile in Audrey's eyes, but there was a smile glimmering
+mysteriously behind them, and after a couple of seconds this phenomenon
+aroused a similar phenomenon behind the eyes of Aguilar. Audrey had the
+terrible and god-like sensation of lifting a hired servant to equality with
+herself. She imagined that she would never again be able to treat him as
+Aguilar, and she even feared that she would soon begin to cease to hate
+him. At the same time she observed slight signs of incertitude in the
+demeanour of the detective.
+
+Aguilar replied coldly, not to Audrey, but to the police:
+
+"If Inspector Keeble or anybody else has been mixing my name up with any
+scandal about females, I'll have him up for slander and libel and damages
+as sure as I stand here."
+
+Inspector Keeble looked away, and then looked at the detective--as if for
+support in peril.
+
+"Do you mean to say, Aguilar, that you haven't got a woman hidden in the
+house at this very moment?" the detective demanded.
+
+"I'll thank ye to keep a civil tongue in your head," said Aguilar. "Or I'll
+take ye outside and knock yer face sideways. Pardon me, madam. Of course I
+ain't got no woman concealed on the premises. And mark ye, if I lose my
+place through this ye'll hear of it. And I shall put a letter in the
+_Gardeners' Chronicle_, too."
+
+"Well, ye can go," the detective responded.
+
+"Yes," sneered Aguilar. "I can go. Yes, and I shall go. But not so far but
+what I can protect my interests. And I'll make this village too hot for
+Keeble before I've done, police or no police."
+
+And with a look at Audrey like the look of a knight at his lady after a
+joust, Aguilar turned to leave the room.
+
+"Aguilar," Audrey rewarded him. "You needn't be afraid about your place."
+
+"Thank ye, m'm."
+
+"May I ask what your name is?" Audrey inquired of the detective as soon as
+Aguilar had shut the door.
+
+"Hurley," replied the detective.
+
+"I thought it might be," said Audrey, sitting down, but not offering seats.
+"Well, Mr. Hurley, after all your running after Miss Susan Foley, don't you
+think it's rather unfair to say horrid things about a respectable man like
+Aguilar? You were funny about that stout wife of yours last time I saw you,
+but you must remember that Aguilar can't be funny about his wife, because
+he hasn't got one."
+
+"I really don't know what you're driving at, miss," said Mr. Hurley simply.
+
+"Well, what were you driving at when you followed me all the way to London
+the other day?"
+
+"Madam," said Mr. Hurley, "I didn't follow you to London. I only happened
+to arrive at Charing Cross about twenty seconds after you, that was all. As
+a matter of fact, nearly half of the way you were following me."
+
+"Well, I hope you were satisfied."
+
+"I only want to know one thing," the detective retorted. "Am I speaking to
+Mrs. Olivia Moncreiff?"
+
+Audrey hesitated, glancing at Madame Piriac, who, in company with the vast
+Inspector Keeble, was carefully inspecting the floor. She invoked wisdom
+and sagacity from heaven, and came to a decision.
+
+"Not that I know of," she answered.
+
+"Then, if you please, who are you?"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Audrey. "You're in the village of Moze itself and you ask
+who I am. Everybody knows me. My name is Audrey Moze, of Flank Hall, Moze,
+Essex. Any child in Moze Street will tell you that. Inspector Keeble knows
+as well as anybody."
+
+Madame Piriac proceeded steadily with the inquiry into the carpet. Audrey
+felt her heart beating.
+
+"Unmarried?" pursued the detective.
+
+"Most decidedly," said Audrey with conviction.
+
+"Then what's the meaning of that ring on your finger, if you don't mind my
+asking?" the detective continued.
+
+Certainly Audrey was flustered, but only for a moment.
+
+"Mr. Hurley," said she; "I wear it as a protection from men of all ages who
+are too enterprising."
+
+She spoke archly, with humour; but now there was no answering humour in the
+features of Mr. Hurley, who seemed to be a changed man, to be indeed no
+longer even an Irishman. And Audrey grew afraid. Did he, after all, know of
+her share in the Blue City enterprise? She had long since persuaded herself
+that the police had absolutely failed to connect her with that affair, but
+now uncertainty was born in her mind.
+
+"I must search the house," said the detective.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I have to arrest a woman named Jane Foley," answered Mr. Hurley, adding
+somewhat grimly: "The name will be known to ye, I'm thinking.... And I have
+reason to believe that she is now concealed on these premises."
+
+The directness of the blow was terrific. It was almost worse than the blow
+itself. And Audrey now believed everything that she had ever heard or read
+about the miraculous ingenuity of detectives. Still, she did not regard
+herself as beaten, and the thought of the yacht lying close by gave her a
+dim feeling of security. If she could only procure delay!...
+
+"I'm not going to let you search my house," she said angrily. "I never
+heard of such a thing! You've got no right to search my house."
+
+"Oh yes, I have!" Mr. Hurley insisted.
+
+"Well, let me see your paper--I don't know what you call it. But I know you
+can't do anything-without a paper. Otherwise any bright young-man might
+walk into my house and tell me he meant to search it. Keeble, I'm really
+surprised at _you_."
+
+Inspector Keeble blushed.
+
+"I'm very sorry, miss," said he contritely. "But the law's the law. Show
+the lady your search-warrant, Mr. Hurley." His voice resembled himself.
+
+Mr. Hurley coughed. "I haven't got a search-warrant yet," he remarked. "I
+didn't expect----"
+
+"You'd better go and get one, then," said Audrey, calculating how long it
+would take three women to transport themselves from the house to the yacht,
+and perpending upon the probable behaviour of Mr. Gilman under a given set
+of circumstances.
+
+"I will," said Mr. Hurley. "And I shan't be long. Keeble, where is the
+nearest justice of the peace?... You'd better stay here or hereabouts."
+
+"I got to go to the station to sign on my three constables," Inspector
+Keeble protested awkwardly, looking at his watch, which also resembled
+himself.
+
+"You'd better stay here or hereabouts," repeated Mr. Hurley, and he moved
+towards the door. Inspector Keeble, too, moved towards the door.
+
+Audrey let them get into the passage, and then she was vouchsafed a new
+access of inspiration.
+
+"Mr. Hurley," she called, in a bright, unoffended tone. "After all, I see
+no reason why you shouldn't search the house. I don't really want to put
+you to any unnecessary trouble. It is annoying, but I'm not going to be
+annoyed." The ingenuous young creature expected Mr. Hurley to be at once
+disarmed and ashamed by this kind offer. She was wrong. He was evidently
+surprised, but he gave no evidence of shame or of the sudden death in his
+brain of all suspicions.
+
+"That's better," he said calmly. "And I'm much obliged."
+
+"I'll come with you," said Audrey. "Madame Piriac," she addressed Hortense
+with averted eyes. "Will you excuse me for a minute or two while I show
+these gentlemen the house?" The fact was that she did not care just then to
+be left alone with Madame Piriac.
+
+"Oh! I beg you, darling! "Madame Piriac granted the permission with
+overpowering sweetness.
+
+The procedure of Mr. Hurley was astonishing to Audrey; nay, it was
+unnerving. First he locked the front door and the garden door and pocketed
+the keys. Then he locked the drawing-room on the passage side and pocketed
+that key. He instructed Inspector Keeble to remain in the hall at the foot
+of the stairs. He next went into the kitchen and the sculleries and locked
+the outer doors in that quarter. Then he descended to the cellars, with
+Audrey always in his wake. Having searched the cellars and the ground
+floor, he went upstairs, and examined in turn all the bedrooms with a
+thoroughness and particularity which caused Audrey to blush. He left
+nothing whatever to chance, and no dust sheet was undisturbed. Audrey said
+no word. The detective said no word. But Audrey kept thinking: "He is
+getting nearer to the tank-room." A small staircase led to the attic floor,
+upon which were only servants' bedrooms and the tank-room. After he had
+mounted this staircase and gone a little way along the passage he swiftly
+and without warning dashed back and down the staircase. But nothing seemed
+to happen, and he returned. The three doors of the three servants' bedrooms
+were all ajar. Mr. Hurley passed each of them with a careless glance
+within. At the end of the corridor, in obscurity, was the door of the
+tank-room.
+
+"What's this?" he asked abruptly. And he knocked nonchalantly on the door
+of the tank-room.
+
+Audrey was acutely alarmed lest Jane Foley should respond, thinking the
+knock was that of a friend. She saw how idiotic she had been not to warn
+Jane by means of loud conversation with the detective.
+
+"That's the tank-room," she said loudly. "I'm afraid it's locked."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Mr. Hurley negligently, and he turned the searchlight of his
+gaze upon the three bedrooms, which he examined as carefully as he had
+examined anything in the house. The failure to discover in any cupboard or
+corner even the shadow of a human being did not appear to discourage him in
+the slightest degree. In the third bedroom--that is to say, the one nearest
+the head of the stairs and farthest from the tank-room--he suddenly
+beckoned to Audrey, who was standing in the doorway. She went within the
+room and he pushed the door to, without, however, quite shutting it.
+
+"Now about the tank-room, Miss Moze," he began quietly. "You say it's
+locked?"
+
+"Yes," said the quaking Audrey.
+
+"As a matter of form I'd better just look in. Will you kindly let me have
+the key?"
+
+"I can't," said Audrey.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Audrey acquired tranquillity as she went on: "It's at Frinton. Friends of
+mine there keep a punt on Mozewater, and I let them store the sail and
+things in the tank-room. There's plenty of room. I give them the key
+because that's more satisfactory. The tank-room isn't wanted at all, you
+see, while I'm away from home."
+
+"Who are these friends?"
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Spatt," said Audrey at a venture.
+
+"I see," said the detective.
+
+They came downstairs, and the detective made it known that he would
+re-visit the drawing-room. Inspector Keeble followed them. In that room
+Audrey remarked:
+
+"And now I hope you're satisfied."
+
+Mr. Hurley merely said:
+
+"Will you please ring for Aguilar?"
+
+Audrey complied. But she had to ring three times before the gardener's
+footsteps were heard on the uncarpeted stone floor of the hall.
+
+"Aguilar," Mr. Hurley demanded. "Where is the key of the tank-room?"
+
+Audrey sank into a chair, knowing profoundly that all was lost.
+
+"It's at Mrs. Spatt's at Frinton," replied Aguilar glibly. "Mistress lets
+her have that room to store some boat-gear in. I expected she'd ha' been
+over before this to get it out. But the yachting season seems to start
+later and later every year these times."
+
+Audrey gazed at the man as at a miracle-worker.
+
+"Well, I think that's all," said Mr. Hurley.
+
+"No, it isn't," Audrey corrected him. "You've got all my keys in your
+pocket--except one."
+
+When the police had gone Audrey said to Aguilar in the hall:
+
+"Aguilar, how on earth did you----"
+
+But she was in such a state of emotion at the realisation of dangers
+affronted and past that she could not finish.
+
+"I'm sorry I was so long answering the bell, m'm," replied Aguilar
+strangely. "But I'd put my list slippers on--them as your father made me
+wear when I come into the house, mornings, to change the plants, and I
+thought it better to put my boots on again before I come.... Shall I put
+the keys back in the doors, madam?"
+
+So saying he touched his front hair, after his manner, and took the keys
+and retired. Audrey was as full of fear as of gratitude. Aguilar daunted
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE THIRD SORT OF WOMAN
+
+
+"It was quite true what I told the detective. So I suppose you've finished
+with me for evermore!" Audrey burst out recklessly, as soon as she and
+Madame Piriac were alone together. The supreme moment had come, and she
+tried to grasp it like a nettle. Her adventurous rashness was, she
+admitted, undeniable. She had spoken the truth to the police officer about
+her identity and her spinsterhood because with unusual wisdom she judged
+that fibs or even prevarication on such a subject to such an audience might
+entangle her in far more serious difficulties later on. Moreover, with
+Inspector Keeble present, she could not successfully have gone very far
+from the truth. It was a pity that Madame Piriac had witnessed the scene,
+for really, when Audrey came to face it, the deception which she had
+practised upon Madame Piriac was of a monstrous and inexcusable kind. And
+now that Madame Piriac knew the facts, many other people would have to know
+the facts--including probably Mr. Gilman. The prospect of explanations was
+terrible. In vain Audrey said to herself that the thing was naught, that
+she had acted within her rights, and that anyhow she had long ago ceased to
+be diffident and shy!... She was intimidated by her own enormities. And she
+also thought: "How could I have been silly enough to tell that silly tale
+about the Spatts? More complications. And poor dear Inspector Keeble will
+be so shocked."
+
+After a short pause Madame Piriac replied, in a grave but kind tone:
+
+"Why would you that I should have finished with you for ever? You had the
+right to call yourself by any name you wished, and to wear any ring-that
+pleased your caprice. It is the affair of nobody but yourself."
+
+"Oh! I'm so glad you take it like that," said Audrey with eager relief.
+"That's just what _I_ thought all along!"
+
+"But it _is_ your affair!" Madame Piriac finished, with a peculiar
+inflection of her well-controlled voice. "I mean," she added, "you cannot
+afford to neglect it."
+
+"No--of course not," Audrey agreed, rather dashed, and with a vague new
+apprehension. "Naturally I shall tell you everything, darling. I had my
+reasons. I----"
+
+"The principal question is, darling," Madame Piriac stopped her. "What are
+you going to do now? Ought we not to return to the yacht?"
+
+"But I must look after Jane Foley!" cried Audrey. "I can't leave her here."
+
+"And why not? She has Miss Ingate."
+
+"Yes, worse luck for her! Winnie would make the most dreadful mess of
+things if she wasn't stopped. If Winnie was right out of it, and Jane Foley
+had only herself and Aguilar to count on, there might be a chance. But not
+else."
+
+"It is by pure hazard that you are here. Nobody expected you. What would
+this young girl Mees Foley have done if you had not been here?"
+
+"It's no good wasting time about that, darling, because I _am_ here, don't
+you see?" Audrey straightened her shoulders and put her hands behind her
+back.
+
+"My little one," said Madame Piriac with a certain solemnity. "You remember
+our conversation in my boudoir. I then told you that you would find
+yourself in a riot within a month, if you continued your course. Was I
+right?  Happily you have escaped from that horrible complication. Go no
+farther. Listen to me. You were not created for these adventures. It is
+impossible that you should be happy in them."
+
+"But look at Jane Foley," said Audrey eagerly. "Is she not happy? Did you
+ever see anybody as happy as Jane?  I never did."
+
+"That is not happiness," replied Madame Piriac. "That is exaltation. It is
+morbid. I do not say that it is not right for her. I do not say that she is
+not justified, and that that which she represents is not justified. But I
+say that a rĂ´le such as hers is not your rĂ´le. To commence, she does not
+interest herself in men. For her there are no men in the world--there are
+only political enemies. Do you think I do not know the type? We have it,
+_chez nous_. It is full of admirable qualities--but it is not your type.
+For you, darling, the world is inhabited principally by men, and the time
+will come--perhaps soon--when for you it will be inhabited principally by
+one man. If you remain obdurate, there must inevitably arrive a quarrel
+between that man and these--these riotous adventures."
+
+"No man that I could possibly care for," Audrey retorted, "would ever
+object to me having an active interest in--er--politics."
+
+"I agree, darling," said Madame Piriac. "He would not object. It is you who
+would object. The quarrel would occur within your own heart. There are two
+sorts of women--individualists and fanatics. It was always so. I am a
+woman, and I know what I'm saying. So do you. Well, you belong to the first
+sort of woman."
+
+"I don't," Audrey protested. Nevertheless she recollected her thoughts on
+the previous night, near the binnacle and Mr. Gilman, about the
+indispensability of a man and about the futility of the state of not owning
+and possessing a man. The memory of these thoughts only rendered her more
+obstinate.
+
+"But you will not have the courage to tell me that you are a fanatic?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then what?"
+
+"There is a third sort of woman."
+
+"Darling, believe me, there is not."
+
+"There's going to be, anyhow!" said Audrey with decision, and in English.
+"And I won't leave Jane Foley in the lurch, either!... Now I'll just run up
+and have a talk with her, if you don't mind waiting a minute or two."
+
+"But what are you going to do?" Madame Piriac demanded.
+
+"Well," said Audrey. "It is obvious that there is only one safe thing to
+do. I shall take Jane on board the yacht. We shall sail off, and she'll be
+safe."
+
+"On the yacht!" repeated Madame Piriac, truly astounded. "But my poor oncle
+will never agree. You do not know him. You do not know how peculiar he is.
+Never will he agree! Besides----"
+
+"Darling," said Audrey quietly and confidently. "If he does not agree, I
+undertake to go into a convent for the rest of my days."
+
+Madame Piriac was silent.
+
+Just as she was opening the door to go upstairs, Audrey suddenly turned
+back into the room.
+
+"Darling," she said, kissing Madame Piriac. "How calmly you've taken it!"
+
+"Taken what?"
+
+"About me not being Mrs. Moncreiff nor a widow nor anything of that kind."
+
+"But, darling," answered Madame Piriac with exquisite tranquillity. "Of
+course I knew it before."
+
+"You knew it before!"
+
+"Certainly. I knew it the first time I saw you, in the studio of
+Mademoiselle Nickall. You were the image of your father! The image, I
+repeat--except perhaps the nose. Recollect that as a child I saw your
+father. I was left with my mother's relatives, until matters should be
+arranged; but he came to Paris. Then before matters could be arranged my
+mother died, and I never saw him again. But I could never forget him....
+Then also, in my boudoir that night, you blushed--it was very amusing--when
+I mentioned Essex and Audrey Moze. And there were other things."
+
+"For instance?"
+
+"Darling, you were never quite convincing as a widow--at any rate to a
+Frenchwoman. You may have deceived American and English women. But not
+myself. You did not say the convincing things when the conversation took
+certain turns. That is all."
+
+"You knew who I was, and you never told me!" Audrey pouted.
+
+"Had I the right, darling? You had decided upon your identity. It would
+have been inexcusable on my part to inform you that you were mistaken in so
+essential a detail."
+
+Madame Piriac gently returned Audrey's kiss.
+
+"So that was why you insisted on me coming with you to-day!" murmured
+Audrey, crestfallen. "You are a marvellous actress, darling."
+
+"I have several times been told so," Madame Piriac admitted simply.
+
+"What on earth did you expect would happen?"
+
+"Not that which has happened," said Madame Piriac.
+
+"Well, if you ask me," said Audrey with gaiety and a renewal of
+self-confidence. "I think it's all happened splendidly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+IN THE DINGHY
+
+
+When the pair got back to the sea-wall the tide had considerably ebbed, and
+where the dinghy had floated there was nothing more liquid than exquisitely
+coloured mud. Nevertheless water still lapped the yacht, whereas on the
+shore side of the yacht was now no crowd. The vans and carts had all
+departed, and the quidnuncs and observers of human nature, having gazed
+steadily at the yacht for some ten hours, had thought fit to depart also.
+The two women looked about rather anxiously, as though Mr. Gilman had
+basely marooned them.
+
+"But what must we do?" demanded Madame Piriac.
+
+"Oh! We can walk round on the dyke," said Audrey superiorly. "Unless the
+stiles frighten you."
+
+"It is about to rain," said Madame Piriac, glancing at the high curved
+heels of her shoes.
+
+The sky, which was very wide and variegated over Mozewater, did indeed seem
+to threaten.
+
+At that moment the dinghy appeared round the forefoot of the _Ariadne_. Mr.
+Gilman and Miss Thompkins were in it, and Mr. Gilman was rowing with
+gentleness and dignity. They had, even afar off, a tremendous air of
+intimacy; each leaned towards the other, face to face, and Tommy had her
+chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees. And in addition to an air of
+intimacy they had an air of mystery. It was surprising, and perhaps a
+little annoying, to Audrey that those two should have gone on living to
+themselves, in their own self-absorbed way, while such singular events had
+been happening to herself in Flank Hall. She put several fingers in her
+mouth and produced a piercing long-distance whistle which effectively
+reached the dinghy.
+
+"My poor little one!" exclaimed Madame Piriac, shocked in spite of her
+broadmindedness by both the sound and the manner of its production.
+
+"Oh! I learnt that when I was twelve," said Audrey. "It took me four
+months, but I did it. And nobody except Miss Ingate knows that I can do
+it."
+
+The occupants of the dinghy were signalling their intention to rescue, and
+Mr. Gilman used his back nobly.
+
+"But we cannot embark here!" Madame Piriac complained.
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Audrey. "You see those white stones? ... It's quite easy."
+
+When the dinghy had done about half the journey Madame Piriac murmured:
+
+"By the way, who are you, precisely, for the present?  It would be prudent
+to decide, darling."
+
+Audrey hesitated an instant.
+
+"Who am I? ... Oh! I see. Well, I'd better keep on being Mrs. Moncreiff for
+a bit, hadn't I?"
+
+"It is as you please, darling."
+
+The fact was that Audrey recoiled from a general confession, though
+admitting it to be ultimately inevitable. Moreover, she had a slight fear
+that each of her friends in turn might make a confession ridiculous by
+saying: "We knew all along, of course."
+
+The dinghy was close in.
+
+"My!" cried Tommy. "Who did that whistle? It was enough to beat the cars."
+
+"Wouldn't you like to know!" Audrey retorted.
+
+The embarkation, under Audrey's direction, was accomplished in safety, and,
+save for one tiny French scream, in silence. The silence, which persisted,
+was peculiar. Each pair should have had something to tell the other, yet
+nothing was told, or even asked. Mr. Gilman rowed with careful science, and
+brought the dinghy alongside the yacht in an unexceptionable manner. Musa
+stood on deck apart, acting indifference. Madame Piriac, having climbed
+into the _Ariadne_, went below at once. Miss Thompkins, seeing her friend
+Mr. Price half-way down the saloon companion, moved to speak to him, and
+they vanished together. Mr. Gilman was respectfully informed by the
+engineer that the skipper and Dr. Cromarty were ashore.
+
+"How nice it is on the water!" said Audrey to Mr. Gilman in a low, gentle
+voice. "There is a channel round there with three feet of water in it at
+low tide." She sketched a curve in the air with her finger. "Of course you
+know this part," said Mr. Gilman cautiously and even apprehensively. His
+glance seemed to be saying: "And it was you who gave that fearful whistle,
+too! Are you, can you be, all that I dreamed?"
+
+"I do," Audrey answered. "Would you like me to show it you."
+
+"I should be more than delighted," said Mr. Gilman.
+
+With a gesture he summoned a man to untie the dinghy again and hold it, and
+the man slid down into the dinghy like a monkey.
+
+"I'll pull," said Audrey, in the boat.
+
+The man sprang out of the dinghy.
+
+"One instant!" Mr. Gilman begged her, standing up in the sternsheets, and
+popping his head through a porthole of the saloon. "Mr. Price!"
+
+"Sir?" From the interior.
+
+"Will you be good enough to play that air with thirty-six variations, of
+Beethoven's? We shall hear splendidly from the dinghy."
+
+"Certainly, sir."
+
+And Audrey said to herself: "You don't want him to flirt with Tommy while
+you're away, so you've given him something to keep him busy."
+
+Mr. Gilman remarked under his breath to Audrey: "I think there is nothing
+finer than to hear Beethoven on the water."
+
+"Oh! There isn't!" she eagerly concurred.
+
+Ignoring the thirty-six variations of Beethoven, Audrey rowed slowly away,
+and after about a hundred yards the boat had rounded a little knoll which
+marked the beginning of a narrow channel known as the Lander Creek. The
+thirty-six variations, however, would not be denied; they softly
+impregnated the whole beautiful watery scene.
+
+"Perhaps," said Mr. Gilman suddenly, "perhaps your ladyship was not quite
+pleased at me rowing-about with Miss Thompkins--especially after I had
+taken her for a walk." He smiled, but his voice was rather wistful. Audrey
+liked him prodigiously in that moment.
+
+"Foolish man!" she replied, with a smile far surpassing his, and she rested
+on her oars, taking care to keep the boat in the middle of the channel. "Do
+you know why I asked you to come out? I wanted to talk to you quite
+privately. It is easier here."
+
+"I'm so glad!" he said simply and sincerely. And Audrey thought: "Is it
+possible to give so much pleasure to an important and wealthy man with so
+little trouble?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "Of course you know who I really am, don't you, Mr.
+Gilman?"
+
+"I only know you're Mrs. Moncreiff," he answered.
+
+"But I'm not! Surely you've heard something? Surely it's been hinted in
+front of you?"
+
+"Never!" said he.
+
+"But haven't you asked--about my marriage, for instance?"
+
+"To ask might have been to endanger your secret," he said.
+
+"I see!" she murmured. "How frightfully loyal you are, Mr. Gilman! I do
+admire loyalty. Well, I dare say very, very few people do know. So I'll
+tell you. That's my home over there." And she pointed to Flank Hall, whose
+chimneys could just be seen over the bank.
+
+"I admit that I had thought so," said Mr. Gilman.
+
+"But naturally that was your home as a girl, before your marriage."
+
+"I've never been married, Mr. Gilman," she said. "I'm only what the French
+call a _jeune fille_."
+
+His face changed; he seemed to be withdrawing alarmed into himself.
+
+"Never--been married?"
+
+"Oh! You _must_ understand me!" she went on, with an appealing vivacity. "I
+was all alone. I was in mourning for my father and mother. I wanted to see
+the world. I just had to see it! I expect I was very foolish, but it was
+so easy to put a ring on my finger and call myself Mrs. And it gave me
+such advantages. And Miss Ingate agreed. She was my mother's oldest
+friend.... You're vexed with me."
+
+"You always seemed so wise," Mr. Gilman faltered.
+
+"Ah! That's only the effect of my forehead!"
+
+"And yet, you know, I always thought there was something very innocent
+about you, too."
+
+"I don't know what _that_ was," said Audrey. "But honestly I acted for the
+best. You see I'm rather rich. Supposing I'd only gone about as a young
+marriageable girl--what frightful risks I should have run, shouldn't I?
+Somebody would be bound to have married me for my money. And look at all I
+should have missed--without this ring! I should never have met you in
+Paris, for instance, and we should never have had those talks.... And--and
+there's a lot more reasons--I shall tell you another time--about Madame
+Piriac and so on. Now do say you aren't vexed!"
+
+"I think you've been splendid," he said, with enthusiasm. "I think the
+girls of to-day _are_ splendid! I've been a regular old fogey, that's what
+it is."
+
+"Now there's one thing I want you not to do," Audrey proceeded. "I want you
+not to alter the way you talk to me. Because I'm really just the same girl
+I was last night. And I couldn't bear you to change."
+
+"I won't! I won't! But of course----"
+
+"No, no! No buts. I won't have it. Do you know why I told you just this
+afternoon? Well, partly because you were so perfectly sweet last night. And
+partly because I've got a favour to ask you, and I wouldn't ask it until
+I'd told you."
+
+"You can't ask me a favour," he replied, "because it wouldn't be a favour.
+It would be my privilege."
+
+"But if you put it like that I can't ask you."
+
+"You must!" he said firmly.
+
+Then she told him something of the predicament of Jane Foley. He listened
+with an expression of trouble. Audrey finished bluntly: "She's my friend.
+And I want you to take her on the yacht to-night after it's dark. Nobody
+but you can save her. There! I've asked you!"
+
+"Jane Foley!" he murmured.
+
+She could see that he was aghast. The syllables of that name were notorious
+throughout Britain. They stood for revolt, damage to property, defiance of
+law, injured policemen, forcible feeding, and all sorts of phenomena that
+horrified respectable pillars of society.
+
+"She's the dearest thing!" said Audrey. "You've no idea. You'd love her.
+And she's done as much for Women's Suffrage as anybody in the world. She's
+a real heroine, if you like. You couldn't help the cause better than by
+helping her. And I know how keen you are to help." And Audrey said to
+herself: "He's as timid as a girl about it. How queer men are, after all!"
+
+"But what are we to do with her afterwards?" asked Mr. Gilman. There was
+perspiration on his brow.
+
+"Sail straight to France, of course. They couldn't touch her there, you
+see, because it's political. It _is_ political, you know," Audrey insisted
+proudly.
+
+"And give up all our cruise?"
+
+Audrey bent forward, as she had seen Tommy do. She smiled enchantingly. "I
+quite understand," she said, with a sort of tenderness. "You don't want to
+do it. And it was a shame of me even to suggest it."
+
+"But I do want to do it," he protested with splendid despairful resolve. "I
+was only thinking of you--and the cruise. I do want to do it. I'm
+absolutely at your disposal. When you ask me to do a thing, I'm only too
+proud. To do it is the greatest happiness I could have."
+
+Audrey replied softly:
+
+"You deserve the Victoria Cross."
+
+"Whatever do you mean?" he demanded nervously.
+
+"I don't know exactly what I mean," she said. "But you're the nicest man I
+ever knew."
+
+He blushed.
+
+"You mustn't say that to me," he deprecated.
+
+"I shall, and I shall."
+
+The sound of the thirty-six variations still came very faintly over the
+water. The sun sent cataracts of warm light across all the estuary. The
+water lapped against the boat, and Audrey was overwhelmed by the
+inexplicable marvel of being alive in the gorgeous universe.
+
+"I shall have to back water," she said, low. "There's no room to turn round
+here."
+
+"I suppose we'd better say as little about it as possible," he ventured.
+
+"Oh! Not a word! Not a word till it's done."
+
+"Yes, of course." He was drenched in an agitating satisfaction.
+
+Five bells rang clear from the yacht, overmastering the thirty-six
+variations.
+
+Audrey thought:
+
+"So he'd never agree, wouldn't he, Madame Piriac!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+AFLOAT
+
+That night, which was an unusually dark night for the time of year, Audrey
+left the yacht, alone, to fetch Jane Foley. She had made a provisional
+plan with Jane and Aguilar, and the arrangement with Mr. Gilman had been of
+the simplest, necessitating nothing save a brief order from the owner to
+the woman whom Audrey could always amuse Mr. Gilman by calling the
+"parlourmaid," but who was more commonly known as the stewardess. This
+young married creature had prepared a cabin. For the rest little had been
+said. The understanding between Mr. Gilman and Audrey was that Mrs.
+Moncreiff should continue to exist, and that not a word as to the arrival
+of Jane Foley should escape either of them until the deed was accomplished.
+It is true that Madame Piriac knew of the probable imminence of the affair,
+but Madame Piriac was discretion elegantly attired, and from the moment
+they had left Flank Hall together she had been wise enough not even to
+mention Jane Foley to Audrey. Madame Piriac appreciated the value of
+ignorance in a questionable crisis. Mr. Gilman had been less guarded.
+Indeed he had shown a tendency to discuss the coming adventure with Audrey
+in remote corners--a tendency which had to be discouraged because it gave
+to both of them a too obvious air of being tremendous conspirators, Also
+Audrey had had to dissuade him from accompanying her to the Hall. He had
+rather conventional ideas about women being abroad alone after dark, and he
+abandoned them with difficulty even now.
+
+As there were no street lamps alight in summer in the village of Moze,
+Audrey had no fear of being recognised; moreover, recognition by her former
+fellow-citizens could now have no sinister importance; she did not much
+care who recognised her. The principal gates of Flank Hall were slightly
+ajar, as arranged with Aguilar, and she passed with a suddenly aroused
+heart up the drive towards the front entrance of the house. In spite of
+herself she could not get rid of an absurd fear that either Mr. Hurley or
+Inspector Keeble or both would jump out of the dark bushes and slip
+handcuffs upon her wrists. And the baffling invisibility of the sky further
+affected her nerves. There ought to have been a lamp in the front hall, but
+no ray showed through the eighteenth century fanlight over the door. She
+rang the bell cautiously. She heard the distant ting. Aguilar, according to
+the plan, ought to have opened; but he did not open; nobody opened. She was
+instantly sure that she knew what had happened. Mr. Hurley had been to
+Frinton and ascertained that the Spatt story as to the tank-room was an
+invention, and had returned with a search warrant and some tools. But in
+another ten seconds she was equally sure that nothing of the sort could
+have happened, for it was an axiom with her that Aguilar's masterly lying,
+based on masterly listening at an attic door, had convinced Mr. Hurley of
+the truth of the story about the tank-room.
+
+Accidentally pushing against the front door with an elbow in the deep
+obscurity, she discovered that it was not latched. This was quite contrary
+to the plan. She stepped into the house. The unforeseeing simpleton had
+actually come on the excursion without a box of matches! She felt her way,
+aided by the swift returning memories of childhood, to the foot of the
+stairs, and past the stairs into the kitchen, for in ancient days a
+candlestick with a box of matches in it had always been kept on the ledge
+of the small square window that gave light to the passage between the hall
+and the kitchen. Her father had been most severely particular about that
+candlestick (with matches) being-always ready on that ledge in case of his
+need. Ridiculous, of course, to expect a candlestick to be still there!
+Times change so. But she felt for it, and there it was, and the matches
+too! She lit the candle. The dim scene thus revealed seemed strange enough
+to her after the electricity of the HĂ´tel du Danube and of the yacht. It
+made her want to cry....
+
+She was one of those people who have room in their minds for all sorts of
+things at once. And thus she could simultaneously be worried to an extreme
+about Jane Foley, foolish and sad about her immensely distant childhood,
+and even regretful that she had admitted the fraudulence of the
+wedding-ring on her hand. On the last point she had a very strong sense of
+failure and disillusion. When she had first donned a widow's bonnet she had
+meant to have wondrous adventures and to hear marvellous conversations as a
+widow. And what had she done with her widowhood after all? Nothing. She
+could not but think that she ought to have kept it a little longer, on the
+chance....
+
+Aguilar made a practice of sleeping in the kitchen; he considered that a
+house could only be well guarded at night from the ground floor. There was
+his bed, in the corner against the brush and besom cupboard, all made up.
+Its creaselessness, so characteristic of Aguilar, had not been disturbed.
+The sight of the narrow bed made Audrey think what a strange existence was
+the existence of Aguilar. ... Then, with a boldness that was half bluster,
+she went upstairs, and the creaking of the woodwork was affrighting.
+
+"Jane! Jane, dear!" she called out, as she arrived at the second-storey
+landing. The sound of her voice was uncanny in the haunted stillness. All
+Audrey's infancy floated up the well of the stairs and wrapped itself round
+her and tightened her throat. She went along the passage to the door of the
+tank-room.
+
+"Jane, Jane!"
+
+No answer! The door was locked. She listened. She put her ear against the
+door in order to catch the faintest sound of life within. But she could
+only hear the crude, sharp ticking of the cheap clock which, as she knew,
+Aguilar had supplied to Jane Foley. The vision of Jane lying unconscious or
+dead obsessed her. Then she thrust it away and laughed at it. Assuredly
+Aguilar and Jane must have received some alarm as to a reappearance of the
+police; they must have fled while there had yet been time. Where could they
+have gone? Of course, through the garden and plantation and down to the
+sea-wall, whence Jane might steal to the yacht. Audrey turned back towards
+the stairs, and the vast intimidating emptiness of the gloomy house, lit by
+a single flickering candle, assaulted her. She had to fight it before she
+could descend. The garden door was latched, but not locked. Extinguishing
+the candle, she went forth. The gusty breeze from the estuary was now damp
+on her cheek with the presage of rain. She hurried, fumbling as it were,
+through the garden. When she achieved the hedge the spectacle of the yacht,
+gleaming from stem to stern with electricity, burst upon her; it shone like
+something desired and unattainable. Carefully she issued from the grounds
+by the little gate and crossed the intervening space to the dyke. A dark
+figure moved in front of her, and her heart violently jumped.
+
+"Is that you, madam?"
+
+It was the cold, imperturbable voice of Aguilar. At once she felt
+reassured.
+
+"Where is Miss Foley?" she demanded in a whisper.
+
+"I've got her down here, ma'am," said Aguilar. "I presume as you've been to
+the house. We had to leave it."
+
+"But the door of the tank-room was locked!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. I locked it a-purpose.... I thought as it would keep the
+police employed a bit when they come. I seen my cousin Sarah when I went to
+tell Miss Ingate as you instructed me. My cousin Sarah seen Keeble. They
+been to Frinton to Mrs. Spatt's, and they found out about _that_. And now
+the 'tec's back, or nearly. I reckon it was the warrant as was delaying
+him. So I out with Miss Foley. I thought I could take her across to the
+yacht from here. It wouldn't hardly be safe for her to walk round by the
+dyke. Hurley may have several of his chaps about by this time."
+
+"But there's not water enough, Aguilar."
+
+"Yes, madam. I dragged the old punt down. She don't draw three inches.
+She's afloat now, and Miss Foley's in her. I was just a-going off. If you
+don't mind wetting your feet----"
+
+In one minute Audrey had splashed into the punt. Jane Foley took her hand
+in silence, and she heard Jane's low, happy laugh.
+
+"Isn't it funny?" Jane whispered.
+
+Audrey squeezed her hand.
+
+Aguilar pushed off with an oar, and he continued to use the oar as a
+punt-pole, so that no sound of their movement should reach the bank. Water
+was pouring into the old sieve, and they touched ground once. But Aguilar
+knew precisely what he was about and got her off again. They approached
+the yacht with the slow, sure inexorability of Aguilar's character. A beam
+from the portholes of the saloon caught Aguilar's erect figure. He sat
+down, poling as well as he could from the new position. When they were a
+little nearer he stopped dead, holding the punt firm by means of the pole
+fixed in the mud.
+
+"He's there afore us!" he murmured, pointing.
+
+Under the Maltese cross of electric lights at the inner end of the gangway
+could clearly be seen the form of Mr. Hurley, engaged in conversation with
+Mr. Gilman. Mr. Hurley was fairly on board.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+IN THE UNIVERSE
+
+When Audrey, having been put ashore in execution of a plan arranged with
+those naturally endowed strategists, Aguilar and Jane Foley, arrived at the
+Hard by way of the sea-wall, Mr. Hurley was still in parley with Mr.
+Gilman under the Maltese cross of electric lights. From the distance Mr.
+Gilman had an air of being somewhat intimidated by the Irishman, but as
+soon as he distinguished the figure of Audrey at the shore end of the
+gangway his muscles became mysteriously taut, and his voice charged with
+defiance.
+
+"I have already told you, sir," Audrey heard him say, "there is no such
+person aboard the yacht. And I most certainly will not allow you to search.
+You have no right whatever to search, and you know it. You have my word.
+My name is Gilman. You may have heard of me. I'm chairman of the Board of
+Foodstuffs, Limited. Gilman, sir. And I shall feel obliged if you will
+leave my decks."
+
+"Are you sailing to-night?" asked Mr. Hurley placidly.
+
+"What the devil has that got to do with you, sir?" replied Mr. Gilman
+gloriously.
+
+Audrey, standing behind the detective and unseen by him, observed the
+gloriousness of Mr. Gilman's demeanour and also Mr. Gilman's desire that
+she should note the same and appreciate it. She nodded violently several
+times to Mr. Gilman, to urge him to answer the detective in the
+affirmative.
+
+"Ye-es, sir. Since you are so confoundedly inquisitive, I am sailing
+to-night. I shall sail as soon as the tide serves," said Mr. Gilman
+hurriedly and fiercely, and then glanced again at Audrey for further
+approval.
+
+"Where for?" Mr. Hurley demanded.
+
+"Where I please, sir," Mr. Gilman snorted. By this time he evidently
+imagined that he was furious, and was taking pleasure in his fury.
+
+Mr. Hurley, having given a little ironic bow, turned to leave and found
+himself fronting Audrey, who stiffly ignored his salute. The detective
+gone, Mr. Gilman walked to and fro, breathing more loudly than ever, and
+unsuccessfully pretending to a scattered audience, which consisted of the
+skipper, Mr. Price, Dr. Cromarty, and sundry deck-hands, that he had done
+nothing in particular and was not a hero. As Audrey approached him he
+seemed to lay all his glory with humble pride at her feet.
+
+"Well, he brought that on himself!" said Audrey, smiling.
+
+"He did," Mr. Gilman concurred, gazing at the Hard with inimical scorn.
+
+"She can't come--now," said Audrey. "It wouldn't be safe. He means to stay
+on the Hard till we're gone. He's a very suspicious man."
+
+Mr. Hurley was indeed lingering just beyond the immediate range of the
+_Ariadne's_ lamps.
+
+"Can't come! What a pity! What a pity!" murmured Mr. Gilman, with an accent
+that was not a bit sincere. The news was the best he had heard for hours.
+"But I suppose," he added, "we'd better sail just the same, as I've said we
+should?" He did not want to run the risk of getting Jane Foley after all.
+
+"Oh! Do!" Audrey exclaimed. "It will be lovely! If it doesn't rain--and
+even if it does rain! We all like sailing at night.... Are the others in
+the saloon? I'll run down."
+
+"Mr. Wyatt," the owner sternly accosted the captain. "When can we get
+off?"
+
+"Oh! About midnight," Audrey answered quickly, before Mr. Wyatt could
+compose his lips.
+
+The men gazed at each other surprised by this show of technical knowledge
+in a young widow. By the time Mr. Wyatt had replied, Audrey was descending
+into the saloon. It was Aguilar who, having ascertained the _Ariadne's_
+draught, had made the calculation as to the earliest possible hour of
+departure.
+
+And in the saloon Musa was, as it were, being enveloped and kept
+comfortable in the admiring sympathy of Madame Piriac and Miss Thompkins.
+Mr. Gilman's violin lay across his knees--perhaps he had been tuning
+it--and the women inclined towards him, one on either side. It was a sight
+that somewhat annoyed Audrey, who told herself that she considered it
+silly. Admitting that Musa had genius, she could not understand this soft
+flattery of genius. She never flattered genius herself, and she did not
+approve of others doing so. Certainly Musa was now being treated on the
+yacht as a celebrity of the first order, and Audrey could find no
+explanation of the steady growth in the height and splendour of his throne.
+Her arrival dissolved the spectacle. Within one minute, somehow, the saloon
+was empty and everybody on deck again.
+
+And then, drawing her away, Musa murmured to Audrey in a disconcerting tone
+that he must speak to her on a matter of urgency, and that in order that he
+might do so, they must go ashore and walk seawards, far from interruption.
+She consented, for she was determined to prove to him at close quarters
+that she was a different creature from the other two. They moved to the
+gangway amid discreet manifestations from the doctor and the
+secretary--manifestations directed chiefly to Musa and indicative of his
+importance as a notability. Audrey was puzzled. For her, Musa was more than
+ever just Musa, and less than ever a personage.
+
+"I shall not return to the yacht," he said, with an excited bitterness,
+after they had walked some distance along one of the paths leading past low
+bushes into the wilderness of the marsh land that bounded the estuary to
+the south. The sky was still invisible, but there was now a certain amount
+of diffused light, and the pale path could easily be distinguished amid the
+sombreness of green. The yacht was hidden behind one of the knolls. No
+sound could be heard. The breeze had died. That which was around them--on
+either hand, above, below--was the universe. They knew that they stood
+still in the universe, and this idea gave their youth the sensation of
+being very important.
+
+"What is that which you say?" Audrey demanded sharply in French, as Musa
+had begun in French. She was aware, not for the first time with Musa, of
+the sudden possibilities of drama in a human being. She could scarcely make
+out his face, but she knew that he was in a mood for high follies; she knew
+that danger was gathering; she knew that the shape of the future was
+immediately to be moulded by her and him, and chiefly by herself. She liked
+it. The sensation of her importance was reinforced.
+
+"I say I shall never return to the yacht," he repeated.
+
+She thought compassionately:
+
+"Poor foolish thing!"
+
+She was incalculably older and wiser than this irrational boy. She was the
+essence of wisdom.
+
+She said, with acid detachment:
+
+"But your luggage, your belongings? What an idea to leave in this manner!
+It is so polite, so sensible!"
+
+"I shall not return."
+
+"Of course," she said, "I do not at all understand why you are going. But
+what does that matter? You are going." Her indifference was superb. It was
+so superb that it might have driven some men to destroy her on the spot.
+
+"Yes, you understand! I told you last night," said Musa, overflowing with
+emotion.
+
+"Oh! You told me? I forget."
+
+"Naturally Monsieur Gilman is rich. I am not rich, though I shall be. But
+you can't wait," Musa sneered.
+
+"I do not know what you mean," said Audrey.
+
+"Ah!" said Musa. "Once I told you that Tommy and Nick lent me the money
+with which to live. For me, since then, you have never been the same being.
+How stupid I was to tell you! You could not comprehend such a thing. Your
+soul is too low to comprehend it. Permit me to say that I have already
+repaid Nick. And at the first moment I shall repay Tommy. My position is
+secure. I have only to wait. But you will not wait. You are a bourgeoise
+of the most terrible sort. Opulence fascinates you. Mr. Gilman has
+opulence. He has nothing else. But he has opulence, and for you that is
+all."
+
+In an instant her indifference, self-control, wisdom vanished. It was a sad
+exhibition of frailty; but she enjoyed it, she revelled in it, giving play
+to everything in herself that was barbaric. The marsh around them was
+probably as it had been before the vikings had sailed into it, and Audrey
+rushed back with inconceivable speed into the past and became the primeval
+woman of twenty centuries earlier. Like almost all women she possessed this
+wondrous and affrighting faculty.
+
+"You are telling a wicked untruth!" she exploded in English. "And what's
+more, you know you are. You disgust me. You know as well as I do I don't
+care anything for money--anything. Only you're a horrid, spoilt beast. You
+think you can upset me, but you can't. I won't have it, either from you or
+from anybody else. It's a shame, that's what it is. Now you've got to
+apologise to me. I absolutely insist on it. You aren't going to bully me,
+even if you think you are. I'll soon show you the sort of girl I am, and
+you make no mistake! Are you going to apologise or aren't you?"
+
+The indecorous creature was breathing as loudly as Mr. Gilman himself.
+
+"I admit it," said Musa yielding.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"I demand your pardon. I knew that what I said was not true. I am outside
+myself. But what would you? It is stronger than I. This existence is
+terrible, on the yacht. I cannot support it. I shall become mad. I am
+ruined. My jealousy is intolerable."
+
+"It is!" said Audrey, using French again, more calmly, having returned to
+the twentieth century.
+
+"It is intolerable to me." Then Musa's voice changed and grew persuasive,
+rather like a child's. "I cannot live without you. That is the truth. I am
+an artist, and you are necessary to me and to my career." He lifted his
+head. "And I can offer you everything that is most brilliant."
+
+"And what about my career?" Audrey questioned inimically.
+
+"Your career?" He seemed at a loss.
+
+"Yes. My career. It has possibly not occurred to you that I also may have a
+career."
+
+Musa became appealing.
+
+"You understand me," he said. "I told you you do not comprehend, but you
+comprehend everything. It is that which enrages me. You have had
+experience. You know what men are. You could teach me so much. I hate young
+girls. I have always hated them. They are so tasteless, so insufferably
+innocent. I could not talk to a young girl as I talk to you. It would be
+absurd. Now as to my career--what I said----"
+
+"Musa," she interrupted him, with a sinister quietude, "I want to tell you
+something. But you must promise to keep it secret. Will you?"
+
+He assented, impatient.
+
+"It is not possible!" he exclaimed, when she had told him that she belonged
+to precisely the category of human beings whom he hated and despised.
+
+"Isn't it?" said she. "Now I hope you see how little you know, really,
+about women." She laughed.
+
+"It is not possible!" he repeated. And then he said with deliberate
+ingenuousness: "I am so content. I am so happy. I could not have hoped for
+it. It is overwhelming. I am everything you like of the most idiotic,
+blind, stupid. But now I am happy. Could I ever have borne that you had
+loved before I knew you? I doubt if I could have borne it. Your innocence
+is exquisite. It is intoxicating to me."
+
+"Musa," she remarked dryly; "I wish you would remember that you are in
+England. People do not talk in that way in England. It simply is not done.
+And I will not listen to it." Her voice grew a little tender. "Why can we
+not just be friends?"
+
+"It is folly," said he, with sudden disgust. "And it would kill me."
+
+"Well, then," she replied, receding. "You're entitled to die."
+
+He advanced towards her. She kept him away with a gesture.
+
+"You want me to marry you?" she questioned.
+
+"It is essential," he said, very seriously. "I adore you. I can't do
+anything because of you. I can't think of anything but you. You are more
+marvellous than anyone can be. You cannot appreciate what you are to me!"
+
+"And suppose you are nothing to me?"
+
+"But it is necessary that you should love me!"
+
+"Why? I see no necessity. You want me--because you want me. That's all. I
+can't help it if you're mad. Your attitude is insulting. You have not given
+one thought to my feelings. And if I said 'yes' to you, you'd marry me
+whatever my feelings were. You think only of yourself. It is the old
+attitude. And when I offer you my friendship, you instantly decline it.
+That shows how horribly French you are. Frenchmen can't understand the idea
+of friendship between a man and a girl. They sneer at it. It shows what
+brutes you all are. Why should I marry you? I should have nothing to gain
+by it. You'll be famous. Well, what do I care? Do you think it would be
+very amusing for me to be the wife of a famous man that was run after by
+every silly creature in Paris or London or New York?  Not quite! And I
+don't see myself. You don't like young girls. I don't like young men.
+They're rude and selfish and conceited. They're like babies."
+
+"The fact is," Musa broke in, "you are in love with the old Gilman."
+
+"He is not old!" cried Audrey. "In some ways he is much less worn out than
+you are. And supposing I am in love with Mr. Gilman? Does it regard you? Do
+not be rude. Mr. Gilman is at any rate polite. He is not capricious. He is
+reliable. You aren't reliable. You want someone upon whom you can rely. How
+nice for your wife! You play the violin. True. You are a genius. But you
+cannot always be on the platform. And when you are not on the platform...!
+Heavens! If I wish to hear you play I can buy a seat and come and hear you
+and go away again. But your wife, responsible for your career--she will
+never be free. Her life will be unbearable. What anxiety!  Misery, I should
+say rather! You would have the lion's share of everything. Now for myself I
+intend to have the lion's share. And why shouldn't I? Isn't it about time
+some woman had it? You can't have the lion's share if you are not free. I
+mean to be free. If I marry I shall want a husband that is not a prison....
+Thank goodness I've got money.... Without that----!"
+
+"Then," said Musa, "you have no feeling for me."
+
+"Love?" she laughed exasperatingly.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"Not that much!" She snapped her fingers. "But"--in a changed tone--"I
+_should_ like to like you. I shall be very disgusted if your concerts are
+not a tremendous success. And they will not be if you don't keep control
+over yourself and practise properly. And it will be your fault."
+
+"Then, good-bye!" he said, coldly ignoring all her maternal suggestions.
+And turned away.
+
+"Where are you going to?"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"I do not know. But if I do not deceive myself I have already informed you
+that in certain circumstances I should not return to the yacht."
+
+"You are worse than a schoolboy."
+
+"It is possible."
+
+"Anyway, _I_ shan't explain on the yacht. I shall tell them that I know
+nothing about it."
+
+"But no one will believe you," he retorted maliciously over his shoulder.
+And then he was gone.
+
+She at any rate was no longer surrounded by the largeness of the universe.
+He might still be, but she was not. She was in mind already on the yacht
+trying to act a surprise equal to the surprise of the others when Musa
+failed to reappear. She was very angry with him, not because he had been a
+rude schoolboy and was entirely impossible as a human being, but because
+she had allowed herself to leave the yacht with him and would therefore be
+compelled sooner or later to answer questions about him. She seriously
+feared that Mr. Gilman might refuse to sail unless she confessed to him her
+positive knowledge that Musa would not be seen again, and that thus she
+might have to choose between the failure of her plans for Jane Foley and
+her own personal discomfiture.
+
+Instead of being in the mighty universe she was struggling amid the
+tiresome littleness of society on a yacht. She hated yachts for their very
+cosiness and their quality of keeping people close together who wanted to
+be far apart. And as she watched the figure of Musa growing fainter she was
+more than ever impressed by the queerness of men. Women seemed to be so
+logical, so realistic, so understandable, so calculable, whereas men were
+enigmas of waywardness and unreason. At just that moment her feet reminded
+her that they had been wetted by the adventure in the punt, and she said to
+herself sagely that she must take precautions against a chill.
+
+And then she thought she detected some unusual phenomenon behind a clump of
+bushes to the right which hid a plank-bridge across a waterway. She would
+have been frightened if she had not been very excited. And in her
+excitement she marched straight up to the clump, and found Mr. Hurley in a
+crouching posture. She started, and recovered.
+
+"I might have known!" she said disdainfully.
+
+"We all make mistakes," said Mr. Hurley defensively. "We all make
+mistakes. I knew I'd made a mistake as soon as I got here, but I couldn't
+get away quietly enough. And you talked so loud. Ye'll admit I had just
+cause for suspicion. And being a very agreeable lady ye'll pardon me."
+
+She blushed, and then ceased blushing because it was too dark for him to
+perceive the blush, and she passed on without a word. When, across the
+waste, she had come within sight of the yacht again, she heard footsteps
+behind her, and turned to withstand the detective. But the overtaker was
+Musa.
+
+"It is necessary that I should return to the yacht," he said savagely. "The
+thought of you and Monsieur Gilman together, without me.... No! I did not
+know myself. ... I did not know myself.... It is impossible for me to
+leave."
+
+She made no answer. They boarded the yacht as though they had been for a
+stroll. Few could have guessed that they had come back from the universe
+terribly scathed. Accepting deferential greetings as a right, Musa
+vanished rapidly to his cabin.
+
+Several hours later Audrey and Mr. Gilman, alone among the passengers, were
+standing together, both tarpaulined, on the starboard bow, gazing seaward
+as the yacht cautiously felt her way down Mozewater. Captain Wyatt, and not
+Mr. Gilman, was at the binnacle. A little rain was falling and the night
+was rather thick but not impenetrable.
+
+"There's the light!" said Audrey excitedly.
+
+"What sharp eyes you have!" said Mr. Gilman. "I can see it, too." He spoke
+a word to the skipper, and the skipper spoke, and then the engine went
+still more slowly.
+
+The yacht approached the Flank buoy dead slow, scarcely stemming the tide.
+The Moze punt was tied up to the buoy, and Aguilar held a lantern on a
+boathook, while Jane Foley, very wet, was doing a spell of baling. Aguilar
+dropped the boathook and, casting off, brought the punt alongside the
+yacht. The steps were lowered and Jane Foley, with laughing, rain-sprinkled
+face, climbed up. Aguilar handed her bag which contained nearly everything
+she possessed on earth. She and Audrey kissed calmly, and Audrey presented
+Mr. Gilman to a suddenly shy Jane. In the punt Miss Foley had been seen to
+take an affectionate leave of Aguilar. She now leaned over the rail.
+
+"Good-bye!" she said, with warmth. "Thanks ever so much. It's been
+splendid. I do hope you won't be too wet. Can you row all the way home?"
+She shivered.
+
+"I shall go back on the tide, Miss Foley," answered Aguilar.
+
+He touched his cap to Audrey, mumbled gloomily a salutation, and loosed his
+hold on the yacht; and at once the punt felt the tide and began to glide
+away in the darkness towards Moze. The yacht's engine quickened. Flank buoy
+faded.
+
+Mr. Gilman and the two girls made a group.
+
+"You're wonderful! You really are!" said Mr. Gilman, addressing apparently
+the pair of them. He was enthusiastic. ... He added with grandeur, "And
+now for France!"
+
+"I do hope Mr. Hurley is still hanging about Moze," said Audrey. "Mr.
+Gilman, shall I show Miss Foley her cabin? She's rather wet."
+
+"Oh, do! Oh, do, please! But don't forget that we are to have supper
+together. I insist on supper."
+
+And Audrey thought: "How agreeable he is! How kind-hearted! He hasn't got
+any 'career' to worry about, and I adore him, and he's as simple as
+knitting."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE IMMINENT DRIVE
+
+
+"Oh!" cried Miss Thompkins. "You can see it from here. It's funny how
+unreal it seems, isn't it?"
+
+She pointed at one of the large white-curtained windows of the restaurant,
+through which was visible a round column covered with advertisements of
+theatres, music-halls, and concert-halls, printed in many colours and
+announcing superlative delights. Names famous wherever pleasure is
+understood gave to their variegated posters a pleasant air of distinguished
+familiarity--names of theatres such as "Variétés," "Vaudeville,"
+"ChĂ¢telet," "ThĂ©Ă¢tre Français," "Folies-Bergère," and names of persons such
+as "Sarah Bernhardt," "Huegenet," "Le Bargy," "Litvinne," "Lavallière." But
+the name in the largest type--dark crimson letters on rose paper--the name
+dominating all the rest, was the name of Musa. The ingenuous stranger to
+Paris was compelled to think that as an artist Musa was far more important
+than anybody else. Along the length of all the principal boulevards, and in
+many of the lesser streets, the ingenuous stranger encountered, at regular
+distances of a couple of hundred yards or so, one of these columns planted
+on the kerb; and all the scores of them bore exactly the same legend; they
+all spoke of nothing but blissful diversions, and they all put Musa ahead
+of anybody else in the world of the stage and the platform. Sarah Bernhardt
+herself, dark blue upon pale, was a trifle compared to Musa on the columns.
+And it had been so for days. Other posters were changed daily--changed by
+mysterious hands before even bread-girls were afoot with their yards of
+bread--but the space given to Musa repeated always the same tidings, namely
+that Musa ("the great violinist") was to give an orchestral concert at the
+Salle Xavier, assisted by the Xavier orchestra, on Thursday, September 24,
+at 9 P.M. Particulars of the programme followed.
+
+Paris was being familiarised with Musa. His four letters looked down upon
+the fever of the thoroughfares; they were perused by tens of thousands of
+sitters in cafés and in front of cafés; they caught the eye of men and
+women fleeing from the wrath to come in taxicabs; they competed
+successfully with newspaper placards; and on that Thursday--for the
+Thursday in question had already run more than half its course--they had so
+entered into the sub-conscious brain of Paris that no habitué of the
+streets, whatever his ignorant indifference to the art of music, could have
+failed to reply with knowledge, on hearing Musa mentioned, "Oh, yes!"
+implying that he was fully acquainted with the existence of the said Musa.
+
+Tommy was right: there did seem to be a certain unreality about the thing,
+yet it was utterly real.
+
+All the women turned to glance at the name through the window, and some of
+them murmured sympathetic and interested exclamations and bright hopes.
+There were five women: Miss Thompkins, Miss Nickall, Madame Piriac, Miss
+Ingate and Audrey. And there was one man--Mr. Gilman. And the six were
+seated at a round table in the historic Parisian restaurant. Mr. Gilman had
+the air triumphant, and he was entitled to it. The supreme moment of his
+triumph had come. Having given a luncheon to these ladies, he had just
+asked, with due high negligence, for the bill. If there was one matter in
+which Mr. Gilman was a truly great expert, it was the matter of giving a
+meal in a restaurant. He knew how to dress for such an affair--with strict
+conventionality but a touch of devil-may-care youthfulness in the necktie.
+He knew how to choose the restaurant; he had about half a dozen in his
+répertoire--all of the first order and for the most part combining the
+exclusive with the amusing--entirely different in kind from the pandemonium
+where Audrey had eaten on the night of her first arrival in Paris; he knew
+how to get the best out of head-waiters and waiters, who in these
+restaurants were not head-waiters and waiters but worldly priests and
+acolytes; his profound knowledge of cookery sprang from a genuine interest
+in his stomach, and he could compose a menu in a fashion to command the
+respect of head-waiters and to excite the envy of musicians composing a
+sonata; he had the wit to look in early and see to the flowers; above all
+he was aware what women liked in the way of wine, and since this was never
+what he liked in the way of wine, he would always command a half-bottle of
+the extra dry for himself, but would have it manipulated with such
+discretion that not a guest could notice it. He paid lavishly and
+willingly, convinced by hard experience that the best is inestimable, but
+he felt too that the best was really quite cheap, for he knew that there
+were imperfectly educated people in the world who thought nothing of paying
+the price of a good meal for a mere engraving or a bit of china. Withal,
+he never expected his guests truly to appreciate the marvels he offered
+them. They could not, or very rarely. Their twittering ecstatic praise,
+which was without understanding, sufficed for him, though sometimes he
+would give gentle diffident instruction. This trait in him was very
+attractive, proving the genuineness of his modesty.
+
+The luncheon was partly to celebrate the return of various persons to
+Paris, but chiefly in honour of Musa's concert. Musa could not be present,
+for distinguished public performers do not show themselves on the day of an
+appearance. Mr. Gilman had learnt this from Madame Piriac, whom he had
+consulted as to the list of guests. It is to be said that he bore the
+absence of Musa from his table with stoicism. For the rest, Madame Piriac
+knew that he wanted no other men, and she had suggested none. She had
+assumed that he desired Audrey, and had pointed out that Audrey could not
+well be invited without Miss Ingate, who, sick of her old Moze, had
+rejoined Audrey in the splendour of the HĂ´tel du Danube. Mr. Gilman had
+somehow mentioned Miss Thompkins, whereupon Madame Piriac had declared that
+Miss Thompkins involved Miss Nickall, who after a complete recovery from
+the broken arm had returned for a while to her studio. And then Mr. Gilman
+had closed the list, saying that six was enough, and exactly the right
+number.
+
+"At what o'clock are you going for the drive?" asked Madame Piriac in her
+improved, precise English. She looked equally at her self-styled uncle and
+at Audrey.
+
+"I ordered the car for three o'clock," answered Mr. Gilman. "It is not yet
+quite three."
+
+The table with its litter of ash-trays, empty cups, empty small glasses,
+and ravaged sweets, and the half-deserted restaurant, and the polite
+expectant weariness of the priests and acolytes, all showed that the hour
+was in fact not quite three--an hour at which such interiors have
+invariably the aspect of roses overblown and about to tumble to pieces.
+
+And immediately upon the reference to the drive everybody at the table
+displayed a little constraint, avoiding the gaze of everybody else, thus
+demonstrating that the imminent drive was a delicate, without being a
+disagreeable, topic. Which requires explanation.
+
+Mr. Gilman had not been seen by any of his guests during the summer. He had
+landed them at Boulogne from the _Ariadne_--sound but for one casualty.
+That casualty was Jane Foley, suffering from pneumonia, which had
+presumably developed during the evening of exposure spent with Aguilar in
+the leaking punt and in rain showers. Madame Piriac and Audrey took her to
+Wimereux and there nursed her through a long and sometimes dangerous
+illness. Jane possessed no constitution, but she had obstinacy, which
+saved her. In her convalescence, part of which she spent alone with Audrey
+(Madame Piriac having to pay visits to Monsieur Piriac), she had proceeded
+with the writing of a book, and she had also received in conclave the
+rarely seen Rosamund, who like herself was still a fugitive from British
+justice. These two had been elaborating a new plan of campaign, which was
+to include an incursion by themselves into England, and which had in part
+been confided by Jane to Audrey, who, having other notions in her head, had
+been somewhat troubled thereby. Audrey's conscience had occasionally told
+her to throw herself heartily into the campaign, but her individualistic
+instincts had in the end kept her safely on a fence between the campaign
+and something else. The something else was connected with Mr. Gilman.
+
+Mr. Gilman had written to her regularly; he had sent dazzling subscriptions
+to the Suffragette Union; and Audrey had replied regularly. His letters
+were very simple, very modest, and quite touching. They were dated from
+various coastal places. However, he never came near Wimereux, though it was
+a coastal place. Audrey had excusably deemed this odd; but Madame Piriac
+having once said with marked casualness, "I hinted to him that he might
+with advantage stay away," Audrey had concealed her thoughts on the point.
+And one of her thoughts was that Madame Piriac was keeping them apart so as
+to try them, so as to test their mutual feelings. The policy, if it was a
+policy, was very like Madame Piriac; it had the effect of investing Mr.
+Gilman in Audrey's mind with a peculiar romantic and wistful charm, as of a
+sighing and obedient victim. Then Jane Foley and Rosamund had gone off
+somewhere, and Madame Piriac and Audrey had returned to Paris, and had
+found that practically all Paris had returned to Paris too. And on the
+first meeting with Mr. Gilman it had been at once established that his
+feelings and those of Audrey had surmounted the Piriac test. Within
+forty-eight hours all persons interested had mysteriously assumed that Mr.
+Gilman and Audrey were coupled together by fate and that a delicious crisis
+was about to supervene in their earthly progress. And they had become
+objects of exquisite solicitude. They had also become perfect. A circle of
+friends and acquaintances waited in excited silence for a palpitating
+event, as a populace waits for the booming gunfire which is to inaugurate a
+national rejoicing. And when the news exuded that he was taking her for a
+drive to Meudon, which she had never seen, alone, all decided beyond any
+doubt that _he would do it during the drive_.
+
+Hence the nice constraint at the table when the drive grew publicly and
+avowedly imminent.
+
+Audrey, as the phrase is, "felt her position keenly," but not unpleasantly,
+nor with understanding. Not a word had passed of late between herself and
+Mr. Gilman that any acquaintance might not have listened to. Indeed, Mr.
+Gilman had become slightly more formal. She liked him for that, as she
+liked him for a large number of qualities. She did not know whether she
+loved him. And strange to say, the question did not passionately interest
+her. The only really interesting questions were: Would he propose to her?
+And would she accept him? She had no logical ground for assuming that he
+would propose to her. None of her friends had informed her of the general
+expectation that he would propose to her. Yet she knew that everybody
+expected him to propose to her quite soon--indeed within the next couple of
+hours. And she felt that everybody was right. The universe was full of
+mysteries for Audrey. As regards her answer to any proposal, she
+foresaw--another mystery--that it would not depend upon self-examination or
+upon reason, or upon anything that could be defined. It would depend upon
+an instinct over which her mind--nay, even her heart--had no control. She
+was quite certainly aware that this instinct would instruct her brain to
+instruct her lips to say "Yes." The idea of saying "No" simply could not be
+conceived. All the forces in the universe would combine to prevent her from
+saying "No."
+
+The one thing that might have countered that enigmatic and powerful
+instinct was a consideration based upon the difference between her age and
+that of Mr. Gilman. It is true that she did not know what the difference
+was, because she did not know Mr. Gilman's age. And she could not ask him.
+No! Such is the structure of society that she could not say to Mr. Gilman,
+"By the way, Mr. Gilman, how old are you?" She could properly ascertain his
+tastes about all manner of fundamental points, such as the shape of
+chair-legs, the correct hour for dining, or the comparative merits of
+diamonds and emeralds; but this trifle of information about his age could
+not be asked for. And he did not make her a present of it. She might have
+questioned Madame Piriac, but she could not persuade herself to question
+Madame Piriac either. However, what did it matter? Even if she learnt his
+age to a day, he would still be precisely the same Mr. Gilman. And let him
+be as old or as young as he might, she was still his equal in age. She was
+far more than six months older than she had been six months ago.
+
+The influence of Madame Piriac through the summer had indirectly matured
+her. For above all Madame Piriac had imperceptibly taught her the
+everlasting joy and duty of exciting the sympathy, admiration and gratitude
+of the other sex. Hence Audrey had aged at a miraculous rate because in
+order to please Mr. Gilman she wished--possibly without knowing it--to undo
+the disparity between herself and him. This may be strange, but it is
+assuredly more true than strange. To the same ends she had concealed her
+own age. Nobody except Miss Ingate knew how old she was. She only made it
+clear, when doubts seemed to exist, that she had passed her majority long
+before. Further, her wealth, magnified by legend, assisted her age. Not
+that she was so impressed by her wealth as she had been. She had met
+American women in Paris compared to whom she was at destitution's door. She
+knew one woman who had kept a 2,000-ton yacht lying all summer in the outer
+harbour at Boulogne, and had used it during that period for exactly eleven
+hours.
+
+Few of these people had an establishment. They would rent floors in hotels,
+or chĂ¢teaux in Touraine, or yachts, but they had no home, and yet they
+seemed very content and beyond doubt they were very free. And so Audrey did
+not trouble about having a home. She had Moze, which was more than many of
+her acquaintances had. She would not use it, but she had it. And she was
+content in the knowledge of the power to create a home when she felt
+inclined to create one. Not that it would not have been absurd to set about
+creating a home with Mr. Gilman hanging over her like a destiny. It would
+have been rude to him to do so; it would have been to transgress against
+the inter-sexual code as promulgated by Madame Piriac.... She wondered what
+sort of a place Meudon was, and whether he would propose to her while they
+were looking at the view together.... She trembled with the sense of
+adventure, which had little to do with happiness or unhappiness.... But
+_would_ he propose to her? Not improbably the whole conception of the
+situation was false and she was being ridiculous!
+
+Still the nice constraint persisted as the women began to put on their
+gloves, while Mr. Gilman had a word with the chief priest. And Audrey had
+the illusion of being a dedicated victim. As she self-consciously and yet
+proudly handled her gloves she could not help but notice the simple gold
+wedding-ring on a certain finger. She had never removed it. She had never
+formally renounced her claim to the status of a widow. That she was not a
+widow, that she had been guilty of a fraud on a gullible public, was
+somehow generally known; but the facts were not referred to, save perhaps
+in rare hints by Tommy, and she had continued to be known as Mrs.
+Moncreiff. Ignominious close to a daring enterprise! And in the
+circumstances nothing was more out of place than the ring, bought in cold,
+wilful, calculating naughtiness at Colchester.
+
+Just when Miss Ingate was beginning to discuss her own plans for the
+afternoon, Mr. Price entered the restaurant, and as he did so Miss
+Thompkins, saying something about the small type on the poster outside,
+went to the window to examine it. Mr. Price, disguised as a discreet
+dandy-about-town, bore a parcel of music. He removed a most glossy hat; he
+bowed to the whole company of ladies, who responded with smiles in which
+was acknowledge that he was a dandy in addition to being a secretary; and
+lastly with deference he handed the parcel of music to Mr. Gilman.
+
+"So you did get it! What did I tell you?" said Mr. Gilman with negligent
+condescension. "A minute later, and we should have been gone.... Has Mr.
+Price got this right?" he asked Audrey, putting the music respectfully in
+front of her.
+
+It included the reduced score of the Beethoven violin concerto, and other
+items to be performed that night at the Salle Xavier.
+
+"Oh! Thank you, Mr. Price!" said Audrey. The music was so fresh and glossy
+and luscious to the eye that it was like a gift of fruit.
+
+"That'll do, then, Price," said Mr. Gilman. "Don't forget about those
+things for to-night, will you?"
+
+"No, sir. I have a note of all of them."
+
+Mr. Price bowed and turned away, assuming his perfect hat. As he approached
+the door Tommy intercepted him; and said something to him in a low voice,
+to which he uncomfortably mumbled a reply. As they had admittedly been
+friends in Mr. Price's artistic days, exception could not be taken to this
+colloquy. Nevertheless Audrey, being as suspicious as a real widow,
+regarded it ill, thinking all manner of things. And when Tommy, humming,
+came back to her seat on Mr. Gilman's left hand, Audrey thought: "And why,
+after all, should she be on his left hand? It is of course proper that I
+should be on his right, but why should Tommy be on his left? Why not Madame
+Piriac or Miss Ingate?"
+
+"And what am _I_ going to do this afternoon?" demanded Miss Ingate,
+lengthening the space between her nose and her upper lip, and turning down
+the corners of her lower lip.
+
+"You have to try that new dress on, Winnie," said Audrey rather
+reprovingly.
+
+"Alone? Me go alone there? I wouldn't do it. It's not respectable the way
+they look at you and add you up and question you in those trying-on rooms,
+when they've _got_ you."
+
+"Well, take Elise with you."
+
+"Me take Elise? I won't do it, not unless I could keep her mouth full of
+pins all the time. Whenever we're alone, and her mouth isn't full of pins,
+she always talks to me as if I was an actress. And I'm not."
+
+"Well, then," said Miss Nickall kindly, "come with me and Tommy. We haven't
+anything to do, and I'm taking Tommy to see Jane Foley. Jane would love to
+see you."
+
+"She might," replied Miss Ingate. "Oh! She might. But I think I'll walk
+across to the hotel and just go to bed and sleep it off."
+
+"Sleep what off?" asked Tommy, with necklace rattling and orchidaceous eyes
+glittering.
+
+"Oh! Everything! Everything!" shrieked Miss Ingate.
+
+There was one other customer left in the restaurant, a solitary fair, fat
+man, and as Mr. Gilman's party was leaving, Audrey last, this solitary
+fair, fat man caught her eye, bowed, and rose. It was Mr. Cowl, secretary
+of the National Reformation Society. He greeted her with the assurance of
+an old and valued friend, and he called her neither Miss nor Mrs.; he
+called her nothing at all. Audrey accepted his lead.
+
+"And is your Society still alive?" she asked with casual polite disdain.
+
+"Going strong!" said Mr. Cowl. "More flourishing than ever--in spite of our
+bad luck." He lifted his sandy-coloured eyebrows. "Of course I'm here on
+Society business. In fact, I often have to come to Paris on Society
+business." His glance deprecated the appearance of the table over which his
+rounded form was protruding.
+
+"Well, I'm glad to have seen you again," said Audrey, holding out her hand.
+
+"I wonder," said Mr. Cowl, drawing some tickets from his pocket. "I wonder
+whether you--and your friends--would care to go to a concert to-night at
+the Salle Xavier. The concierge at my hotel is giving tickets away, and I
+took some--rather to oblige him than anything else. For one never knows
+when a concierge may not be useful. I don't suppose it will be anything
+great, but it will pass the time, and--er--strangers in Paris----"
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Cowl, but I'm not a stranger in Paris. I live here."
+
+"Oh! I beg your pardon," said Mr. Cowl. "Excuse me. Then you won't take
+them? Pity! I hate to see anything wasted."
+
+Audrey was both desolated and infuriated.
+
+"Remember me respectfully to Miss Ingate, please," finished Mr. Cowl. "She
+didn't see me as she passed."
+
+He returned the tickets to his pocket.
+
+Outside, Madame Piriac, standing by her automobile, which had rolled up
+with the silence of an hallucination, took leave of Audrey.
+
+"_Eh bien! Au revoir!_" said she shortly, with a peculiar challenging
+half-smile, which seemed to be saying, "Are you going to be worthy of my
+education? Let us hope so."
+
+And Miss Nickall, with her grey hair growing fluffier under a somewhat
+rakish hat, said with a smile of sheer intense watchful benevolence:
+
+"Well, good-bye!"
+
+While Nick was ecstatically thanking Mr. Gilman for his hospitality, Tommy
+called Audrey aside. Madame Piriac's car had vanished.
+
+"Have you heard about the rehearsal this morning?" she asked, in a
+confidential tone, anxious and yet quizzical.
+
+"No! What about it?" Audrey demanded. Various apprehensions were competing
+for attention in her brain. The episode of Mr. Cowl had agitated her
+considerably. And now she was standing right against the column bearing
+Musa's name in those large letters, and other columns up and down the gay,
+busy street echoed clear the name. And how unreal it was!... Tickets being
+given away in half-dozens!... She ought to have been profoundly disturbed
+by such a revelation, and she was. But here was the drive with Mr. Gilman
+insisting on a monopoly of all her faculties. And on the top of
+everything--Tommy with her strange gaze and tone! Tommy carefully hesitated
+before replying.
+
+"He lost his temper and left it in the middle--orchestra and conductor and
+Xavier and all! And he swore he wouldn't play to-night."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Yes, he did."
+
+"Who told you?"
+
+Already the two women were addressing each other as foes.
+
+"A man I know in the orchestra."
+
+"Why didn't you tell us at once--when you came?"
+
+"Well, I didn't want to spoil the luncheon. But of course I ought to have
+done. You, at any rate, seeing your interest in the concert! I'm sorry."
+
+"My interest in the concert?" Audrey objected.
+
+"Well, my girl," said Tommy, half cajolingly and half threateningly, "you
+aren't going to stand there and tell me to my face that you haven't put up
+that concert for him?"
+
+"Put up the concert! Put up the----" Audrey knew she was blushing.
+
+"Paid for it! Paid for it!" said Tommy, with impatience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+GENIUS AT BAY
+
+Audrey got away from the group in front of the restaurant with stammering
+words and crimson confusion. She ran. She stopped a taxi and stumbled into
+it. There remained with her vividly the vision of the startled, entirely
+puzzled face of Mr. Gilman, who in an instant had been transformed from a
+happy, dignified and excusably self-satisfied human male into an outraged
+rebel whose grievance had overwhelmed his dignity. She had said hurriedly:
+"Please excuse me not coming with you. But Tommy says something's happened
+to Musa, and I must go and see. It's very important." And that was all she
+had said. Had she asked him to drive her to Musa's, Mr. Gilman would have
+been very pleased to do so; but she did not think of that till it was too
+late. Her precipitancy had been terrible, and had staggered even Tommy. She
+had no idea how the group would arrange itself. And she had no very clear
+idea as to what was wrong with Musa or how matters stood in regard to the
+concert. Tommy had asserted that she did not know whether the orchestra and
+its conductor meant to be at their desks in the evening just as though
+nothing whatever had occurred at the rehearsal. All was vague, and all was
+disturbing. She had asked Tommy the authority for her assertion that she,
+Audrey, was financing the concert. To which Tommy had replied that she had
+"guessed, of course." And seeing that Audrey had only interviewed a concert
+agent once--and he a London concert agent with relations in Paris--and
+that she had never uttered a word about the affair to anybody except Mr.
+Foulger, who had been keeping an eye on the expenditure, it was not
+improbable that Tommy had just guessed. But she had guessed right. She was
+an uncanny woman. "Have you ever spoken to Musa about--it?" Audrey had
+passionately demanded; and Tommy had answered also passionately: "Of course
+not. I'm a white woman all through. Haven't you learnt that yet?"
+
+The taxi, although it was a horse-taxi and incapable of moving at more than
+five miles an hour, reached the Rue Cassette, which was on the other side
+of the river and quite a long way off, in no time. That is to say, Audrey
+was not aware that any time had passed. She had received the address from
+Tommy, for it was a new address, Musa having admittedly risen in the world.
+The house was an old one; it had a curious staircase, with china knobs on
+the principal banisters of the rail, and crimson-tasselled bell cords at
+all the doors of the flats. Musa lived at the summit of it. Audrey arrived
+there short of breath, took the crimson-tasselled cord in her hand to pull,
+and then hesitated in order to think.
+
+Why had she come? The response was clear. She had come solely because she
+hated to see a job botched, and there was not a moment to lose if it was
+not to be botched. She had come, not because she had the slightest
+sympathetic interest in Musa--on the contrary, she was coldly angry with
+him--but because she had a horror of fiascos. She had found a genius who
+needed financing, and she, possessing some tons of money, had financed him,
+and she did not mean to see an ounce of her money wasted if she could help
+it. Her interest in the affair was artistic and impersonal, and none other.
+It was the duty of wealthy magnates to foster art, and she was fostering
+art, and she would have the thing done neatly and completely, or she would
+know the reason. Fancy a rational creature making a scene at a final
+rehearsal and swearing that he would not play, and then bolting!  It was
+monstrous! People really did not do such things. Assuredly no artist had
+ever done such a thing before. Artists who had a concert all to themselves
+invariably appeared according to advertised promise. An artist who was only
+one among several in a programme might fall ill and fail to appear, for
+such artists are liable to the accidents of earthly existence. But an
+artist who shared the programme with nobody else was above the accidents of
+earthly existence and magically protected against colds, coughs, influenza,
+orange peel, automobiles, and all the other enemies of mankind. But, of
+course, Musa was peculiar, erratic and unpredictable beyond even the wide
+range granted by society to genius. And yet of late he had been behaving
+himself in a marvellous manner. He had never bothered her. On the voyage
+back to France he had not bothered her. They had separated with punctilious
+cordiality. Neither of them had written to the other, but she knew that he
+was working diligently and satisfactorily. He was apparently cured of her.
+It was perhaps due to the seeming completeness of his cure that her
+relations with Mr. Gilman had been what they were. ... And now, suddenly,
+this!
+
+So with clear conscience she pulled the bell cord.
+
+Musa himself opened the door. He was coatless and in a dressing-gown, under
+which showed glimpses of a new smartness. As soon as he saw her he went
+very pale.
+
+"_Bon jour_," she said.
+
+He repeated the phrase stiffly.
+
+"Can I come in?" she asked.
+
+He silently signified, with a certain annoying resignation, that she might.
+For one instant she was under a tremendous impulse to walk grandly and
+haughtily down the stairs. But she conquered the impulse. He was so pale.
+
+"This way, excuse me," he said, and preceded her along a short, narrow
+passage which ended in an open door leading into a small room. There was no
+carpet on the floor of the passage, and only a quite inadequate rug on the
+floor of the room. The furniture was scanty and poor. There was a table, a
+music stand, a cheap imitation of a Louis Quatorze chair, two other chairs,
+and some piles of music. No curtains to the window! Not a picture on the
+walls!  On the table a dusty disorder of small objects, including
+ash-trays, and towards the back of it a little account book, open, with a
+pencil on it and a low pile of coppers and a silver ten-sou piece on the
+top of the coppers. Nevertheless this interior represented a novel
+luxuriousness for Musa; for previously, as Audrey knew, he had lived in one
+room, and there was no bed here. The flat, indeed, actually comprised three
+rooms. The account book and the pitiful heap of coins touched her. She had
+expended much on the enterprise of launching him to glory, and those coins
+seemed to be all that had filtered through to him. The whole dwelling was
+pathetic, and she thought of the splendours of her own daily life, of the
+absolute unimportance to her of such sums as would keep Musa in content for
+a year or for ten years, and of the grandiose, majestic, dazzling career of
+herself and Mr. Gilman when their respective fortunes should be joined
+together. And she mysteriously saw Mr. Gilman's face again, and that too
+was pathetic. Everything was pathetic. She alone seemed to be hard,
+dominating, overbearing. Her conscience waked to fresh activity. Was she
+losing her soul? Where were her ideals? Could she really work in full
+honesty for the feminist cause as the wife of a man like Mr. Gilman? He was
+adorable: she felt in that moment that she had a genuine affection for him;
+but could Mrs. Gilman challenge the police, retort audaciously upon
+magistrates, and lie in prison? In a word, could she be a martyr? Would Mr.
+Gilman, with all his amenability, consent?  Would she herself consent?
+Would it not be ridiculous? Thus her flying, shamed thoughts in front of
+the waiting Musa!
+
+"Then you aren't ill?" she began.
+
+"Ill!" he exclaimed. "Why do you wish that I should be ill?"
+
+As he answered her he removed his open fiddle case, with the violin inside
+it, from the Louis Quatorze chair, and signed to her to sit down. She sat
+down.
+
+"I heard that--this morning--at the rehearsal----"
+
+"Ah! You have heard that?"
+
+"And I thought perhaps you were ill. So I came to see."
+
+"What have you heard?"
+
+"Frankly, Musa, it is said that you said you would not play to-night."
+
+"Does it concern you?"
+
+"It concerns everyone.... And you have been so good lately."
+
+"Ah! I have been good lately. You have heard that. And did you expect me
+to continue to be good when you returned to Paris and passed all your days
+in public with that antique and grotesque Monsieur Gilman? All the world
+sees you. I myself have seen you. It is horrible."
+
+She controlled herself. And the fact that she was intensely flattered
+helped her to do so.
+
+"Now Musa," she said, firmly and kindly, as on previous occasions she had
+spoken to him. "Do be reasonable. I refuse to be angry, and it is
+impossible for you to insult me, however much you try. But do be
+reasonable. Do think of the future. We are all wishing for your success. We
+shall all be there. And now you say you aren't going to play. It is really
+too much."
+
+"You have perhaps bought tickets," said Musa, and a flush gradually spread
+over his cheeks. "You have perhaps bought tickets, and you are afraid lest
+you have been robbed. Tranquillise yourself, Madame. If you have the least
+fear, I will instruct my agent to reimburse you. And why should I not play?
+Naturally I shall play. Accept my word, if you can." He spoke with an icy
+and convincing decision.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!" Audrey murmured.
+
+"What right have you to be glad, Madame? If you are glad it is your own
+affair. Have I troubled you since we last met? I need the sympathy of
+nobody. I am assured of a large audience. My impresario is excessively
+optimistic. And if this is so, I owe it to none but myself. You speak of
+insults. Permit me to say that I regard your patronage as an insult. I have
+done nothing, I imagine, to deserve it. I crack my head to divine what I
+have done to deserve it. You hear some silly talk about a rehearsal and you
+precipitate yourself _chez moi_--"
+
+Without a word Audrey rose and departed. He followed her to the door and
+held it open.
+
+"_Bon jour_, Madame."
+
+She descended the stairs. Perhaps it was his sudden illogical change of
+tone; perhaps it was the memory of his phrase, "assured of a large
+audience," coupled with a picture of the sinister Mr. Cowl unsuccessfully
+trying to give away tickets--but whatever was the origin of the sob, she
+did give a sob. As she walked downcast through the courtyard she heard
+clearly the sounds of Musa's violin, played with savage vigour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+FINANCIAL NEWS
+
+The Salle Xavier, or Xavier Hall, had been built, with other people's
+money, by Xavier in order to force the general public to do something which
+the general public does not want to do and never would do of its own
+accord. Namely, to listen to high-class music. It had not been built, and
+it was not run, strange to say, to advertise a certain brand of piano.
+Xavier was an old Jew, of surpassing ugliness, from Cracow or some such
+place. He looked a rascal, and he was one--admittedly; he himself would
+imply it, if not crudely admit it. He had no personal interest in music,
+either high-class or low-class. But he possessed a gift for languages and
+he had mixed a great deal with musicians in an informal manner. Wagner, at
+Venice, had once threatened Xavier with a stick, and also Xavier had twice
+run away with great exponents of the rĂ´le of Isolde. His competence as a
+connoisseur of Wagner's music, and of the proper methods of rendering
+Wagner's music, could therefore not be questioned, and it was not
+questioned.
+
+He had a habit of initiating grandiose schemes for opera or concerts and of
+obtaining money therefor from wealthy amateurs. After a few months he would
+return the money less ten per cent. for preliminary expenses and plus his
+regrets that the schemes had unhappily fallen through owing to unforeseen
+difficulties. And wealthy amateurs were so astonished to get ninety per
+cent. of their money back from a rascal that they thought him almost an
+honest man, asked him to dinner, and listened sympathetically to details of
+his next grandiose scheme. The Xavier Hall was one of the few schemes--and
+the only real estate scheme--that had ever gone through. With the hall for
+a centre, Xavier laid daily his plans and conspiracies for persuading the
+public against its will. To this end he employed in large numbers clerks,
+printers, bill posters, ticket agents, doorkeepers, programme writers,
+programme sellers, charwomen, and even artists. He always had some new
+dodge or hope. The hall was let several times a week for concerts or other
+entertainments, and many of them were private speculations of Xavier. They
+were nearly all failures. And the hall, thoroughly accustomed to seeing
+itself half empty, did not pay interest on its capital. How could it? Upon
+occasions there had actually been more persons in the orchestra than in the
+audience. Seated in the foyer, with one eye upon a shabby programme girl
+and another upon the street outside, Xavier would sometimes refer to these
+facts in conversation with a titled patron, and would describe the public
+realistically and without pretence of illusion. Nevertheless, Xavier had
+grown to be a rich man, for percentages were his hourly food; he received
+them even from programme sellers. At nine o'clock the hall was rather less
+than half full, and this was rightly regarded as very promising, for the
+management, like the management of every place of distraction in Paris,
+held it a point of honour to start from twenty to thirty minutes late--as
+though all Parisians had many ages ago decided that in Paris one could not
+be punctual, and that, long since tired of waiting for each other, they had
+entered into a competition to make each other wait, the individual who
+arrived last being universally regarded as the winner. The members of the
+orchestra were filing negligently in from the back of the vast terraced
+platform, yawning, and ravaged by the fearful ennui of eternal high-class
+music. They entered in dozens and scores, and they kept on entering, and as
+they gazed inimically at each other, fingering their instruments, their
+pale faces seemed to be asking: "Why should it be necessary to collect so
+many of us in order to prove that just one single human being can play the
+violin? We can all play the violin, or something else just as good. And we
+have all been geniuses in our time."
+
+In strong contrast to their fatigued and disastrous indifference was the
+demeanour of a considerable group of demonstrators in the gallery. This
+body had crossed the Seine from the sacred Quarter, and, not owning a
+wardrobe sufficiently impressive to entitle it to ask for free seats, it
+had paid for its seats. Hence naturally its seats were the worst in the
+hall. But the group did not care. It was capable of exciting itself about
+high-class music. Moreover it had, for that night, an article of religious
+faith, to wit, that Musa was the greatest violinist that had ever lived or
+ever could live, and it was determined to prove this article of faith by
+sheer force of hands and feet. Therefore it was very happy, and just a
+little noisy.
+
+In the main part of the hall the audience could be divided into two
+species, one less numerous than the other. First, the devotees of music,
+who went to nearly every concert, extremely knowing, extremely blasé,
+extremely disdainful and fastidious, with precise views about every musical
+composition, every conductor, and every performer; weary of melodious
+nights at which the same melodies were ever heard, but addicted to them, as
+some people are addicted to vices equally deleterious. These devotees would
+have had trouble with their conscience or their instincts had they not, by
+coming to the concert, put themselves in a position to affirm exactly and
+positively what manner of a performer Musa was. They had no hope of being
+pleased by him. Indeed they knew beforehand that he was yet another false
+star, but they had to ascertain the truth for themselves, because--you
+see--there was a slight chance that he might be a genuine star, in which
+case their careers would have been ruined had they not been able to say to
+succeeding generations: "I was at his first concert. It was a memorable,"
+etc. etc. They were an emaciated tribe, and in fact had the air of mummies
+temporarily revived and escaped out of museums. They were shabby, but not
+with the gallery shabbiness; they were shabby because shabbiness was part
+of their unworldly refinement; and it did not matter--they would have got
+their free seats even if they had come in sacks and cerements.
+
+The second main division of the audience--and the larger--consisted of the
+jolly pleasure seekers, who had dined well, who respected Beethoven no more
+than Oscar Straus, and who demanded only one boon--not to be bored. They
+had full dimpled cheeks, and they were adequately attired, and they dropped
+cigarettes with reluctance in the foyer, and they entered adventurously
+with marked courage, well aware that they had come to something queer and
+dangerous, something that was neither a revue nor a musical comedy, and,
+while hoping optimistically for the best, determined to march boldly out
+again in the event of the worst. They had seven mortal evenings a week to
+dispose of somehow, and occasionally they were obliged to take risks. Their
+expressions for the most part had that condescension which is
+characteristic of those who take a risk without being paid for it.
+
+All around the hall ran a horseshoe of private boxes, between the balcony
+and the gallery. These boxes gradually filled. At a quarter-past nine over
+half of them were occupied; which fact, combined with the stylishness of
+the hats in them, proved that Xavier had immense skill in certain
+directions, and that on that night, for some reason or other, he had been
+doing his very best.
+
+At twenty minutes past nine the audience had coalesced and become an
+entity, and the group from the Quarter was stamping an imitation of the
+first bars of the C minor Symphony, to indicate that further delay might
+involve complications.
+
+Audrey sat with Miss Ingate modestly and inconspicuously in the fifth row
+of the stalls. Miss Ingate, prodigious in crimson, was in a state of
+beatitude, because she never went to concerts and imagined that she had
+inadvertently slipped into heaven. The mere size of the orchestra so
+overwhelmed her that she was convinced that it was an orchestra specially
+enlarged to meet the unique importance of Musa's genius. "They _must_ think
+highly of him!" she said. She employed the time in looking about her. She
+had already found, besides many other Anglo-Saxon acquaintances, Rosamund,
+in black, Tommy with Nick, and Mr. Cowl, who was one seat to Audrey's left
+in the sixth row of the stalls. Also Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac and
+Monsieur Piriac in a double box. Audrey and herself ought to have been in
+that box, and had the afternoon developed otherwise they probably would
+have been in that box. Fortunately at the luncheon, Audrey, who had bought
+various lots of seats, had with the strange cautiousness of a young girl
+left herself free to utilise or not to utilise the offered hospitality of
+Mr. Gilman's double box, and Mr. Gilman had not pressed her for a decision.
+Was it not important that the hall should seem as full as possible? When
+Miss Ingate, pushing her investigations farther, had discovered not merely
+Monsieur Dauphin, but Mr. Ziegler, late of Frinton and now resident in
+Paris, her cup was full.
+
+"It's vehy wonderful, _vehy_ wonderful!" said she.
+
+But it was Audrey who most deeply had the sense of the wonderfulness of the
+thing. For it was Audrey who had created it. Having months ago comprehended
+that a formal and splendid debut was necessary for Musa if he was to
+succeed within a reasonable space of time, she had willed the debut within
+her own brain. She alone had thought of it. And now the realisation seemed
+to her to be absolutely a miracle. Had she read of such an affair a year
+earlier in a newspaper--with the words "Paris," "_tout Paris_," "young
+genius," and so on--she would have pictured it as gloriously, thrillingly
+romantic, and it indeed was gloriously and thrillingly romantic. She
+thought: "None of these people sitting around me know that I have brought
+it about, and that it is all mine." The thought was sweet. She felt like an
+invisible African genie out of the Thousand and One Nights.
+
+And yet what had she done to bring it about? Nothing, simply nothing,
+except to command it! She had not even signed cheques. Mr. Foulger had
+signed the cheques! Mr. Foulger, who set down the whole enterprise as
+incomprehensible lunacy! Mr. Foulger, who had never been to aught but a
+smoking-concert in his life, and who could not pronounce the name of
+Beethoven without hesitations!  The great deed had cost money, and it would
+cost more money; it would probably cost four hundred pounds ere it was
+finished with. An extravagant sum, but Xavier had motor-cars and toys even
+more expensive than motor-cars to keep up! Audrey, however, considered it a
+small sum, compared to the terrific spectacular effect obtained. And she
+was right. The attributes of money seemed entirely magical to her. And she
+was right again. She respected money with a new respect. And she respected
+herself for using money with such large grandeur.
+
+And withal she was most horribly nervous, just as nervous as though it was
+she who was doomed to face the indifferent and exacting audience with
+nothing but a violin bow for weapon. She was so nervous that she could not
+listen, could not even follow Miss Ingate's simple remarks; she heard them
+as from a long distance, and grasped them after a long interval. Still, she
+was uplifted, doughty, and proud. The humiliation of the afternoon had
+vanished like a mist. Nay, she felt glad that Musa had behaved to her just
+as he did behave. His mien pleased her; his wounding words, each of which
+she clearly remembered, were a source of delight. She had never admired him
+so much. She had now no resentment against him. He had proved that her
+hopes of him were, after all, well justified. He would succeed. Only some
+silly and improbable accident could stop him from succeeding. She was not
+nervous about his success. She was nervous for him. She became him. She
+tuned his fiddle, gathered herself together and walked on to the platform,
+bowed to the dim multitudinous heads in front of him, looked at the
+conductor, waited for the opening bars, drew his bow across his strings at
+precisely the correct second, and heard the resulting sound under her ear.
+And all that before the conductor had appeared! Such were the
+manifestations of her purely personal desire for the achievement of a neat,
+clean job.
+
+"See!" said Miss Ingate. "Mr. Gilman is bowing to us. He does look
+splendid, and isn't Madame Piriac lovely?  I must say I don't care so much
+for these French husbands."
+
+Audrey had to turn and join Miss Ingate in acknowledging the elaborate bow.
+At any rate, then, Mr. Gilman had not been utterly estranged by her
+capricious abandonment of him. And why should he be? He was a man of sense;
+he would understand perfectly when she explained to-morrow. Further, he
+was her slave. She was sure of him. She would apologise to him. She would
+richly recompense him by smiles and honey and charming persuasive
+simplicity. And he would see that with all her innocent and modest
+ingenuousness she was capable of acting seriously and effectively in a
+sudden crisis. She would rise higher in his esteem. As for the foreseen
+proposal, well----
+
+A sporadic clapping wakened her out of those reflections. The conductor
+was approaching his desk. The orchestra applauded him. He tapped the desk
+and raised his stick. And there was a loud noise, the thumping of her
+heart. The concert had begun. Musa was still invisible--what was he doing
+at that instant, somewhere behind?--but the concert had begun. Stars do not
+take part in the first item of an orchestral concert. There is a convention
+that they shall be preluded; and Musa was preluded by the overture to _Die
+Meistersinger_. In the soft second section of the overture, a most
+noticeable babble came from a stage-box. "Oh! It's the Foas," muttered Miss
+Ingate. "What a lot of people are fussing around them!" "Hsh!" frowned
+Audrey, outraged by the interruption. Madame Foa took about fifty bars in
+which to settle herself, and Monsieur Foa chattered to people behind him as
+freely as if he had been in a café Nobody seemed to mind.
+
+The overture was applauded, but Madame Foa, instead of applauding, leaned
+gracefully back, smiling, and waved somebody to the seat beside her.
+
+Violent demonstrations from the gallery!... He was there, tripping down the
+stepped pathway between the drums. The demonstrations grew general. The
+orchestra applauded after its own fashion. He reached the conductor, smiled
+at the conductor and bowed very admirably. He seemed to be absolutely at
+his ease. Then there was a delay. The conductor's scores had got themselves
+mixed up. It was dreadful. It was enough to make a woman shriek.
+
+"I say!" said a voice in Audrey's ear. She turned as if shot. Mr. Cowl's
+round face was close to hers. "I suppose you saw the _New York Herald_ this
+morning."
+
+"No," answered Audrey impatiently.
+
+The orchestra started the Beethoven violin Concerto. But Mr. Cowl kept his
+course.
+
+"Didn't you?" he said. "About the Zacatecas Oil Corporation? It's under a
+receivership. It's gone smash. I've had an idea for some time it would.
+All due to these Mexican revolutions. I thought you might like to know."
+
+Musa's bow hung firmly over the strings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+INTERVAL
+
+The most sinister feature of entertainments organised by Xavier was the
+intervals. Xavier laid stress on intervals; they gave repose, and in many
+cases they saved money. All Paris managers are inclined to give to the
+interval the importance of a star turn, and Xavier in this respect
+surpassed his rivals, though he perhaps regarded his cloak-rooms, which
+were organised to cause the largest possible amount of inconvenience to the
+largest possible number of people, as his surest financial buttress. Xavier
+could or would never see the close resemblance of intervals to wet
+blankets, extinguishers, palls and hostile critics. The Allegro movement of
+the Concerto was a real success, and the audience as a whole would have
+applauded even more if the gallery in particular had not applauded so much.
+The second or Larghetto movement was also a success, but to a less degree.
+As for the third and last movement, it put the gallery into an ecstasy
+while leaving the floor in possession of full critical faculties. Musa
+retired and had to return, and when he returned the floor good-humouredly
+joined the vociferous gallery in laudations, and he had to return again.
+Then the interminable interval. Silence! Murmurings!  Silence! Creepings
+towards exits! And in many, very many hearts the secret trouble question:
+"Why are we here? What have we come for? What is all this pother about art
+and genius? Honestly, shall we not be glad and relieved when the solemn old
+thing is over?"... And the desolating, cynical indifference of the
+conductor and the orchestra! Often there is a clearer vision of the truth
+during the intervals of a classical concert than on a deathbed.
+
+Audrey was extremely depressed in the interval after the Beethoven Concerto
+and before the Lalo. But she was not depressed by the news of the accident
+to the Zacatecas Oil Corporation in which was the major part of her wealth.
+The tidings had stunned rather than injured that part of her which was
+capable of being affected by finance. She had not felt the blow. Moreover
+she was protected by the knowledge that she had thousands of pounds in hand
+and also the Moze property intact, and further she was already
+reconsidering her newly-acquired respect for money. No!  What depressed her
+was a doubt as to the genius of Musa. In the long dreadful pause it seemed
+impossible that he should have genius. The entire concert presented itself
+as a grotesque farce, of which she as its creator ought to be ashamed. She
+was ready to kill Xavier or his responsible representative.
+
+Then she saw the tall and calm Rosamund, with her grey hair and black
+attire and her subduing self-complacency, making a way between the rows of
+stalls towards her.
+
+"I wanted to see you," said Rosamund, after the formal greetings. "Very
+much." Her voice was as kind and as unrelenting as the grave.
+
+At this point Miss Ingate ought to have yielded her seat to the terrific
+Rosamund, but she failed to do so, doubtless by inadvertence.
+
+"Will you come into the foyer for a moment?" Rosamund inflexibly suggested.
+
+"Isn't the interval nearly over?" said Audrey.
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+And as a fact there was not the slightest sign of the interval being nearly
+over. Audrey obediently rose. But the invitation had been so conspicuously
+addressed to herself that Miss Ingate, gathering her wits, remained in her
+chair.
+
+The foyer--decorated in the Cracovian taste--was dotted with cigarette
+smokers and with those who had fled from the interval. Rosamund did not sit
+down; she did not try for seclusion in a corner. She stepped well into the
+foyer, and then stood still, and absently lighted a cigarette, omitting to
+offer a cigarette to Audrey. Rosamund's air of a deaconess made the
+cigarette extremely remarkable.
+
+"I wanted to tell you about Jane Foley," began Rosamund quietly. "Have you
+heard?"
+
+"No! What?"
+
+"Of course you haven't. I alone knew. She has run away to England."
+
+"Run away! But she'll be caught!"
+
+"She may be. But that is not all. She has run away to get married. She
+dared not tell me. She wrote me. She put the letter in the manuscript of
+the last chapter but one of her book, which I am revising for her. She will
+almost certainly be caught if she tries to get married in her own name.
+Therefore she will get married in a false name. All this, however, is not
+what I wanted to tell you about."
+
+"Then you shouldn't have begun to talk about it," said Audrey suddenly.
+"Did you expect me to let you leave it in the middle! Jane getting married!
+I do think she might have told me.... What next, I wonder! I suppose
+you've--er--lost her now?"
+
+"Not entirely, I believe," said Rosamund. "Certainly not entirely. But of
+course I could never trust her again. This is the worst blow I have ever
+had. She says--but why go into that? Well, she does say she will work as
+hard as ever, nearly; and that her future husband strongly supports us--and
+so on." Rosamund smiled with complete detachment.
+
+"And who's he?" Audrey demanded.
+
+"His name is Aguilar," said Rosamund. "So she says."
+
+"Aguilar?"
+
+"Yes. I gather--I say I gather--that he belongs to the industrial class.
+But of course that is precisely the class that Jane springs from. Odd! Is
+it not? Heredity, I presume." She raised her shoulders.
+
+Audrey said nothing. She was too shocked to speak--not pained or outraged,
+but simply shaken. What in the name of Juno could Jane see in Aguilar?
+Jane, to whom every man was the hereditary enemy! Aguilar, who had no use
+for either man or woman! Aguilar, a man without a Christian name, one of
+those men in connection with whom a Christian name is impossibly
+ridiculous. How should she, Audrey, address Aguilar in future? Would he
+have to be asked to tea? These vital questions naturally transcended all
+others in Audrey's mind.... Still (she veered round), it was perhaps after
+all just the union that might have been expected.
+
+"And now," said Rosamund at length, "I have a question to put to you."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I don't want a definite answer here and now." She looked round
+disdainfully at the foyer. "But I do want to set your mind on the right
+track at the earliest possible moment--before any accidents occur." She
+smiled satirically. "You see how frank I am with you. I'll be more frank
+still, and tell you that I came to this concert to-night specially to see
+you."
+
+"Did you?" Audrey murmured. "Well!"
+
+The older woman looked down upon her from a superior height. Her eyes were
+those of an autocrat. It was quite possible to see in them the born leader
+who had dominated thousands of women and played a drawn game with the
+British Government itself. But Audrey, at the very moment when she was
+feeling the overbearing magic of that gaze, happened to remember the scene
+in Madame Piriac's automobile on the night of her first arrival in Paris,
+when she herself was asleep and Rosamund, not knowing that she was asleep,
+had been solemnly addressing her. Miss Ingate's often repeated account of
+the scene always made her laugh, and the memory of it now caused her to
+smile faintly.
+
+"I want to suggest to you," Rosamund proceeded, "that you begin to work for
+me."
+
+"For the suffrage--or for you?"
+
+"It is the same thing," said Rosamund coldly. "I am the suffrage. Without
+me the cause would not have existed to-day."
+
+"Well," said Audrey, "of course I will. I have done a bit already, you
+know."
+
+"Yes, I know," Rosamund admitted. "You did very well at the Blue City.
+That's why I'm approaching you. That's why I've chosen you."
+
+"Chosen me for what?"
+
+"You know that a new great campaign will soon begin. It is all arranged.
+It will necessitate my returning to England and challenging the police. You
+know also that Jane Foley was to have been my lieutenant-in-chief--for the
+active part of the operation. You will admit that I can no longer count on
+her completely. Will you take her place?"
+
+"I'll help," said Audrey. "I'll do what I can. I dare say I shan't have
+much money, because one of those 'accidents' you mentioned has happened to
+me already."
+
+"That need not trouble you," replied Rosamund imperturbable. "I have
+always been able to get all the money that was needed."
+
+"Well, I'll help all I can."
+
+"That's not what I ask," said Rosamund inflexibly. "Will you take Jane
+Foley's place? Will you give yourself utterly?"
+
+Audrey answered with sudden vehemence:
+
+"No, I won't. You didn't want a definite answer, but there it is."
+
+"But surely you believe in the cause?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's the greatest of all causes."
+
+"I'm rather inclined to think it is."
+
+"Why not give yourself, then? You are free. I have given myself, my child."
+
+"Yes," said Audrey, who resented the appellation of "child." "But, you see,
+it's your hobby."
+
+"My hobby, Mrs. Moncreiff!" exclaimed Rosamund.
+
+"Certainly, your hobby," Audrey persisted.
+
+"I have sacrificed everything to it," said Rosamund.
+
+"Pardon me," said Audrey. "I don't think you've sacrificed anything to it.
+You just enjoy bossing other people above everything, and it gives you
+every chance to boss. And you enjoy plots too, and look at the chances you
+get for that'. Mind you, I like you for it. I think you're splendid. Only
+_I_ don't want to be a monomaniac, and I won't be." Her convictions seemed
+to have become suddenly clear and absolutely decided.
+
+"Do you mean to infer that I am a monomaniac?" asked Rosamund, raising her
+eyebrows--but only a little.
+
+"Well," said Audrey, "as you mentioned frankness--what else would you call
+yourself but a monomaniac?  You only live for one thing--don't you, now?"
+
+"It is the greatest thing."
+
+"I don't say it isn't," Audrey admitted. "But I've been thinking a good
+deal about all this, and at last I've come to the conclusion that one
+thing-isn't enough for me, not nearly enough. And I'm not going to be
+peculiar at any price. Neither a fanatic nor a monomaniac, nor anything
+like that."
+
+"You are in love," asserted Rosamund.
+
+"And what if I am? If you ask me, I think a girl who isn't in love ought to
+be somewhat ashamed of herself, or at least sorry for herself. And I am
+sorry for myself, because I am not in love. I wish I was. Why shouldn't I
+be? It must be lovely to be in love. If I was in love I shouldn't be _only_
+in love. You think you understand what girls are nowadays, but you don't. I
+didn't myself until just lately. But I'm beginning to. Girls were supposed
+to be only interested in one thing--in your time. Monomaniacs, that's what
+they had to be. You changed all that, or you're trying to change it, but
+you only mean women to be monomaniacs about something else. It isn't good
+enough. I want everything, and I'm going to get it--or have a good try for
+it. I'll never be a martyr if I can help it. And I believe I can help it. I
+believe I've got just enough common sense to save me from being a martyr
+--either to a husband or a house or family--or a cause. I want to have a
+husband and a house and a family, and a cause too. That'll be just about
+everything, won't it? And if you imagine I can't look after all of them at
+once, all I can say is I don't agree with you. Because I've got an idea I
+can. Supposing I had all these things, I fancy I could have a tiff with my
+husband and make it up, play with my children, alter a dress, change the
+furniture, tackle the servants, and go out to a meeting and perhaps have a
+difficulty with the police--all in one day. Only if I did get into trouble
+with the police I should pay the fine--you see. The police aren't going to
+have me altogether. Nobody is. Nobody, man or woman, is going to be able to
+boast that he's got me altogether. You think you're independent. But you
+aren't. We girls will show you what independence is."
+
+"You're a rather surprising young creature," observed Rosamund with a
+casual air, unmoved. "You're quite excited."
+
+"Yes. I surprise myself. But these things do come in bursts. I've noticed
+that before. They weren't clear when you began to talk. They're clear now."
+
+"Let me tell you this," said Rosamund. "A cause must have martyrs."
+
+"I don't see it," Audrey protested. "I should have thought common sense
+would be lots more useful than martyrs. And monomaniacs never do have
+common sense."
+
+"You're very young."
+
+"Is that meant for an insult, or is it just a statement?" Audrey laughed
+pleasantly.
+
+And Rosamund laughed too.
+
+"It's just a statement," said she.
+
+"Well, here's another statement," said Audrey. "You're very old. That's
+where I have the advantage of you. Still, tell me what I can do in your
+new campaign, and I'll do it if I can. But there isn't going to be any
+utterly--that's all."
+
+"I think the interval is over," said Rosamund with finality. "Perhaps we'd
+better adjourn."
+
+The foyer had nearly emptied. The distant sound of music could be heard.
+
+As she was re-entering the hall, Audrey met Mr. Cowl, who was coming out.
+
+"I have decided I can't stand any more," Mr. Cowl remarked in a loud
+whisper. "I hope you didn't mind me telling you about the Zacatecas. As I
+said, I thought you might be interested. Good-bye. So pleasant to have met
+you again, dear lady." His face had the same enigmatic smile which had made
+him so formidable at Moze.
+
+Musa had already begun to play the Spanish Symphony of Lalo, without which
+no genius is permitted to make his formal debut on the violin in France.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+
+ENTR'ACTE
+
+After the Spanish Symphony not only the conductor but the entire orchestra
+followed Musa from the platform, and Audrey understood that the previous
+interval had not really been an interval and that the first genuine
+interval was about to begin. The audience seemed to understand this too,
+for practically the whole of it stood up and moved towards the doors.
+Audrey would have stayed in her seat, but Miss Ingate expressed a desire to
+go out and "see the fun" in the foyer, and, moreover, she asserted that the
+Foas from their box had been signalling to her and Audrey an intention to
+meet them in the foyer. Miss Ingate was in excellent spirits. She said it
+beat her how Musa's fingers could get through so many notes in so short a
+time, and also that it made her feel tired even to watch the fingers. She
+was convinced that nobody had ever handled the violin so marvellously
+before. As for success, Musa had been recalled, and the applause from the
+gallery, fired by its religious belief, was obstinate and extremely
+vociferous. Audrey, however, was aware of terrible sick qualms, for she
+knew that Musa was not so far dominating his public. Much of the applause
+had obviously the worst quality that applause can have--it was
+good-natured. Yet she could not accept failure for Musa. Failure would be
+too monstrous an injustice, and therefore it could not happen.
+
+The emptiness of the Foas' box indicated that Miss Ingate might be correct
+in her interpretation of signals, and Audrey allowed herself to be led away
+from the now forlorn auditorium. As they filed along the gangways she had
+to listen to the indifferent remarks of utterly unprejudiced and
+uninterested persons about the performance of genius, and further she had
+to learn that a fair proportion of them were departing with no intention to
+return. In the thronged foyer they saw Mr. Gilman, alone, before he saw
+them. He was carrying a box of chocolates--doubtless one of the little
+things that Mr. Price had had instructions to provide for the evening, Mr.
+Gilman perhaps would not have caught sight of them had it not been for the
+stridency of Miss Ingate's voice, which caused him to turn round.
+
+Audrey experienced once again the sensation--which latterly was apt to
+recur in her--of having too many matters on her mind simultaneously; in a
+phrase, the sensation of the exceeding complexity of existence. And she
+resented it. The interview with Rosamund was quite enough for one night. It
+had been a triumph for her; she had surprised herself in that interview; it
+had left her with a conviction of freedom; it had uplifted her. She ought
+to have been in a state of exaltation after that interview, and she was.
+Only, while in a state of exaltation, she was still in the old state of
+depression--about the tendency of the concert, of her concert, and about
+the rumoured disappearance of her fortune. Also she was preoccupied by the
+very strange affair of Jane Foley and Aguilar.
+
+And now--a further intricacy of mood--came a whole new set of emotions due
+to the mere spectacle of Mr. Gilman's august back! She was intimidated by
+Mr. Gilman's back. She knew horribly that in the afternoon she had treated
+Mr. Gilman as Mr. Gilman ought never to have been treated. And, quite apart
+from intimidation, she had another feeling, a feeling which was ghastly and
+of which she was ashamed.... Assuming the disappearance of her fortune,
+would Mr. Gilman's attitude towards her be thereby changed? ... She
+admitted that young girls ought not to have such suspicions against
+respectable and mature men of established position in the world.
+Nevertheless, she could not blow the suspicion away.
+
+But the instant Mr. Gilman's eye met hers the suspicion vanished, and not
+the suspicion only, but all her intimidation. The miracle was produced by
+something in the gaze of Mr. Gilman as it rested on her, something
+wistful--not more definable than that, something which she had noticed in
+Mr. Gilman's gaze on other occasions. It perfectly restored her. It gave
+her the positive assurance of a fact which marvellously enheartens young
+girls of about Audrey's years--to wit, that they have a mysterious power
+surpassing the power of age, knowledge, wisdom, or wealth, that they
+influence and decide the course of history, and are the sole true
+mistresses of the world. Whence the mysterious power sprang she did not
+exactly know, but she surmised--rightly--that it was connected with her
+youth, with a dimple, with the incredibly soft down on her cheek, with the
+arch softness of her glance, with a gesture of the hand, with a turn of the
+shoulder, with a pleat of the skirt.... Anyhow, she possessed it, and to
+possess it was to wield it. It transformed her into a delicious tyrant, but
+a tyrant; it inspired her with exquisite cruelty, but cruelty. Her thoughts
+might have been summed up in eight words:
+
+"Pooh! He has suffered. Well, he must suffer."
+
+Ah! But she meant to be very kind to him. He was so reliable, so adorable,
+and so dependent. She had genuine affection for him. And he was at once a
+rock and a cushion.
+
+"Isn't it going splendidly--splendidly, Mr. Gilman?" exclaimed Miss Ingate
+in her enthusiasm.
+
+"Apparently," said Mr. Gilman, with comfort in his voice.
+
+At that moment the musical critic with large, dark Eastern eyes, whom
+Audrey had met at the Foas', strolled nonchalantly by, and, perceiving Miss
+Ingate, described a huge and perfect curve in the air with his glossy silk
+hat, which had been tipped at the back of his head. Mr. Gilman had come
+close to Audrey.
+
+"The Foas started down with me," said Mr. Gilman mildly. "But they always
+meet such crowds of acquaintances at these affairs that they seldom get
+anywhere. Hortense would not leave the box. She never will."
+
+"Oh! I'm so glad I've seen you," Audrey began excitedly, but with
+simplicity and compelling sweetness. "You've no idea how sorry I am about
+this afternoon!  I'm frightfully sorry, really! But I was so upset. I
+didn't know what to do. You know how anxious everybody was about Musa for
+to-night. He's the pet of the Quarter, and, of course, I belong to the
+Quarter. At least--I did. I thought he might be ill, or something.
+However, it was all right in the end. I was looking forward tremendously to
+that drive. Are you going to forgive me?"
+
+"Please, please!" he eagerly entreated, with a faint blush. "Of course, I
+quite understand. There's nothing whatever to forgive."
+
+"Oh! but there is," she insisted. "Only you're so good-natured."
+
+She was being magnanimous. She was pretending that she had no mysterious
+power. But her motive was quite pure. If he was good-natured, so was she.
+She honestly wanted to recompense him, and to recompense him richly. And
+she did. Her demeanour was enchanting in its ingenuous flattery. She felt
+happy despite all her anxieties, for he was living up to her ideal of him.
+She felt happy, and her resolve to make him happy to the very limit of his
+dreams was intense. She had a vision of her future existence stretching out
+in front of her, and there was not a shadow on it. She thought he was going
+to offer her the box of chocolates, but he did not.
+
+"I rather wanted to ask your advice," she said.
+
+"I wish you would," he replied.
+
+Just then the Foas arrived, and with them Dauphin, the great and
+fashionable painter and the original discoverer of Musa. And as they all
+began to speak at once Audrey heard the Oriental musical critic say slowly
+to an inquiring Miss Ingate:
+
+"It is not a concert talent that he has."
+
+"You hear! You hear!" exclaimed Monsieur Foa to Monsieur Dauphin and Madame
+Foa, with an impressed air. "You hear what Miquette says. He has not a
+concert talent. He has everything that you like, but not a concert talent."
+
+Foa seemed to be exhibiting the majestic Oriental, nicknamed Miquette, as
+the final arbiter, whose word settled problems like a sword, and Miquette
+seemed to be trying to bear the high rĂ´le with negligent modesty.
+
+"But, yes, he has! But, yes, he has!" Dauphin protested, sweeping all
+Miquettes politely away. And then there was an urbane riot of greetings,
+salutes, bowings, smilings, cooings and compliments.
+
+Dauphin was magnificent, playing the part of the opulent painter _Ă  la
+mode_ with the most finished skill, the most splendid richness of detail.
+It was notorious that in the evenings he wore the finest silk shirts in
+Paris, and his waistcoat was designed to give scope to these shirts. He
+might have come--he probably had come--straight from the bower of
+archduchesses; but he produced in Audrey the illusion that archduchesses
+were a trifle compared to herself. He had not seen her for a long time.
+Gazing at her, he breathed relief; all his features indicated the sudden,
+unexpected assuaging of eternal and intense desires. He might have been
+travelling through the desert for many days and she might have been the
+oasis--the pool of living water and the palm.
+
+"Now--like that! Just like that!" he said, holding her hand and, as it
+were, hypnotising her in the pose in which she happened to be. He looked
+hard at her. "It is unique. Madame, where did you find that dress?"
+
+"Callot," answered Audrey submissively.
+
+"I thought so. Well, Madame, I can wait no more. I will wait no more. It
+is Dauphin who implores you to come to his studio. To come--it is your
+duty. Madame Foa, you will bring her. I count on you absolutely to bring
+her. Even if it is only to be a sketch--the merest hint. But I must do it."
+
+"Oh, yes, Madame," said Madame Foa with all the Italian charm. "Dauphin
+must paint you. The contrary is unthinkable. My husband and I have often
+said so."
+
+"To-morrow?" Dauphin suggested.
+
+"Ah! To-morrow, my little Dauphin, I cannot," said Madame Foa.
+
+"Nor I," said Audrey.
+
+"The day after to-morrow, then. I will send my auto. What address?
+Half-past eleven. That goes? In any case, I insist. Be kind! Be kind!"
+
+Audrey blushed. Half the foyer was staring at the group. She was flattered.
+She saw herself remarkable. She thought she would look more particularly,
+with perfect detachment, at the mirror that night, in order to decide
+whether her appearance was as striking, as original, as distinguished, as
+Dauphin's attitude implied. There must surely be something in it.
+
+"About that advice--may I call to-morrow?" It was Mr. Gilman's voice at her
+elbow.
+
+"Advice?" She had forgotten her announced intention of asking his advice.
+(The subject was to be Zacatecas.) "Oh, yes. How nice of you! Please do
+call. Come for tea." She was delightful to him, but at the same time there
+was in her tone a little of the condescending casualness proper to the tone
+of a girl openly admired by the confidant and painter of princesses and
+archduchesses, the man who treated all plain women and women past the prime
+with a desolating indifference.
+
+She thought:
+
+"I am a rotten little snob."
+
+Mr. Gilman gave thanksgivings and departed, explaining that he must return
+to Madame Piriac.
+
+Foa and Dauphin and the Oriental resumed the argument about Musa's talent
+and the concert. Miquette would say nothing as to the success of the
+concert. Foa asserted that the concert was not and would not be a success.
+Dauphin pooh-poohed and insisted vehemently that the success was
+unmistakable and increasing. Moreover, he criticised the hall, the choice
+of programme, the orchestra, the conductor. "I discovered Musa," said he.
+"I have always said that he is a great concert player, and that he is
+destined for a great world-success, and to-night I am more sure of it than
+ever." Whereupon Madame Foa said with much sympathy that she hoped it was
+so, and Foa said: "You create illusions for yourself, on purpose." Dauphin
+bore him down with wavy gestures and warm cries of "No! No! No!" And he
+appealed to Audrey as-a woman incapable of illusions. And Audrey agreed
+with Dauphin. And while she was agreeing she kept saying to herself: "Why
+do I pretend to agree with him?  He is not sincere. He knows he is not
+sincere. We all know--except perhaps Winnie Ingate. The concert is a
+failure. If it were not a failure, Madame Foa would not be so sympathetic.
+She is more subtle even than Madame Piriac. I shall never be subtle like
+that. I wish I could be. I wish I was at Moze. I am too Essex for all this.
+And Winnie here is too comic for words."
+
+An aged and repellent Jew came into sight. He raised Madame Foa's hand to
+his odious lips and kissed it, and Audrey wondered how Madame Foa could
+tolerate the formality.
+
+"Well, Monsieur Xavier?"
+
+Xavier shrugged his round shoulders.
+
+"Do not say," said he, in a hoarse voice to the company, "do not say that I
+have not done my best on this occasion." He lifted his eyes heavenward, and
+as he did so his passing glance embraced Audrey, and she violently hated
+him.
+
+"Winnie," said she, "I think we ought to be getting back to our seats."
+
+"But," cried Madame Foa, "we are going round with Dauphin to the artists'
+room. You do not come with us, Madame Moncreiff?"
+
+"In your place ..." muttered Xavier discouragingly, with a look at Dauphin,
+and another shrug of the shoulders. "I have been ..."
+
+"Ah!" said Dauphin, in a strange new tone. And then very brightly to
+Audrey: "Now, as to Saturday, dear lady----"
+
+Xavier engaged in private converse with Foa, and his demeanour to Foa was
+extremely deferential, whereas he almost ignored the Oriental critic. And
+Audrey puzzled her head once again to discover why the Foas should exert
+such influence upon the fate of music in Paris. The enigma was only one
+among many.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+END OF THE CONCERT
+
+
+The first item after the true interval was the Chaconne of Bach, which Musa
+had played upon a memorable occasion in Frinton. He stood upon the platform
+utterly alone, against a background of empty chairs, double-basses and
+drums. He seemed to be unfriended and forlorn. It appeared to Audrey that
+he was playing with despair. She wished, as she looked from Musa to the
+deserted places in the body of the hall, that the piece was over, and that
+the entire concert was over. How could anyone enjoy such an arid maze of
+sounds? The whole theory of classical composition and its vogue was hollow
+and ridiculous. People did not like the classics; they could not and they
+never would. Now a waltz ... after a jolly dinner and wine! ... But the
+Chaconne! But Bach! But culture!  The audience was visibly and audibly
+restless. For about two hundred years the attempt to force this Chaconne
+upon the public had been continuous, and it was still boring them. Of
+course it was! The thing was unnatural.
+
+And she herself was a fool; she was a ninny. And the alleged power of money
+was an immense fraud. She had thought to perform miracles by means of a
+banking account. For a moment she had imagined that the miracles had come
+to pass. But they had not come to pass. The public was too old, too tired,
+and too wary. It could not thus be tricked into making a reputation. The
+forces that made reputations were far less amenable than she had fancied.
+The world was too clever and too experienced for her ingenuous self.
+Geniuses were not lying about and waiting to be picked up. Musa was not a
+genius. She had been a simpleton, and the sacred Quarter had been a
+simpleton. She was rather angry with Musa for not being a genius.  And the
+confidence which he had displayed a few hours earlier was just grotesque
+conceit! And men and women who were supposed to be friendly human hearts
+were not so in truth. They were merely indifferent and callous spectators.
+The Foas, for example, were chattering in their box, apparently oblivious
+of the tragedy that was enacting under their eyes. But then, it was perhaps
+not a tragedy; it was perhaps a farce.
+
+And what would these self-absorbed spectators of existence say and do, if
+and when it was known that she was no longer a young woman of enormous
+wealth? Would Dauphin have sought to compel her to enter his studio had he
+been aware that her fortune had gone tip in smoke?  She was not in a real
+world. She was in a world of shams. And she was a sham in the world of
+shams. She wanted to be back again in the honest realities of Moze, where
+in the churchyard she could see the tombs of her great-great-grandfathers.
+Only one extraneous interest drew her thoughts away from Moze. That
+interest was Mr. Gilman. Mr. Gilman was her conquest and her slave. She
+adored him because he was so wistful and so reliable and so adoring. Mr.
+Gilman sat intent and straight upright in Madame Piriac's box and behaved
+just as though Bach himself was present. He understood nothing of Bach, but
+he could be trusted to behave with benevolence.
+
+The music suddenly ceased. The Chaconne was finished. The gallery of
+enthusiasts still applauded with vociferation, with mystic faith, with
+sublime obstinacy. It was carrying on a sort of religious war against the
+base apathy of the rest of the audience. It was determined to force its
+belief down the throats of the unintelligent mob. It had made up its mind
+that until it had had its way the world should stand still. No encore had
+yet been obtained, and the gallery was set on an encore. The clapping
+fainted, expired, and then broke into new life, only to expire again and
+recommence. A few irritated persons hissed. The gallery responded with
+vigour. Musa, having retired, reappeared, very white, and bowed. The
+applause was feverish and unconvincing. Musa vanished. But the gallery had
+thick soles and hard hands and stout sticks, even serviceable umbrellas. It
+could not be appeased by bows alone. And after about three minutes of
+tedious manoeuvring, Musa had at last to yield an encore that in fact
+nobody wanted. He played a foolish pyrotechnical affair of De BĂ©riot, which
+resembled nothing so much as a joke at a funeral. After that the fate of
+the concert could not be disputed even by the gallery. At the finish of the
+evening there was, in the terrible idiom of the theatre, "not a hand."
+
+Whether Musa had played well or ill, Audrey had not the least idea. Nor did
+that point seem to matter. Naught but the attitude of the public seemed to
+matter. This was strange, because for a year Audrey had been learning
+steadily in the Quarter that the attitude of the public had no importance
+whatever. She suffered from the delusion that the public was staring at her
+and saying to her: "You, you silly little thing, are responsible for this
+fiasco. We condescended to come--and this is what you have offered us. Go
+home, and let your hair down and shorten your skirts, for you are no better
+than a schoolgirl, after all." She was really self-conscious. She despised
+Musa, or rather she threw to him a little condescending pity. And yet at
+the same time she was furious against that group in the foyer for being so
+easily dissuaded from going to see Musa in the artists' room.... Rats
+deserting a sinking ship!... People, even the nicest, would drop a failure
+like a match that was burning out.... Yes, and they would drop her.... No,
+they would not, because of Mr. Gilman. Mr. Gilman was calling-to see her
+to-morrow. He was the rock and the cushion. She would send Miss Ingate out
+for the afternoon. As the audience hurried eagerly forth she spoke sharply
+to Miss Ingate. She was indeed very rude to Miss Ingate. She was
+exasperated, and Miss Ingate happened to be handy.
+
+In the foyer not a trace of the Foa clan nor of Madame Piriac and her
+husband, nor of Mr. Gilman! But Tommy and Nick were there, putting on their
+cloaks, and with them, but not helping them, was Mr. Ziegler. The blond Mr.
+Ziegler greeted Audrey as though the occasion of their previous meeting had
+been a triumph for him. His self-satisfaction, if ever it had been damaged,
+was repaired to perfection. The girls were silent; Miss Ingate was silent;
+but Mr. Ziegler was not silent.
+
+"He played better than I did anticipate," said Mr. Ziegler, lighting a
+cigarette, after he had nonchalantly acknowledged the presentation to him
+of Miss Ingate. "But of what use is this French public? None. Even had he
+succeeded here it would have meant nothing. Nothing. In music Paris does
+not exist. There are six towns in Germany where success means
+vorldt-reputation. Not that he would succeed in Germany. He has not studied
+in Germany. And outside Germany there are no schools. However, we have the
+intention to impose our culture upon all European nations, including
+France. In one year our army will be here--in Paris. I should wait for
+that, but probably I shall be called up. In any case, I shall be present."
+
+"But whatever do you mean?" cried Miss Ingate, aghast.
+
+"What do I mean? I mean our army will be here. All know it in Germany.
+They know it in Paris! But what can they do? How can they stop us?...
+Decadent!..." He laughed easily.
+
+"Oh, my chocolates!" exclaimed Miss Thompkins. "I've left them in the
+hall!"
+
+"No, here they are," said Nick, handing the box.
+
+To Audrey it seemed to be the identical box that Mr. Gilman had been
+carrying. But of course it might not be. Thousands of chocolate boxes
+resemble each other exactly.
+
+Carefully ignoring Mr. Ziegler, Audrey remarked to Tommy with a
+light-heartedness which she did not feel:
+
+"Well, what did you think of Jane this afternoon?"
+
+"Jane?"
+
+"Jane Foley. Nick was taking you to see her, wasn't she?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Tommy with a bright smile. "But I didn't go. I went for a
+motor drive with Mr. Gilman."
+
+There was a short pause. At length Tommy said:
+
+"So he's got the goods on you at last!"
+
+"Who?" Audrey sharply questioned.
+
+"Dauphin. I knew he would. Remember my words. That portrait will cost you
+forty thousand francs, not counting the frame."
+
+This was the end of the concert.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+STRANGE RESULT OF A QUARREL
+
+
+The next afternoon Audrey sat nervous and expectant, but highly finished,
+in her drawing-room at the HĂ´tel du Danube. Miss Ingate had gone out,
+pretending to be quite unaware that she had been sent out. The more
+detailed part of Audrey's toilette had been accomplished subsequent to Miss
+Ingate's departure, for Audrey had been at pains to inform Miss Ingate that
+she, Audrey, was even less interested than usual in her appearance that
+afternoon. They were close and mutually reliable friends; but every
+friendship has its reservations. Elise also was out; indeed, Miss Ingate
+had taken her.
+
+Audrey had the weight of all the world on her, and so long as she was alone
+she permitted herself to look as though she had. She had to be wise, not
+only for Audrey Moze, but for others. She had to be wise for Musa, whose
+failure, though the newspapers all spoke (at about twenty francs a line) of
+his overwhelming success, was admittedly lamentable; and she hated Musa;
+she confessed that she had been terribly mistaken in Musa, both as an
+artist and as a man; still, he was on her mind. She had to be wise about
+her share in the new campaign of Rosamund, which, while not on her mind,
+was on her conscience. She had to be wise about the presumable loss of her
+fortune; she had telegraphed to Mr. Foulger early that morning for
+information, and an answer was now due. Finally she had to be wise for Mr.
+Gilman, whose happiness depended on a tone of her voice, on a single
+monosyllable breathed through those rich lips. She looked forward with
+interest to being wise for Mr. Gilman. She felt capable of that. The other
+necessary wisdoms troubled her brow. She seemed to be more full of
+responsibility and sagacity than any human being could have been expected
+to be. She was, however, very calm. Her calmness was prodigious.
+
+Then the bell rang, and she could hear one of the hotel attendants open the
+outer door with his key. Instantly her calmness, of which she had been so
+proud, was dashed to pieces and she had scarcely begun in a hurry to pick
+the pieces up and put them together again when the attendant entered the
+drawing-room. She was afraid, but she thought she was happy.
+
+Only it was not Mr. Gilman the attendant announced. The man said:
+
+"Mademoiselle Nickall."
+
+Audrey said to herself that she must get Nick very quickly away. She was in
+no humour to talk even to Nick, and, moreover, she did not want Nick to
+know that Mr. Gilman was calling upon her.
+
+Miss Nickall was innocent and sweet. Good nature radiated from her soft,
+tired features, and was somehow also entangled in her fluffy grey hair. She
+kissed Audrey with affection.
+
+"I've just come to say good-bye, you dear!" she said, sitting down and
+putting her check parasol across her knees. "How lovely you look!"
+
+"Good-bye?" Audrey questioned. "Do I?"
+
+"I have to cross for England to-night. I've had my orders. Rosamund came
+this morning. What about yours?"
+
+"Oh!" said Audrey. "I don't take orders. But I expect I shall join in, one
+of these days, when I've had everything explained to me properly. You see,
+you and I haven't got the same tastes, Nick. You aren't happy without a
+martyrdom. I am."
+
+Nick smiled gravely and uncertainly.
+
+"It's very serious this time," said she. "Hasn't Rosamund spoken to you
+yet?"
+
+"She's spoken to me. And I've spoken to her. It was deuce, I should say. Or
+perhaps my 'vantage. Anyhow, I'm not moving just yet."
+
+"Well, then," said Nick, "if you're staying in Paris, I hope you'll keep an
+eye on Musa. He needs it. Tommy's going away. At least I fancy she is. We
+both went to see him this morning."
+
+"Both of you!"
+
+"Well, you see, we've always looked after him. He was in a terrible state
+about last night. That's really one reason why I called. Not that I'd have
+gone without kissing you----"
+
+She stopped. There was another ring at the bell. The attendant came in with
+great rapidity.
+
+"I'm lost!" thought Audrey, disgusted and perturbed. "Her being here will
+spoil everything."
+
+But the attendant handed her a card, and the card bore the name of Musa.
+Audrey flushed. Almost instinctively, without thinking, she passed the card
+to Nick.
+
+"My land!" exclaimed Nick. "If he sees me here he'll think I've come on
+purpose to talk about him and pity him, and he'll be just perfectly
+furious. Can I get out any other way?" She glanced interrogatively at the
+half-open door of the bedroom.
+
+"But I don't want to see him, either!" Audrey protested.
+
+"Oh! You must! He'll listen to sense from you, perhaps. Can I go this way?"
+
+Impelled to act in spite of herself, Audrey took Nick into the bedroom, and
+as soon as Musa had been introduced into the drawing-room she embraced Nick
+in silence and escorted her on tiptoe through Miss Ingate's bedroom to the
+vestibule and waved an adieu. Then she retraced her steps and made a grand
+entry into the drawing-room from her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of
+Musa immediately. A meeting between him and Mr. Gilman on her hearthrug
+might involve the most horrible complications.
+
+The young man and the young woman shook hands. But it was the handshaking
+of bruisers when they enter the ring, and before the blood starts to flow.
+
+"Won't you please sit down?" said Audrey. He was obliged now to obey her,
+as she had been obliged to obey him on the previous afternoon in the Rue
+Cassette.
+
+If Audrey looked as though the whole world was on her shoulders, Musa's
+face seemed to contradict hers and to say that the world, far from being on
+anybody's shoulders, had come to an end. All the expression of the
+violinist showed that in his honest conviction a great mundane calamity had
+occurred, the calamity of course being that his violin bow had not caused
+catgut to vibrate in such a way as to affect the ears of a particular set
+of people in a particular manner. But in addition to this sense of a
+calamity he was under the influence of another emotion--angry resentment.
+However, he sat down, holding firmly his hat, gloves, and stick.
+
+"I saw my agent this morning," said he, in a grating voice, in French. He
+was pale.
+
+"Yes?" said Audrey. She suddenly guessed what was coming, and she felt a
+certain alarm, which nevertheless was not entirely disagreeable.
+
+"Why did you pay for that concert, and the future concerts, without telling
+me, Madame?"
+
+"Paid for the concerts?" she repeated, rather weakly.
+
+"Yes, Madame. To do so was to make me ridiculous--not to the world, but to
+myself. For I believed all the time that I had succeeded in gaining the
+genuine interest of an agent who was prepared to risk money upon the proper
+exploitation of my talent. I worked in that belief. In spite of your
+attitude to me I did work. Your antipathy was bad for me; but I conquered
+myself, and I worked. I had confidence in myself. If last night I did not
+have a triumph, it was not because I did not work, but because I had been
+upset--and again by you, Madame. Even after the misfortune of last night I
+still had confidence, for I knew that the reasons of my failure were
+accidental and temporary. But I now know that I was living in a fool's
+paradise, which you had kindly created for me. You have money. Apparently
+you have too much money. And with money you possess the arrogance of
+wealth. You knew that I had accepted assistance from good friends. And you
+thought in your arrogance that you might launch me without informing me of
+your intention. You thought it would amuse you to make a little fairy-tale
+in real life. It was a negligent gesture on the part of a rich and idle
+woman. It cost you nothing save a few bank-notes, of which you had so many
+that it bored you to count them. How amusing to make a reputation! How
+charitable to help a starving player! But you forgot one thing. You forgot
+my dignity and my honour. It was nothing to you that you exposed these to
+the danger of the most grave affront. It was nothing to you that I was
+received just as though I had been a child, and that for months I was made,
+without knowing it, to fulfil the rĂ´le of a conceited jackanapes. When one
+is led to have confidence in oneself one is tempted to adopt a certain tone
+and to use certain phrases, which may or may not be justified. I yielded to
+the temptation. I was wrong, but I was also victimised. This morning, with
+a moment's torture under the impertinent tongue of a rascally impresario, I
+paid for all the spurious confidence which I have felt and for all the
+proud words I have uttered. I came to-day in order to lay at your feet my
+thanks for the unique humiliation which I owe to you."
+
+His mien was undoubtedly splendid. It ought to have cowed and shamed
+Audrey. But it did not. She absolutely refused to acknowledge, even within
+her own heart, that she had committed any wrong. On the contrary, she
+remembered all the secret sympathy which she had lavished on Musa, all her
+very earnest and single-minded desires for his apotheosis at the hands of
+the Parisian public; and his ingratitude positively exasperated her. She
+was aroused. But she tried to hide the fact that she was roused, speaking
+in a guarded and sardonic voice.
+
+"And did this agent of yours--I do not know his name--tell you that I was
+paying for the concert--I mean, the concerts?" she demanded with an air of
+impassivity. "He did not give your name."
+
+"That's something," Audrey put in, her body trembling. "I am much obliged
+to him."
+
+"But he clearly indicated that money had been paid--that he had not paid it
+himself--that the enterprise was not genuine. He permitted himself to sneer
+until I corrected him. He then withdrew what he had said and told me that I
+had misunderstood. But he was not convincing. It was too late. And I had
+not misunderstood. Far from that, I had understood. At once the truth
+traversed my mind like a flash of lightning. It was you who had paid."
+
+"And how did you guess that?" She laughed carelessly, though she could not
+keep her foot from shaking on the carpet.
+
+"I knew because I knew!" cried Musa. "It explained all your conduct, your
+ways of speaking to me, your attitude of a schoolmistress, everything. How
+ingenuous I have been not to perceive it before!"
+
+"Well," said Audrey firmly. "You are wrong. It is absolutely untrue that I
+have ever paid a penny, or ever shall, to any agent on your behalf. Do you
+hear? Why should I, indeed! And now what have you to reply?"
+
+She was aware of not the slightest remorse for this enormous and
+unqualified lie. Nay, she held it was not a lie, because Musa deserved to
+hear it. Strange logic, but her logic! And she was much uplifted and
+enfevered, and grandly careless of all consequences.
+
+"You are a woman," said Musa curtly and obstinately.
+
+"That, at any rate, is true."
+
+"Therefore I cannot treat you as a man."
+
+"Please do," she said, rising.
+
+"No. If you were a man I should call you out." And Musa rose also. "And I
+should be right. As you are a woman I have told you the truth, and I can do
+no more. I shall not characterise your denial. I have no taste for
+recrimination. Besides, in such a game, no man can be the equal of a woman.
+But I maintain what I have said, and I affirm that I know it to be true,
+and that there is no excuse for your conduct. And so I respectfully take
+leave." He moved towards the door and then stopped. "There never had been
+any excuse for your conduct to me," he added. "It has always been the
+conduct of a rich and capricious woman who amused herself by patronising a
+poor artist."
+
+"You may be interested to know," she said fiercely, "that I am no longer
+rich. Last night I heard that my fortune is gone. If I have amused myself,
+that may amuse you."
+
+"It does amuse me," he retorted grimly and more loudly. "I wish that you
+had never possessed a son. For then I might have been spared many mournful
+hours. All would have been different. Yes! From three days ago when I saw
+you walking intimately in the Tuileries Gardens with the unspeakable
+Gilman--right back to last year when you first, from caprice, did your best
+to make me love you--did it deliberately, so that all the Quarter could
+see!"
+
+In a furious temper Audrey rushed past Musa to the door, and stood with her
+back to it, palpitating. She vaguely recalled a similar movement of hers
+long ago, and the slightly comic figure of Mr. Foulger flitted through her
+memory.
+
+"You shall apologise for that! You shall apologise before you leave this
+room!" she exploded. Her chin was aloft and her mouth remained open. "I say
+you shall apologise for that monstrous untruth!"
+
+He approached her, uttering not a word. She was quite ready to kill him.
+She had no fear of anything whatever. Not once since his arrival had she
+given one thought to the imminent advent of Mr. Gilman.
+
+She said to herself, watching Musa intently:
+
+"Yes, he shall apologise. It is shameful, what he says. It's worse than
+horrid. I am as strong as he is."
+
+Musa dropped his hat, stick and gloves. The hat, being English and hard,
+bounced on the carpet. Then he put his trembling arms around her waist, and
+his trembling lips came nearer and nearer to hers.
+
+She thought, very puzzled:
+
+"What is happening? This is all wrong. I am furious with him! I will never
+speak to him again! What is he doing? This is all wrong. I must stop it.
+I'm saying nothing to him about my career, and my independence, and how
+horrid it is to be the wife of a genius, and all that.... I must stop it."
+
+But she had no volition to stop it.
+
+She thought:
+
+"Am I fainting?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was upon this scene that Mr. Gilman intruded. Mr. Gilman looked from
+one to the other. Perhaps the thought in his mind was that if they added
+their ages together they could not equal his age. Perhaps it was not. He
+continued to look from one to the other, and this needed some ocular
+effort, for they were as far apart as two persons in such a situation
+usually get when they are surprised. Then he caught sight of the hat, stick
+and gloves on the floor.
+
+"I've been expecting you for a long time," said Audrey, with that
+miraculous bland tranquillity of which young girls alone have the secret
+when the conventions are imperilled. "I was just going to order tea."
+
+Mr. Gilman hesitated and then replied:
+
+"How kind of you! But please don't order tea for me. The--er--fact is, I
+have been unexpectedly called away, and I only called to explain
+that--er--I could not call." After all, he was a man of some experience.
+
+She let him go. His demeanour to Musa, like Musa's to him, was a marvel of
+high courtesy.
+
+"Musa," said Audrey, with an intimidated, defiant, proud smile, when the
+door had shut on Mr. Gilman, "I am still frightfully angry with you. If we
+stay here I shall suffocate. Let us go out for a walk. Besides, other
+people might call."
+
+Simultaneously there was another ring. It was a cable. She read:
+
+"Sold Zacatecas at an average of six and a quarter dollars three weeks ago.
+Wrote you at length to Wimereux. Writing again as to new investments.
+
+"FOULGER."
+
+"This comes of having no fixed address," she said, throwing the blue
+cablegram carelessly down in front of Musa. "I'm not quite ruined, after
+all. But I might have known--with Mr. Foulger." Then she explained.
+
+"I wish----" he began.
+
+"No, you don't," she stopped him. "So you needn't start on that line. You
+are brilliant at figures. At least I long since suspected you were. How
+much is one hundred and eighty thousand times six and a quarter?"
+
+Notwithstanding his brilliance, it took two pencils, two heads, and one
+piece of paper to solve the problem. They were not quite certain, but the
+answer seemed to be £225,000 in English money.
+
+"We cannot starve," said Audrey, and then paused.... "Musa, are we
+friends? We shall quarrel horribly. Do you know, I never knew that
+proposals of marriage were made like that!"
+
+"I have not told you one thing," said Musa. "I am going to play in Germany,
+instead of further concerts in Paris. It is arranged."
+
+"Not in Germany," she pleaded, thinking of Ziegler.
+
+"Yes, in Germany," said Musa masterfully. "I have a reputation to make. It
+is the agent who has suggested it."
+
+"But the concerts in London?"
+
+"You are English. I wish not to wound you."
+
+When Audrey stood up again, she had to look at the floor in order to make
+sure that it was there. Once she had tasted absinthe. She had had to take
+the same precaution then.
+
+"Stop! I entreat thee!" said Musa suddenly, just as, all arrayed in her
+finery, she was opening the door for the walk.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+He kissed her, and with his lips almost on hers he murmured:
+
+"Thou shalt not go out without avowing. And if thou art angry--well, I
+adore thy anger. The concerts were ... thy enterprise? I guessed well?"
+
+"You see," she replied like a shot, "you weren't sure, although you
+pretended you were."
+
+In the Rue de Rivoli, and in the resplendent Champs Elysées they passed
+column after column of entertainment posters. But the name of Musa had been
+mysteriously removed from all of them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+AN EPILOGUE
+
+
+Audrey was walking along Piccadilly when she overtook Miss Ingate, who had
+been arrested by a shop window, the window of one of the shops recently
+included in the vast edifice of the Hotel Majestic.
+
+Miss Ingate gave a little squeal of surprise. The two kissed very heartily
+in the street, which was full of spring and of the posters of evening
+papers bearing melodramatic tidings of the latest nocturnal development of
+the terrible suffragette campaign.
+
+"You said eleven, Audrey. It isn't eleven yet."
+
+"Well, I'm behind time. I meant to be all spruced up and receive you in
+state at the hotel. But the boat was three hours late at Harwich. I jumped
+into a cab at Liverpool Street, but I got out at Piccadilly Circus because
+the streets looked so fine and I felt I really must walk a bit."
+
+"And where's your husband?"
+
+"He's at Liverpool Street trying to look after the luggage. He lost some of
+it at Hamburg. He likes looking after luggage, so I just left him at it."
+
+Miss Ingate's lower lip dropped at the corners.
+
+"You've had a tiff."
+
+"Winnie, we haven't."
+
+"Did you go to all his concerts?"
+
+"All. I heard all his practising, and I sat in the stalls at all his
+concerts. Quite contrary to my principles, of course. But, Winnie, it's
+very queer, I _wanted_ to do it. So naturally I did it. We've never been
+apart--until now."
+
+"And it's not exaggerated, what you've written me about his success?"
+
+"Not a bit. I've been most careful not to exaggerate. In fact, I've tried
+to be gloomy. No use, however! It was a triumph.... And how's all this
+business?" Audrey demanded, in a new key, indicating an orange-tinted
+newspaper bill that was being flaunted in front of her.
+
+"Oh! I believe it's dreadful. Of course, you know Rosamund's in prison. But
+they'll have to let her out soon. Jane Foley--she still calls herself
+Foley--hasn't been caught. And that's funny. I doubled my subscription. We
+had to, you see. But that's all I've done. They don't have processions and
+things now, and barrel organs are _quite_ out of fashion. What with that,
+and my rheumatism!... I used to think I should live to vote myself. I feel
+I shan't now. So I've gone back into water-colours. They're very soothing,
+if you let the paper dry after each wash and don't take them seriously....
+Now, I'm a very common-sense woman, Audrey, as you must have noticed, and
+I'm not subject to fancies. Will you just look at the girl on the left hand
+in this window here, and tell me whether I'm dreaming or not?"
+
+Miss Ingate indicated the shop window which had arrested her. The
+establishment was that of a hair specialist, and the window was mainly
+occupied by two girls who sat in arm-chairs with their backs to the glass,
+and all their magnificent hair spread out at length over the backs of the
+chairs for the inspection of the public; the implication being that the
+magnificent hair was due to the specific of the hair specialist. Passers-by
+continually stopped to gaze at the spectacle, but they never stopped long,
+because the spectacle was monotonous.
+
+"Well, what about her?" said Audrey, staring.
+
+"Isn't it Lady Southminster?"
+
+"Good heavens!" Audrey's mind went back to the Channel packet and the rain
+squall and the scenes on the Paris train. "So it is! Whatever can have
+happened to her? Let's go in."
+
+And in they went, Audrey leading, and demanding at once a bottle of the
+specific; Audrey had scarcely spoken when the left-hand girl in the window,
+who, of course, from her vantage had a full view of the shop, screamed
+lightly and jumped down from the window.
+
+"Don't give me away!" she whispered appealingly in Audrey's ear. The next
+moment, not heeding the excitement of the shop manager, she had drawn
+Audrey and Miss Ingate through another door which led into the
+entrance-hall of the Majestic Hotel. The shop was thus contrived to catch
+two publics at once.
+
+"If they knew I was Lady Southminster in there," said Lady Southminster in
+a feverish murmur--she seemed not averse to the sensation caused by her
+hair in the twilight of the hotel--"I expect I should lose my place, and I
+don't want to lose it. _He'll_ be coming by presently, and he'll see me,
+and it'll be a lesson to him. We're always together. Race meetings, dances,
+golf, restaurants, bridge. Twenty-four hours every day. He won't lose sight
+of me. He's that fond of me, you know. I couldn't stand it. I'd as lief be
+in prison--only I'm that fond of him, you know. But I was so homesick, and
+I felt if I didn't have a change I should burst. This is
+Constantinopoulos's old shop, you know, where I used to make cigarettes in
+the window. He's dead, Constantinopoulos is. I don't know what _he'd_ have
+said to hair restorers. I asked for the place, and I showed 'em my hair,
+and I got it. And me sitting there--it's quite like old times. Only
+before, you know, I used to have my face to the street. I don't know which
+I like best. But, anyhow, you can see my profile from the side window. And
+_he_ will. He always looks at that sort of thing. He'll be furious. But it
+will do him no end of good. Well, good-bye. But come back in and buy a
+bottle, or I shall be let in for a shindy. In fact, you might buy two
+bottles."
+
+"So that's love!" said Audrey when the transaction was over and they were
+in the entrance-hall again.
+
+"No," said Miss Ingate. "That's marriage. And don't you forget it....
+Hallo, Tommy!"
+
+"You'd better not let Mr. Gilman hear me called Tommy in this hotel,"
+laughed Miss Thompkins, who was attired with an unusual richness, as she
+advanced towards Miss Ingate and Audrey. "And what are you doing here?" she
+questioned Audrey.
+
+"I'm staying here," said Audrey. "But I've only just arrived. I'm advance
+agent for my husband. How are you? And what are _you_ doing here? I thought
+you hated London."
+
+"I came the day before yesterday," Tommy replied. "And I'm very fit. You
+see, Mr. Gilman preferred us to be married in London. And I'd no objection.
+So here I am. The wedding's to-morrow. You aren't very startled, are you?
+Had you heard?"
+
+"Well," said Audrey, "not what you'd call 'heard.' But I'd a sort of a kind
+of a--"
+
+"You come right over here, young woman."
+
+"But I want to get my number."
+
+"You come right over here right now," Tommy insisted. And in another
+corner of the entrance-hall she spoke thus, and there was both seriousness
+and fun in her voice: "Don't you run away with the idea that I'm taking
+your leavings, young woman. Because I'm not. We all knew you'd lost your
+head about Musa, and it was quite right of you. But you never had a chance
+with Ernest, though you thought you had, after I'd met him. Admit I'm much
+better suited for him than you'd have been. I'd only one difficulty, and
+that was the nice boy Price, who wanted to drown himself for my beautiful
+freckled face. That's all. Now you can go and get your number."
+
+The incident might not have ended there had not Madame Piriac appeared in
+the entrance-hall out of the interior of the hotel.
+
+"He exacted my coming," said Madame Piriac privately to Audrey. "You know
+how he is strange. He asks for a quiet wedding, but at the same time it
+must be all that is most correct. There are things, he says, which demand a
+woman.... I know four times nothing of the English etiquette. I have
+abandoned my husband. And here I am. _VoilĂ _! Listen. She has great skill
+with him, _cette Tommy_. Nevertheless, I have the intention to counsel her
+about her complexion. Impossible to keep any man with a complexion like
+hers!"
+
+They saw Mr. Gilman himself enter the hotel. He was very nervous and very
+important. As soon as he caught sight of Miss Thompkins he said to the
+door-keeper:
+
+"Tell my chauffeur to wait."
+
+He was punctiliously attentive to Miss Thompkins, and held her hand for two
+seconds after he had practically finished with it.
+
+"Are you ready, dear?" he said. "You'll be sorry to hear that my liver is
+all wrong again. I knew it was because I slept so heavily."
+
+These words were distinctly heard by Audrey herself.
+
+"I think I'll slip upstairs now," she murmured to Madame Piriac. And
+vanished, before Mr. Gilman had observed her presence.
+
+She thought:
+
+"How he has aged!"
+
+Scarcely ten minutes later, when Audrey was upstairs in her sitting-room,
+waiting idly for the luggage and her husband to arrive, and thinking upon
+the case of Lady Southminster, the telephone bell rang out startlingly.
+
+"Mr. Shinner to see you."
+
+"Mr. Shinner? Oh! Mr. Shinner. Send him up, please."
+
+This Mr. Shinner was the concert agent with connections in Paris whom
+Audrey had first consulted in the enterprise of launching Musa upon the
+French public. He was a large, dark man, black moustached and bearded, with
+heavy limbs and features, and an opaque, pimpled skin. In spite of these
+characteristics, he entered the room soft-footed as a fairy, ingratiating
+as a dog aware of his own iniquity, reassuring as applause.
+
+"Well, Mr. Shinner. But how did you know we were here? As a matter of fact
+we aren't here. My husband has not arrived yet."
+
+"Madam," said Mr. Shinner, "I happened to hear that you had telegraphed for
+rooms, and as I was in the neighbourhood I thought I would venture to
+call."
+
+"But who told you we had telegraphed for rooms?"
+
+"The manager is a good friend of mine, and as you are now famous----" Ah! I
+have heard all about the German tour. I mean I have read about it. I
+subscribe to the German musical papers. One must, in my profession. Also I
+have had direct news from my correspondents in Germany. It was a triumph
+there, was it not?"
+
+"Yes," said Audrey. "After Dusseldorf. My husband did not make much
+money----"
+
+"That will not trouble you," Mr. Shinner smiled easily.
+
+"But somebody did--the agents did."
+
+"Perhaps not so much as you think, madam, if I may say so. Perhaps not so
+much as you think. And we must all live--unfortunately. Has your husband
+made any arrangements yet for London or for a provincial tour? I have
+reason to think that the season will be particularly brilliant. And I can
+now offer advantages----"
+
+"But, Mr. Shinner, when I last saw you, and it isn't so very long ago, you
+told me that my husband was not a concert-player, which was exactly what I
+had heard in Paris."
+
+"I didn't go quite so far as that, surely, did I?" Mr. Shinner softly
+insinuated. He might have been pouring honey from his mouth. "Surely I
+didn't say quite that?  And perhaps I had been too much influenced by
+Paris."
+
+"Yes, you said he wasn't a concert-player and never would be----"
+
+"Don't rub it in, madam," said Mr. Shinner merrily. "_Peccavi_."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing, madam," he disclaimed.
+
+"And you said there were far too many violinists on the market, and that it
+was useless for a French player to offer himself to the London musical
+public. And I don't know what you didn't say."
+
+"But I didn't know then that your husband would have such a success in
+Germany."
+
+"What difference does that make?"
+
+"Madam," said Mr. Shinner, "it makes every difference."
+
+"But England and Germany hate each other. At least they despise each other.
+And what's more, nearly everybody in Germany was talking about going to war
+this summer. I was told they are all ready to invade England after they
+have taken Paris and Calais. We heard it everywhere."
+
+"I don't know anything about any war," said Mr. Shinner with tranquillity.
+"But I do know that the London musical public depends absolutely on
+Germany. The only first-class instrumentalist that England has ever
+produced had no success here until he went to Germany and Germanised his
+name and himself and announced that he despised England. Then he came back,
+and he has caused a furore ever since. So far as regards London, a success
+in Karlsruhe, Wiesbaden, Leipzig, Dusseldorf, and so on, is worth far more
+than a success in the Queen's Hall. Indeed--can you get a success in the
+Queen's Hall without a success in these places first? I doubt it. Your
+husband now has London at his feet. Not Paris, though he may capture Paris
+after he has captured London. But London certainly. He cannot find a better
+agent than myself. All artists like me, because I _understand_. You see, my
+mother was harpist to the late Queen."
+
+"But----"
+
+"Your husband is assuredly a genius, madam!" Mr. Shinner stood up in his
+enthusiasm, and banged his left fist with his right palm.
+
+"Yes, I know that," said Audrey. "But you are such an expensive luxury."
+
+Mr. Shinner pushed away the accusation with both hands. "Madam, madam, I
+shall take all the risks. I should not dream, now, of asking for a cheque
+on account. On the contrary, I should guarantee a percentage of the gross
+receipts. Perhaps I am unwise to take risks--I dare say I am--but I could
+not bear to see your husband in the hands of another agent. We professional
+men have our feelings."
+
+"Don't cry, Mr. Shinner," said Audrey impulsively. It was not a proper
+remark to make, but the sudden impetuous entrance of Musa himself, carrying
+his violin case, eased the situation.
+
+"There is a man which is asking for you outside in the corridor," said Musa
+to his wife. "It is the gardener, Aguilar, I think. I have brought all the
+luggage, not excluding that which was lost at Hamburg." He had a glorious
+air, and was probably more proud of his still improving English and of his
+ability as a courier than of his triumphs on the fiddle. "Ah!" Mr. Shinner
+was bowing before him.
+
+"This is Mr. Shinner, the agent, my love," said Audrey. "I'll leave you to
+talk to him. He sees money in you."
+
+In the passage the authentic Aguilar stood with Miss Ingate.
+
+"Here's Mr. Aguilar," said Miss Ingate. "I'm just going into No. 37, Madame
+Piriac's room. Don't you think Mr. Aguilar looks vehy odd in London?"
+
+"Good morning, Aguilar. You in town on business?"
+
+Aguilar touched his forehead. It is possible that he looked very odd in
+London, but he was wearing a most respectable new suit of clothes, and
+might well have passed for a land agent.
+
+"'Mornin', ma'am. I had to come up because I couldn't get delivery of those
+wallpapers you chose. Otherwise all the repairs and alterations are going
+on as well as could be expected."
+
+"And how is your wife, Aguilar?"
+
+"She's nicely, thank ye, ma'am. I pointed out to the foreman that it would
+be a mistake to make the dining-room door open the other way, as the
+architect suggested. But he would do it. However, I've told you, ma'am.
+It'll only have to be altered back. Perhaps I ought to tell you that I took
+the liberty of taking a fortnight's holiday, ma'am. It's the only holiday I
+ever did take, except the annual day off for the Colchester Rose Show,
+which is perhaps more a matter of business with a head gardener than a
+holiday, as ye might say. My wife wanted me in London."
+
+"She's not caught yet?"
+
+"No'm. And I don't think as she will be, not with me about. I never did
+allow myself to be bossed by police, and I always been too much for 'em.
+And as I'm on the matter, ma'am, I should like to give you notice as soon
+as it's convenient. I wouldn't leave on any account till that foreman's off
+the place; he's no better than a fool. But as soon afterwards as you like."
+
+"Certainly, Aguilar. I was quite expecting it. Where are you going to
+live?"
+
+"Well, ma'am, I've got hold of a little poultry run business in the north
+of London. It'll be handy for Holloway in case--And Jane asked me to give
+you this letter, ma'am. I see her this morning."
+
+Audrey read the note. Very short, it was signed "Jane" and "Nick," and
+dated from a house in Fitzroy Street. It caused acute excitement in Audrey.
+
+"I shall come at once," said she.
+
+Getting rid of Aguilar, she knocked at the door of No. 37.
+
+"Read that," she ordered Miss Ingate and Madame Piriac, giving them the
+note jointly.
+
+"And are you going?" said Miss Ingate, nervous and impressed.
+
+"Of course," Audrey answered. "Don't they ask me to go at once? I meant to
+write to my cousins at Woodbridge and my uncles in the colonies, and tell
+them all that I was settling down at last. And I meant to look at those new
+flats in Park Lane with Musa. But I shall have to leave all that for the
+present. Also my lunch."
+
+"But, darling," put in Madame Piriac, who had been standing before the
+dressing-table trying on a hat. "But, darling, it is very serious, this
+matter. What about your husband?"
+
+"He'll keep," said Audrey. "He's had his turn. I must have mine now. I
+haven't had a day off from being a wife for ever so long. And it's a little
+enervating, you know. It spoils you for the fresh air."
+
+"I imagined to myself that you two were happy in an ideal fashion,"
+murmured Madame Piriac.
+
+"So we are!" said Audrey. "Though a certain coolness did arise over the
+luggage this morning. But I don't want to be ideally happy all the time.
+And I won't be. I want--I want all the sensations there are; and I want to
+be everything. And I can be. Musa understands."
+
+"If he does," said Miss Ingate, "he'll be the first husband that ever did."
+Her lips were sardonic.
+
+"Well, of course," said Audrey nonchalantly, "he _is_. Didn't you know
+that?... And didn't you tell me not to forget Lady Southminster?"
+
+"Did I?" said Miss Ingate.
+
+Audrey heard voices in the corridor. Musa was parting from a subservient
+Shinner. Also the luggage was bumping along the carpet. She called her
+husband into No. 37 and kissed him rather violently in front of Madame
+Piriac and Miss Ingate, and showed him the note. Then she whispered to him,
+smiling.
+
+"What's that you're whispering?" Miss Ingate archly demanded.
+
+"Nothing. I was only asking him to come and help me to open my big trunk. I
+want something out of it. Au revoir, you two."
+
+"What do you think of it all, Madame Piriac?" Miss Ingate inquired when the
+pair were alone.
+
+"'All the sensations there are!' 'Everything!'" Madame Piriac repeated
+Audrey's phrases. "One is forced to conclude that she has an appetite for
+life."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Ingate, "she wants the lion's share of it, that's what she
+wants. No mistake. But of course she's young."
+
+"I was never young like that."
+
+"Neither was I! Neither was I!" Miss Ingate asseverated. "But something
+vehy, vehy strange has come over the world, if you ask me."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lion's Share, by E. Arnold Bennett
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14487 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14487 ***</div>
+
+<p><em>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</em></p>
+
+<div id="byTheSameAuthor">
+<p class="header">NOVELS&mdash;</p>
+<p>    A MAN FROM THE NORTH<br />
+    ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS<br />
+    LEONORA<br />
+    A GREAT MAN<br />
+    SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE<br />
+    WHOM GOD HATH JOINED<br />
+    BURIED ALIVE<br />
+    THE OLD WIVES&#8217; TALE<br />
+    THE GLIMPSE<br />
+    HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND<br />
+    CLAYHANGER<br />
+    HILDA LESSWAYS<br />
+    THESE TWAIN<br />
+    THE CARD<br />
+    THE REGENT<br />
+    THE PRICE OF LOVE</p>
+
+
+<p class="header">FANTASIAS&mdash;</p>
+<p>    THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL<br />
+    THE GATES OF WRATH<br />
+    TERESA OF WATLING STREET<br />
+    THE LOOT OF CITIES<br />
+    HUGO<br />
+    THE GHOST<br />
+    THE CITY OF PLEASURE</p>
+
+
+<p class="header">SHORT STORIES&mdash;</p>
+<p>    TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS<br />
+    THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS<br />
+    THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS</p>
+
+
+<p class="header">BELLES-LETTRES&mdash;</p>
+<p>    JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN<br />
+    FAME AND FICTION<br />
+    HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR<br />
+    THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR<br />
+    THE REASONABLE LIFE<br />
+    HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY<br />
+    THE HUMAN MACHINE<br />
+    LITERARY TASTE<br />
+    FRIENDSHIP AND HAPPINESS<br />
+    THOSE UNITED STATES<br />
+    MARRIAGE<br />
+    LIBERTY</p>
+
+
+<p class="header">DRAMA&mdash;</p>
+<p>    POLITE FARCES<br />
+    CUPID AND COMMONSENSE<br />
+    WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS<br />
+    THE HONEYMOON<br />
+    THE GREAT ADVENTURE<br />
+    MILESTONES (in collaboration with Edward Knoblauch)</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>(In collaboration with Eden Phillpotts)<br />
+THE SINEWS OF WAR: A Romance<br />
+THE STATUE: A Romance</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+
+
+<h1>The Lion&#8217;s Share</h1>
+
+<p id="by">by</p>
+
+<h2>Arnold Bennett</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p id="firstPublished">First Published 1916.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table id="contents">
+<tr>
+<td align="right">CHAPTER</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_1">1.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_1">MISS INGATE, AND THE YACHT</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_2">2.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_2">THE THIEF&#8217;S PLAN WRECKED</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_3">3.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_3">THE LEGACY</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_4">4.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_4">MR. FOULGER</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_5">5.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_5">THE DEAD HAND</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_6">6.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_6">THE YOUNG WIDOW</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_7">7.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_7">THE CIGARETTE GIRL</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_8">8.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_8">EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_9">9.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_9">LIFE IN PARIS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_10">10.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_10">FANCY DRESS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_11">11.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_11">A POLITICAL REFUGEE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_12">12.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_12">WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_13">13.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_13">THE SWOON</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_14">14.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_14">MISS INGATE POINTS OUT THE DOOR</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_15">15.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_15">THE RIGHT BANK</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_16">16.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_16">ROBES</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_17">17.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_17">SOIRÉE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_18">18.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_18">A DECISION</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_19">19.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_19">THE BOUDOIR</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_20">20.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_20">PAGET GARDENS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_21">21.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_21">JANE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_22">22.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_22">THE DETECTIVE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_23">23.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_23">THE BLUE CITY</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_24">24.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_24">THE SPATTS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_25">25.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_25">THE MUTE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_26">26.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_26">NOCTURNE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_27">27.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_27">IN THE GARDEN</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_28">28.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_28">ENCOUNTER</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_29">29.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_29">FLIGHT</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_30">30.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_30">ARIADNE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_31">31.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_31">THE NOSTRUM</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_32">32.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_32">BY THE BINNACLE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_33">33.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_33">AGUILAR&#8217;S DOUBLE LIFE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_34">34.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_34">THE TANK-ROOM</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_35">35.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_35">THE THIRD SORT OF WOMAN</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_36">36.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_36">IN THE DINGHY</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_37">37.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_37">AFLOAT</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_38">38.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_38">IN THE UNIVERSE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_39">39.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_39">THE IMMINENT DRIVE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_40">40.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_40">GENIUS AT BAY</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_41">41.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_41">FINANCIAL NEWS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_42">42.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_42">INTERVAL</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_43">43.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_43">ENTR&#8217;ACTE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_44">44.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_44">END OF THE CONCERT</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_45">45.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_45">STRANGE RESULT OF A QUARREL</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_46">46.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_46">AN EPILOGUE</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_1" id="chapter_1" />CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>MISS INGATE, AND THE YACHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey had just closed the safe in her father&#8217;s study when
+she was startled by a slight noise. She turned like a
+defensive animal to face danger. It had indeed occurred
+to her that she was rather like an animal in captivity, and
+she found a bitter pleasure in the idea, though it was not
+at all original.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And Flank Hall is my Zoo!&#8221; she had said. (Not
+that she had ever seen the Zoological Gardens or visited
+London.)</p>
+
+<p>She was lithe; she moved with charm. Her short, plain
+blue serge walking-frock disclosed the form of her limbs
+and left them free, and it made her look younger even
+than she was. Its simplicity suited her gestures and took
+grace from them. But she wore the old thing without the
+least interest in it&mdash;almost unconsciously. She had none of
+the preoccupations caused by the paraphernalia of existence.
+She scarcely knew what it was to own. She was aware only
+of her body and her soul. Beyond these her possessions
+were so few, so mean, so unimportant, that she might have
+carried them to the grave and into heaven without protest
+from the authorities earthly or celestial.</p>
+
+<p>The slight noise was due to the door of the study,
+which great age had distorted and bereft of sense, and, in
+fact, almost unhinged. It unlatched itself, paused, and
+then calmly but firmly swung wide open. When it could
+swing no farther it shook, vibrating into repose.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey condemned the door for a senile lunatic, and
+herself for a poltroon. She became defiant of peril, until
+the sound of a step on the stair beyond the door threw
+her back into alarm. But when the figure of Miss Ingate
+appeared in the doorway she was definitely reassured, to
+the point of disdain. All her facial expression said: &#8220;It&#8217;s
+only Miss Ingate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And yet Miss Ingate was not a negligible woman. Her
+untidy hair was greying; she was stout, she was fifty, she
+was plain, she had not elegance; her accent and turns of
+speech were noticeably those of Essex. But she had a
+magnificent pale forehead; the eyes beneath it sparkled
+with energy, inquisitiveness, and sagacity; and the mouth
+beneath the eyes showed by its sardonic dropping corners
+that she had come to a settled, cheerful conclusion about
+human nature, and that the conclusion was not flattering.
+Miss Ingate was a Guardian of the Poor, and the Local
+Representative of the Soldiers&#8217; and Sailors&#8217; Families Association.
+She had studied intimately the needy and the rich
+and the middling. She was charitable without illusions;
+and, while adhering to every social convention, she did so
+with a toleration pleasantly contemptuous; in her heart she
+had no mercy for snobs of any kind, though, unfortunately,
+she was at times absurdly intimidated by them&mdash;at other
+times she was not.</p>
+
+<p>To the west, within a radius of twelve miles, she knew
+everybody and everybody knew her; to the east her fame
+was bounded only by the regardless sea. She and her
+ancestors had lived in the village of Moze as long as even
+Mr. Mathew Moze and his ancestors. In the village, and
+to the village, she was Miss Ingate, a natural phenomenon,
+like the lie of the land and the river Moze. Her opinions
+offended nobody, not Mr. Moze himself&mdash;she was Miss
+Ingate. She was laughed at, beloved and respected. Her
+sagacity had one flaw, and the flaw sprang from her sincere
+conviction that human nature in that corner of Essex,
+which she understood so profoundly, and where she was
+so perfectly at home, was different from, and more fondly
+foolish than, human nature in any other part of the world.
+She could not believe that distant populations could be
+at once so pathetically and so naughtily human as the
+population in and around Moze.</p>
+
+<p>If Audrey disdained Miss Ingate, it was only because
+Miss Ingate was neither young nor fair nor the proprietress
+of some man, and because people made out that she was
+peculiar. In some respects Audrey looked upon Miss
+Ingate as a life-belt, as the speck of light at the end of a
+tunnel, as the enigmatic smile which glimmers always in
+the frown of destiny.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221; cried Miss Ingate in her rather shrill voice,
+grinning sardonically, with the corners of her lips still lower
+than usual in anticipatory sarcasm. It was as if she had
+said: &#8220;You cannot surprise me by any narrative of imbecility
+or turpitude or bathos. All the same, I am dying
+to hear the latest eccentricity of this village.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221; parried Audrey, holding one hand behind her.</p>
+
+<p>They did not shake hands. People who call at ten
+o&#8217;clock in the morning cannot expect to have their hands
+shaken. Miss Ingate certainly expected nothing of the
+sort. She had the freedom of Flank Hall, as of scores
+of other houses, at all times of day. Servants opened front
+doors for her with a careless smile, and having shut
+front doors they left her loose, like a familiar cat, to find
+what she wanted. They seldom &#8220;showed&#8221; her into any
+room, nor did they dream of acting before her the unconvincing
+comedy of going to &#8220;see&#8221; whether masters or
+mistresses were out or in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s your mother?&#8221; asked Miss Ingate idly, quite
+sure that interesting divulgations would come, and quite
+content to wait for them. She had been out of the village
+for over a week.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mother&#8217;s taking her acetyl salicylic,&#8221; Audrey answered,
+coming to the door of the study.</p>
+
+<p>This meant merely that Mrs. Moze had a customary
+attack of the neuralgia for which the district is justly
+renowned among strangers.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; murmured Miss Ingate callously. Mrs. Moze,
+though she had lived in the district for twenty-five years,
+did not belong to it. If she chose to keep on having
+neuralgia, that was her affair, but in justice to natives
+and to the district she ought not to make too much of it,
+and she ought to admit that it might well be due to her
+weakness after her operation. Miss Ingate considered the
+climate to be the finest in England; which it was, on the
+condition that you were proof against neuralgia.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Father&#8217;s gone to Colchester in the car to see the
+Bishop,&#8221; Audrey coldly added.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If I&#8217;d known he was going to Colchester I should
+have asked him for a lift,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, with
+determination.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes! He&#8217;d have taken <em>you!</em>&#8220; said Audrey, reserved.
+&#8220;I suppose you had fine times in London!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! It was vehy exciting! It was vehy exciting!&#8221;
+Miss Ingate agreed loudly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Father wouldn&#8217;t let me read about it in the paper,&#8221;
+said Audrey, still reserved. &#8220;He never will, you know.
+But I did!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! But you didn&#8217;t read about me playing the barrel
+organ all the way down Regent Street, because that wasn&#8217;t
+in any of the papers.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You <em>didn&#8217;t!</em>&#8220; Audrey protested, with a sudden dark
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And vehy tiring
+it was. Vehy tiring indeed. It&#8217;s quite an art to turn a
+barrel organ. If you don&#8217;t keep going perfectly even it
+makes the tune jerky. Oh! I know a bit about barrel
+organs now. They smashed it all to pieces. Oh yes! All
+to pieces. I spoke to the police. I said, &#8216;Aren&#8217;t you going
+to protect these ladies&#8217; property?&#8217; But they didn&#8217;t lift a
+finger.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And weren&#8217;t you arrested?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Me!&#8221; shrieked Miss Ingate. &#8220;Me arrested!&#8221; Then
+more quietly, in an assured tone, &#8220;Oh no! I wasn&#8217;t
+arrested. You see, as soon as the row began I just walked
+away from the organ and became one of the crowd. I&#8217;m all
+<em>for</em> them, but I wasn&#8217;t going to be arrested.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate&#8217;s sparkling eyes seemed to say: &#8220;Sylvia
+Pankhurst can be arrested if she likes, and so can Mrs.
+Despard and Annie Kenney and Jane Foley, or any of them.
+But the policeman that is clever enough to catch Miss
+Ingate of Moze does not exist. And the gumption of Miss
+Ingate of Moze surpasses the united gumption of all the
+other feminists in England.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!&#8221; repeated Miss Ingate with
+mingled complacency, glee, passion, and sardonic tolerance
+of the whole panorama of worldly existence. &#8220;The police
+were awful, shocking. But I was not arrested.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, <em>I</em> was&mdash;this morning,&#8221; said Audrey in a low and
+poignant voice.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate was startled out of her mood of the detached
+ironic spectator.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; she frowned.</p>
+
+<p>They heard a servant moving about at the foot of the
+stairs, and a capped head could be seen through the
+interstices of the white Chinese balustrade. The study was
+the only immediate refuge; Miss Ingate advanced right into
+it, and Audrey pushed the door to.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Father&#8217;s given me a month&#8217;s C.B.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, gazing at the girl&#8217;s face, saw in its quiet
+and yet savage desperation the possibility that after all she
+might indeed be surprised by the vagaries of human nature
+in the village. And her glance became sympathetic, even
+tender, as well as apprehensive.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;C.B.&#8217;? What do you mean&mdash;&#8216;C.B.&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you know what C.B. means?&#8221; exclaimed Audrey
+with scornful superiority over the old spinster. &#8220;Confined to
+barracks. Father says I&#8217;m not to go beyond the grounds for
+a month. And to-day&#8217;s the second of April!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, he does. He&#8217;s given me a week, you know, before.
+Now it&#8217;s a month.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate looked round at the shabby study, with its
+guns, cigar-boxes, prints, books neither old nor new,
+japanned boxes of documents, and general litter scattered
+over the voluted walnut furniture. Her own house was old-fashioned,
+and she realised it was old-fashioned; but
+when she came into Flank Hall, and particularly into Mr.
+Moze&#8217;s study, she felt as if she was stepping backwards
+into history&mdash;and this in spite of the fact that nothing
+in the place was really ancient, save the ceilings and the
+woodwork round the windows. It was Mr. Moze&#8217;s habit of
+mind that dominated and transmogrified the whole interior,
+giving it the quality of a mausoleum. The suffragette procession
+in which Miss Ingate had musically and discreetly
+taken part seemed to her as she stood in Mr. Moze&#8217;s changeless
+lair to be a phantasm. Then she looked at the young
+captive animal and perceived that two centuries may coincide
+on the same carpet and that time is merely a convention.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What you been doing?&#8221; she questioned, with delicacy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I took a strange man by the hand,&#8221; said Audrey,
+choosing her words queerly, as she sometimes did, to produce
+a dramatic effect.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This morning?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. Eight o&#8217;clock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What? Is there a strange man in the village?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t mean to say you haven&#8217;t seen the yacht!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yacht?&#8221; Miss Ingate showed some excitement.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come and look, Winnie,&#8221; said Audrey, who occasionally
+thought fit to address Miss Ingate in the manner of the
+elder generation. She drew Miss Ingate to the window.</p>
+
+<p>Between the brown curtains Mozewater, the broad,
+shallow estuary of the Moze, was spread out glittering in
+the sunshine which could not get into the chilly room. The
+tide was nearly at full, and the estuary looked like a mighty
+harbour for great ships; but in six hours it would be
+reduced to a narrow stream winding through mud flats of
+marvellous ochres, greens, and pinks. In the hazy distance
+a fitful white flash showed where ocean waves were breaking
+on a sand-bank. And in the foreground, against a disused
+Hard that was a couple of hundred yards lower down than
+the village Hard, a large white yacht was moored, probably
+the largest yacht that had ever threaded that ticklish
+navigation. She was a shallow-draft barge-yacht, rigged
+like a Thames barge, and her whiteness and the glint of her
+brass, and the flicker of her ensign at the stern were
+dazzling. Blue figures ran busily about on her, and a white-and-blue
+person in a peaked cap stood importantly at the
+wheel.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She was on the mud last night,&#8221; said Audrey eagerly,
+&#8220;opposite the Flank buoy, and she came up this morning at
+half-flood. I think they made fast at Lousey Hard, because
+they couldn&#8217;t get any farther without waiting. They have
+a motor, and it must be their first trip this season. I was
+on the dyke. I wasn&#8217;t even looking at them, but they called
+me, so I had to go. They only wanted to know if Lousey
+Hard was private. Of course I told them it wasn&#8217;t. It was
+a very middle-aged man spoke to me. He must be the
+owner. As soon as they were tied up he wanted to jump
+ashore. It was rather awkward, and I just held out my
+hand to help him. Father saw me from here. I might have
+known he would.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why! It&#8217;s going off!&#8221; exclaimed Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>The yacht swung slowly round, held by her stern to the
+Hard. Then the last hawser was cast off, and she floated
+away on the first of the ebb; and as she moved, her main-sail,
+unbrailed, spread itself out and became a vast pinion.
+Like a dream of happiness she lessened and faded, and
+Lousey Hard was as lonely and forlorn as ever.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But didn&#8217;t you explain to your father?&#8221; Miss Ingate
+demanded of Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course I did. But he wouldn&#8217;t listen. He never
+does. I might just as well have explained to the hall-clock.
+He raged. I think he enjoys losing his temper. He said I
+oughtn&#8217;t to have been there at all, and it was just like me,
+and he couldn&#8217;t understand it in a daughter of his, and it
+would be a great shock to my poor mother, and he&#8217;d talked
+enough&mdash;he should now proceed to action. All the usual
+things. He actually asked me who &#8216;the man&#8217; was.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And who was it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How can I tell? For goodness&#8217; sake don&#8217;t go imitating
+father, Winnie! ... Rather a dull man, I should say.
+Rather like father, only not so old. He had a beautiful
+necktie; I think it must have been made out of a strip of
+Joseph&#8217;s coat.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate giggled at a high pitch, and Audrey responsively
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh dear! Oh dear!&#8221; murmured Miss Ingate when her
+giggling was exhausted. &#8220;How queer it is that a girl like
+you can&#8217;t keep your father in a good temper!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Father hates me to say funny things. If I say anything
+funny he turns as black as ink&mdash;and he takes care to
+keep gloomy all the rest of the day, too. He never laughs.
+Mother laughs now and then, but I never heard father laugh.
+Oh yes, I did. He laughed when the cat fell out of the bathroom
+window on to the lawn-roller. He went quite red in
+the face with laughing.... I say, Miss Ingate, do you
+think father&#8217;s mad?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shouldn&#8217;t think he&#8217;s what you call mad,&#8221; replied Miss
+Ingate judicially, with admirable sang-froid. &#8220;I&#8217;ve known
+so many peculiar people in my time. And you must remember,
+Audrey, this is a peculiar part of the world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I believe he&#8217;s mad, anyway. I believe he&#8217;s got
+men on the brain, especially young men. He&#8217;s growing
+worse. Yesterday he told me I musn&#8217;t have the punt out on
+Mozewater this season unless he&#8217;s with me. Fancy skiffing
+about with father! He says I&#8217;m too old for that now. So
+there you are. The older I get the less I&#8217;m allowed to do.
+I can&#8217;t go a walk, unless it&#8217;s an errand. The pedal is off
+my bike, and father is much too cunning to have it repaired.
+I can&#8217;t boat. I&#8217;m never given any money. He grumbles
+frightfully if I want any clothes, so I never want any.
+That&#8217;s my latest dodge. I&#8217;ve read every book in the house
+except the silly liturgical and legal things he&#8217;s always
+having from the London Library&mdash;and I&#8217;ve read even some
+of those. He won&#8217;t buy any new music. Golf! Ye gods,
+Winnie, you should hear him talk about ladies and golf!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;But it doesn&#8217;t ruffle me,
+because I don&#8217;t play.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But he plays with girls, and young girls, too, all the
+same. He&#8217;s been caught in the act. Ethel told me. He
+little thinks I know. He&#8217;d let me play if he could be
+the only man on the course. He&#8217;s mad about me and
+men. He never looks at me without thinking of all the
+boys in the district.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But he&#8217;s really very fond of you, Audrey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I know,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;He ought to keep me in
+the china cupboard.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, it&#8217;s a great problem.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s invented a beautiful new trick for keeping me in
+when he&#8217;s out. I have to copy his beastly Society letters for
+him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see he&#8217;s got a new box,&#8221; observed Miss Ingate,
+glancing into the open cupboard in which stood the safe.
+On the top of the safe were two japanned boxes, each
+lettered in white: &#8220;The National Reformation Society.&#8221;
+The uppermost box was freshly unpacked and shone with all
+the intact pride of virginity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You should read some of the letters. You really
+should, Winnie,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;All the bigwigs of the
+Society love writing to each other. I bet you father will
+get a typewriting machine this year, and make me learn it.
+The chairman has a typewriter, and father means to be the
+next chairman. You&#8217;ll see.... Oh! What&#8217;s that?
+Listen!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A faint distant throbbing could be heard.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the motor! He&#8217;s coming back for something.
+Fly out of here, Winnie, fly!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey felt sick at the thought that if her father had
+returned only a few minutes earlier he might have trapped
+her at the safe itself. She still kept one hand behind her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, who with all her qualities was rather easily
+flustered, ran out of the dangerous room in Audrey&#8217;s wake.
+They met Mr. Mathew Moze at the half-landing of the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>He was a man of average size, somewhat past sixty
+years. He had plump cheeks, tinged with red; his hair,
+moustache and short, full beard, were quite grey. He wore
+a thick wide-spreading ulster, and between his coat and
+waistcoat a leather vest, and on his head a grey cap. Put
+him in the Strand in town clothes, and he might have been
+taken for a clerk, a civil servant, a club secretary, a retired
+military officer, a poet, an undertaker&mdash;for anything except
+the last of a long line of immovable squires who could not
+possibly conceive what it was not to be the owner of land.
+His face was preoccupied and overcast, but as soon as he
+realised that Miss Ingate was on the stairs it instantly
+brightened into a warm and rather wistful smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning, Miss Ingate,&#8221; he greeted her with
+deferential cordiality. &#8220;I&#8217;m so glad to see you back.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning, good morning, Mr. Moze,&#8221; responded
+Miss Ingate. &#8220;Vehy nice of you. Vehy nice of you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Nobody would have guessed from their demeanour that
+they differed on every subject except their loyalty to that
+particular corner of Essex, that he regarded her and her
+political associates as deadly microbes in the national
+organism, and that she regarded him as a nincompoop
+crossed with a tyrant. Each of them had a magic glass to
+see in the other nothing but a local Effendi and familiar
+guardian angel of Moze. Moreover, Mr. Moze&#8217;s public
+smile and public manner were irresistible&mdash;until he lost his
+temper. He might have had friends by the score, had it
+not been for his deep constitutional reserve&mdash;due partly to
+diffidence and partly to an immense hidden conceit. Mr.
+Moze&#8217;s existence was actuated, though he knew it not, by
+the conviction that the historic traditions of England were
+committed to his keeping. Hence the conceit, which was
+that of a soul secretly self-dedicated.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, outraged by the hateful hypocrisy of persons
+over fifty, and terribly constrained and alarmed, turned
+vaguely back up the stairs. Miss Ingate, not quite knowing
+what she did, with an equal vagueness followed her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come in. Do come in,&#8221; urged Mr. Moze at the door
+of the study.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, who remained on the landing, heard her elders
+talk smoothly of grave Mozian things, while Mr. Moze
+unlocked the new tin box above the safe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d forgotten a most important paper,&#8221; said he, as
+he relocked the box. &#8220;I have an appointment with the
+Bishop of Colchester at ten-forty-five, and I fear I may
+be late. Will you excuse me, Miss Ingate?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She excused him.</p>
+
+<p>Departing, he put the paper into his pocket with a
+careful and loving gesture that well symbolised his passionate
+affection for the Society of which he was already
+the vice-chairman. He had been a member of the National
+Reformation Society for eleven years. Despite the promise
+of its name, this wealthy association of idealists had no
+care for reforms in a sadly imperfect England. Its aim
+was anti-Romanist. The Reformation which it had in mind
+was Luther&#8217;s, and it wished, by fighting an alleged insidious
+revival of Roman Catholicism, to make sure that so far as
+England was concerned Luther had not preached in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moze&#8217;s connection with the Society had originated
+in a quarrel between himself and a Catholic priest from
+Ipswich who had instituted a boys&#8217; summer camp on the
+banks of Mozewater near the village of Moze. Until that
+quarrel, the exceeding noxiousness of the Papal doctrine
+had not clearly presented itself to Mr. Moze. In such
+strange ways may an ideal come to birth. As Mr. Moze,
+preoccupied and gloomy once more, steered himself rapidly
+out of Moze towards the episcopal presence, the image of
+the imperturbable and Jesuitical priest took shape in his
+mind, refreshing his determination to be even with Rome
+at any cost.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_2" id="chapter_2" />CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE THIEF&#8217;S PLAN WRECKED</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;The fact is,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;father has another woman
+in the house now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moze had left Miss Ingate in the study and Audrey
+had cautiously rejoined her there.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Another woman in the house!&#8221; repeated Miss Ingate,
+sitting down in happy expectation. &#8220;What on earth do
+you mean? Who on earth do you mean?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I mean me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You aren&#8217;t a woman, Audrey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m just as much of a woman as you are. All father&#8217;s
+behaviour proves it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But your father treats you as a child.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, he doesn&#8217;t. He treats me as a woman. If he
+thought I was a child he wouldn&#8217;t have anything to worry
+about. I&#8217;m over nineteen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t look it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course I don&#8217;t. But I could if I liked. I simply
+won&#8217;t look it because I don&#8217;t care to be made ridiculous.
+I should start to look my age at once if father stopped
+treating me like a child.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you&#8217;ve just said he treats you as a woman!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t understand, Winnie,&#8221; said the girl sharply.
+&#8220;Unless you&#8217;re pretending. Now you&#8217;ve never told me
+anything about yourself, and I&#8217;ve always told you lots about
+myself. You belong to an old-fashioned family. How
+were you treated when you were my age?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In what way?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You know what way,&#8221; said Audrey, gazing at her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, my dear. Things seemed to come very naturally,
+somehow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Were you ever engaged?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Me? Oh, no!&#8221; answered Miss Ingate with tranquillity.
+&#8220;I&#8217;m vehy interested in them. Oh, vehy! Oh,
+vehy! And I like talking to them. But anything more
+than that gets on my nerves. My eldest sister was the
+one. Oh! She was the one. She refused eleven men,
+and when she was going to be married she made me
+embroider the monograms of all of them on the skirt of her
+wedding-dress. She made me, and I had to do it. I sat up
+all night the night before the wedding to finish them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what did the bridegroom say about it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The bridegroom didn&#8217;t say anything about it because
+he didn&#8217;t know. Nobody knew except Arabella and me.
+She just wanted to feel that the monograms were on her
+dress, that was all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How strange!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, it was. But this is a vehy strange part of the
+world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what happened afterwards?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bella died when she had her first baby, and the baby
+died as well. And the father&#8217;s dead now, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What a horrid story, Winnie!&#8221; Audrey murmured.
+And after a pause: &#8220;I like your sister.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She was vehy uncommon. But I liked her too. I
+don&#8217;t know why, but I did. She could make the best
+marmalade I ever tasted in my born days.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I could make the best marmalade you ever tasted in
+your born days,&#8221; said Audrey, sinking neatly to the floor
+and crossing her legs, &#8220;but they won&#8217;t let me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t let you! But I thought you did all sorts of
+things in the house.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, Winnie. I only do one thing. I do as I&#8217;m
+told&mdash;and not always even that. Now, if I wanted to
+make the best marmalade you ever tasted in your born
+days, first of all there would be a fearful row about the
+oranges. Secondly, father would tell mother she must tell
+me exactly what I was to do. He would also tell cook.
+Thirdly and lastly, dear friends, he would come into the
+kitchen himself. It wouldn&#8217;t be my marmalade at all. I
+should only be a marmalade-making machine. They never
+let me have any responsibility&mdash;no, not even when mother&#8217;s
+operation was on&mdash;and I&#8217;m never officially free. The kitchen-maid
+has far more responsibility than I have. And she
+has an evening off and an afternoon off. She can write a
+letter without everybody asking her who she&#8217;s writing to.
+She&#8217;s only seventeen. She has the morning postman for
+a young man now, and probably one or two others that
+I don&#8217;t know of. And she has money and she buys her
+own clothes. She&#8217;s a very naughty, wicked girl, and I
+wish I was in her place. She scorns me, naturally. Who
+wouldn&#8217;t?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate said not a word. She merely sat with her
+hands in the lap of her spotted pale-blue dress, faintly
+and sadly smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey burst out:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Ingate, what can I do? I must do something.
+What can I do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate shook her head, and put her lips tightly
+together, while mechanically smoothing the sides of her
+grey coat.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It beats me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then <em>I&#8217;ll</em> tell you what I can do!&#8221; answered Audrey
+firmly, wriggling somewhat nearer to her along the floor.
+&#8220;And what I shall do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you promise to keep it a secret?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate nodded, smiling and showing her teeth.
+Her broad polished forehead positively shone with kindly
+eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you swear?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate hesitated, and then nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then put your hand on my head and say, &#8216;I swear.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall leave this house,&#8221; said Audrey in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You won&#8217;t, Audrey!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll eat my hand off if I&#8217;ve not left this house by
+to-morrow, anyway.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To-morrow!&#8221; Miss Ingate nearly screamed. &#8220;Now,
+Audrey, do reflect. Think what you are!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey bounded to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what father&#8217;s always saying,&#8221; she exploded
+angrily. &#8220;He&#8217;s always telling me to examine myself. The
+fact is, I know too much about myself. I know exactly
+the kind of girl it is who&#8217;s going to leave this house.
+Exactly!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey, you frighten me. Where are you going to?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! That&#8217;s all right then. I am relieved. I thought
+perhaps you waited to come to <em>my</em> house. You won&#8217;t
+get to London, because you haven&#8217;t any money.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, I have. I&#8217;ve got a hundred pounds.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Remember, you&#8217;ve sworn.... Here!&#8221; she cried
+suddenly, and drawing her hand from behind her
+back she most sensationally displayed a crushed roll of
+bank-notes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And who did you get those from?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t get them from anybody. I got them out of
+father&#8217;s safe. They&#8217;re his reserve. He keeps them right
+at the back of the left-hand drawer, and he&#8217;s so sure
+they&#8217;re there that he never looks for them. He thinks
+he&#8217;s a perfect model, but really he&#8217;s careless. There&#8217;s a
+duplicate key to the safe, you know, and he leaves it
+with a lot of other keys loose in his desk. I expect he
+thought nobody would ever dream of guessing it was a
+key of the safe. I know he never looked at this roll,
+because I&#8217;ve been opening the safe every day for weeks
+past, and the roll was always the same. In fact, it was
+dusty. Then to-day I decided to take it, and here you
+are! He finished himself off yesterday, so far as I&#8217;m
+concerned, with the business about the punt.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But do you know you&#8217;re a thief, Audrey?&#8221; breathed
+Miss Ingate, extremely embarrassed, and for once somewhat
+staggered by the vagaries of human nature.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You seem to forget, Miss Ingate,&#8221; said Audrey
+solemnly, &#8220;that Cousin Caroline left me a legacy of two
+hundred pounds last year, and that I&#8217;ve never seen a
+penny of it. Father absolutely declined to let me have
+the tiniest bit of it. Well, I&#8217;ve taken half. He can keep
+the other half for his trouble.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate&#8217;s mouth stood open, and her eyes seemed
+startled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you can&#8217;t go to London alone. You wouldn&#8217;t
+know what to do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I should. I&#8217;ve arranged everything. I shall
+wear my best clothes. When I arrive at Liverpool Street
+I shall take a taxi. I&#8217;ve got three addresses of boarding-houses
+out of the <em>Daily Telegraph</em>, and they&#8217;re all in
+Bloomsbury, W.C. I shall have lessons in shorthand and
+typewriting at Pitman&#8217;s School, and then I shall get a
+situation. My name will be Vavasour.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you&#8217;ll be caught.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shan&#8217;t. I shall book to Ipswich first and begin
+again from there. Girls like me aren&#8217;t so easy to catch
+as all that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re vehy cunning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I get that from mother. She&#8217;s most frightfully cunning
+with father.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey,&#8221; said Miss Ingate with a strange grin, &#8220;I
+don&#8217;t know how I can sit here and listen to you. You&#8217;ll
+ruin me with your father, because if you go I&#8217;m sure I shall
+never be able to keep from him that I knew all about it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then you shouldn&#8217;t have sworn,&#8221; retorted Audrey.
+&#8220;But I&#8217;m glad you did swear, because I had to tell somebody,
+and there was nobody but you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate might possibly have contrived to employ
+some of that sagacity in which she took a secret pride
+upon a very critical and urgent situation, had not Mrs.
+Moze, with a white handkerchief wrapped round her forehead,
+at that moment come into the room. Immediately
+the study was full of neuralgia and eau-de-Cologne.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Moze and Miss Ingate at length recovered
+from the tenderness of meeting each other after a separation
+of ten days or more, Audrey had vanished like an illusion.
+She was not afraid of her mother; and she could trust
+Miss Ingate, though Miss Ingate and Mrs. Moze were
+dangerously intimate; but she was too self-conscious to
+remain in the presence of her fellow-creatures; and in spite
+of her faith in Miss Ingate she thought of the spinster
+as of a vase filled now with a fatal liquor which by any
+accident might spill and spread ruin&mdash;so that she could
+scarcely bear to look upon Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>At the back of the house a young Pomeranian dog,
+which had recently solaced Miss Ingate in the loss of a
+Pekingese done to death by a spinster&#8217;s too-nourishing
+love, was prancing on his four springs round the chained
+yard-dog, his friend and patron. In a series of marvellous
+short bounds, he followed Audrey with yapping eagerness
+down the slope of the garden; and the yard-dog, aware
+that none but the omnipotent deity, Mr. Moze, sole source
+of good and evil, had the right to loose him, turned
+round once and laid himself flat and long on the ground,
+sighing.</p>
+
+<p>The garden, after developing into an orchard and
+deteriorating into a scraggy plantation, ended in a low
+wall that was at about the level of the sea-wall and
+separated from it by a water-course and a strip of very
+green meadow. Audrey glanced instinctively back at the
+house to see if anybody was watching her.</p>
+
+<p>Flank Hall, which for a hundred years had been called
+&#8220;the new hall,&#8221; was a seemly Georgian residence, warm
+in colour, with some quaint woodwork; and like most such
+buildings in Essex, it made a very happy marriage with
+the landscape. Its dormers and fine chimneys glowed amid
+the dark bare trees, and they alone would have captivated
+a Londoner possessing those precious attributes, fortunately
+ever spreading among the enlightened middle-classes, a
+motor-car, a cultured taste in architecture, and a desire
+to enter the squirearchy. Audrey loathed the house. For
+her it was the last depth of sordidness and the commonplace.
+She could imagine positively nothing less romantic.
+She thought of the ground floor on chill March mornings
+with no fires anywhere save a red gleam in the dining-room,
+and herself wandering about in it idle, at a loss
+for a diversion, an ambition, an effort, a real task; and
+she thought of the upper floor, a mainly unoccupied wilderness
+of iron bedsteads and yellow chests of drawers and
+chipped earthenware and islands of carpets, and her mother
+plaintively and weariedly arguing with some servant over
+a slop-pail in a corner. The images of the interior, indelibly
+printed in her soul, desolated her.</p>
+
+<p>Mozewater she loved, and every souvenir of it was exquisite&mdash;red
+barges beating miraculously up the shallow
+puddles to Moze Quay, equinoctial spring-tides when the
+estuary was a tremendous ocean covered with foam and the
+sea-wall felt the light lash of spray, thunderstorms in
+autumn gathering over the yellow melancholy of deathlike
+sunsets, wild birds crying across miles of uncovered mud at
+early morning and duck-hunters crouching in punts behind
+a waving screen of delicate grasses to wing them, and the
+mysterious shapes of steamers and warships in the offing
+beyond the Sand.... The sail of the receding yacht
+gleamed now against the Sand, and its flashing broke her
+heart; for it was the flashing of freedom. She thought of
+the yachtsman; he was very courteous and deferential; a
+mild creature; he had behaved to her as to a woman....
+Oh! To be the petted and capricious wife of such a man,
+to nod commands, to enslave with a smile, to want a thing
+and instantly to have it, to be consulted and to decide, to
+spend with large gestures, to be charitable, to be adored by
+those whom you had saved from disaster, to increase
+happiness wherever you went ... and to be free!....</p>
+
+<p>The little dog jumped up at her because he was tired of
+being ignored, and she caught him and kissed him again and
+again passionately, and he wriggled with ecstasy and licked
+her ears with all the love in him. And in kissing him she
+kissed grave and affectionate husbands, she kissed the lovely
+scenery of the Sound, and she kissed the magnificent ideal
+of emancipation. But the dog had soon had enough of her
+arms; he broke free, sprang, alighted, and rolled over, and
+arose sniffing, with earth on his black muzzle....</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at her inquiringly.... Strange, short-frocked
+blue figure looking down at him! She had a bulging
+forehead; her brown eyes were tunnelled underneath it.
+But what living eyes, what ardent eyes, that blazed up and
+sank like a fire! What delicate and exact mirrors of the
+secret traffic between her soul and the soul of the world!
+She had full cheeks, and a large mouth ripe red, inviting
+and provocative. In the midst, an absurd small unprominent
+nose that meant nothing! Her complexion was divine, surpassing
+all similes. To caress that smooth downy cheek (if
+you looked close you could see the infinitesimal down against
+the light like an aura on the edge of the silhouette), even to
+let the gaze dwell on it, what an enchantment!... She
+considered herself piquant and comely, and she was not
+deceived. She had long hands.</p>
+
+<p>The wind from afar on her cheek reminded her
+poignantly that she was a prisoner. She could not go to the
+clustered village on the left, nor into the saltings on the
+right, nor even on to the sea-wall where the new rushes and
+grasses were showing. All the estuary was barred, and the
+winding road that mounted the slope towards Colchester.
+Her revolt against injustice was savage. Hatred of her
+father surged up in her like glittering lava. She had long
+since ceased to try to comprehend him. She despised herself
+because she was unreasonably afraid of him, ridiculously
+mute before him. She could not understand how anybody
+could be friendly with him&mdash;for was he not notorious? Yet
+everywhere he was greeted with respect and smiles, and he
+would chat at length with all manner of people on a note of
+mild and smooth cordiality. He and Miss Ingate would
+enjoy together the most enormous talks. She was, however,
+aware that Miss Ingate&#8217;s opinion of him was not very
+different from her own. Each time she saw her father and
+Miss Ingate in communion she would say in her heart to
+Miss Ingate: &#8220;You are disloyal to me.&#8221; ...</p>
+
+<p>Was it possible that she had confided to Miss Ingate her
+fearful secret? The conversation appeared to her unreal
+now. She went over her plan. In the afternoon her father
+was always out, and to-morrow afternoon her mother would
+be out too. She would have a few things in a light bag that
+she could carry&mdash;her mother&#8217;s bag! She would put on her
+best clothes and a veil from her mother&#8217;s wardrobe. She
+would take the 4.5 p.m. train. The stationmaster would be
+at his tea then. Only the booking-clerk and the porter
+would see her, and neither would dare to make an observation.
+She would ask for a return ticket to Ipswich; that
+would allay suspicion, and at Ipswich she would book again.
+She had cut out the addresses of the boarding-houses. She
+would have to buy things in London. She knew of two
+shops&mdash;Harrod&#8217;s and Shoolbred&#8217;s; she had seen their
+catalogues. And the very next morning after arrival she
+would go to Pitman&#8217;s School. She would change the first
+of the £5 notes at the station and ask for plenty of silver.
+She glanced at the unlimited wealth still crushed in her
+hand, and then she carefully dropped the fortune down the
+neck of her frock.... Stealing? She repulsed the idea
+with violent disdain. What she had accomplished against
+her father was not a crime, but a vengeance.... She
+would never be found in London. It was impossible. Her
+plan seemed to her to be perfect in each detail, except one.
+She was not the right sort of girl to execute it. She was
+very shy. She suspected that no other girl could really be
+as shy as she was. She recalled dreadful rare moments with
+her mother in strange drawing-rooms. Still, she would
+execute the plan even if she died of fright. A force within
+her would compel her to execute it. This force did not make
+for happiness; on the contrary, it uncomfortably scared her;
+but it was irresistible.</p>
+
+<p>Something on the brow of the road from Colchester
+attracted her attention. It was a handcart, pushed by a
+labourer and by Police Inspector Keeble, whom she liked.
+Following the handcart over the brow came a loose procession
+of villagers, which included no children, because the
+children were in school. Except on a Sunday Audrey had
+never before seen a procession of villagers, and these
+villagers must have been collected out of the fields, for the
+procession was going in the direction of, and not away
+from, the village. The handcart was covered with a
+tarpaulin.... She knew what had happened; she knew
+infallibly. Skirting the boundary of the grounds, she
+reached the main entrance to Flank Hall thirty seconds
+before the handcart. The little dog, delighted in a new
+adventure, yapped ecstatically at her heels, and then
+bounded onwards to meet the Inspector and the handcart.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Run and tell yer mother, Miss Moze,&#8221; Inspector
+Keeble called out in a carrying whisper. &#8220;There&#8217;s been
+an accident. He ditched the car near Ardleigh cross-roads,
+trying to avoid some fowls.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moze, hurrying too fast to meet the Bishop of
+Colchester, had met a greater than the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey glanced an instant with a sick qualm at the outlines
+of the shape beneath the tarpaulin, and ran.</p>
+
+<p>In the dining-room, over the speck of fire, Mrs. Moze
+and Miss Ingate were locked in a deep intimate gossip.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mother!&#8221; cried Audrey, and then sank like a sack.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why! The little thing&#8217;s fainted!&#8221; Miss Ingate exclaimed
+in a voice suddenly hoarse.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_3" id="chapter_3" />CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LEGACY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey and Miss Ingate were in the late Mathew Moze&#8217;s
+study, fascinated&mdash;as much unconsciously as consciously&mdash;by
+the thing which since its owner&#8217;s death had grown every
+hour more mysterious and more formidable&mdash;the safe. It
+was a fine afternoon. The secondary but still grandiose
+enigma of the affair, Mr. Cowl, could be heard walking
+methodically on the gravel in the garden. Mr. Cowl was
+the secretary of the National Reformation Society.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the irregular sound of crunching receded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s gone somewhere else,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so relieved,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;I hope he&#8217;s gone
+a long way off.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you?&#8221; murmured Audrey, with an air of surprised
+superiority.</p>
+
+<p>But in secret Audrey felt just as relieved as Miss Ingate,
+despite the fact that, her mother being prostrate, she was
+the mistress of the situation, and could have ordered Mr.
+Cowl to leave, with the certainty of being obeyed. She was
+astonished at her illogical sensations, and she had been frequently
+so astonished in the previous four days.</p>
+
+<p>For example, she was free; she knew that she could
+impose herself on her mother; never again would she be the
+slave of an unreasoning tyrant; yet she was gloomy and
+without hope. She had hated the unreasoning tyrant; yet
+she felt very sorry for him because he was dead. And
+though she felt very sorry for him, she detested hearing the
+panegyrics upon him of the village, and particularly of those
+persons with whom he had quarrelled; she actually stopped
+Miss Ingate in the midst of an enumeration of his good
+qualities&mdash;his charm, his smile, his courtesy, his integrity,
+et cetera; she could not bear it. She thought that no child
+had ever had such a strange attitude to a deceased parent as
+hers to Mr. Moze. She had anticipated the inquest with an
+awful dread; it proved to be a trifle, and a ridiculous trifle.
+In the long weekly letter which she wrote to her adored
+school-friend Ethel at Manningtree she had actually likened
+the coroner to a pecking fowl! Was it possible that a
+daughter could write in such a strain about the inquest on
+her father&#8217;s body?</p>
+
+<p>The funeral had seemed a function by itself, with some
+guidance from the undertaker and still more from Mr. Cowl.
+Villagers and district acquaintances had been many at the
+ceremony, but relatives rare. Mr. Moze&#8217;s four younger
+brothers were all in the Colonies; Mrs. Moze had apparently
+no connections. Madame Piriac, daughter of Mr. Moze&#8217;s
+first wife by that lady&#8217;s first husband, had telegraphed
+sympathies from Paris. A cousin or so had come in person
+from Woodbridge for the day.</p>
+
+<p>It was from the demeanour of these cousins, grave men
+twice her age or more, that Audrey had first divined her new
+importance in the world. Their deference indicated that in
+their opinion the future mistress of Flank Hall was not Mrs.
+Moze, but Audrey. Audrey admitted that they were right.
+Yet she took no pleasure in issuing commands. She spoke
+firmly, but she said to herself: &#8220;There is no backbone to
+this firmness, and I am a fraud.&#8221; She had always yearned
+for responsibility, yet now that it was in her hand she
+trembled, and she would have dropped it and run away from
+it as from a bomb, had she not been too cowardly to show
+her cowardice.</p>
+
+<p>The instance of Aguilar, the head-gardener and mechanic,
+well illustrated her pusillanimity. She loathed Aguilar; her
+mother loathed him; the servants loathed him. He had said
+at the inquest that the car was in perfect order, but that Mr.
+Moze was too excitable to be a good driver. His evidence
+was true, but the jury did not care for his manner. Nor did
+the village. He had only two good qualities&mdash;honesty and
+efficiency; and these by their rarity excited jealousy rather
+than admiration. Audrey strongly desired to throw the
+gardener-mechanic upon the world; it nauseated her to see
+his disobliging face about the garden. But he remained
+scathless, to refuse demanded vegetables, to annoy the
+kitchen, to pronounce the motor-car utterly valueless, and to
+complain of his own liver. Audrey had legs; she had a
+tongue; she could articulate. Neither wish nor power was
+lacking in her to give Aguilar the supreme experience of his
+career. And yet she did not walk up to him and say:
+&#8220;Aguilar, please take a week&#8217;s notice.&#8221; Why? The
+question puzzled her and lowered her opinion of herself.</p>
+
+<p>She was similarly absurd in the paramount matter of the
+safe. The safe could not be opened. The village, having
+been thrilled by four stirring days of the most precious and
+rare fever, had suffered much after the funeral from a severe
+reaction of dullness. It would have suffered much more had
+the fact not escaped that the safe could not be opened. In
+the deep depression of the day following the funeral the
+village could still say to itself: &#8220;Romance and excitement
+are not yet over, for the key of the Moze safe is lost, and the
+will is in the safe!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The village did not know that there were two keys to the
+safe and that they were both lost. Nobody knew that except
+Audrey and Miss Ingate and Mr. Cowl. The official key was
+lost because Mr. Moze&#8217;s key-ring was lost. The theory was
+that it had been jerked out of his pocket in the accident.
+Persistent search for it had been unsuccessful. As for the
+unofficial or duplicate key, Audrey could not remember
+where she had put it after her burglary, the conclusion of
+which had been disturbed by Miss Ingate. At one moment
+she was quite sure that she had left the key in the safe, but
+at another moment she was equally sure that she was holding
+the key in her right hand (the bank-notes being in her
+left) when Miss Ingate entered the room; at still another
+moment she was almost convinced that before Miss Ingate&#8217;s
+arrival she had run to the desk and slipped the key back
+into its drawer. In any case the second key was irretrievable.
+She discussed the dilemma very fully with Miss Ingate, who
+had obligingly come to stay in the house. They examined
+every aspect of the affair, except Audrey&#8217;s guiltiness of
+theft, which both of them tacitly ignored. In the end they
+decided that it might be wiser not to conceal Audrey&#8217;s
+knowledge of the existence of a second key; and they told
+Mr. Cowl, because he happened to be at hand. In so doing
+they were ill-advised, because Mr. Cowl at once acted in a
+characteristic and inconvenient fashion which they ought to
+have foreseen.</p>
+
+<p>On the day before the funeral Mr. Cowl had telegraphed
+from some place in Devonshire that he should represent
+the National Reformation Society at the funeral, and asked
+for a bed, on the pretext that he could not get from
+Devonshire to Moze in time for the funeral if he postponed
+his departure until the next morning. The telegram was
+quite costly. He arrived for dinner, a fat man about thirty-eight,
+with chestnut hair, a low, alluring voice, and a small
+handbag for luggage. Miss Ingate thought him very
+interesting, and he was. He said little about the National
+Reformation Society, but a great deal about the late Mr.
+Moze, of whom he appeared to be an intimate friend;
+presumably the friendship had developed at meetings of
+the Society. After dinner he strolled nonchalantly to the
+sideboard and opened a box of the deceased&#8217;s cigars, and
+suggested that, as he was well acquainted with the brand,
+having often enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Moze&#8217;s cigar-case,
+he should smoke a cigar now to the memory of the
+departed. Miss Ingate then began to feel alarmed. He
+smoked four cigars to the memory of the departed, and on
+retiring ventured to take four more for consumption during
+the night, as he seldom slept.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he went into the bathroom at eight
+o&#8217;clock and remained there till noon, reading and smoking
+in continually renewed hot water. He descended blandly,
+begged Miss Moze not to trouble about his breakfast, and
+gently assumed a certain control of the funeral. After the
+funeral he announced that he should leave on the morrow;
+but the mystery of the safe held him to the house. When
+he heard of the existence of the second key he organised
+and took command of a complete search of the study, and
+in the course of the search he inspected every document
+in the study. He said he knew that the deceased had
+left a legacy to the Society, and he should not feel justified
+in quitting Moze until the will was found.</p>
+
+<p>Now in these circumstances Audrey ought certainly to
+have telegraphed to her father&#8217;s solicitor at Chelmsford
+at once. In the alternative she ought to have hired a
+safe-opening expert or a burglar from Colchester. She
+had accomplished neither of these downright things. With
+absolute power, she had done nothing but postpone. She
+wondered at herself, for up to her father&#8217;s death she had
+been a great critic of absolute power.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The heavy policemanish step of Mr. Cowl was heard
+on the landing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s coming down on us!&#8221; exclaimed Miss Ingate,
+partly afraid, and partly ironic at her own fear. &#8220;I&#8217;m
+sure he&#8217;s coming down on us. Audrey, I liked that man
+at first, but now I tremble before him. And I&#8217;m sure his
+moustache is dyed. Can&#8217;t you ask him to leave?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is his moustache dyed, Winnie? Oh, what fun!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate&#8217;s apprehension was justified. There was
+a knock at the study door, discreet, insistent, menacing,
+and it was Mr. Cowl&#8217;s knock. He entered, smiling
+gravely and yet, as it were, teasingly. His easy bigness,
+florid and sinister, made a disturbing contrast with the
+artless and pure simplicity of Audrey in her new black robe,
+and even with Miss Ingate&#8217;s pallid maturity, which, after all,
+was passably innocent and ingenuous. Mr. Cowl resembled
+a great beast good-humouredly lolloping into the cage in
+which two rabbits had been placed for his diversion and
+hunger.</p>
+
+<p>Pulling a key from the pocket of his vast waistcoat,
+he said in his quiet voice, so seductive and ominous:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is this the key of the safe?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He offered it delicately to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>It was the key of the safe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did they find it in the ditch?&#8221; Audrey demanded,
+blushing, for she knew that the key had not been found
+in the ditch; she knew by a certain indentation on it that it
+was the duplicate key which she herself had mislaid.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Mr. Cowl. &#8220;I found it myself, and not
+in the ditch. I remembered you had said that you had
+changed at the dressmaker&#8217;s in the village and had left
+there an old frock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did I?&#8221; murmured Audrey, with a deeper blush.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cowl nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I had the happy idea that you might have had the
+key and left it in the pocket of the frock. So I trotted
+down to the dressmaker&#8217;s and asked for the frock, in your
+name, and lo! the result!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to the key lying in Audrey&#8217;s long hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But how should I have had the key, Mr. Cowl? Why
+should I have had the key?&#8221; Audrey burst out like a
+simpleton.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That, Miss Moze,&#8221; said he, with a peculiar grin and
+in an equally peculiar tone, &#8220;is a matter about which
+obviously you are better informed than I am. Shall we
+try the key?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With a smooth undeniable gesture he took the key
+again from Audrey, and bent his huge form to open the
+safe. As he did so Miss Ingate made a sarcastic and yet
+affrighted face at Audrey, and Audrey tried to send a signal
+in reply, but failed, owing to imperfect self-control. However,
+she managed to say to Mr. Cowl&#8217;s curved back:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You couldn&#8217;t have found the key in the pocket of
+my old frock, Mr. Cowl.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why?&#8221; he inquired benevolently, raising and
+turning his chestnut head. Even in that exciting instant
+Audrey could debate within herself whether or not his
+superb moustache was dyed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because it has no pocket.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So I discovered,&#8221; said Mr. Cowl, after a little pause.
+&#8220;I merely stated that I had the happy idea&mdash;for it proved
+to be a happy idea&mdash;that you might have left the key in
+the pocket. I discovered it, as a fact, in a slit of the
+lining of the belt.... Conceivably you had slipped it in
+there&mdash;in a hurry.&#8221; He put strange implications into the
+last three words. &#8220;Yes, it is the authentic key,&#8221; he
+concluded, as the door of the safe swung heavily and
+silently open.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, for the first time, felt rather like a thief as
+she beheld the familiar interior of the safe which a few
+days earlier she had so successfully rifled. &#8220;Is it possible,&#8221;
+she thought, &#8220;that I really took bank-notes out of that
+safe, and that they are at this very moment in my bedroom
+between the leaves of &#8216;Pictures of Palestine&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cowl was cautiously fumbling among the serried
+row of documents which, their edges towards the front,
+filled the steel shelf above the drawers. Audrey had never
+experienced any curiosity concerning the documents. Lucre
+alone had interested the base creature. No documents
+would have helped her to freedom. But now she thought
+apprehensively: &#8220;My fate may be among those documents.&#8221;
+She was quite prepared to learn that her father had done
+something silly in his will.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This resembles a testament,&#8221; said Mr. Cowl, smiling
+to himself, and pulling out a foolscap scrip, folded and
+endorsed. &#8220;Yes. Dated last year.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He unfolded the document; a letter slipped from the
+interior of it; he placed the letter on the small occasional
+table next to the desk, and offered the will to Audrey with
+precisely the same gesture as he had offered the key.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey tried to decipher the will, and completely failed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you read it, Miss Ingate?&#8221; she muttered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t! I can&#8217;t!&#8221; answered Miss Ingate in excitement.
+&#8220;I&#8217;m sure I can&#8217;t. I never could read wills. They&#8217;re
+so funny, somehow. And I haven&#8217;t got my spectacles.&#8221;
+She flushed slightly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;May <em>I</em> venture to tell you what it contains?&#8221; Mr.
+Cowl suggested. &#8220;There can be no indiscretion on my
+part, as all wills after probate are public property and
+can be inspected by any Tom, Dick or Harry for a fee
+of one shilling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He took the document and gazed at it intently, turning
+over a page and turning back, for an extraordinarily
+long time.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said to herself again and again, with exasperated
+impatience: &#8220;He knows now, and I don&#8217;t know. He
+knows now, and I don&#8217;t know. He knows now, and I
+don&#8217;t know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At length Mr. Cowl spoke:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is a perfectly simple will. The testator leaves the
+whole of his property to Mrs. Moze for life, and afterwards
+to you, Miss Moze. There are only two legacies.
+Ten pounds to James Aguilar, gardener. And the testator&#8217;s
+shares in the Zacatecas Oil Development Corporation to the
+National Reformation Society. I may say that the testator
+had expressed to me his intention of leaving these shares
+to the Society. We should have preferred money, free
+of legacy duty, but the late Mr. Moze had a reason for
+everything he did. I must now bid you good-bye, ladies,&#8221;
+he went on strangely, with no pause. &#8220;Miss Moze, will
+you convey my sympathetic respects to your mother and
+my thanks for her most kind hospitality? My grateful
+sympathies to yourself. Good-bye, Miss Ingate....
+Er, Miss Ingate, why do you look at me in that
+peculiar way?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Mr. Cowl, you&#8217;re a very peculiar man. May
+I ask whether you were born in this part of the
+country?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At Clacton, Miss Ingate,&#8221; answered Mr. Cowl imperturbably.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I knew it,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, and the corners of her
+lips went sardonically down.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Please don&#8217;t trouble to come downstairs,&#8221; said Mr.
+Cowl. &#8220;My bag is packed. I have tipped the parlourmaid,
+and there is just time to catch the train,&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He departed, leaving the two women speechless.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment, Miss Ingate said dryly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He was so very peculiar I knew he must belong to
+these parts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How did he know I left my blue frock at Miss
+Pannell&#8217;s?&#8221; cried Audrey. &#8220;I never told him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He must have been eavesdropping!&#8221; cried Miss Ingate.
+&#8220;He never found the key in your frock. He must have
+found it here somewhere; I feel sure it must have dropped
+by the safe, and I lay anything he had opened the safe
+before and read the will before. I could tell from the
+way he looked.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why should he suppose that I&#8217;d the key?&#8221;
+Audrey put in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Eavesdropping! I&#8217;m convinced that man knows too
+much.&#8221; Audrey reddened once more. &#8220;I believe he thought
+you&#8217;d be capable of burning the will. That&#8217;s why he made
+you handle it in his presence and mine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Winnie,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;I think you might have
+told him all that while he was here, instead of letting
+him go off so triumphant.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I did begin to,&#8221; said Miss Ingate with a snigger.
+&#8220;But you wouldn&#8217;t back me up, you little coward.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall never be a coward again!&#8221; Audrey said
+violently.</p>
+
+<p>They read the will together. They had no difficulty at
+all in comprehending it now that they were alone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do think it&#8217;s a horrid shame Aguilar should have
+that ten pounds,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;But otherwise I don&#8217;t
+care. You can&#8217;t guess how relieved I am, Winnie. I
+imagined the most dreadful things. I don&#8217;t know what
+I imagined. But now we shall have all the property and
+everything, just as much as ever there was, and only me
+and mother to spend it.&#8221; Audrey danced an embryonic
+jig. &#8220;Won&#8217;t I keep mother in order! Winnie, I shall
+make her go with me to Paris. I&#8217;ve always wanted to
+know that Madame Piriac&mdash;she does write such funny
+English in her letters.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s that you&#8217;re saying?&#8221; murmured Miss Ingate,
+who had picked up the letter which Mr. Cowl had laid
+on the small table.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I say I shall make mother go to Paris with me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You won&#8217;t,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;Because she won&#8217;t
+go. I know your mother better than you do.... Oh!
+Audrey!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey saw Miss Ingate&#8217;s face turn scarlet from the
+roots of her hair to her chin.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate had dropped the letter. Audrey snatched it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear Moze,&#8221; the letter ran. &#8220;I send you herewith
+a report of the meeting of the Great Mexican Oil Company at
+New York. You will see that they duly authorised the contract
+by which the Zacatecas Oil Corporation transfers our
+property to them in exchange for shares at the rate of four
+Great Mexican shares for one Zacatecas share. As each of
+the Development Syndicate shares represents ten of the
+Corporation shares, and as on my recommendation you put
+£4,500 into the Syndicate, you will therefore own 180,000
+Great Mexican shares. They are at present above par.
+Mark my words, they will be worth from seven to ten dollars
+apiece in a year&#8217;s time. I think you now owe me a good
+turn, eh?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The letter was signed with a name unknown to either
+of them, and it was dated from Coleman Street, E.C.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_4" id="chapter_4" />CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. FOULGER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Half an hour later the woman and the girl, still in the study
+and severely damaged by the culminating events of Mr.
+Cowl&#8217;s visit, were almost prostrated by the entirely unexpected
+announcement of the arrival of Mr. Foulger. Mr.
+Foulger was the late Mr. Moze&#8217;s solicitor from Chelmsford.
+Audrey&#8217;s first thought was: &#8220;Has heaven telegraphed to
+him on my behalf?&#8221; But her next was that all the solicitors
+in the world would now be useless in the horrible calamity
+that had befallen.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be noted that Audrey was no worse off than
+before the discovery of the astounding value of the
+Zacatecas shares. The Moze property, inherited through
+generations and consisting mainly in farms and tithe-rents,
+was not in the slightest degree impaired. On the contrary,
+the steady progress of agriculture in Essex indicated that its
+yield must improve with years. Nevertheless Audrey felt as
+though she and her mother were ruined, and as though the
+National Reformation Society had been guilty of a fearful
+crime against a widow and an orphan. The lovely vision of
+immeasurable wealth had flashed and scintillated for a month
+in front of her dazzled eyes&mdash;and then blackness, nothingness,
+the dark void! She knew that she would never be
+happy again.</p>
+
+<p>And she thought, scornfully, &#8220;How could father
+have been so preoccupied and so gloomy, with all those
+riches?&#8221; She could not conceive anybody as rich as her
+father secretly was not being day and night in a condition
+of pure delight at the whole spectacle of existence.
+Her opinion of Mathew Moze fell lower than ever, and
+fell finally.</p>
+
+<p>The parlourmaid, in a negligence of attire indicating that
+no man was left alive in the house, waited at the door of the
+study to learn whether or not Miss Moze was in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll <em>have</em> to see him,&#8221; said Miss Ingate firmly.
+&#8220;It&#8217;ll be all right. I&#8217;ve known him all my life. He&#8217;s a very
+nice man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After the parlourmaid had gone, and while Audrey was
+upbraiding her for not confessing earlier her acquaintance
+with Mr. Foulger, Miss Ingate added:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Only his wife has a wooden leg.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then Mr. Foulger entered. He was a shortish man of
+about fifty, with a paunch, but not otherwise fat; dressed
+like a sportsman. He trod very lightly. The expression on
+his ruddy face was amiable but extremely alert, hardening at
+intervals into decision or caution. He saw before him a
+nervous, frowning girl in inelegant black, and Miss Ingate
+with a curious look in her eyes and a sardonic and timid
+twitching of her lips. For an instant he was discountenanced;
+but he at once recovered, accomplishing a
+bright salute.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here you are at last, Mr. Foulger!&#8221; Miss Ingate
+responded. &#8220;But you&#8217;re too late.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>These mysterious words, and the speechlessness of
+Audrey, upset him again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was away in Somersetshire for a little fishing,&#8221; he
+said, after he had deplored the death of Mr. Moze, the illness
+of Mrs. Moze, and the bereavement of Miss Moze, and had
+congratulated Miss Moze on the protective friendship of his
+old friend, Miss Ingate. &#8220;I was away for a little fishing,
+and I only heard the sad news when I got back home at
+noon to-day. I came over at once.&#8221; He cleared his throat
+and looked first at Audrey and then at Miss Ingate. He felt
+that he ought to be addressing Audrey, but somehow he
+could not help addressing Miss Ingate instead. His grey
+legs were spread abroad as he sat very erect on a chair,
+and between them his dependent paunch found a comfortable
+space for itself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You must have been getting anxious about the will.
+I have brought it with me,&#8221; he said. He drew a white
+document from the breast-pocket of his cutaway coat, and
+he perched a pair of eyeglasses carelessly on his nose. &#8220;It
+was executed before your birth, Miss Moze. But a will
+keeps like wine. The whole of the property of every
+description is left to Mrs. Moze, and she is sole executrix. If
+she should predecease the testator, then everything is left
+to his child or children. Not perhaps a very businesslike
+will&mdash;a will likely to lead to unforeseen complications, but the
+sort of will that a man in the first flush of marriage often
+does make, and there is no stopping him. Your father had
+almost every quality, but he was not businesslike&mdash;if I may
+say so with respect. However, I confess that for the present
+I see no difficulties. Of course the death duties will
+have to be paid, but your father always kept a considerable
+amount of money at call. When I say &#8216;considerable,&#8217; I
+mean several thousands. That was a point on which he and
+I had many discussions.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Foulger glanced around with satisfaction. Already
+the prospect of legal business and costs had brought about
+a change in his official demeanour of an adviser truly
+bereaved by the death of a client. He saw the young girl,
+gazing fiercely at the carpet, suddenly begin to weep. This
+phenomenon, to which he was not unaccustomed, did not by
+itself disturb him; but the face of Miss Ingate gave him
+strange apprehensions, which reached a climax when Miss
+Ingate, obviously not at all at ease, muttered:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There is a later will, Mr. Foulger. It was made last
+year.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see,&#8221; he breathed, scarcely above a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>He thought he did see. He thought he understood why
+he had been kept waiting, why Mrs. Moze pretended to be
+ill, why the girl had frowned, why the naively calm Miss
+Ingate was in such a state of nerves. The explanation was
+that he was not wanted. The explanation was that Mr.
+Moze had changed his solicitor. His face hardened, for he
+and his uncle between them had &#8220;acted&#8221; for the Moze
+family for over seventy years.</p>
+
+<p>He rose from the chair.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then I need not trouble you any longer,&#8221; he said in a
+firm tone, and turned with real dignity to leave.</p>
+
+<p>He was exceedingly astonished when with one swift
+movement Audrey rose, and flashed like a missile to the door,
+and stood with her back to it. The fact was that Audrey
+had just remembered her vow never again to be afraid of
+anybody. When Miss Ingate with extraordinary agility also
+jumped up and approached him, he apprehended, recalling
+rumours of Miss Ingate&#8217;s advanced feminism, that the fate
+of an anti-suffragette Cabinet Minister might be awaiting
+him, and he prepared his defence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You mustn&#8217;t go,&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are my solicitor, whatever mother may say, and
+you mustn&#8217;t go,&#8221; added Audrey in a soft voice.</p>
+
+<p>The man was entranced. It occurred to him that
+he would have a tale to tell and to re-tell at his club
+for years, about &#8220;a certain fair client who shall be
+nameless.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The next minute he had heard a somewhat romantic, if
+not hysterical, version of the facts of the case, and he was
+perusing the original documents. By chance he read first
+the letter about the Zacatecas shares. That Mathew Moze
+had made a will without his aid was a shock; that Mathew
+Moze had invested money without his advice was another
+shock quite as severe. But he knew the status of the Great
+Mexican Oil Company, and his countenance lighted as he
+realised the rich immensity of the business of proving the
+will and devolving the estate; his costs would run to the most
+agreeable figures. As soon as he glanced at the testament
+which Mr. Cowl had found, he muttered, with satisfaction
+and disdain:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;H&#8217;m! He made this himself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And he gazed at it compassionately, as a cabinetmaker
+might gaze at a piece of amateur fretwork.</p>
+
+<p>Standing, he read it slowly and with extreme care. And
+when he had finished he casually remarked, in the classic
+legal phrase:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t worth the paper it&#8217;s written on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then he sat down again, and his neat paunch resumed
+its niche between his legs. He knew that he had made a
+tremendous effect.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Miss Ingate began.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not worth the paper it&#8217;s written on,&#8221; he repeated.
+&#8220;There is only one witness, and there ought to be two, and
+even the one witness is a bad one&mdash;Aguilar, because he
+profits under the will. He would have to give up his legacy
+before his attestation could count, and even then it would be
+no good alone. Mr. Moze has not even expressly revoked
+the old will. If there hadn&#8217;t been a previous will, and if
+Aguilar was a thoroughly reliable man, and if the family had
+wished to uphold the new will, I dare say the Court <em>might</em>
+have pronounced for it. But under the circumstances it
+hasn&#8217;t the ghost of a chance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But won&#8217;t the National Reformation Society make
+trouble?&#8221; demanded Miss Ingate faintly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let &#8217;em try!&#8221; said Mr. Foulger, who wished that the
+National Reformation Society would indeed try.</p>
+
+<p>Even as he articulated the words, he was aware of
+Audrey coming towards him from the direction of the door;
+he was aware of her black frock and of her white face, with
+its bulging forehead and its deliciously insignificant nose.
+She held out her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are a dear!&#8221; she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Her lips seemed to aim uncertainly for his face. Did
+they just touch, with exquisite contact, his bristly chin, or
+was it a divine illusion? ... She blushed in a very marked
+manner. He blinked, and his happy blinking seemed to say:
+&#8220;Only wills drawn by me are genuine.... Didn&#8217;t I tell
+you Mr. Moze was not a man of business?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey ran to Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Foulger, suddenly ashamed, and determined to be a
+lawyer, said sharply:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Has Mrs. Moze made a will?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mother made a will? Oh no!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then she should make one at once, in your favour, of
+course. No time should be lost.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But Mrs. Moze is ill in bed,&#8221; protested Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All the more reason why she should make a will. It
+may save endless trouble. And it is her duty. I shall
+suggest that I be the executor and trustee, of course with
+the usual power to charge costs.&#8221; His face was hard again.
+&#8220;You will thank me later on, Miss Moze,&#8221; he added.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean <em>now?</em>&#8220; shrilled Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do,&#8221; said he. &#8220;If you will give me some paper, we
+might go to her at once. You can be one of the witnesses.
+I could be a witness, but as I am to act under the will for a
+consideration somebody else would be preferable.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should suggest Aguilar,&#8221; answered Miss Ingate, the
+corners of her lips dropping.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate went first, to prepare Mrs. Moze.</p>
+
+<p>When Audrey was alone in the study&mdash;she had not even
+offered to accompany her elders to the bedroom&mdash;she made a
+long sound: &#8220;Ooo!&#8221; Then she gave a leap and stood still,
+staring out of the window at the estuary. She tried to force
+her mood to the colour of her dress, but the sense of propriety
+was insufficient for the task. The magnificence of all
+the world was unfolding itself to her soul. Events had
+hitherto so dizzyingly beaten down upon her head that she
+had scarcely been conscious of feeling. Now she luxuriously
+felt. &#8220;I am at last born,&#8221; she thought. &#8220;Miracles have
+happened.... It&#8217;s incredible.... I can do what I like
+with mother.... But if I don&#8217;t take care I shall die of
+relief this very moment!&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_5" id="chapter_5" />CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DEAD HAND</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey was wakened up that night, just after she had
+gone to sleep, by a touch on the cheek. Her mother,
+palely indistinct in the darkness, was standing by the bedside.
+She wore a white wrap over her night attire, and the
+customary white bandage from which emanated a faint odour
+of eau-de-Cologne, was around her forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey, darling, I must speak to you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Audrey became the wise directress of her poor
+foolish mother&#8217;s existence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mother,&#8221; she said, with firm kindness, &#8220;please do go
+back to bed at once. This sort of thing is simply frightful
+for your neuralgia. I&#8217;ll come to you in one moment.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Mrs. Moze meekly obeyed; she had gone even
+before Audrey had had time to light her candle. Audrey
+was very content in thus being able to control her mother
+and order everything for the best. She guessed that the
+old lady had got some idea into her head about the
+property, or about her own will, or about the solicitor, or
+about a tombstone, and that it was worrying her. She
+and Miss Ingate (who had now returned home) had had
+a very extensive palaver, in low voices that never ceased,
+after the triumphant departure of Mr. Foulger. Audrey
+had cautiously protested; she was afraid her mother would
+be fatigued, and she saw no reason why her mother should
+be acquainted with all the details of a complex matter;
+but the gossiping habit of a quarter of a century was too
+powerful for Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>In the large parental bedroom the only light was Audrey&#8217;s
+candle. Mrs. Moze was lying on the right half of the
+great bed, where she had always lain. She might have
+lain luxuriously in the middle, with vast spaces at either
+hand, but again habit was too powerful.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, all in white, held the candle higher, and the
+shadows everywhere shrunk in unison. Mrs. Moze blinked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Put the candle on the night-table,&#8221; said Mrs. Moze
+curtly.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey did so. The bedroom, for her, was full of
+the souvenirs of parental authority. Her first recollections
+were those of awe in regard to the bedroom. And when
+she thought that on that bed she had been born, she had
+a very queer sensation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve decided,&#8221; said Mrs. Moze, lying on her back,
+and looking up at the ceiling, &#8220;I&#8217;ve decided that your
+father&#8217;s wishes must be obeyed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What about, mother?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About those shares going to the National Reformation
+Society. He meant them to go, and they must go to the
+Society. I&#8217;ve thought it well over and I&#8217;ve quite decided.
+I didn&#8217;t tell Miss Ingate, as it doesn&#8217;t concern her. But
+I felt I must tell you at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mother!&#8221; cried Audrey. &#8220;Have you taken leave of
+your senses?&#8221; She shivered; the room was very cold,
+and as she shivered her image in the mirror of the wardrobe
+shivered, and also her shadow that climbed up the
+wall and bent at right-angles at the cornice till it reached
+the middle of the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moze replied obstinately:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve not taken leave of my senses, and I&#8217;ll thank
+you to remember that I&#8217;m your mother. I have always
+carried out your father&#8217;s wishes, and at my time of life
+I can&#8217;t alter. Your father was a very wise man. We
+shall be as well off as we always were. Better, because
+I can save, and I shall save. We have no complaint to
+make; I should have no excuse for disobeying your father.
+Everything is mine to do as I wish with it, and I shall
+give the shares to the Society. What the shares are
+worth can&#8217;t affect my duty. Besides, perhaps they aren&#8217;t
+worth anything. I always understood that things like that
+were always jumping up and down, and generally worthless
+in the end.... That&#8217;s all I wanted to tell you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Why did Audrey seize the candle and walk straight out
+of the bedroom, leaving darkness behind her? Was it
+because the acuteness of her feelings drove her out, or was
+it because she knew instinctively that her mother&#8217;s decision
+would prove to be immovable? Perhaps both.</p>
+
+<p>She dropped back into her own bed with a soundless
+sigh of exhaustion. She did not blow out the candle, but
+lay staring at it. Her dream was annihilated. She foresaw
+an interminable, weary and futile future in and about
+Moze, and her mother always indisposed, always fretful,
+and curiously obstinate in weakness. But Audrey, despite
+her tragic disillusion, was less desolated than made solemn.
+In the most disturbing way she knew herself to be the
+daughter of her father and her mother; and she comprehended
+that her destiny could not be broken off suddenly
+from theirs. She was touched because her mother deemed
+her father a very wise man, whereas she, Audrey, knew
+that he was nothing of the sort. She felt sorry for both
+of them. She pitied her father, and she was a mother
+to her mother. Their relations together, and the mystic
+posthumous spell of her father over her mother, impressed
+her profoundly.... And she was proud of herself for
+having demonstrated her courage by preventing the solicitor
+from running away, and extraordinarily ashamed of her
+sentimental and brazen behaviour to the solicitor afterwards.
+These various thoughts mitigated her despair as
+she gazed at the sinking candle. Nevertheless her dream
+was annihilated.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_6" id="chapter_6" />CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE YOUNG WIDOW</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was early October. Audrey stood at the garden door
+of Flank Hall.</p>
+
+<p>The estuary, in all the colours of unsettled, mild,
+bright weather, lay at her feet beneath a high arch of
+changing blue and white. The capricious wind moved in
+her hair, moved in the rich grasses of the sea-wall, bent
+at a curtseying angle the red-sailed barges, put caps on
+the waves in the middle distance, and drew out into long
+horizontal scarves the smoke of faint steamers in the
+offing.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was dressed in black, but her raiment had
+obviously not been fashioned in the village, nor even at
+Colchester, nor yet at Ipswich, that great and stylish city.
+She looked older; she certainly had acquired something
+of an air of knowledge, assurance, domination, sauciness
+and challenge, which qualities were all partly illustrated
+in her large, audacious hat. The spirit which the late
+Mr. Moze had so successfully suppressed was at length
+coming to the surface for all beholders to see, and the
+process of evolution begun at the moment when Audrey
+had bounced up and prevented an authoritative solicitor
+from leaving the study was already advanced. Nevertheless,
+at frequent intervals Audrey&#8217;s eyes changed, and she seemed
+for an instant to be a very naive, very ingenuous and
+wistful little thing&mdash;and this though she had reached the
+age of twenty. Perhaps she was feeling sorry for the
+girl she used to be.</p>
+
+<p>And no doubt she was also thinking of her mother,
+who had died within eight hours of their nocturnal interview.
+The death of Mrs. Moze surprised everyone, except possibly
+Mrs. Moze. As an unsuspected result of the operation
+upon her, an embolism had been wandering in her veins;
+it reached the brain, and she expired, to the great loss of
+the National Reformation Society. Such was the brief
+and simple history. When Audrey stood by the body, she
+had felt that if it could have saved her mother she would
+have enriched the National Reformation Society with all she
+possessed.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually the sense of freedom had grown paramount
+in her, and she had undertaken the enterprise of completely
+subduing Mr. Foulger to her own ends.</p>
+
+<p>The back hall was carpetless and pictureless, and the
+furniture in it was draped in grey-white. Every room in
+the abode was in the same state, and, since all the
+windows were shuttered, every room lay moribund in a
+ghostly twilight. Only the clocks remained alive, probably
+thinking themselves immortal. The breakfast things were
+washed up and stored away. The last two servants had
+already gone. Behind Audrey, forming a hilly background,
+were trunks and boxes, a large bunch of flowers encased
+in paper, and a case of umbrellas and parasols; the whole
+strikingly new, and every single item except the flowers
+labelled &#8220;Paris via Charing Cross and Calais.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey opened her black Russian satchel, and the
+purse within it. Therein were a little compartment full of
+English gold, another full of French gold, another full
+of multicoloured French bank-notes; and loose in the satchel
+was a blue book of credit-notes, each for five hundred
+francs, or twenty pounds&mdash;a thick book! And she would
+not have minded much if she had lost the whole satchel
+&mdash;it would be so easy to replace the satchel with all its
+contents.</p>
+
+<p>Then a small brougham came very deliberately up the
+drive. It was the vehicle in which Miss Ingate went
+her ways; in accordance with Miss Ingate&#8217;s immemorial
+command, it travelled at a walking pace up all the hills
+to save the horse, and at a walking pace down all hills
+lest the horse should stumble and Miss Ingate be destroyed.
+It was now followed by a luggage-cart on which was a
+large trunk.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment Aguilar, the gardener, appeared
+from somewhere&mdash;he who had been robbed of a legacy
+of ten pounds, but who by his ruthless and incontestable
+integrity had secured the job of caretaker of Flank
+Hall.</p>
+
+<p>The drivers touched their hats to Audrey and jumped
+down, and Miss Ingate, with a blue veil tied like a handkerchief
+round her bonnet and chin&mdash;sign that she was a
+traveller&mdash;emerged from the brougham, sardonically smiling
+at her own and everybody&#8217;s expense, and too excited to
+be able to give greetings. The three men started to move
+the trunks, and the two women whispered together in
+the back-hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey,&#8221; demanded Miss Ingate, with a start, &#8220;what
+are those rings on your finger?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey replied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One&#8217;s a wedding ring and the other&#8217;s a mourning ring.
+I bought them yesterday at Colchester.... Hsh!&#8221; She
+stilled further exclamations from Miss Ingate until the
+men were out of the hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look here! Quick!&#8221; she whispered, hastily unlocking
+a large hat-case that was left. And Miss Ingate looked
+and saw a block toque, entirely unsuitable for a young
+girl, and a widow&#8217;s veil.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I look bewitching in them,&#8221; said Audrey, relocking
+the case.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, my child, what does it mean?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It means that I&#8217;m not silly enough to go to Paris
+as a girl. I&#8217;ve had more than enough of being a girl.
+I&#8217;m determined to arrive in Paris as a young widow. It
+will be much better in every way, and far easier for you.
+In fact, you&#8217;ll have no chaperoning to do at all. I shall
+be the chaperon. Now don&#8217;t say you won&#8217;t go, because
+you will.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You ought to have told me before.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I oughtn&#8217;t. Nothing could have been more
+foolish.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But who are you the widow of?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hurrah!&#8221; cried Audrey. &#8220;You are a sport, Winnie!
+I&#8217;ll tell you all the interesting details in the train.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In another minute Aguilar, gloomy and unbending, had
+received the keys of Flank Hall, and the procession crunched
+down the drive on its way to the station.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_7" id="chapter_7" />CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CIGARETTE GIRL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey did not deem that she had begun truly to live
+until the next morning, when they left London, after having
+passed a night in the Charing Cross Hotel. During several
+visits to London in the course of the summer Audrey had
+learnt something about the valuelessness of money in a
+metropolis chiefly inhabited by people who were positively
+embarrassed by their riches. She knew, for example, that
+money being very plentiful and stylish hats very rare, large
+quantities of money had to be given for infinitesimal quantities
+of hats. The big and glittering shops were full of
+people whose pockets bulged with money which they were
+obviously anxious to part with in order to obtain goods,
+while the proud shop-assistants, secure in the knowledge
+that money was naught and goods were everything, did their
+utmost, by hauteur and steely negatives, to render any
+transaction possible. It was the result of a mysterious
+&#8220;Law of Exchange.&#8221; She was aware of this. She had
+lost her childhood&#8217;s naive illusions about the sovereignty
+of money.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless she received one or two shocks on the
+journey, which was planned upon the most luxurious scale
+that the imagination of Messrs. Thomas Cook &amp; Son could
+conceive. There was four pounds and ninepence to pay for
+excess luggage at Charing Cross. Half a year earlier four
+pounds would have bought all the luggage she could have
+got together. She very nearly said to the clerk at the window:
+&#8220;Don&#8217;t you mean shillings?&#8221; But in spite of nervousness,
+blushings, and all manner of sensitive reactions to new
+experiences, her natural sang-froid and instinctive knowledge
+of the world saved her from such a terrible lapse, and she
+put down a bank-note without the slightest hint that she was
+wondering whether it would not be more advantageous to
+throw the luggage away.</p>
+
+<p>The boat was crowded, and the sea and wind full of
+menace. Fighting their way along the deck after laden
+porters, Audrey and Miss Ingate simultaneously espied the
+private cabin list hung in a conspicuous spot. They perused
+it as eagerly as if it had been the account of a <em>cause célèbre.</em>
+Among the list were two English lords, an Honourable Mrs.,
+a baroness with a Hungarian name, several Teutonic names,
+and Mrs. Moncreiff.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey blushed deeply at the sign of Mrs. Moncreiff, for
+she was Mrs. Moncreiff. Behind the veil, and with the touch
+of white in her toque, she might have been any age up to
+twenty-eight or so. It would have been impossible to say
+that she was a young girl, that she was not versed in the
+world, that she had not the whole catechism of men at her
+finger-ends. All who glanced at her glanced again&mdash;with
+sympathy and curiosity; and the second glance pricked
+Audrey&#8217;s conscience, making her feel like a thief. But her
+moods were capricious. At one moment she was a thief,
+a clumsy fraud, an ignorant ninny, and a suitable prey for
+the secret police; and at the next she was very clever,
+self-confident, equal to the situation, and enjoying the
+situation more than she had ever enjoyed anything, and
+determined to prolong the situation indefinitely.</p>
+
+<p>The cabin was very spacious, yet not more so than was
+proper, considering that the rent of it came to about sixpence
+a minute. There was room, even after all the packages
+were stowed, for both of them to lie down. But instead
+of lying down they eagerly inspected the little abode. They
+found a lavatory basin with hot and cold water taps, but no
+hot water and no cold water, no soap and no towels. And
+they found a crystal water-bottle, but it was empty. Then
+a steward came and asked them if they wanted anything,
+and because they were miserable poltroons they smiled and
+said &#8220;No.&#8221; They were secretly convinced that all the other
+private cabins, inhabited by titled persons and by financiers,
+were superior to their cabin, and that the captain of the
+steamer had fobbed them off with an imitation of a real cabin.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that Miss Ingate, who since Charing Cross
+had been a little excited by a glimpsed newspaper contents-bill
+indicating suffragette riots that morning, perceived,
+through the open door of the cabin, a most beautiful and
+most elegant girl, attired impeccably in that ritualistic garb
+of travel which the truly cosmopolitan wear on combined
+rail-and-ocean journeys and on no other occasions. It was
+at once apparent that the celestial creature had put on that
+special hat, that special veil, that special cloak, and those
+special gloves because she was deeply aware of what was
+correct, and that she would not put them on again until
+destiny took her again across the sea, and that if destiny
+never did take her again across the sea never again would
+she show herself in the vestments, whose correctness was
+only equalled by their expensiveness.</p>
+
+<p>The young woman, however, took no thought of her impressive
+clothes. She was existing upon quite another plane.
+Miss Ingate, preoccupied by the wrongs and perils of her
+sex, and momentarily softened out of her sardonic irony,
+suspected that they might be in the presence of a victim of
+oppression or neglect. The victim lay Half-prone upon the
+hard wooden seat against the ship&#8217;s rail. Her dark eyes
+opened piteously at times, and her exquisite profile, surmounted
+by the priceless hat all askew, made a silhouette
+now against the sea and now against the distant white cliffs
+of Albion, according to the fearful heaving of the ship.
+Spray occasionally dashed over her. She heeded it not. A
+few feet farther off she would have been sheltered by a
+weather-awning, but, clinging fiercely to the rail, she would
+not move.</p>
+
+<p>Then a sharp squall of rain broke, but she entirely ignored
+the rain.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment Miss Ingate and Audrey, rushing forth,
+had gently seized her and drawn her into their cabin. They
+might have succoured other martyrs to the modern passion
+for moving about, for there were many; but they chose this
+particular martyr because she was so wondrously dressed,
+and also perhaps a little because she was so young. As she
+lay on the cabin sofa she looked still younger; she looked a
+child. Yet when Miss Ingate removed her gloves in order
+to rub those chill, fragile, and miraculously manicured hands,
+a wedding ring was revealed. The wedding ring rendered
+her intensely romantic in the eyes of Audrey and Miss Ingate,
+who both thought, in private:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She must be the wife of one of those lords!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Every detail of her raiment, as she was put at her ease,
+showed her to be clothed in precisely the manner which
+Audrey and Miss Ingate thought peeresses always were
+clothed. Hence, being English, they mingled respect with
+their solacing pity. Nevertheless, their respect was tempered
+by a peculiar pride, for both of them, in taking lemonade
+on the Pullman, had taken therewith a certain preventive
+or remedy which made them loftily indifferent to the heaving
+of ships and the eccentricities of the sea. The specific had
+done all that was claimed for it&mdash;which was a great deal&mdash;so
+much so that they felt themselves superwomen among
+a cargo of flaccid and feeble sub-females. And they grew
+charmingly conceited.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Am I in my cabin?&#8221; murmured the martyr, about a
+quarter of an hour after Miss Ingate, having obtained soda
+water, had administered to her a dose of the miraculous
+specific.</p>
+
+<p>Her delicious cheeks were now a delicate crimson. But
+they had been of a delicate crimson throughout.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;re in ours. Which is
+yours?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s on the other side of the ship, then. I came out for
+a little air. But I couldn&#8217;t get back. I&#8217;d just as lief have
+died as shift from that seat out there by the railings.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Something in the accent, something in those fine English
+words &#8220;lief&#8221; and &#8220;shift,&#8221; destroyed in the minds of Audrey
+and Miss Ingate the agreeable notion that they had a peeress
+on their hands.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is your husband on board?&#8221; asked Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He just is,&#8221; was the answer. &#8220;He&#8217;s in our cabin.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shall I fetch him?&#8221; Miss Ingate suggested. The
+corners of her lips had begun to fall once more.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you?&#8221; said the young woman. &#8220;It&#8217;s Lord Southminster.
+I&#8217;m Lady Southminster.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The two saviours were thrilled. Each felt that she had
+misinterpreted the accent, and that probably peeresses did
+habitually use such words as &#8220;lief&#8221; and &#8220;shift.&#8221; The
+corners of Miss Ingate&#8217;s lips rose to their proper position.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll look for the number on the cabin list,&#8221; said she
+hastily, and went forth with trembling to summon the peer.</p>
+
+<p>As Audrey, alone in the cabin with Lady Southminster,
+bent curiously over the prostrate form, Lady Southminster
+exclaimed with an air of childlike admiration:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re real ladies, you are!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Audrey felt old and experienced. She decided that
+Lady Southminster could not be more than seventeen, and it
+seemed to be about half a century since Audrey was seventeen.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He can&#8217;t come,&#8221; announced Miss Ingate breathlessly,
+returning to the cabin, and supporting herself against the
+door as the solid teak sank under her feet. &#8220;Oh yes! He&#8217;s
+there all right. It was Number 12. I&#8217;ve seen him. I told
+him, but I don&#8217;t think he heard me&mdash;to understand, that
+is. If you ask me, he couldn&#8217;t come if forty wives sent
+for him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, couldn&#8217;t he!&#8221; observed Lady Southminster, sitting
+up. &#8220;Couldn&#8217;t he!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the boat was within ten minutes of France, the
+remedy had had such an effect upon her that she could walk
+about. Accompanied by Audrey she managed to work her
+way round the cabin-deck to No. 12. It was empty, save
+for hand-luggage! The two girls searched, as well as they
+could, the whole crowded ship for Lord Southminster, and
+found him not. Lady Southminster neither fainted nor wept.
+She merely said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! All right! If that&#8217;s it....!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Hand-luggage was being collected. But Lady Southminster
+would not collect hers, nor allow it to be collected.
+She agreed with Miss Ingate and Audrey that her husband
+must ultimately reappear either on the quay or in the train.
+While they were all standing huddled together in the throng
+waiting for the gangway to put ashore, she said in a low
+casual tone, Ă  propos of nothing:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I only married him the day before yesterday. I don&#8217;t
+know whether you know, but I used to make cigarettes in
+Constantinopoulos&#8217;s window in Piccadilly. I don&#8217;t see why
+I should be ashamed of it, d&#8217;you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly not,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;But it <em>is</em> rather
+romantic, isn&#8217;t it, Audrey?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Despite the terrific interest of the adventure of the
+cigarette girl, disappointment began immediately after landing.
+This France, of which Audrey had heard so much and
+dreamed so much, was a very ramshackle and untidy and
+one-horse affair. The custom-house was rather like a battlefield
+without any rules of warfare; the scene in the refreshment-room
+was rather like a sack after a battle; the station
+was a desert with odd files of people here and there; the
+platforms were ridiculous, and you wanted a pair of steps to
+get up into the train. Whatever romance there might be in
+France had been brought by Audrey in her secret heart and
+by Lady Southminster.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had come to France, and she was going to Paris,
+solely because of a vision which had been created in her by
+the letters and by the photographs of Madame Piriac.
+Although Madame Piriac and she had absolutely no tie of
+blood, Madame Piriac being the daughter by a first husband
+of the French widow who became the first Mrs. Moze&mdash;and
+speedily died, Audrey persisted privately in regarding
+Madame Piriac as a kind of elder sister. She felt a very
+considerable esteem for Madame Piriac, upon whom she had
+never set eyes, and Madame Piriac had certainly given her
+the impression that France was to England what paradise is
+to purgatory. Further, Audrey had fallen in love with
+Madame Piriac&#8217;s portraits, whose elegance was superb. And
+yet, too, Audrey was jealous of Madame Piriac, and
+especially so since the attainment of freedom and wealth.
+Madame Piriac had most warmly invited her, after the death
+of Mrs. Moze, to pay a long visit to Paris as a guest in her
+home. Audrey had declined&mdash;from jealousy. She would not
+go to Madame Piriac&#8217;s as a raw girl, overdone with money,
+who could only speak one language and who knew nothing
+at all of this our planet. She would go, if she went, as a
+young woman of the world who could hold her own in any
+drawing-room, be it Madame Piriac&#8217;s or another. Hence
+Miss Ingate had obtained the address of a Paris boarding-house,
+and one or two preliminary introductions from political
+friends in London.</p>
+
+<p>Well, France was not equal to its reputation; and Miss
+Ingate&#8217;s sardonic smile seemed to be saying: &#8220;So this is
+your France!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>However, the excitement of escorting the youngest
+English peeress to Paris sufficed for Audrey, even if it did
+not suffice for Miss Ingate with her middle-aged apprehensions.
+They knew that Lady Southminster was the
+youngest English peeress because she had told them so. At
+the very moment when they were dispatching a telegram for
+her to an address in London, she had popped out the
+remark: &#8220;Do you know I&#8217;m the youngest peeress in England?&#8221;
+And truth shone in her candid and simple smile.
+They had not found the peer, neither on the ship, nor on the
+quay, nor in the station. And the peeress would not wait.
+She was indeed obviously frightened at the idea of remaining
+in Calais alone, even till the next express. She said that her
+husband&#8217;s &#8220;man&#8221; would meet the train in Paris. She ate
+plenteously with Audrey and Miss Ingate in the refreshment-room,
+and she would not leave them nor allow them to leave
+her. The easiest course was to let her have her way, and
+she had it.</p>
+
+<p>By dint of Miss Ingate&#8217;s unscrupulous tricks with small
+baggage they contrived to keep a whole compartment to
+themselves. As soon as the train started the peeress began
+to cry. Then, wiping her heavenly silly eyes, and upbraiding
+herself, she related to her protectresses the glory of a new
+manicure set. Unfortunately she could not show them the
+set, as it had been left in the cabin. She was actually in
+possession of nothing portable except her clothes, some
+English magazines bought at Calais, and a handbag which
+contained much money and many bonbons.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s done it on purpose,&#8221; she said to Audrey as soon
+as Miss Ingate went off to take tea in the tea-car. &#8220;I&#8217;m
+sure he&#8217;s done it on purpose. He&#8217;s hidden himself, and he&#8217;ll
+turn up when he thinks he&#8217;s beaten me. D&#8217;you know why
+I wouldn&#8217;t bring that luggage away out of the cabin?
+Because we had a quarrel about it, at the station, and he
+said things to me. In fact we weren&#8217;t speaking. And we
+weren&#8217;t speaking last night either. The radiator of his&mdash;our&mdash;car
+leaked, and we had to come home from the Coliseum
+in a motor-bus. He couldn&#8217;t get a taxi. It wasn&#8217;t his fault,
+but a friend of mine told me the day before I was married
+that a lady always ought to be angry when her husband
+can&#8217;t get a taxi after the theatre&mdash;she says it does &#8217;em good.
+So first I told him he mustn&#8217;t leave me to look for one.
+Then I said I&#8217;d wait where I was, and then I said we&#8217;d walk
+on, and then I said we must take a motor-bus. It was that
+that finished him. He said: &#8216;Did I expect him to invent a
+taxi when there wasn&#8217;t one?&#8217; And he swore. So of course
+I sulked. You must, you know. And my shoes were too
+thin and I felt chilly. But only a fortnight before I was
+making cigarettes in the window of Constantinopoulos&#8217;s.
+Funny, isn&#8217;t it? Otherwise he&#8217;s behaved splendid. Still,
+what I do say is a man&#8217;s no right to be ill when he&#8217;s taking
+you to Paris on your honeymoon. I knew he was going to
+be ill when I left him in the cabin, but he stuck me out he
+wasn&#8217;t. A man that&#8217;s so bad he can&#8217;t come to his wife when
+<em>she&#8217;s</em> bad isn&#8217;t a man&mdash;that&#8217;s what I say. Don&#8217;t you think
+so? You know all about that sort of thing, I lay.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said briefly that she did think so, glad that the
+peeress&#8217;s intense and excusable interest in herself kept her
+from being curious about others.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Marriage ain&#8217;t all chocolate-creams,&#8221; said the peeress
+after a pause. &#8220;Have one?&#8221; And she opened her bag very
+hospitably.</p>
+
+<p>Then she turned to her magazines. And no sooner had
+she glanced at the cover of the second one than she gave
+a squeal, and, fetching deep breaths, passed the periodical to
+Audrey. At the top of the cover was printed in large letters
+the title of a story by a famous author of short tales. It
+ran:</p>
+
+<p class="quotation">&#8220;MAN OVERBOARD.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Henceforward a suspicion that had lain concealed in the
+undergrowth of the hearts of the two girls stalked boldly
+about in full daylight.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s done it, and he&#8217;s done it to spite me!&#8221; murmured
+Lady Southminster tearfully.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh no!&#8221; Audrey protested. &#8220;Even if he had fallen
+overboard he&#8217;d have been seen and the captain would have
+stopped the boat.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where do you come from?&#8221; Lady Southminster
+retorted with disdain. &#8220;That&#8217;s an <em>omen</em>, that is"&mdash;pointing
+to the words on the cover of the magazine. &#8220;What else
+could it be? I ask you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Miss Ingate returned the child was fast asleep.
+Miss Ingate was paler than usual. Having convinced herself
+that the sleeper did genuinely sleep, she breathed to Audrey:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s in the next compartment! ... He must have
+hidden himself till nearly the last minute on the boat and then
+got into the train while we were sending off that telegram.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey blenched.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shall you wake her?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wake her, and have a scene&mdash;with us here? No, I
+shan&#8217;t. He&#8217;s a fool.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How d&#8217;you know?&#8221; asked Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, he must have been a fool to marry her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; whispered Audrey. &#8220;If I&#8217;d been a man I&#8217;d have
+married that face like a shot.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It might be all right if he&#8217;d only married the face. But
+he&#8217;s married what she calls her mind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is he young?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. And as good-looking in his own way as she is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But the Countess of Southminster stirred, and the slight
+movement stopped conversation.</p>
+
+<p>The journey was endless, but it was no longer than the
+sleep of the Countess. At length dusk and mist began to
+gather in the hollows of the land; stations succeeded one
+another more frequently. The reflections of the electric
+lights in the compartment could be seen beyond the glass of
+the windows. The train still ruthlessly clattered and shook
+and swayed and thundered; and weary lords, ladies and
+financiers had read all the illustrated magazines and six-penny
+novels in existence, and they lolled exhausted and
+bored amid the debris of literature and light refreshments.
+Then the speed of the convoy slackened, and Audrey, looking
+forth, saw a pale cathedral dome resting aloft amid dark
+clouds. It was a magical glimpse, and it was the first
+glimpse of Paris. &#8220;Oh!&#8221; cried Audrey, far more like a girl
+than a widow. The train rattled through defiles of high
+twinkling houses, roared under bridges, screeched, threaded
+forests of cold blue lamps, and at last came to rest under a
+black echoing vault.</p>
+
+<p>Paris!</p>
+
+<p>And, mysteriously, all Audrey&#8217;s illusions concerning
+France had been born again. She was convinced that Paris
+could not fail to be paradisiacal.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Southminster awoke.</p>
+
+<p>Almost simultaneously a young man very well dressed
+passed along the corridor. Lady Southminster, with an
+awful start, seized her bag and sprang after him, but was
+impeded by other passengers. She caught him only after
+he had descended to the platform, which was at the bottom
+of a precipice below the windows. He had just been saluted
+by, and given orders to, a waiting valet. She caught
+him sharply by the arm. He shook free and walked quickly
+away up the platform, guided by a wise instinct for avoiding
+a scene in front of fellow-travellers. She followed close
+after him, talking with rapidity. They receded. Audrey
+and Miss Ingate leaned out of the windows to watch, and
+still farther and farther out. Just as the honeymooning
+pair disappeared altogether their two forms came into
+contact, and Audrey&#8217;s eyes could see the arm of Lord
+Southminster take the arm of Lady Southminster. They
+vanished from view like one flesh. And Audrey and Miss
+Ingate, deserted, forgotten utterly, unthanked, buffeted by
+passengers and by the valet who had climbed up into the
+carriage to take away the impedimenta of his master, gazed
+at each other and then burst out laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So that&#8217;s marriage!&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;That&#8217;s love. I&#8217;ve seen a
+deal of love in my time, ever since my sister Arabella&#8217;s
+first engagement, but I never saw any that wasn&#8217;t vehy,
+vehy queer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do hope they&#8217;ll be happy,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you?&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_8" id="chapter_8" />CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD</h3>
+
+
+<p>The carriage had emptied, and the two adventurers stood
+alone among empty compartments. The platform was also
+empty. Not a porter in sight. One after the other, the
+young widow and the elderly spinster, their purses bulging
+with money, got their packages by great efforts down on
+to the platform.</p>
+
+<p>An employee strolled past.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Porteur?</em>&#8221; murmured Audrey timidly.</p>
+
+<p>The man sniggered, shrugged his shoulders, and
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey felt that she had gone back to her school days.
+She was helpless, and Miss Ingate was the same. She
+wished ardently that she was in Moze again. She could
+not imagine how she had been such a fool as to undertake
+this absurd expedition which could only end in ridicule
+and disaster. She was ready to cry. Then another employee
+appeared, hesitated, and picked up a bag, scowling and
+inimical. Gradually the man, very tousled and dirty,
+clustered all the bags and parcels around his person, and
+walked off. Audrey and Miss Ingate meekly following.
+The great roof of the station resounded to whistles and
+the escape of steam and the clashing of wagons.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the platforms there were droves of people, of
+whom nearly every individual was preoccupied and hurried.
+And what people! Audrey had in her heart expected a
+sort of glittering white terminus full of dandiacal men
+and elegant Parisiennes who had stepped straight out of
+fashion-plates, and who had no cares&mdash;for was not this
+Paris? Whereas, in fact, the multitude was the dingiest
+she had ever seen. Not a gleam of elegance! No hint of
+dazzling colour! No smiling and satiric beauty! They
+were just persons.</p>
+
+<p>At last, after formalities, Audrey and Miss Ingate
+reached the foul and chilly custom-house appointed for the
+examination of luggage. Unrecognisable peers and other
+highnesses stood waiting at long counters, forming bays,
+on which was nothing at all. Then, far behind, a truck
+hugely piled with trunks rolled in through a back door
+and men pitched the trunks like toys here and there on
+the counters, and officials came into view, and knots of
+travellers gathered round trunks, and locks were turned
+and lids were lifted, and the flash of linen showed in spots
+on the drabness of the scene. Miss Ingate observed with
+horror the complete undoing of a lady&#8217;s large trunk, and
+the exposure to the world&#8217;s harsh gaze of the most intimate
+possessions of that lady. Soon the counters were like a
+fair. But no trunk belonging to Audrey or to Miss Ingate
+was visible. They knew then, what they had both privately
+suspected ever since Charing Cross, that their trunks would
+be lost on the journey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! My trunk!&#8221; cried Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath a pile of other trunks on an incoming truck
+she had espied her property. Audrey saw it, too. The
+vision was magical. The trunk seemed like a piece of
+home, a bit of Moze and of England. It drew affection
+from them as though it had been an animal. They sped
+towards it, forgetting their small baggage. Their <em>porteur</em>
+leaped over the counter from behind and made signs for
+a key. All Audrey&#8217;s trunks in turn joined Miss Ingate&#8217;s;
+none was missing. And finally an official, small and fierce,
+responded to the invocations of the <em>porteur</em> and established
+himself at the counter in front of them. He put his hand
+on Miss Ingate&#8217;s trunk.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Op-en,&#8221; he said in English.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate opened her purse, and indicated to the
+official by signs that she had no key for the trunk,
+and she also cried loudly, so that he should comprehend:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No key! ... Lost!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then she looked awkwardly at Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been told they only want to open one trunk
+when there&#8217;s a lot. Let him choose another one,&#8221; she
+murmured archly.</p>
+
+<p>But the official merely walked away, to deal with the
+trunks of somebody else close by.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was cross.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Ingate,&#8221; she said formally, &#8220;you had the key
+when we started, because you showed it to me. You can&#8217;t
+possibly have lost it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; answered Winnie calmly and knowingly. &#8220;I
+haven&#8217;t lost it. But I&#8217;m not going to have the things in
+my trunk thrown about for all these foreigners to see. It&#8217;s
+simply disgraceful. They ought to have women officials
+and private rooms at these places. And they would have,
+if women had the vote. Let him open one of your trunks.
+All your things are new.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The <em>porteur</em> had meanwhile been discharging French
+into Audrey&#8217;s other ear.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course you must open it, Winnie,&#8221; said she.
+&#8220;Don&#8217;t be so absurd!&#8221; There was a persuasive lightness
+in her voice, but there was also command. For a moment
+she was the perfect widow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d rather not.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The <em>porteur</em> says we shall be here all night,&#8221; Audrey
+persisted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you know French?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I learnt French at school, Winnie,&#8221; said the perfect
+widow. &#8220;I can&#8217;t understand every word, but I can make
+out the drift.&#8221; And Audrey went on translating the porter
+according to her own wisdom. &#8220;He says there have been
+dreadful scenes here before, when people have refused to
+open their trunks, and the police have had to be called
+in. He says the man won&#8217;t upset the things in your trunk
+at all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate gazed into the distance, and privately smiled.
+Audrey had never guessed that in Miss Ingate were such
+depths of obstinate stupidity. She felt quite distinctly that
+her understanding of human nature was increasing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Look!&#8221; said Miss Ingate casually. &#8220;I&#8217;m sure
+those must be real Parisians!&#8221; Her offhandedness, her
+inability to realise the situation, were exasperating to the
+young widow. Audrey glanced where Miss Ingate had
+pointed, and saw in the doorway of the custom-house two
+women and a lad, all cloaked but all obviously in radiant
+fancy dress, laughing together.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t they look French!&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey tapped her foot on the asphalt floor, while people
+whose luggage had been examined bumped strenuously
+against her in the effort to depart. She was extremely
+pessimistic; she knew she could do nothing with Miss
+Ingate; and the thought of the vast, flaring, rumbling city
+beyond the station intimidated her. The <em>porteur</em>, who had
+gone away to collect their neglected small baggage, now
+returned, and nudged her, pointing to the official who had
+resumed his place behind the trunks. He was certainly
+a fierce man, but he was a little man, and there was an
+agreeable peculiarity in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, suddenly inspired and emboldened, faced him;
+she shrugged her shoulders Gallically at Miss Ingate&#8217;s
+trunk, and gave a sad, sweet, wistful smile, and then
+put her hand with an exquisite inviting gesture on the
+smallest of her own trunks. The act was a deliberate
+exploitation of widowhood. The official fiercely shrugged
+his shoulders and threw up his arms, and told the <em>porteur</em>
+to open the small trunk.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I told you they would,&#8221; said Miss Ingate negligently.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey would have turned upon her and slain her had
+she not been busy with the tremendous realisation of the
+fact that by a glance and a gesture she had conquered the
+customs official&mdash;a foreigner and a stranger. She wanted
+to be alone and to think.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the trunk was being relocked, Audrey heard
+an American girlish voice behind her:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, you must be Miss Ingate!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am,&#8221; Miss Ingate almost ecstatically admitted.</p>
+
+<p>The trio in cloaked fancy dress were surrounding Miss
+Ingate like a bodyguard.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_9" id="chapter_9" />CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>LIFE IN PARIS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall were a charm to
+dissipate all the affrighting menace of the city beyond the
+station. Miss Thompkins had fluffy red hair, with the
+freckles which too often accompany red hair, and was
+addressed as Tommy. Miss Nickall had fluffy grey hair,
+with warm, loving eyes, and was addressed as Nick. The
+age of either might have been anything from twenty-four
+to forty. The one came from Wyoming, the other from
+Arizona; and it was instantly clear that they were close
+friends. They had driven up to the terminus before going
+to a fancy-dress ball to be given that night in the studio
+of Monsieur Dauphin, a famous French painter and a
+delightful man. They had met Monsieur Dauphin on the
+previous evening on the terrace of the Café de Versailles,
+and Monsieur had said, in response to their suggestion,
+that he would be enchanted and too much honoured if they
+would bring their English friends to his little &#8220;leaping"&mdash;that
+was, hop.</p>
+
+<p>Also they had thought that it would be nice for the
+travellers to be met at the terminus, especially as Miss
+Ingate had been very particularly recommended to Miss
+Thompkins by a whole group of people in London. It
+was Miss Thompkins who had supplied the address of
+reliable furnished rooms, and she and Nick would personally
+introduce the ladies to their landlady, who was a
+sweet creature.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy and Nick and Miss Ingate were at once on
+terms of cordial informality; but the Americans seemed to
+be a little diffident before the companion. Their voices,
+at the introduction, had reinforced the surprise of their
+first glances. &#8220;Oh! <em>Mrs.</em> Moncreiff!&#8221; The slightest
+insistence, no more, on the &#8220;Mrs."! Nothing said, but
+evidently they had expected somebody else!</p>
+
+<p>Then there was the boy, whom they called Musa. He
+was dark, slim, with timorous great eyes, and attired in
+red as a devil beneath his student&#8217;s cloak. He apologised
+slowly in English for not being able to speak English.
+He said he was very French, and Tommy and Nick smiled,
+and he smiled back at them rather wistfully. When Tommy
+and Nick had spoken with the chauffeurs in French he
+interpreted their remarks. There were two motor-taxis,
+one for the luggage.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Thompkins accompanied the luggage; she insisted
+on doing so. She could tell sinister tales of Paris cabmen,
+and she even delayed the departure in order to explain
+that once in the suburbs and in the pre-taxi days a cabman
+had threatened to drive her and himself into the Seine
+unless she would be his bride, and she saved herself by
+promising to be his bride and telling him that she lived
+in the Avenue de l&#8217;Opéra; as soon as the cab reached a
+populous thoroughfare she opened the cab door and squealed
+and was rescued; she had let the driver go free because
+of his good taste.</p>
+
+<p>As the procession whizzed through nocturnal streets,
+some thunderous with traffic, others very quiet, but all
+lined with lofty regular buildings, Audrey was penetrated
+by the romance of this city where cabmen passionately and
+to the point of suicide and murder adored their fares.
+And she thought that perhaps, after all, Madame Piriac&#8217;s
+impression of Paris might not be entirely misleading. Miss
+Ingate and Nick talked easily, very charmed with one
+another, both excited. Audrey said little, and the dark
+youth said nothing. But once the dark youth murmured
+shyly to Audrey in English:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you play at ten-nis, Madame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They crossed a thoroughfare that twinkled and glittered
+from end to end with moving sky-signs. Serpents pursued
+burning serpents on the heights of that thoroughfare, invisible
+hands wrote mystic words of warning and invitation,
+and blazing kittens played with balls of incandescent wool.
+Throngs of promenaders moved under theatrical trees that
+waved their pale emerald against the velvet sky, and the
+ground floor of every edifice was a glowing café, whose
+tables, full of idle sippers and loungers, bulged out on to
+the broad pavements.... The momentary vision was shut
+off instantly as the taxis shot down the mouth of a dark
+narrow street; but it had been long enough to make Audrey&#8217;s
+heart throb.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is that?&#8221; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That?&#8221; exclaimed Nick kindly. &#8220;Oh! That&#8217;s only
+the <em>grand boulevard</em>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then they crossed the sombre, lamp-reflecting Seine, and
+soon afterwards the two taxis stopped at a vast black door
+in a very wide street of serried palatial façades that were
+continually shaken by the rushing tumult of electric cars.
+Tommy jumped out and pushed a button, and the door
+automatically split in two, disclosing a vast and dim tunnel.
+Tommy ran within, and came out again with a coatless man
+in a black-and-yellow striped waistcoat and a short white
+apron. This man, Musa, and the two chauffeurs entered
+swiftly into a complex altercation, which endured until
+Audrey had paid the chauffeurs and all the trunks had been
+transported behind the immense door and the door bangingly
+shut.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Vehy amusing, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221; whispered Miss Ingate
+caustically to Audrey. &#8220;Aren&#8217;t they dears?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame Dubois&#8217;s establishment is on the third and
+fourth floors,&#8221; said Nick.</p>
+
+<p>They climbed a broad, curving, carpeted staircase.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re here,&#8221; said Audrey to Miss Ingate after scores
+of stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, breathless, could only smile.</p>
+
+<p>And Audrey profoundly felt that she was in Paris. The
+mere shape of the doorknob by the side of a brass plate
+lettered &#8220;Madame Dubois&#8221; told her that she was in an
+exotic land.</p>
+
+<p>And in the interior of Madame Dubois&#8217;s establishment
+Tommy and Nick together drew apart the curtains, opened
+the windows, and opened the shutters of a pleasantly stuffy
+sitting-room. Everybody leaned out, and they saw the
+superb thoroughfare, straight and interminable, and the
+moving roofs of the tram-cars, and dwarfs on the pavements.
+The night was mild and languorous.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You see that!&#8221; Nick pointed to a blaze of electricity
+to the left on the opposite side of the road. &#8220;That&#8217;s where
+we shall take you to dine, after you&#8217;ve spruced yourselves up.
+You needn&#8217;t bother about fancy dress. Monsieur Dauphin
+always has stacks of kimonos&mdash;for his models, you know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>While the travellers spruced themselves up in different bedrooms,
+Tommy chattered through one pair of double doors
+ajar, and Nick through the other, and Musa strummed with
+many mistakes on an antique Pleyel piano. And as Audrey
+listened to the talk of these acquaintances, Tommy and Nick,
+who in half an hour had put on the hue of her lifelong friends,
+and as she heard the piano, and felt the vibration of cars far
+beneath, she decided that she was still growing happier and
+happier, and that life and the world were marvellous.</p>
+
+<p>A little later they passed into the café-restaurant through
+a throng of seated sippers who were spread around its portals
+like a defence. The interior, low, and stretching backwards,
+apparently endless, into the bowels of the building,
+was swimming in the brightest light. At a raised semicircular
+counter in the centre two women were enthroned,
+plump, sedate, darkly dressed, and of middle age. To these
+priestesses came a constant succession of waiters, in the
+classic garb of waiters, bearing trays which they offered
+to the gaze of the women, and afterwards throwing down
+coins that rang on the marble of the counter. One of the
+women wrote swiftly in a great tome. Both of them, while
+performing their duties, glanced continually into every part
+of the establishment, watching especially each departure and
+each arrival.</p>
+
+<p>At scores of tables were the most heterogeneous collection
+of people that Audrey had ever seen; men and women,
+girls and old men, even a few children with their mothers.
+Liquids were of every colour, ices chromatic, and the scarlet
+of lobster made a luscious contrast with the shaded tints of
+salads. In the extreme background men were playing billiards
+at three tables. Though nearly everybody was talking,
+no one talked loudly, so that the resulting monotone of
+conversation was a gentle drone, out of which shot up at
+intervals the crash of crockery or a hoarse command. And
+this drone combined itself with the glittering light, and with
+the mild warmth that floated in waves through the open windows,
+and with the red plush of the seats, and with the rosiness
+of painted nymphs on the blue walls, and with the
+complexions of women&#8217;s faces, and their hats and frocks,
+and with the hues of the liquids&mdash;to produce a totality of
+impression that made Audrey dizzy with ecstasy. This was
+not the Paris set forth by Madame Piriac, but it was a wondrous
+Paris, and in Audrey&#8217;s esteem not far removed from
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, magnificently pale, followed Tommy and
+Nick with ironic delight up the long passage between the
+tables. Her eyes seemed to be saying: &#8220;I am overpowered,
+and yet there is something in me that is not overpowered, and
+by virtue of my kind-hearted derision I, from Essex, am
+superior to you all!&#8221; Audrey, with glance downcast, followed
+Miss Ingate, and Musa came last, sinuously. Nobody
+looked up at them more than casually, but at intervals during
+the passage Tommy and Nick nodded and smiled: &#8220;How
+d&#8217;ye do? How d&#8217;ye do?&#8221; &#8220;<em>Bon soir,</em>&#8220; and answers were
+given in American or French voices.</p>
+
+<p>They came to rest near the billiard tables, and near an
+aperture with a shelf where all the waiters congregated to
+shout their orders. A grey-haired waiter, with the rapidity
+and dexterity of a conjurer, laid a cloth over the marble
+round which they sat, Audrey and Miss Ingate on the plush
+bench, and Tommy and Nick, with Musa between them, on
+chairs opposite. The waiter then discussed with them for
+five minutes what they should eat, and he argued the problem
+seriously, wisely, helpfully, as befitted. It was Audrey,
+in full view of a buffet laden with shell-fish and fruit, who
+first suggested lobster, and lobster was chosen, nothing but
+lobster. Miss Ingate said that she was not a bit tired, and
+that lobster was her dream. The sentiment was universal
+at the table. When asked what she would drink, Audrey
+was on the point of answering &#8220;lemonade.&#8221; But a doubt
+about the propriety of everlasting lemonade for a widow with
+much knowledge of the world, stopped her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I vote we all have grenadines,&#8221; said Nick.</p>
+
+<p>Grenadine was agreeable to Audrey&#8217;s ear, and everyone
+concurred.</p>
+
+<p>The ordering was always summarised and explained by
+Musa in a few phrases which, to Audrey, sounded very different
+from the French of Tommy and Nick. And she took
+oath that she would instantly begin to learn to speak French,
+not like Tommy and Nick, whose accent she cruelly despised,
+but like Musa.</p>
+
+<p>Then Tommy and Nick removed their cloaks, and sat displayed
+as a geisha and a contadina, respectively. Musa had
+already unmasked his devilry. The café was not in the least
+disturbed by these gorgeous and strange apparitions. An
+orchestra began to play. Lobster arrived, and high glasses
+full of glinting green. Audrey ate and drank with gusto,
+with innocence, with the intensest love of life. And she was
+the most beautiful and touching sight in the café-restaurant.
+Miss Ingate, grinning, caught her eye with joyous mockery.
+&#8220;We are going it, aren&#8217;t we, Audrey?&#8221; shrieked Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall began slowly to differentiate
+themselves in Audrey&#8217;s mind. At first they were
+merely two American girls&mdash;the first Audrey had met. They
+were of about the same age&mdash;whatever that age might be&mdash;and
+if they were not exactly of the same age, then Tommy
+with red hair was older than Nick with grey hair. Indeed,
+Nick took the earliest opportunity to remark that her hair
+had turned grey at nineteen. They both had dreamy eyes
+that looked through instead of looking at; they were both
+hazy concerning matters of fact; they were both attached
+like a couple of aunts to Musa, who nestled between them
+like a cat between two cushions; they were both extraordinarily
+friendly and hospitable; they both painted and both
+had studios&mdash;in the same house; they both showed quite
+a remarkable admiration and esteem for all their acquaintances;
+and they both lacked interest in their complexions
+and their hair.</p>
+
+<p>The resemblance did not go very much farther. Tommy,
+for all her praising of friends, was of a critical, curious, and
+analytical disposition, and her greenish eyes were always at
+work qualifying in a very subtle manner what her tongue
+said, when her tongue was benevolent, as it often was.
+Feminism and suffragism being the tie between the new
+acquaintances, these subjects were the first material of conversation,
+and an empress of militancy known to the world
+as &#8220;Rosamund&#8221; having been mentioned, Miss Ingate said
+with enthusiasm:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She lives only for one thing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; replied Tommy. &#8220;And if she got it, I guess no
+one would be more disgusted than she herself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was an instant&#8217;s silence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Tommy!&#8221; Nick lovingly protested.</p>
+
+<p>Said Miss Ingate with a comprehending satiric grin:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see what you mean. I quite see. I quite see. You&#8217;re
+right, Miss Thompkins. I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;re right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey decided she would have to be very clever in
+order to be equal to Tommy&#8217;s subtlety. Nick, on the other
+hand, was not a bit subtle, except when she tried to imitate
+Tommy. Nick was kindness, and sympathy, and vagueness.
+You could see these admirable qualities in every curve of her
+face and gleam of her eyes. She was very sympathetic, but
+somewhat shocked when Audrey blurted out that she had not
+come to Paris in order to paint.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There are at least fifty painters in this café this very
+minute,&#8221; said Tommy. And somehow it was just as if she
+had said: &#8220;If you haven&#8217;t come to Paris to paint, what have
+you come for?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Does Mr. Musa paint, too?&#8221; asked Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh <em>no</em>!&#8221; Both his protectresses answered together,
+pained. Tommy added: &#8220;Musa plays the violin&mdash;of course.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Musa blushed. Later, he murmured to Audrey
+across the table, while Tommy was ordering a salad, that
+there were tennis courts in the Luxembourg gardens.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I used to paint,&#8221; Miss Ingate broke out. &#8220;And I&#8217;m
+beginning to think I should like to paint again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Said Nick, enraptured:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll let you use my studio, if you will. I&#8217;d just love you
+to, now! Where did you study?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, it was like this,&#8221; said Miss Ingate with satisfaction.
+&#8220;It was a long time ago. I finished painting a
+dog-kennel because the house-painter&#8217;s wife died and he had
+to go to her funeral, and the dog didn&#8217;t like being kept waiting.
+That gave me the idea. I went into water-colours, but
+afterwards I went back to oils. Oils seemed more real. Then
+I started on portraits, and I did a portrait of my Aunt Sarah
+from memory. After she saw it she tore up her will, and
+before I could get her into a good temper again she married
+her third husband and she had to make a new will in favour
+of him. So I found painting very expensive. Not that it
+would have made any difference, I suppose, would it? After
+that I went into miniatures. The same dog that I painted
+the kennel for ate up the best miniature I ever did. It killed
+him. I put a cross over his grave in the garden. All that
+made me see what a fool I&#8217;d been, and I exchanged my painting
+things for a lawn-mower, but it never turned out to be
+any good.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You dear! You precious! You priceless!&#8221; cooed Nick.
+&#8220;I shall fix up my second best easel for you to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t she just too lovely!&#8221; Tommy murmured aside to
+Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I not much understand,&#8221; said Musa.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy translated to him, haltingly, and Audrey was
+moved to say, with energy:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What I want most is to learn French, and I&#8217;m going
+to begin to-morrow morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Nick was kindly confusing and shaming Miss Ingate
+with a short history and catechism of modern art, including
+such names as Vuillard, Bonnard, Picasso, Signac, and
+Matisse&mdash;all very eagerly poured out and all very unnerving
+for Miss Ingate, whose directory of painting was practically
+limited to the names of Raphael, Sir Joshua, Rembrandt,
+Rubens, Gainsborough, Turner, Leighton, Millais, Gustave
+Doré and Frank Dicksee. When, however, Nick referred
+to Monsieur Dauphin, Miss Ingate was as it were washed
+safely ashore and said with assurance: &#8220;Oh yes! Oh
+yes! Oh yes!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Tommy listened for a few moments, and then, leaning
+across the table and lighting a cigarette, she said in an
+intimate undertone to Audrey: &#8220;I hope you don&#8217;t <em>mind</em>
+coming to the ball to-night. We really didn&#8217;t know&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+She stopped. Her eyes, ferreting in Audrey&#8217;s black, completed
+the communication.</p>
+
+<p>Unnerved for the tenth of a second, Audrey recovered
+and answered:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no! I shall like it very much.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve been up against life!&#8221; murmured Tommy in a
+melting voice, gazing at her. &#8220;But how wonderful all experience
+is, isn&#8217;t it. I once had a husband. We separated&mdash;at
+least, he separated. But I know the feel of being a wife.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey blushed deeply. She wanted to push away all
+that sympathy, and she was exceedingly alarmed by the
+revelation that Tommy was an initiate. The widow was
+the merest schoolgirl once more. But her blush had saved
+her from a chat in which she could not conceivably have
+held her own.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Excuse me being so clumsy,&#8221; said Tommy contritely.
+&#8220;Another time.&#8221; And she waved her cigarette to the waiter
+in demand for the bill.</p>
+
+<p>It was after the orchestra had finished a tango, and
+while Tommy was examining the bill, that the first violin
+and leader, in a magenta coat, approached the table, and
+with a bow offered his violin deferentially to Musa. Many
+heads turned to watch what would happen. But Musa only
+shrugged his shoulders and with an exquisite gesture of
+refusal signified that he had to leave. Whereupon the
+magenta coat gracefully retired, starting a Hungarian
+dance as he went.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa is supposed to be the greatest violinist in Paris&mdash;perhaps
+in the world,&#8221; Tommy whispered casually to
+Audrey. &#8220;He used to play here, till Dauphin discovered
+him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, overcome by this prodigious blow, trembled at
+the contemplation of her blind stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond question, Musa now looked extremely important,
+vivid, masterful. She had been mistaking him for a nice,
+ornamental, useless boy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_10" id="chapter_10" />CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>FANCY DRESS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Just as the café-restaurant had been an intensification of
+ordinary life, so was the ball in Dauphin&#8217;s studio an intensification
+of the café-restaurant. It had more colour, more
+noise, more music, more heat, more varied kinds of people,
+and, of course, far more riotous movement than the café-restaurant.
+The only quality in which the café-restaurant
+stood first was that of sustenance. Monsieur Dauphin had
+not attempted to rival the café-restaurant in the matter of
+food and drink. And that there was no general hope of
+his doing so could be deduced from the fact that many
+of the more experienced guests arrived with bottles, fruit,
+sausages, and sandwiches of their own.</p>
+
+<p>When Audrey and her friends entered the precincts of
+the vast new white building in the Boulevard Raspail, upon
+whose topmost floor Monsieur Dauphin painted the portraits
+of the women of the French, British, and American plutocracies
+and aristocracies, a lift full of gay-coloured figures
+was just shooting upwards past the wrought-iron balustrades
+of the gigantic staircase. Tommy and Nick stopped to speak
+to a columbine who hovered between the pavement and the
+threshold of the house.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know whether it&#8217;s the grenadine or the lobster,
+or whether it&#8217;s Paris,&#8221; said Miss Ingate confidentially in the
+interval; &#8220;but I can scarcely tell whether I&#8217;m standing on
+my head or my heels.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Before the Americans rejoined them, the lift had returned
+and ascended with another covey of fancy costumes, including
+a man with a nose a foot long and a girl with bright
+green hair, dressed as an acrobat. On its next journey the
+lift held Tommy and Nick&#8217;s party, and it held no more.</p>
+
+<p>When the party emerged from it, they were greeted with
+a cheer, hoarse and half human, by a band of light amateur
+mountebanks of both sexes who were huddled in a doorway.
+Within a quarter of an hour Audrey and Miss Ingate, after
+astounding struggles in a dressing-room in which Nick alone
+saved their lives and reputations, appeared in Japanese disguise
+according to promise, and nobody could tell whether
+Audrey was maid, wife, or widow. She might have been a
+creature created on the spot, for the celestial purpose of a
+fancy-dress ball in Monsieur Dauphin&#8217;s studio.</p>
+
+<p>The studio was very large and rather lofty. Its walls
+had been painted by gifted pupils of Monsieur Dauphin
+and by fellow-artists, with scenes of life according to
+Catullus, Theocritus, Propertius, Martial, Petronius, and
+other classical writers. It is not too much to say that the
+walls of the studio constituted a complete novelty for Audrey
+and Miss Ingate. Miss Ingate opened her mouth to say
+something, but, saying nothing, forgot for a long time to
+shut it again.</p>
+
+<p>Chinese lanterns, electrically illuminated, were strung
+across the studio at a convenient height so that athletic
+dancers could prodigiously leap up and make them swing.
+Beneath this incoherent but exciting radiance the guests
+swayed and glided, in a joyous din, under the influence of
+an orchestra of men snouted like pigs and raised on a dais.
+In a corner was a spiral staircase leading to the flat roof
+of the studio and a view of all Paris. Up and down this
+corkscrew contending parties fought amiably for the right
+of way.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy and Nick began instantly to perform introductions
+between Audrey and Miss Ingate and the other guests.
+In a few moments Audrey had failed to catch the names of
+a score and a half of people&mdash;many Americans, some French,
+some Argentine, one or two English. They were all very
+talented people, and, according to Miss Ingate, the most
+characteristically French were invariably either Americans
+or Argentines.</p>
+
+<p>A telephone bell rang in the distance, and presently a
+toreador stood on a chair and pierced the music with a
+message of yells in French, and the room hugely guffawed
+and cheered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is the host?&#8221; Audrey asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what the telephoning was about,&#8221; said Tommy,
+speaking loudly against the hubbub. &#8220;He hasn&#8217;t come yet.
+He had to rush off this afternoon to do pastel portraits of two
+Russian princesses at St. Germain, and he hasn&#8217;t got back
+yet. The telephone was to say that he&#8217;s started.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then one of the introduced&mdash;it was a girl wearing a mask
+&mdash;took Audrey by the waist and whirled her strongly away
+and she was lost in the maze. Audrey&#8217;s first impulse was to
+protest, but she said to herself: &#8220;Why protest? This is
+what we&#8217;re here for.&#8221; And she gave herself up to the dance.
+Her partner held her very firmly, somewhat bending over
+her. Neither spoke. Gyrating in long curves, with the other
+dancers swishing mysteriously about them like the dancers of
+a dream, and the music as far off as another world, they
+clung together in the rhythm and in the enchantment, until
+the music ceased.... The strong girl threw Audrey carelessly
+off, and walked away, breathing hard. And there was
+something in the strong girl&#8217;s nonchalant and curt departure
+which woke a chord in Audrey&#8217;s soul that had never been
+wakened before. Audrey could scarcely credit that she was
+on the same planet as Essex. She had many dances with
+men whom she hoped and believed she had been introduced to
+by Tommy, and no less than seventeen persons of either sex
+told her in unusual English that they had heard she wanted
+to learn French and that they would like to teach her; and
+then she met Musa, the devil.</p>
+
+<p>Musa, with an indolent and wistful smile, suggested the
+roof. Audrey was now just one of the throng, and quite
+unconscious of herself; she fought archly and gaily on the
+spiral staircase exactly as she had seen others do, and at last
+they were on the roof, and the silhouettes of other fantastic
+figures and of cowled chimney pots stood out dark against the
+vague yellow glow of the city beneath. While Musa was
+pointing out the historic landmarks to her, she was thinking
+how she could never again be the girl who had left Moze
+on the previous morning. And yet Musa was so natural and
+so direct that it was impossible to take him for anything but
+a boy, and hence Audrey sank back into early girlhood,
+talking spasmodically to Musa as she used in school days to
+talk to the brother of her school friend.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will teach you French,&#8221; said Musa, unaware that he
+had numerous predecessors in the offer. &#8220;But will you play
+tennis with me in the gardens of the Luxembourg?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said she would, and that she would buy a
+racket.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tell me about all those artists Miss Nickall spoke of,&#8221;
+she said. &#8220;I must know about all the artists, and all the
+musicians, and all the authors. I must know all about them
+at once. I shan&#8217;t sleep until I know all their names and I
+can talk French. I shan&#8217;t <em>sleep</em>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa began the catalogue. When a girl came and
+chucked him under the chin, he angrily slapped her face.
+Then, to avoid complications, they descended.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of the studio, wearing a silk hat, a morning
+coat, striped trousers, yellow gloves, and boots with spats,
+stood a smiling figure.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>VoilĂ </em> Dauphin!&#8221; said Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa!&#8221; called Monsieur Dauphin, espying the youth on
+the staircase. Then he made a gesture to the orchestra:
+&#8220;Give him a violin!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey stood by Musa while he played a dance that nobody
+danced to, and when he had finished she was rather
+ashamed, under the curtain of wild cheering, because with her
+Essex incredulity she had not sufficiently believed in Musa&#8217;s
+greatness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Permit your host to introduce himself,&#8221; said a voice
+behind her, not in the correct English of a linguistic Frenchman,
+but in utterly English English. She had now
+descended to the floor of the studio.</p>
+
+<p>Emile Dauphin raised his glossy hat, and then asked to
+be allowed to put it on again, as the company had decided
+that it was part of his costume. He had a delicious smile, at
+once respectful and intimate. Audrey had read somewhere
+that really great men were always simple and unaffected&mdash;indeed
+that it was often impossible to guess from their
+demeanour that, etc., etc.&mdash;and this experience of the first
+celebrity with whom she had ever spoken (except Musa, who
+was somehow only Musa) confirmed the statement, and confirmed
+also her young instinctive belief that what is printed
+must be true. She was beginning to feel the stealthy on-comings
+of fatigue, and certainly she was very nervous, but
+Monsieur Dauphin&#8217;s quite particularly sympathetic manner,
+and her own sudden determination not to be a little blushing
+fool gave her new power.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t express to you,&#8221; he said, moving towards the
+dais and mesmerising her to keep by his side. &#8220;I can&#8217;t
+express to you how sorry I was to be so late.&#8221; He made
+the apology with lightness, but with sincerity. Audrey knew
+how polite the French were. &#8220;But truly circumstances were
+too much for me. Those two Russian princesses&mdash;they came
+to me through a mutual friend, a dear old friend of mine,
+very closely attached also to them. They leave to-morrow
+morning by the St. Petersburg express, on which they have
+engaged a special coach. What was I to do? I tried to
+tear myself away earlier, but of course there were the portrait
+sketches to finish, and no doubt you know the usage of the
+best society in Russia.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; murmured Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come up on the dais, will you?&#8221; he suggested. &#8220;And
+let us survey the scene together.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They surveyed the scene together. The snouted band
+was having supper on the floor in a corner, and many
+of the guests also were seated on the floor. Miss Ingate,
+intoxicated by the rapture of existence, and Miss
+Thompkins were carefully examining the frescoes on
+the walls. A young woman covered from head to foot with
+gold tinsel was throwing chocolates into Musa&#8217;s mouth, or
+as near to it as she could.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What a splendid player Mr. Musa is!&#8221; Audrey inaugurated
+her career as a woman of the world. &#8220;I doubt
+if I have ever heard such violin playing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so glad you think so,&#8221; replied Monsieur Dauphin.
+&#8220;Of course you know I&#8217;m very conceited about my
+painting. Anybody will tell you so. But beneath all that
+I&#8217;m not so sure. I often have the gravest doubts about
+my work. But I never had any doubt that when I took
+Musa out of the orchestra in the Café de Versailles I was
+giving a genius to the world. And perhaps that&#8217;s how
+I shall be remembered by posterity. And if it is I shall
+be content.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Never before had Audrey heard anybody connect himself
+with posterity, and she was very much impressed. Monsieur
+Dauphin was resigned and yet brave. By no means convinced
+that posterity would do the right thing, he nevertheless
+had no grudge against posterity.</p>
+
+<p>Just then there was a sharp scream at the top of the
+spiral staircase. With a smile that condoned the scream
+and excused his flight, Monsieur Dauphin ran to the
+staircase, and up it, and disappeared on to the roof.
+Nobody seemed to be perturbed. Audrey was left alone
+and conspicuous on the dais.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Charming, isn&#8217;t he?&#8221; said Miss Thompkins, arriving
+with Miss Ingate in front of the flower-screened
+platform.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! he is!&#8221; answered Audrey with sincerity, leaning
+downwards.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Has he told you all about the Russian princesses?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes,&#8221; said Audrey, pleased.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought he would,&#8221; said Miss Thompkins, with a
+peculiar intonation.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey knew then that Miss Thompkins, having first
+maliciously made sure that she was a ninny, was now
+telling her to her face that she was a ninny.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy continued:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then I guess he told you he&#8217;d given Musa to the
+world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! I knew he would. Well, when he comes back
+he&#8217;ll tell you that you must come to one of his <em>real</em>
+entertainments here, and that this one is nothing. Then
+he&#8217;ll tell you about all the nobs he knows in London. And
+at last he&#8217;ll say that you have a strangely expressive face,
+and he&#8217;d like to paint it and show the picture in the
+Salon. But he won&#8217;t tell you it&#8217;ll cost you forty thousand
+francs. So I&#8217;ll tell you that, because perhaps later on,
+if you don&#8217;t know, you might find yourself making a noise
+like a tenderfoot. You see, Miss Ingate hasn&#8217;t concealed
+that you&#8217;re a lady millionaire.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I haven&#8217;t,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, glowing and yet
+sarcastic. &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t bring myself to, because I was so
+anxious to see if human nature in Paris is anything like
+what it is in Essex.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why should you hide it, Winnie?&#8221; Audrey stoutly
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, au revoir,&#8221; Tommy murmured delicately, with
+a very original gesture. &#8220;He&#8217;s coming back.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As Monsieur Dauphin, having apparently established
+peace on the roof, approached again, Audrey discreetly
+examined his face and his demeanour, to see if she could
+perceive in him any of the sinister things that Tommy
+had implied. She was unable to make up her mind whether
+she could or not. But in the end she decided that she
+was as shrewd as anybody in the place.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you been to my roof-garden, Mrs. Moncreiff?&#8221;
+he asked in a persuasive voice, raising his eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>She said she had, and that she thought the roof was
+heavenly.</p>
+
+<p>Then from the corner of her eye she saw Miss Ingate
+and Tommy sidling mischievously away, like conspirators
+who have lighted a time fuse. She considered that Tommy,
+with her red hair and freckles, and strange glances and
+strange tones full of a naughty and malicious sweetness,
+was even more peculiar than Miss Ingate. But she was
+not intimidated by them nor by the illustrious Monsieur
+Dauphin, so perfectly master of his faculties. Rather she
+was exultant in the contagion of their malice. Once more
+she felt as if she had ceased to be a girl a very long
+time ago. And she was aware of agreeable and exciting
+temptations.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you taking a house in Paris?&#8221; inquired Monsieur
+Dauphin.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey answered primly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I haven&#8217;t decided. Should you advise me to do so?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He waved a hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! It depends on the life you wish to lead. Who
+knows&mdash;with a young woman who has all experience behind
+her and all life before her! But I do hope I may see
+you again. And I trust I may persuade you to come to
+my studio again.&#8221; Audrey felt the thrill of drama as he
+proceeded. &#8220;This is scarcely a night for you. I ought
+to tell you that I give three entertainments during the
+autumn. To-night is the first. It is for students and those
+English and Americans who think they are seeing Paris
+here. Then I give another for the political and dramatic
+worlds. Each is secretly proud to meet the other. The
+third I reserve to my friends. Some of my many friends
+in London are good enough to come over specially for it.
+It is on Christmas Eve. I do wish you would come to
+that one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose,&#8221; she said, catching the diabolic glances of
+Miss Ingate and Tommy, &#8220;I suppose you know almost
+more people in London than in Paris?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He answered:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I count among my friends more than two-thirds
+of the subscribers to Covent Garden Opera.... By the
+way, do you happen to be connected with the Moncreiffs
+of Suddon Wester? They have a charming house in Hyde
+Park Terrace. But probably you know it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey burst out laughing. She laughed loud and
+violently till the tears stood in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; he said, at a loss, deprecatingly. &#8220;Perhaps
+these Moncreiffs <em>are</em> rather weird.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was only laughing,&#8221; she said in gasps, but with a
+complete secret composure. &#8220;Because we had such an awful
+quarrel with them last year. I couldn&#8217;t tell you the details.
+They&#8217;re too shocking.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He gave a dubious smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;D&#8217;you know, dear young lady,&#8221; he recommenced after
+a brief pause, &#8220;I should adore to paint a portrait of you
+laughing. It would be very well hung in the Salon. Your
+face is so strangely expressive. It is utterly different, in
+expression, from any other face I ever saw&mdash;and I have
+studied faces.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Heedless of the general interest which she was arousing,
+Audrey leaned on the rail of the screen of flowers, and
+gave herself up afresh to laughter. Monsieur Dauphin
+was decidedly puzzled. The affair might have ended in
+hysteria and confusion had not Miss Ingate, with Nick
+and Tommy, come hurrying up to the dais.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_11" id="chapter_11" />CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>A POLITICAL REFUGEE</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Rosamund has come to my studio and wants to see me
+at once. <em>She has sent for me.</em> Miss Ingate says she
+shall go, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was these words in a highly emotionalised voice from
+Miss Nickall that, like a vague murmured message of vast
+events, drew the entire quartet away from the bright
+inebriated scene created by Monsieur Dauphin.</p>
+
+<p>The single word &#8220;Rosamund&#8221; sufficed to break one
+mood and induce another in all bosoms save that of Audrey,
+who was in a state of permanent joyous exultation that
+she scarcely even attempted to control. The great militant
+had a surname, but it was rarely used save by police
+magistrates. Her Christian name alone was more impressive
+than the myriad cognomens of queens and princesses. Miss
+Nickall ran away home at once. Miss Thompkins was
+left to deliver Miss Ingate and Audrey at Nick&#8217;s studio,
+which, being in the Rue Delambre, was not far away.
+And not the shedding of the kimono and the re-assumption
+of European attire could affect Audrey&#8217;s spirits. Had
+she been capable of regret in that hour, she would have
+regretted the abandonment of the ball, where the refined,
+spiritual, strange faces of the men, and the enigmatic
+quality of the women, and the exceeding novelty of the
+social code had begun to arouse in her sentiments of
+approval and admiration. But she quitted the staggering
+frolic without a sigh; for she carried within her a frolic
+surpassing anything exterior or physical.</p>
+
+<p>The immense flickering boulevard with its double
+roadway stretched away to the horizon on either hand,
+empty.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What time is it?&#8221; asked Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy looked at her wrist-watch.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t tell me! Don&#8217;t tell me!&#8221; cried Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We might get a taxi in the Rue de Babylone,&#8221; Tommy
+suggested. &#8220;Or shall we walk?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We <em>must</em> walk,&#8221; cried Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>She knew the name of the street. In the distance she
+could recognise the dying lights of the café-restaurant where
+they had eaten. She felt already like an inhabitant of
+the dreamed-of city. It was almost inconceivable to her
+that she had been within it for only a few hours, and that
+England lay less than a day behind her in the past, and
+Moze less than two days. And Aguilar the morose, and
+the shuttered rooms of Flank Hall, shot for an instant into
+her mind and out again.</p>
+
+<p>The other two women walked rather quickly, mesmerised
+possibly by the magic of the illustrious Christian name,
+and Audrey gave occasional schoolgirlish leaps by their
+side. A little policeman appeared inquisitive from a by-street,
+and Audrey tossed her head as if saying: &#8220;Pooh! I belong
+here. All the mystery of this city is mine, and I am as
+at home as in Moze Street.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And as they surged through the echoing solitude of
+the boulevard, and as they crossed the equally tremendous
+boulevard that cut through it east and west, Tommy told
+the story of Nick&#8217;s previous relations with Rosamund. Nick
+had met Rosamund once before through her English chum,
+Betty Burke, an art student who had ultimately sacrificed
+art to the welfare of her sex, but who with Mrs. Burke
+had shared rooms and studio with Nick for many months.
+Tommy&#8217;s narrative was spotted with hardly perceptible
+sarcasms concerning art, women, Betty Burke, Mrs. Burke,
+and Nick; but she put no barb into Rosamund. And
+when Miss Ingate, who had never met Rosamund, asked
+what Rosamund amounted to in the esteem of Tommy,
+Tommy evaded the question. Miss Ingate remembered,
+however, what she had said in the café-restaurant.</p>
+
+<p>Then they turned into the Rue Delambre, and Tommy
+halted them in the deep obscurity in front of another of
+those huge black doors which throughout Paris seemed
+to guard the secrets of individual life. An automobile
+was waiting close by. A little door in the huge one
+clicked and yielded, and they climbed over a step into
+black darkness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thompkins!&#8221; called Miss Thompkins loudly to the
+black darkness, to reassure the drowsy concierge in his
+hidden den, shutting the door with a bang behind them;
+and, groping for the hands of the others, she dragged
+them forward stumbling.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I never have a match,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>They blundered up tenebrous stairs.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re just passing my door,&#8221; said Tommy. &#8220;Nick&#8217;s
+is higher up.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then a perpendicular slit of light showed itself&mdash;and
+a portal slightly open could be distinguished.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall quit here,&#8221; said Tommy. &#8220;You go right in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You aren&#8217;t leaving us?&#8221; exclaimed Miss Ingate in
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t go in,&#8221; Tommy persisted in a quiet satiric
+tone. &#8220;I&#8217;ll leave my door open below, and see you when
+you come down.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She could be heard descending.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why, I guess they&#8217;re here,&#8221; said a voice, Nick&#8217;s,
+within, and the door was pulled wide open.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My legs are all of a tremble!&#8221; muttered Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Nick&#8217;s studio seemed larger than reality because of its
+inadequate illumination. On a small paint-stained table
+in the centre was an oil-lamp beneath a round shade that
+had been decorated by some artist&#8217;s hand with a series
+of reclining women in many colours. This lamp made a
+moon in the midnight of the studio, but it was a moon
+almost without rays; the shade seemed to imprison the
+light, save that which escaped from its superior orifice.
+Against the table stood a tall thin woman in black. Her
+face was lit by the rays escaping upward; a pale, firm,
+bland face, with rather prominent cheeks, loose grey hair
+above, surmounted by a toque. The dress was dark, and
+the only noticeable feature of it was that the sleeves were
+finished in white linen; from these the hands emerged
+calm and veined under the lampshade; in one of them
+a pair of gloves were clasped. On the table lay a thin
+mantle.</p>
+
+<p>At the back of the studio there sat another woman, so
+engloomed that no detail of her could be distinguished.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As I was saying,&#8221; the tall upright woman resumed as
+soon as Miss Ingate and Audrey had been introduced.
+&#8220;Betty Burke is in prison. She got six weeks this morning.
+She may never come out again. Almost her last words from
+the dock were that you, Miss Nickall, should be asked to go
+to London to look after Mrs. Burke, and perhaps to take
+Betty&#8217;s place in other ways. She said that her mother preferred
+you to anybody else, and that she was sure you would
+come. Shall you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The accents were very clear, the face was delicately
+smiling, the little gestures had a quite tranquil quality.
+Rosamund did not seem to care whether Miss Nickall obeyed
+the summons or not. She did not seem to care about anything
+whatever except her own manner of existing. She was
+the centre of Paris, and Paris was naught but a circumference
+for her. All phenomena beyond the individuality of the
+woman were reduced to the irrelevant and the negligible. It
+would have been absurd to mention to her costume balls.
+The frost of her indifference would have wilted them into
+nothingness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, of course, I shall go,&#8221; Nick answered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When?&#8221; was the implacable question.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! By the first train,&#8221; said Nick eagerly. As she
+approached the lamp, the gleam of the devotee could be seen
+in her gaze. In one moment she had sacrificed Paris and art
+and Tommy and herself, and had risen to the sacred ardour
+of a vocation. Rosamund was well accustomed to watching
+the process, and she gave not the least sign of satisfaction or
+approval.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I ought to tell you,&#8221; she went on, &#8220;that I came over
+from London suddenly by the afternoon service in order to
+escape arrest. I am now a political refugee. Things have
+come to this pass. You will do well to leave by the first
+train. That is why I decided to call here before going to
+bed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s Tommy?&#8221; asked Nick, appealing wildly to
+Miss Ingate and Audrey. Upon being answered she said,
+still more wildly: &#8220;I must see her. Can you&mdash;No, I&#8217;ll run
+down myself.&#8221; In the doorway she turned round: &#8220;Mrs.
+Moncreiff, would you and Miss Ingate like to have my studio
+while I&#8217;m away? I should just love you to. There&#8217;s a very
+nice bed over there behind the screen, and a fair sort of couch
+over here. Do say you will! <em>Do</em>!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! We will!&#8221; Miss Ingate replied at once, reassuringly,
+as though in haste to grant the supreme request of
+some condemned victim. And indeed Miss Nickall appeared
+ready to burst into tears if she should be thwarted.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Nick had gone, Miss Ingate&#8217;s smiling face,
+nervous, intimidated, audacious, sardonic, and good
+humoured, moved out of the gloom nearer to Rosamund.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You knew I played the barrel organ all down Regent
+Street?&#8221; she ventured, blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; murmured Rosamund, unmoved. &#8220;It was you
+who played the barrel-organ? So it was.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;But I&#8217;m like you. I don&#8217;t
+care passionately for prison. Eh! Eh! I&#8217;m not so vehy,
+vehy fond of it. I don&#8217;t know Miss Burke, but what a pity
+she has got six weeks, isn&#8217;t it? Still, I was vehy much
+struck by what someone said to me to-day&mdash;that you&#8217;d be
+vehy sorry if women <em>did</em> get the vote. I think I should be
+sorry, too&mdash;you know what I mean.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perfectly,&#8221; ejaculated Rosamund, with a pleasant smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope I&#8217;m not skidding,&#8221; said Miss Ingate still more
+timidly, but also with a sardonic giggle, looking round into
+the gloom. &#8220;I do skid sometimes, you know, and we&#8217;ve just
+come away from a&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She could not finish.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And Mrs. Moncreiff, if I&#8217;ve got the name right, is she
+with us, too?&#8221; asked Rosamund, miraculously urbane. And
+added: &#8220;I hear she has wealth and is the mistress of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey jumped up, smiling, and lifting her veil. She
+could not help smiling. The studio, the lamp, Rosamund
+with her miraculous self-complacency, Nick with her soft,
+mad eyes and wistful voice, the blundering ruthless Miss
+Ingate, all seemed intensely absurd to her. Everything
+seemed absurd except dancing and revelry and coloured lights
+and strange disguises and sensuous contacts. She had the
+most careless contempt, stiffened by a slight loathing, for
+political movements and every melancholy effort to reform
+the world. The world did not need reforming and did not
+want to be reformed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps you don&#8217;t know my story,&#8221; Audrey began, not
+realising how she would continue. &#8220;I am a widow. I made
+an unhappy marriage. My husband on the day after our
+wedding-day began to eat peas with his knife. In a week
+I was forced to leave him. And a fortnight later I heard
+that he was dead of blood-poisoning. He had cut his
+mouth.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is the matter with me? I have ruined myself.&#8221;
+All her exultation had collapsed.</p>
+
+<p>But Rosamund remarked gravely:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is a common story.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there was a movement in the obscure corner
+where sat the unnamed and unintroduced lady. This lady
+rose and came towards the table. She was very elegant in
+dress and manner, and she looked maturely young.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame Piriac,&#8221; announced Rosamund.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey recoiled.... Gazing hard at the face, she saw
+in it a vague but undeniable resemblance to certain admired
+photographs which had arrived at Moze from France.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pardon me!&#8221; said Madame Piriac in English with a
+strong French accent. &#8220;I shall like very much to hear the
+details of this story of <em>petits pois</em>.&#8221; The tone of Madame
+Piriac&#8217;s question was unexceptionable; it took account of
+Audrey&#8217;s mourning attire, and of her youthfulness; but
+Audrey could formulate no answer to it. Instead of speaking
+she gave a touch to her veil, and it dropped before her
+piquant, troubled, inscrutable face like a screen.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate said with noticeable calm, but also with
+the air of a conspirator who sees danger to a most secret
+machination:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m afraid Mrs. Moncreiff won&#8217;t care to go into details.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was neatly done. Madame Piriac brought the episode
+to a close with a sympathetic smile and an apposite gesture.
+And Audrey, safe behind her veil, glanced gratefully and
+admiringly at Miss Ingate, who, taken quite unawares, had
+been so surprisingly able thus to get her out of a scrape.
+She felt very young and callow among these three women,
+and the mere presence of Madame Piriac, of whom years
+ago she had created for herself a wondrous image, put her
+into a considerable flutter. On the whole she was ready to
+believe that the actual Madame Piriac was quite equal to the
+image of her founded on photographs and letters. She set
+her teeth, and decided that Madame Piriac should not
+learn her identity&mdash;yet! There was little risk of her discovering
+it for herself, for no photograph of Audrey had
+gone to Paris for a dozen years, and Miss Ingate&#8217;s loyalty
+was absolute.</p>
+
+<p>As Audrey sat down again, the illustrious Rosamund took
+a chair near her, and it could not be doubted that the woman
+had the mien and the carriage of a leader.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are very rich, are you not?&#8221; asked Rosamund, in
+a tone at once deferential and intimate, and she smiled very
+attractively in the gloom. Impossible not to reckon with
+that smile, as startling as it was seductive!</p>
+
+<p>Evidently Nick had been communicative.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose I am,&#8221; murmured Audrey, like a child, and
+feeling like a child. Yet at the same time she was asking
+herself with fierce curiosity: &#8220;What has Madame Piriac got
+to do with this woman?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hear you have eight or ten thousand a year and can
+do what you like with it. And you cannot be more than
+twenty-three.... What a responsibility it must be for you!
+You are a friend of Miss Ingate&#8217;s and therefore on our side.
+Indeed, if a woman such as you were not on our side, I
+wonder whom we <em>could</em> count on. Miss Ingate is, of course,
+a subscriber to the Union&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Only a very little one,&#8221; cried Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had never felt so abashed since an ex-parlourmaid
+at Flank Hall, who had left everything to join the Salvation
+Army, had asked her once in the streets of Colchester
+whether she had found salvation. She knew that she, if any
+one, ought to subscribe to the Suffragette Union, and to
+subscribe largely. For she was a convinced suffragette by
+faith, because Miss Ingate was a convinced suffragette. If
+Miss Ingate had been a Mormon, Audrey also would have
+been a Mormon. And, although she hated to subscribe, she
+knew also that if Rosamund demanded from her any subscription,
+however large&mdash;even a thousand pounds&mdash;she would
+not know how to refuse. She felt before Rosamund as
+hundreds of women, and not a few men, had felt.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I may be leaving for Germany to-morrow,&#8221; Rosamund
+proceeded. &#8220;I may not see you again&mdash;at any rate for many
+weeks. May I write to London that you mean to support
+us?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was giving herself up for lost, and not without
+reason. She foreshadowed a future of steely self-sacrifice,
+propaganda, hammers, riots, and prison; with no self-indulgence
+in it, no fine clothes, no art, and no young men
+save earnest young men. She saw herself in the iron clutch
+of her own conscience and sense of duty. And she was
+frightened. But at that moment Nick rushed into the room,
+and the spell was broken. Nick considered that she had the
+right to monopolise Rosamund, and she monopolised her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate prudently gathered Audrey to her side, and
+was off with her. Nick ran to kiss them, and told them that
+Tommy was waiting for them in the other studio. They
+groped downstairs, guided by a wisp of light from Tommy&#8217;s
+studio.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why didn&#8217;t you come up?&#8221; asked Miss Ingate of
+Tommy in Tommy&#8217;s antechamber. &#8220;Have you and <em>she</em>
+quarrelled?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh no!&#8221; said Tommy. &#8220;But I&#8217;m afraid of her. She&#8217;d
+grab me if she had the least chance, and I don&#8217;t want to be
+grabbed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Tommy was arranging to escort them home, and had
+already got out on the landing, when Rosamund and Madame
+Piriac, followed by Nick holding a candle aloft, came down
+the stairs. A few words of explanation, a little innocent
+blundering on the part of Nick, a polite suggestion by
+Madame Piriac, and an imperious affirmative by Rosamund&mdash;and
+the two strangers to Paris found themselves
+in Madame Piriac&#8217;s waiting automobile on the way to
+their rooms!</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness of the car the four women could not distinguish
+each other&#8217;s faces. But Rosamund&#8217;s voice was
+audible in a monologue, and Miss Ingate trembled for
+Audrey and for the future.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is the most important political movement in the
+history of the world,&#8221; Rosamund was saying, not at all in a
+speechifying manner, but quite intimately and naturally.
+&#8220;Everybody admits that, and that&#8217;s what makes it so extraordinarily
+interesting, and that is why we have had such
+magnificent help from women in the very highest positions
+who wouldn&#8217;t dream of touching ordinary politics. It&#8217;s a
+marvellous thing to be in the movement, if we can only
+realise it. Don&#8217;t you think so, Mrs. Moncreiff?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey made no response. The other two sat silent.
+Miss Ingate thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the girl going to do next? Surely she could
+mumble something.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The car curved and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here we are,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, delighted. &#8220;And
+thank you so much. I suppose all we have to do is just
+to push the bell and the door opens. Now Audrey, dear.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey did not stir.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Mon Dieu!</em>&#8220; murmured Madame Piriac, &#8220;What has
+she, little one?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Rosamund said stiffly and curtly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She is asleep.... It is very late. Four o&#8217;clock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Excellent as was Audrey&#8217;s excuse for her lapse, Rosamund
+was not at all pleased. That slumber was one of
+Rosamund&#8217;s rare defeats.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_12" id="chapter_12" />CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey was in a white piqué coat and short skirt, with
+pale blue blouse and pale blue hat&mdash;and at the extremity
+blue stockings and white tennis shoes. She picked up a
+tennis racket in its press, and prepared to leave the studio.
+She had bought the coat, the skirt, the blouse, the hat, the
+tennis shoes, the racket, the press, and practically all she
+wore, visible and invisible, at that very convenient and immense
+shop, the Bon Marché, whose only drawback was
+that it was always full. Everybody in the Quarter, except
+a few dolls not in earnest, bought everything at the Bon
+Marché, because the Bon Marché was so comprehensive and
+so reliable. If you desired a toothbrush, the Bon Marché
+not only supplied it, but delivered it in a 30-h.p. motor-van
+manned by two officials in uniform. And if you desired a
+bedroom suite, a pair of corsets, a box of pastels, an anthracite
+stove, or a new wallpaper, the Bon Marché would never
+shake its head.</p>
+
+<p>And Audrey was now of the Quarter. Many simple
+sojourners in the Quarter tried to imply the Latin Quarter
+when they said the Quarter. But the Quarter was only the
+Montparnasse Quarter. Nevertheless, it sufficed. It had
+its own boulevards, restaurants, cafés, concerts, theatres,
+palaces, shops, gardens, museums, and churches. There
+was no need to leave it, and if you were a proper amateur
+of the Quarter, you never did leave it save to scoff at other
+Quarters. Sometimes you fringed the Latin Quarter in the
+big cafés of the Boulevard St. Michel, and sometimes you
+strolled northwards as far as the Seine, and occasionally
+even crossed the Seine in order to enter the Louvre, which
+lined the other bank, but you did not go any farther. Why
+should you?</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had become so acclimatised to the Quarter that
+Miss Nickall&#8217;s studio seemed her natural home. It was very
+typically a woman&#8217;s studio of the Quarter. About thirty feet
+each way and fourteen feet high, with certain irregularities
+of shape, it was divided into corners. There were the two
+bed-corners, which were lounge-corners during the day; the
+afternoon-tea corner, with a piece or two of antique furniture
+and some old silk hangings, where on high afternoons
+tea was given to droves of visitors; and there was the culinary
+corner, with spirit-lamps, gas-rings, kettles, and a bowl
+or two over which you might spend a couple of arduous hours
+in ineffectually whipping up a mayonnaise for an impromptu
+lunch. Artistic operations were carried out in the middle of
+the studio, not too far from the stove, which never went out
+from November to May. A large mirror hung paramount
+on one wall. The remaining spaces of the studio were filled
+with old easels, canvases, old frames, old costumes and
+multifarious other properties for pictures, trunks, lamps,
+boards, tables, and bric-Ă -brac bought at the Ham-and-Old-Iron
+Fair. There were a million objects in the studio, and
+their situations had to be, and were, learnt off by heart.
+The scene of the toilette was a small attached chamber.</p>
+
+<p>The housekeeping combined the simplicity of the early
+Christians with the efficient organising of the twentieth century.
+It began at about half-past seven, when unseen but
+heard beings left fresh rolls and the <em>New York Herald</em> or
+the <em>Daily Mail</em> at the studio door. You made your own bed,
+just as you cleaned your own boots or washed your own face.
+The larder consisted of tins of coffee, tea, sugar, and cakes,
+with an intermittent supply of butter and lemons. The infusing
+of tea and coffee was practised in perfection. It
+mattered not in the least whether toilette or breakfast came
+first, but it was exceedingly important that the care of the
+stove should precede both. Between ten and eleven the concierge&#8217;s
+wife arrived with tools and utensils; she swept and
+dusted under a considerable percentage of the million objects&mdash;and
+the responsibilities of housekeeping were finished until
+the next day, for afternoon tea, if it occurred, was a diversion
+and not a toil.</p>
+
+<p>A great expanse of twelve to fifteen hours lay in front
+of you. It was not uncomfortably and unchangeably cut
+into fixed portions by the incidence of lunch and dinner.
+You ate when you felt inclined to eat, and nearly always at
+restaurants where you met your acquaintances. Meals were
+the least important happenings of the day. You had no
+reliable watch, and you needed none, for you had no fixed
+programme. You worked till you had had enough of work.
+You went forth into the world exactly when the idea took
+you. If you were bored, you found a friend and went to
+sit in a café. You were ready for anything. The word
+&#8220;rule&#8221; had been omitted from your dictionary. You retired
+to bed when the still small voice within murmured
+that there was naught else to do. You woke up in the
+morning amid cups and saucers, lingerie, masterpieces, and
+boots. And the next day was the same. All the days were
+the same. Weeks passed with inexpressible rapidity, and
+all things beyond the Quarter had the quality of vague
+murmurings and noises behind the scenes.</p>
+
+<p>May had come. Audrey and Miss Ingate had lived in
+the studio for six months before they realised that they had
+settled down there and that habits had been formed. Still,
+they had accomplished something. Miss Ingate had gone
+back into oils and was attending life classes, and Audrey,
+by terrible application and by sitting daily at the feet of an
+oldish lady in black, and by refusing to speak English between
+breakfast and dinner, had acquired a good accent and
+much fluency in the French tongue. Now, when she spoke
+French, she thought in French, and she was extremely proud
+of the achievement. Also she was acquainted with the names
+and styles of all known modern painters from pointillistes to
+cubistes, and, indeed, with the latest eccentricities in all the
+arts. She could tell who was immortal, and she was fully
+aware that there was no real painting in England. In brief,
+she was perhaps more Parisian even than she had hoped. She
+had absorbed Paris into her system. It was still not the Paris
+of her early fancy; in particular, it lacked elegance; but it
+richly satisfied her.</p>
+
+<p>She had on this afternoon of young May an appointment
+with a young man. And the appointment seemed quite
+natural, causing no inward disturbance. Less than ever could
+she understand her father&#8217;s ukases against young men and
+against every form of self-indulgence. Now, when she had
+the idea of doing a thing, she merely did it. Her instincts
+were her only guide, and, though her instincts were often
+highly complex, they seldom puzzled her. The old instinct
+that the desire to do a thing was a sufficient reason against
+doing it, had expired. For many weeks she had lived with
+a secret fear that such unbridled conduct must lead to terrible
+catastrophes, but as nothing happened this fear also
+expired. She was constantly with young men, and often with
+men not young; she liked it, but just as much she liked being
+with women. She never had any difficulties with men. Miss
+Thompkins insinuated at intervals that she flirted, but she
+had the sharpest contempt for flirtation, and as a practice
+put it on a level with embezzlement or arson. Miss Thompkins,
+however, kept on insinuating. Audrey regarded herself
+as decidedly wiser than Miss Thompkins. Her opinions
+on vital matters changed almost weekly, but she was always
+absolutely sure that the new opinion was final and incontrovertible.
+Her scorn of the old English Audrey, though concealed,
+was terrific.</p>
+
+<p>And it is to be remembered that she was a widow. She was
+never half a second late, now, in replying when addressed
+as &#8220;Mrs. Moncreiff.&#8221; Frequently she thought that she in
+fact was a widow. Widowhood was a very advantageous
+state. It had a free pass to all affairs of interest. It opened
+wide the door of the world. It recked nothing of girlish
+codes. It abolished discussions concerning conventional propriety.
+Its chief defect, for Audrey, was that if she met
+another widow, or even a married woman, she had to take
+heed lest she stumbled. Fortunately, neither widows nor
+wives were very prevalent in the Quarter. And Audrey had
+attained skill in the use of the state of widowhood. She told
+no more infantile perilous tales about husbands who ate peas
+with a knife. In her thankfulness that the tyrannic Rosamund
+had gone to Germany, and that Madame Piriac had
+vanished back into unknown Paris, Audrey was at pains to
+take to heart the lesson of a semi-hysterical blunder.</p>
+
+<p>She descended the dark, dusty oak stairs utterly content.
+And at the door of the gloomy den of the concierge the concierge&#8217;s
+wife was standing. She was a new wife, the young
+mate of a middle-aged husband, and she had only been illuminating
+the den (which was kitchen, parlour, and bedroom
+in a space of ten feet by eight) for about a month. She was
+plump and pretty, and also she was fair, which was unusual
+for a Frenchwoman. She wore a striped frock and a little
+black apron, and her yellow hair was waved with art. Audrey
+offered her the key of the studio with a smile, and, as Audrey
+expected, the concierge&#8217;s wife began to chatter. The concierge&#8217;s
+wife loved to chatter with Anglo-Saxon tenants, and
+she specially enjoyed chattering with Audrey, because of the
+superior quality of Audrey&#8217;s French and of her tips. Audrey
+listened, proud because she could understand so well and
+answer so fluently.</p>
+
+<p>The sun, which in May shone on the courtyard for about
+forty minutes in the afternoon on clear days, caught these
+two creatures in the same beam. They made a delicious
+sight&mdash;Audrey dark, with her large forehead and negligible
+nose, and the concierge&#8217;s wife rather doll-like in the regularity
+of her features. They were delicious not only because
+of their varied charm, but because they were so absurdly
+wise and omniscient, and because they had come to settled
+conclusions about every kind of worldly problem. Youth and
+vitality equalised their ranks, and the fact that Audrey possessed
+many ascertained ancestors, and a part of the earth&#8217;s
+surface, and much money, and that the concierge&#8217;s wife possessed
+nothing but herself and a few bits of furniture, was
+not of the slightest importance.</p>
+
+<p>The concierge&#8217;s wife, after curiosity concerning tennis,
+grew confidential about herself, and more confidential. And
+at last she lowered her tones, and with sparkling eyes
+communicated information to Audrey in a voice that was
+little more than a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! truly? I must go,&#8221; hastily said Audrey, blushing,
+and off she ran, reduced in an instant to the schoolgirl.
+Her departure was a retreat. These occasional discomfitures
+made a faint blot on the excellence of being a
+widow.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_13" id="chapter_13" />CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SWOON</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the north-east corner of the Luxembourg Gardens,
+where the lawn-tennis courts were permitted by a public
+authority which was strangely impartial and cosmopolitan
+in the matter of games, Miss Ingate sat sketching a group
+of statuary with the Rue de Vaugirard behind it. She
+was sketching in the orthodox way, on the orthodox stool,
+with the orthodox combined paint-box and easel, and the
+orthodox police permit in the cover of the box.</p>
+
+<p>The bright and warm weather was tonic; it accounted
+for the whole temperament of Parisians. Under such a
+sky, with such a delicate pricking vitalisation in the air,
+it was impossible not to be Parisian. The trees, all
+arranged in beautiful perspectives, were coming into leaf,
+and through their screens could be seen everywhere children
+shouting as they played at ball and top, and both kinds
+of nurses, and scores of perambulators and mothers, and
+a few couples dallying with their sensations, and old men
+reading papers, and old women knitting and relating
+anecdotes or entire histories. And nobody was curious
+beyond his own group. The people were perfectly at home
+in this grandiose setting of gardens and fountains and
+grey palaces, with theatres, boulevards and the odour and
+roar of motor-buses just beyond the palisades. And Miss
+Ingate in the exciting sunshine gazed around with her
+subdued Essex grin, as if saying: &#8220;It&#8217;s the most topsy-turvy
+planet that I was ever on, and why am I, of all
+people, trying to make this canvas look like a piece of
+sculpture and a street?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, Miss Ingate,&#8221; said tall red-haired Tommy, who
+was standing over her. &#8220;Before you go any farther, do
+look at the line of roofs and see how interesting it is;
+it&#8217;s really full of interest. And you&#8217;ve simply not got on
+speaking terms with it yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No more I have! No more I have!&#8221; cried Miss
+Ingate, glancing round at Audrey, who was swinging her
+racket. &#8220;Thank you, Tommy. I ought to have thought
+of it for my own sake, because roofs are so much
+easier than statues, and I must get an effect somewhere,
+mustn&#8217;t I?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Tommy winked at Audrey. But Tommy&#8217;s wink was
+as naught to the great invisible wink of Miss Ingate,
+the everlasting wink that derided the universe and the sun
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Then Musa appeared, with paraphernalia, at the end
+of a path. Accompanying him was a specimen of the
+creature known on tennis lawns as &#8220;a fourth.&#8221; He was
+almost nameless, tall, very young, with the seedlings of
+a moustache and a space of nude calf between his knickerbockers
+and his socks. He was very ceremonious, shy,
+ungainly and blushful. He played a fair-to-middling game;
+and nothing more need be said of him.</p>
+
+<p>Musa by contrast was an accomplished man of the
+world, and the fact that the fourth obviously regarded
+him as a hero helped Musa to behave in a manner satisfactory
+to himself in front of these English and American
+women, so strange, so exotic, so kind, and so disconcerting.
+Musa looked upon Britain as a romantic isle where people
+died for love. And as for America, in his mind it was
+as sinister, as wondrous, and as fatal as the Indies might
+seem to a bank clerk in Bradford. He had need of every
+moral assistance in this or any other social ordeal. For,
+though he was still the greatest violinist in Paris, and
+perhaps in the world, he could not yet prove this profound
+truth by the only demonstration which the world
+accepts.</p>
+
+<p>If he played in studios he was idolised. If he played
+at small concerts in unknown halls he was received with
+rapture. But he was never lionised. The great concert
+halls never saw him on their platforms; his name was
+never in the newspapers; and hospitable personages never
+fought together for his presence at their tables, even if
+occasionally they invited him to perform for charity in
+return for a glass of claret and a sandwich. Monsieur
+Dauphin had attempted to force the invisible barriers for
+him, but without success. All his admirers in the Quarter
+stuck to it that he was in the rank of Kreisler and Ysaye;
+at the same time they were annoyed with him inasmuch
+as he did not force the world to acknowledge the prophetic
+good taste of the Quarter. And Musa made mistakes.
+He ought to have arrived at studios in a magnificent
+automobile, and to have given superb and uproarious
+repasts, and to have rendered innumerable women exquisitely
+unhappy. Whereas he arrived by tube or bus, never
+offered hospitality of any sort, and was like a cat with
+women. Hence the attitude of the Quarter was patronising,
+as if the Quarter had said: &#8220;Yes, he is the greatest
+violinist in Paris and perhaps in the world; but that&#8217;s all,
+and it isn&#8217;t enough.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The young man and the boy made ready for the game
+as for a gladiatorial display. Their frowning seriousness
+proved that they had comprehended the true British idea
+of sport. Musa came round the net to Audrey&#8217;s side, but
+Audrey said in French:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Thompkins and I will play together. See, we
+are going to beat you and Gustave.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa retired. A few indifferent spectators had collected.
+Gustave, the fourth, had to serve.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Play!&#8221; he muttered, in a thick and threatening voice,
+whose depth was the measure of his nervousness.</p>
+
+<p>He served a double fault to Tommy, and then a fault
+to Audrey. The fourth ball he got over. Audrey played it.
+The two males rushed with appalling force together on
+the centre line in pursuit, and a terrible collision occurred.
+Musa fell away from Gustave as from a wall. When he
+arose out of the pebbly dust his right arm hung very
+limp from the shoulder. No sooner had he risen than he
+sank again, and the blood began to leave his face, and
+his eyes closed. The fourth, having recovered from the
+collision, knelt down by his side, and gazed earnestly at
+him. Tommy and Audrey hurried towards the statuesque
+group, and Audrey was thinking: &#8220;Why did I refuse to
+let him play with me? If he had played with me there
+would have been no accident.&#8221; She reproached herself
+because she well knew that only out of the most absurd
+contrariness had she repulsed Musa. Or was it that she
+had repulsed him from fear of something that Tommy
+might say or look?</p>
+
+<p>In a few seconds, strongly drawn by this marvellous
+piece of luck, promenaders were darting with joyous rapidity
+from north, south, east and west to witness the tragedy.
+There were nurses with coloured streamers six feet long,
+lusty children, errand boys, lads, and sundry nondescript
+men, some of whom carefully folded up their newspapers
+as they hurried to the cynosure. They beheld the body
+as though it were a corpse, and the corpse of an enemy;
+they formulated and discussed theories of the event; they
+examined minutely the rackets which had been thrown on
+the ground. They were exercising the immemorial rights
+of unmoved curiosity; they held themselves as indifferent
+as gods, and the murmur of their impartial voices floated
+soothingly over Musa, and the shadow of their active
+profiles covered him from the sparkling sunshine. Somebody
+mentioned policemen, in the plural, but none came.
+All remarked in turn that the ladies were English, as
+though that were a sufficient explanation of the whole
+affair.</p>
+
+<p>No one said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is Musa, the greatest violinist in Paris and perhaps
+in Europe.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Desperately Audrey stooped and seized Musa beneath
+the armpits to lift him to a sitting position.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better leave him alone,&#8221; said Tommy, with a
+kind of ironic warning and innuendo.</p>
+
+<p>But Audrey still struggled with the mass, convinced that
+she was showing initiative and firmness of character. The
+fourth with fierce vigour began to aid her, and another
+youth from the crowd was joining the enterprise when
+Miss Ingate arrived from her stool.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Drop him, you silly little thing!&#8221; adjured Miss
+Ingate. &#8220;Instead of lifting his head you ought to lift
+his feet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey stared uncertain for a moment, and then let
+the mass subside. Whereupon Miss Ingate with all her
+strength lifted both legs to the height of her waist, giving
+Musa the appearance of a wheelless barrow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You want to let the blood run <em>into</em> his head,&#8221; said
+Miss Ingate with a self-conscious grin at the increasing
+crowd. &#8220;People only faint because the blood leaves their
+heads&mdash;that&#8217;s why they go pale.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa&#8217;s cheeks showed a tinge of red. You could almost
+see the precious blood being decanted by Miss Ingate out
+of the man&#8217;s feet into his head. In a minute he opened
+his eyes. Miss Ingate lowered the legs.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was only the pain that made him feel queer,&#8221; she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>The episode was over, and the crowd very gradually
+and reluctantly scattered, disappointed at the lack of a
+fatal conclusion. Musa stood up, smiling apologetically,
+and Audrey supported him by the left arm, for the right
+could not be touched.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hadn&#8217;t you better take him home, Mrs. Moncreiff?&#8221;
+Tommy suggested. &#8220;You can get a taxi here in the
+Rue de Vaugirard.&#8221; She did not smile, but her green
+eyes glinted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I will,&#8221; said Audrey curtly.</p>
+
+<p>And Tommy&#8217;s eyes glinted still more.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And I shall get a doctor,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;His arm
+may be broken.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should,&#8221; Tommy concurred with gravity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, if it is, <em>I</em> can&#8217;t set it,&#8221; said Miss Ingate
+quizzically. &#8220;I was getting on so well with the high
+lights on that statue. I&#8217;ll come along back to the studio
+in about half an hour.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The fourth, who had been hovering near like a criminal
+magnetised by his crime, bounded off furiously at the
+suggestion that he should stop a taxi at the entrance to
+the gardens.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope he has broken his arm and he can never play
+any more,&#8221; thought Audrey, astoundingly, as she and
+the fourth helped pale Musa into the open taxi. &#8220;It will
+just serve those two right.&#8221; She meant Miss Ingate and
+Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner did the taxi start than Musa began to cry.
+He did not seem to care that he was in the midst of a
+busy street, with a piquant widow by his side.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_14" id="chapter_14" />CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>MISS INGATE POINTS OUT THE DOOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Why did you cry this afternoon, Musa?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was lighting the big lamp in the Moncreiff-Ingate
+studio. It made exactly the same moon as it had
+made on the night in the previous autumn when Audrey
+had first seen it. She had brought Musa to the studio
+because she did not care to take him to his own lodgings.
+(As a fact, nobody that she knew, except Musa, had ever
+seen Musa&#8217;s lodgings.) This was almost the first moment
+they had had to themselves since the visit of the little
+American doctor from the Rue Servandoni. The rumour
+of Musa&#8217;s misfortune had spread through the Quarter like
+the smell of a fire, and various persons of both sexes
+had called to inspect, to sympathise, and to take tea,
+which Audrey was continually making throughout the late
+afternoon. Musa had had an egg for his tea, and more
+than one girl had helped to spread the yolk and the
+white on pieces of bread-and-butter, for the victim of
+destiny had his right arm in a sling. Audrey had let
+them do it, as a mother patronisingly lets her friends
+amuse her baby.</p>
+
+<p>In the end they had all gone; Tommy had enigmatically
+looked in and gone, and Miss Ingate had gone to dine at
+the favourite restaurant of the hour in the Rue LĂ©opold
+Robert. Audrey had refused to go, asserting that which
+was not true; namely, that she had had an enormous
+tea, including far too many <em>petits fours</em>. Miss Ingate in
+departing had given a glance at her sketch (fixed on the
+easel), and another at Audrey, and another at Musa, all
+equally ironic and kindly.</p>
+
+<p>Musa also had declined dinner, but he had done nothing
+to indicate that he meant to leave. He sat mournful and
+passive in a basket chair, his sling making a patch of
+white in the gloom. The truth was that he suffered from
+a disability not uncommon among certain natures: he did
+not know how to go. He could arrive with ease, but he
+was no expert at vanishing. Audrey was troubled. As
+suited her age and condition, she was apt to feel the
+responsibility of the whole universe. She knew that she
+was responsible for Musa&#8217;s accident, and now she was
+beginning to be aware that she was responsible for his
+future as well. She was sure that he needed encouragement
+and guidance. She pictured him with his fiddle under
+his chin, masterful, confident, miraculous, throwing a spell
+over everyone within earshot. But actually she saw him
+listless and vanquished in the basket chair, and she
+perceived that only a strongly influential and determined
+woman, such as herself, could save him from disaster.
+No man could do it. His tears had shaken her. She was
+willing to make allowances for a foreigner, but she had
+never seen a man cry before, and the spectacle was very
+disturbing. It inspired her with a fear that even she
+could not be the salvation of Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I demanded something of you,&#8221; she said, after lowering
+the wick of the lamp to exactly the right point, and
+staring at it for a greater length of time than was
+necessary or even seemly. She spoke French, and as she
+listened to her French accent she heard that it was good.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am done for!&#8221; came the mournful voice of Musa
+out of the obscurity behind the lamp.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What! You are done for? But you know what the
+doctor said. He said no bone was broken. Only a little
+strain, and the pain from your&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Admirable though
+her French accent was, she could not think of the French
+word for &#8220;funny-bone.&#8221; Indeed she had never learnt it.
+So she said it in English. Musa knew not what she
+meant, and thus a slight chasm was opened between them
+which neither could bridge. She finished: &#8220;In one week
+you are going to be able to play again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>Relieved as she was to discover that Musa had cried
+because he was done for, and not because he was hurt,
+she was still worried by his want of elasticity, of resiliency.
+Nevertheless she was agreeably worried. The doctor had
+disappointed her by his light optimism, but he could not
+smile away Musa&#8217;s moral indisposition. The large vagueness
+of the studio, the very faint twilight still showing
+through the great window, the silence and intimacy, the
+sounds of the French language, the gleam of the white
+sling, all combined to permeate her with delicious melancholy.
+And not for everlasting bliss would she have had Musa
+strong, obstinate, and certain of success.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A week!&#8221; he murmured. &#8220;It is for ever. A week
+of practice lost is eternally lost. And on Wednesday one
+had invited me to play at Foa&#8217;s. And I cannot.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Foa? Who is Foa?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What! You do not know Foa? In order to succeed
+it is necessary, it is essential, to play at Foa&#8217;s. That
+alone gives the <em>cachet</em>. Dauphin told me last week. He
+arranged it. After having played at Foa&#8217;s all is possible.
+Dauphin was about to abandon me when he met Foa.
+Now I am ruined. This afternoon after the tennis I was
+going to Durand&#8217;s to get the new Caprice of Roussel&mdash;he
+is an intimate friend of Foa. I should have studied
+it in five days. They would have been ravished by the
+attention .... But why talk I thus? No, I could not
+have played Caprice to please them. I am cursed. I will
+never again touch the violin, I swear it. What am I?
+Do I not live on the money <em>lent</em> to me regularly by
+Mademoiselle Thompkins and Mademoiselle Nickall?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t, Musa?&#8221; Audrey burst out in English.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, yes!&#8221; said Musa violently. &#8220;But last month,
+from Mademoiselle Nickall&mdash;nothing! She is in London;
+she forgets. It is better like that. Soon I shall be
+playing in the Opéra orchestra, fourth desk, one hundred
+francs a month. That will be the end. There can be
+no other.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Instead of admiring the secret charity of Tommy and
+Nick, which she had never suspected, Audrey was very
+annoyed by it. She detested it and resented it. And
+especially the charity of Miss Thompkins. She considered
+that from a woman with eyes and innuendoes like Tommy&#8217;s
+charity amounted to a sneer.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is extremely unsatisfactory,&#8221; she said, dropping on
+to Miss Ingate&#8217;s sofa.</p>
+
+<p>Not another word was spoken. Audrey tapped her foot.
+Musa creaked in the basket chair. He avoided her eyes,
+but occasionally she glared at him like a schoolmistress.
+Then her gaze softened&mdash;he looked so ill, so helpless, so
+hopeless. She wanted to light a cigarette for him, but she
+was somehow bound to the sofa. She wanted him
+to go&mdash;she hated the prospect of his going. He could not
+possibly go, alone, to his solitary room. Who would
+tend him, soothe him, put him to bed? He was an
+infant....</p>
+
+<p>Then, after a long while, Miss Ingate entered sharply.
+Audrey coughed and sprang up.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; ejaculated Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I think I shall just change my boots,&#8221; said Audrey,
+smoothing out the short white skirt. And she disappeared
+into the dressing-room that gave on to the studio.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as she was gone, Miss Ingate went close up
+to Musa&#8217;s chair. He had not moved.</p>
+
+<p>She said, smiling, with the corners of her mouth well
+down:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you see that door, young man?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she indicated the door.</p>
+
+<p>When Audrey came back into the studio.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey,&#8221; cried Miss Ingate shrilly. &#8220;What you been
+doing to Musa? As soon as you went out he up vehy
+quickly and ran away.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At this information Audrey was more obviously troubled
+and dashed than Miss Ingate had ever seen her, in Paris.
+She made no answer at all. Fortunately, lying on the table
+in front of the mirror was a letter for Miss Ingate which had
+arrived by the evening post. Audrey went for it, pretending
+to search, and then handed it over with a casual gesture.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It looks as if it was from Nick,&#8221; she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, as she was putting on her spectacles,
+remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope you weren&#8217;t hurt&mdash;me not coming with you and
+Musa in the taxi from the gardens this afternoon, dear.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Me? Oh no!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It wasn&#8217;t that I was so vehy interested in my sketch.
+But to my mind there&#8217;s nothing more ridiculous than
+several women all looking after one man. Miss Thompkins
+thought so, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Did she?... What does Nick say?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate had put the letter flat on the table in the full
+glare of the lamp, and was leaning over it, her grey hair
+brilliantly illuminated. Audrey kept in the shadow and in
+the distance. Miss Ingate had a habit of reading to herself
+under her breath. She read slowly, and turned pages over
+with a deliberate movement.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Miss Ingate twisting her head sideways so
+as to see Audrey standing like a ghost afar off. &#8220;Well, she
+<em>has</em> been going it! She&#8217;s broken a window in Oxford
+Street with a hammer; she had one night in the cells for
+that. And she&#8217;d have had to go to prison altogether only
+some unknown body paid the fine for her. She says:
+&#8217;There are some mean persons in the world, and he was
+one. I feel sure it was a man, and an American, too.
+The owners of the shops are going to bring a law action
+against me for the value of the plate-glass. It is such fun.
+And our leaders are splendid and so in earnest. They say
+we are doing a great historical work, and we are. The
+London correspondent of the <em>New York Times</em> interviewed
+me because I am American. I did not want to be interviewed,
+but our instructions are&mdash;never to avoid publicity.
+There is to be no more window breaking for the present.
+Something new is being arranged. The hammer is so
+heavy, and sometimes the first blow does not break the
+window. The situation is <em>very</em> serious, and the Government
+is at its wits&#8217; end. This we <em>know</em>. We have our
+agents everywhere. All the most thoughtful people are
+strongly in favour of votes for women; but of course some
+of them are afraid of our methods. This only shows that
+they have not learnt the lessons of history. I wonder that
+you and dear Mrs. Moncreiff do not come and help. Many
+women ask after you, and everybody at Kingsway is very
+curious to know Mrs. Moncreiff. Since Mrs. Burke&#8217;s
+death, Betty has taken rooms in this house, but perhaps
+Tommy has told you this already. If so, excuse. Betty&#8217;s
+health is very bad since they let her out last. With regard
+to the rent, will you pay the next quarter direct to the
+concierge yourselves? It will save so much trouble. I
+must tell you&mdash;&mdash;&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Slowly Audrey moved up to the table and leaned over the
+letter by Miss Ingate&#8217;s side.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So you see!&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;Well, we must
+show it to Tommy in the morning. &#8216;Not learnt the lessons
+of history,&#8217; eh? I know who&#8217;s been talking to Nick. <em>I</em>
+know as well as if I could hear them speaking.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you think we ought to go to London?&#8221; Audrey
+demanded bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; Miss Ingate answered, with impartial irony on
+her long upper lip. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know. Of course I played the
+organ all the way down Regent Street. I feel very strongly
+about votes for women, and once when I was helping in the
+night and day vigil at the House of Commons and some
+Ministers came out smoking their <em>cigahs</em> and asked us how
+we liked it, I was vehy, vehy angry. However, the next
+morning I had a cigarette myself and felt better. But I&#8217;m
+not a professional reformer, like a lot of them are at Kingsway.
+It isn&#8217;t my meat and drink. And I don&#8217;t think it
+matters much whether we get the vote next year or in ten
+years. I&#8217;m Winifred Ingate before I&#8217;m anything else. And
+so long as I&#8217;m pretty comfortable no one&#8217;s going to make
+me believe that the world&#8217;s coming to an end. I know one
+thing&mdash;if we did get the vote it would take me all my time
+to keep most of the women I know from, voting for something
+silly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;re very sensible sometimes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m always very sensible,&#8221; Winnie retorted, &#8220;until I
+get nervous. Then I&#8217;m apt to skid.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Without more words they transformed the studio, by a
+few magical strokes, from a drawing-room into a bedroom.
+Audrey, the last to retire, extinguished the lamp, and
+tripped to her bed behind her screen. Only a few slight
+movements disturbed the silence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; said Audrey suddenly. &#8220;I do believe you&#8217;re
+one of those awful people who compromise. You&#8217;re always
+right in the middle of the raft.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Ingate, being fast asleep, offered no answer.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_15" id="chapter_15" />CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RIGHT BANK</h3>
+
+
+<p>The next day, after a studio lunch which contained too
+much starch and was deficient in nitrogen, Miss Ingate,
+putting on her hat and jacket, said with a caustic gesture:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I must be off to my life class. And much good
+may it do me!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The astonishing creature had apparently begun existence
+again, and begun it on the plane of art, but this did not prevent
+the observer within her from taking the same attitude
+towards her second career as she had taken towards her first.
+Nothing seemed more meet for Miss Ingate&#8217;s ironic contemplation
+than the daily struggle for style and beauty in
+the academies of the Quarter.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey made no reply. The morning had been unusually
+silent, giving considerable scope for Miss Ingate&#8217;s faculty
+for leaving well alone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose you aren&#8217;t coming out?&#8221; added Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. I went out a bit this morning. You know I have
+my French lesson in twenty minutes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate seized her apparatus and departed. The
+instant she was alone Audrey began in haste to change into
+all her best clothes, which were black, and which the
+Quarter seldom saw. Fashionably arrayed, she sat down
+and wrote a note to Madame Schmitt, her French instructress,
+to say that she had been suddenly called away on
+urgent business, and asking her nevertheless to count the
+time as a lesson given. This done, she put her credit notes
+and her cheque-book into her handbag, and, leaving the note
+with the concierge&#8217;s wife, who bristled with interesting
+suspicions, she vanished into Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The weather was even more superb than on the previous
+day. Paris glittered around her as she drove, slowly, in a
+horse-taxi, to the Place de l&#8217;Opéra on the right bank,
+where the <em>grand boulevard</em> meets the Avenue de l&#8217;Opéra and
+the Rue de la Paix. Here was the very centre of the
+fashionable and pleasure-ridden district which the Quarter
+held in noble scorn. She had seen it before, because she had
+started a banking account (under advice from Mr. Foulger),
+and the establishment of her bankers was situate at the
+corner of the Avenue de l&#8217;Opéra and the Rue de la Paix.
+But she knew little of the district, and such trifling information
+as she had acquired was tinged by the natural hostility
+of a young woman who for over six months, with no compulsion
+to do so, had toiled regularly and fiercely in the
+pursuit of knowledge. She paid off the cab, and went to
+test the soundness of her bankers. The place was full of
+tourists, and in one department of it young men in cages,
+who knew not the Quarter, were counting, and ladling, and
+pinning together, and engorging, and dealing forth, the
+currency and notes of all the great nations of the earth.
+The spectacle was inspiring.</p>
+
+<p>In half a year the restive but finally obedient Mr. Foulger
+had sent three thousand pounds to Paris in the unpoetic
+form of small oblong pieces of paper signed with his own
+dull signature. Audrey desired to experience the thrill of
+authentic money. She waited some time in front of a cage,
+with her cheque-book open on the counter, until a young
+man glanced at her interrogatively through the bars.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How much money have I got here, please?&#8221; she asked.
+She ought to have said: &#8220;What is my balance, please?&#8221;
+But nobody had taught her the sacred formula.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What name?&#8221; said the clerk.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Moze&mdash;Audrey Moze,&#8221; she answered, for she had not
+dared to acquaint Mr. Foulger with her widowhood, and his
+cheques were made out to herself.</p>
+
+<p>The clerk vanished, and in a moment reappeared,
+silently wrote something on a little form, and pushed it to
+her under the grille. She read:</p>
+
+<p>/*
+&#8220;73,065 frs. 50c.&#8221;
+*/</p>
+
+<p>The fact was that in six months she had spent little more
+than the amount which she had brought with her from
+London. Having begun in simplicity, in simplicity she had
+continued, partly because she had been too industrious and
+too earnest for luxurious caprices, partly because she had
+never been accustomed to anything else but simplicity, and
+partly from wilfulness. It had pleased her to think that she
+was piling tens of thousands upon tens of thousands&mdash;in
+francs.</p>
+
+<p>But in the night she had decided that the moment had
+arrived for a change in the great campaign of seeing life
+and tasting it.</p>
+
+<p>She timorously drew a cheque for eleven thousand
+francs, and asked for ten thousand in notes and a thousand
+in gold. The clerk showed no trace of either astonishment
+or alarm; but he insisted on her endorsing the cheque.
+When she saw the gold, she changed half of it for ten notes
+of fifty francs each.</p>
+
+<p>Emerging with false but fairly plausible nonchalance
+from the crowded establishment, where other clerks were
+selling tickets to Palestine, Timbuctoo, Bagdad, Berlin, and
+all the abodes of happiness in the world, she saw at the
+newspaper kiosk opposite the little blue poster of an
+English daily. It said: &#8220;More Suffragette Riots.&#8221; She
+had a qualm, for her conscience was apt to be tyrannic, and
+its empire over her had been strengthened by the long,
+steady course of hard work which she had accomplished.
+Miss Ingate&#8217;s arguments had not placated that conscience.
+It had said to her in the night: &#8220;If ever there was a girl
+who ought to assist heartily in the emancipation of women,
+that girl is you, Audrey Moze.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pooh!&#8221; she replied to her conscience, for she could
+always confute it with a sharp word&mdash;for a time.</p>
+
+<p>And she crossed to the <em>grand boulevard</em>, and turned
+westward along the splendid, humming, roaring thoroughfare
+gay with flags and gleaming with such plate-glass as
+Nick the militant would have loved to shatter. Certainly
+there was nothing like this street in the Quarter. The
+Quarter could equal it neither in shops, nor in cafés, nor in
+vehicles, nor in crowds. It was an exultant thoroughfare,
+and Audrey caught its buoyancy, which could be distinctly
+seen in the feather on her hat. At the end of it she passed
+into the cool shade of a music-shop with the name
+&#8220;Durand&#8221; on its façade. She had found the address, and
+another one, in the telephone book at the Café de Versailles
+that morning. It was an immense shop containing millions
+of pieces of music for all instruments and all tastes. Yet
+when she modestly asked for the Caprice for violin of
+Roussel, the <em>morceau</em> was brought to her without the slightest
+hesitation, together with the pianoforte accompaniment.
+The price was twelve francs.</p>
+
+<p>Her gloved hand closed round the slim roll with the
+delicate firmness which was actuating all her proceedings on
+that magnificent afternoon. She was determined to save
+Musa not merely from himself, but from Miss Thompkins
+and everybody. It was not that she was specially interested
+in Musa. No! She was interested in a clean, neat job&mdash;that
+was all. She had begun to take charge of Musa, and
+she intended to carry the affair through. He had the ability
+to succeed, and he should succeed. It would be ridiculous
+for him not to succeed. From certain hints, and from a
+deeply sagacious instinct, she had divined that money and
+management were the only ingredients lacking to Musa&#8217;s
+triumph. She could supply both these elements; and she
+would. And her reward would be the pride of the workman
+in his job.</p>
+
+<p>Now her firmness hesitated. She retraced the boulevard
+to the Place de l&#8217;Opéra, and then took the Rue de la Paix.
+In the first shop on the left-hand side, next to her bankers,
+she saw amid a dazzling collection of jewelled articles for
+travellers and letter-writers and diary-keepers, a sublime
+gold handbag, or, as the French say, hand-sack. Its clasp
+was set with a sapphire. Impulse sent her gliding right
+into the shop, with the words already on her lips: &#8220;How
+much is that gold hand-sack in the window?&#8221; But when
+she reached the hushed and shadowed interior, which was
+furnished like a drawing-room with soft carpets and
+tapestried chairs, she beheld dozens of gold hand-sacks
+glinting like secret treasure in a cave; and she was
+embarrassed by the number and variety of them. A well-dressed
+and affable lady and gentleman, with a quite remarkable
+similarity of prominent noses, welcomed her in general
+terms, and seemed surprised, and even a little pained, when
+she talked about buying and selling. She came out of the
+shop with a gold hand-sack which had cost twelve hundred
+francs, and all her money was in it.</p>
+
+<p>Fortified by the impressive bauble, she walked along the
+street to the Place VendĂ´me, where she descried in the distance
+the glittering signs and arms of the HĂ´tel du Danube.
+Then she walked up the opposite pavement of the Rue de la
+Paix, and down again and up again until she had grasped
+its significance.</p>
+
+<p>It was a street of jewellery, perfumes, antiques, gloves,
+hats, frocks, and furs. It was a street wherein the lily was
+painted and gold was gilded. Every window was a miracle
+of taste, refinement, and costliness. Every article in every
+window was so dear that no article was ticketed with its
+price, save a few wafer-like watches and jewelled rings that
+bore tiny figures, such as 12,500 francs, 40,000 francs.
+Despite her wealth, Audrey felt poor. The upper windows
+of nearly all the great buildings were arrayed with plants
+in full bloom. The roadway was covered with superb
+automobiles, some of them nearly as long as trains. About
+half of them stood in repose at the kerb, and Audrey as she
+strolled could see through their panes of bevelled glass the
+complex luxury within of toy dogs, clocks, writing-pads,
+mirrors, powder boxes, parasols, and the lounging arrogance
+of uniformed menials. At close intervals women passed
+rapidly across the pavements to or from these automobiles.
+If they were leaving a shop, the automobile sprang into life,
+dogs, menials, and all, the door was opened, the woman
+slipped in like a mechanical toy, the door banged, the
+menial jumped, and with trumpet tones the entire machine
+curved and swept away. The aspect of these women made
+Audrey feel glad that she was wearing her best clothes, and
+simultaneously made her feel that her best clothes were worse
+than useless.</p>
+
+<p>She saw an automobile shop with a card at the door:
+&#8220;Town and touring cars for hire by day, week, or month.&#8221;
+A gorgeous Mercédès, too spick, too span, altogether too
+celestial for earthly use, occupied most of the shop.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good afternoon, Madame,&#8221; said a man in bad English.
+For Audrey had misguided herself into the emporium. She
+did not care to be addressed in her own tongue; she even
+objected to the instant discovery of her nationality, of which
+at the moment she was ashamed. And so it was with
+frigidity that she inquired whether cars were to be hired.</p>
+
+<p>The shopman hesitated. Audrey knew that she had
+committed an indiscretion. It was impossible that cars
+should be handed out thus unceremoniously to anybody who
+had the fancy to enter the shop! Cars were naturally the
+subject of negotiations and references.... And then the
+shopman, espying the gold bag, and being by it and by the
+English frigidity humbled to his proper station, fawned and
+replied that he had cars for hire, and the best cars. Did the
+lady want a large car or a small car? She wanted a large
+car. Did she want a town or a touring car? She wanted a
+town car, and by the week. When did she want it? She
+wanted it at once&mdash;in half an hour.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can hire you a car in half an hour, with liveried
+chauffeur,&#8221; said the shopman, after telephoning. &#8220;But he
+cannot speak English.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Ça m&#8217;est égal</em>,&#8221; answered Audrey with grim satisfaction.
+&#8220;What kind of a car will it be?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mercédès, Madame.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The price was eight hundred francs a week, inclusive.
+As Audrey was paying for the first week the man murmured:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What address, Madame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;HĂ´tel du Danube,&#8221; she answered like lightning&mdash;indeed
+far quicker than thought. &#8220;But I shall call here for
+the car. It must be waiting outside.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The dispenser of cars bowed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can you get a taxi for me?&#8221; Audrey suggested. &#8220;I
+will leave this roll here and this bag,&#8221; producing her old
+handbag which she had concealed under her coat. And she
+thought: &#8220;All this is really very simple.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At the other address which she had found in the
+telephone book&mdash;a house in the Rue d&#8217;Aumale&mdash;she said to
+an aged concierge:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur Foa&mdash;which floor?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A very dark, rather short and negligently dressed man
+of nearly middle-age who was descending the staircase,
+raised his hat with grave ceremony:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pardon, Madame. Foa&mdash;it is I.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was not prepared for this encounter. She had
+intended to compose her face and her speech while mounting
+the staircase. She blushed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I come from Musa&mdash;the violinist,&#8221; she began hesitatingly.
+&#8220;You invited him to play at your flat on Friday
+night, Monsieur.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Foa gave a sudden enchanting smile:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Madame. I hear much good of him from my
+friend Dauphin, much good. And we long to hear him
+play. It appears he is a great artist.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He has had an accident,&#8221; said Audrey. Monsier Foa&#8217;s
+face grew serious. &#8220;It is nothing&mdash;a few days. The elbow&mdash;a
+trifle. He cannot play next Friday. But he will be
+desolated if he may not play to you later. He has so few
+friends.... I came.... I....&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame, every Friday we are at home, every Friday.
+My wife will be ravished. I shall be ravished. Believe
+me. Let him be reassured.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur, you are too amiable. I shall tell Musa.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa, he may have few friends&mdash;it is possible, Madame&mdash;but
+he is nevertheless fortunate. Madame is English,
+is it not so? My wife and I adore England and the
+English. For us there is only England. If Madame would
+do us the honour of coming when Musa plays.... My
+wife will send an invitation, to the end of remaining within
+the rules. You, Madame, and any of your friends.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur is too amiable, truly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the end they were standing together on the pavement
+by the waiting taxi. She gave him her card, and
+breathed the words &#8220;HĂ´tel du Danube.&#8221; He was enchanted.
+She offered her hand. He took it, raised it,
+and kissed the back of it. Then he stood with his hat
+off until she had passed from his sight.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was burning with excitement. She said to
+herself:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have discovered Paris.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the taxi turned again into the Rue de la Paix,
+she thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The car will not be waiting. It would be too lovely
+if it were.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But there the car was, huge, glistening, unreal, incredible.
+And a chauffeur gloved and liveried in brown,
+to match the car, stood by its side, and the shopman
+was at the door, holding the Caprice of Roussel and the
+old handbag ready in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here is Madame,&#8221; said he.</p>
+
+<p>The chauffeur saluted.</p>
+
+<p>The car was closed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will Madame have the carriage open or closed?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Closed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Having paid the taxi-driver, Audrey entered the car,
+and as she did so, she threw over her shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;HĂ´tel du Danube.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>While the chauffeur started the engine, the shopman
+with brilliant smiles delivered the music and the bag. The
+door clicked. Audrey noticed the clock, the rug, the powder-box,
+the speaking-tube, and the mirror. She gazed, and
+saw a face triumphant and delicious in the mirror. The
+car began to glide forward. She leaned back against the
+pale grey upholstery, but in her soul she was standing
+and crying with a wild wave of the hand, to the whole
+street:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is a miracle!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In a moment the gigantic car stopped in front of the
+HĂ´tel du Danube. Two attendants rushed out in uniforms
+of delicate blue. They did not touch their hats&mdash;they raised
+them. Audrey descended and penetrated into the portico,
+where a tall dandy saluted and inquired her will. She
+wanted rooms; she wanted a flat? Certainly. They had
+nothing but flats. A large flat on the ground-floor was at
+her disposal absolutely. Two bedrooms, sitting-room,
+bathroom. It had its own private entrance in the courtyard.
+She inspected it. The suite was furnished in the
+Empire style. Herself and maid? No. A friend! Well,
+the maids could sleep upstairs. It could arrange itself. She
+had no maid? Her friend had no maid? Ah! So much
+the better. Sixty francs a day.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is the dining-room?&#8221; demanded Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame,&#8221; said the dandy, shocked. &#8220;We have no
+dining-room. All meals are specially cooked to order and
+served in the private rooms. We have the reputation....&#8221;
+He opened his arms and bowed.</p>
+
+<p>Good! Good! She would return with her friend in one
+hour or so.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;106 Rue Delambre,&#8221; she bade the chauffeur, after being
+followed to the pavement by the dandy and a suite.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Rue de Londres?&#8221; said the chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. Rue Delambre.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It had to be looked out on the map, but the chauffeur,
+trained to the hour, did not blench. However, when he
+found the Rue Delambre, the success with which he
+repudiated it was complete.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie!&#8221; began Audrey in the studio, with assumed
+indifference. Miss Ingate was at tea.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! You are a swell. Where you been?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie! What do you say to going and living on the
+right bank for a bit?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, well!&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;So that&#8217;s it, is it?
+I&#8217;ve been ready to go for a long time. Of course you want
+to go first thing to-morrow morning. I know you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I don&#8217;t,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I want to go to-night.
+Now! Pack the trunks quick. I&#8217;ve got the finest auto you
+ever saw waiting at the door.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_16" id="chapter_16" />CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>ROBES</h3>
+
+
+<p>On the second following Friday evening, Audrey&#8217;s suite of
+rooms at the HĂ´tel du Danube glowed in every corner with
+pink-shaded electricity. According to what Audrey had
+everywhere observed to be the French custom, there was in
+this flat the minimum of corridor and the maximum of doors.
+Each room communicated directly with all the other rooms.
+The doors were open, and three women continually in a
+feverish elation passed to and fro. Empire chairs and sofas
+were covered with rich garments of every colour and form
+and material, from the transparent blue silk <em>matinée</em> to the
+dark heavy cloak of velvet ornamented with fur. The place
+was in fact very like the showrooms of a cosmopolitan dressmaker
+after a vast trying-on. Sundry cosmopolitan dressmakers
+had contributed to the rich confusion. None had
+hesitated for an instant to execute Audrey&#8217;s commands.
+They had all been waiting, apparently since the beginning
+of time, to serve her. All that district of Paris had been
+thus waiting. The flat had been waiting, the automobile
+had been waiting, the chauffeur had been waiting, and
+purveyors of every sort. A word from her seemed to have
+released them from an enchantment. For the most part
+they were strange people, these magical attendants, never
+mentioning money, but rather deprecating the sound of it,
+and content to supply nothing but the finest productions of
+their unquestionable genius. Still, Audrey reckoned that
+she owed about twenty-five thousand francs to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The third woman was the maid, Elise. The hotel had
+invented and delivered Elise, and thereafter seemed easier
+in its mind. Elise was thirty years of age and not repellent
+of aspect. On a black dress she wore the smallest white
+muslin apron that either Audrey or Miss Ingate had ever
+seen. She kept pins in her mouth, but in other respects
+showed few eccentricities beyond an extreme excitability.
+When at eight o&#8217;clock Mademoiselle&#8217;s new gown, promised
+for seven, had not arrived, Elise begged permission to use
+Madame&#8217;s salts. When the bell rang at eight-thirty, and a
+lackey brought in an oval-shaped box with a long loop to it
+of leathern strap, she only just managed not to kiss the
+lackey. The rapid movement of Mademoiselle and Elise
+with the contents of the box from the drawing-room into
+Mademoiselle&#8217;s bedroom was the last rushing and swishing
+that preceded a considerable peace.</p>
+
+<p>Madame was absolutely ready, in her bedroom. In the
+large mirror of the dark wardrobe she surveyed her
+victoriously young face, the magnificent grey dress, the
+coiffure, the jewels, the spangled shoes, the fan; and the
+ensemble satisfied her. She was intensely and calmly happy.
+No thought of the past nor of the future, nor of what was
+going on in other parts of the earth&#8217;s surface could in the
+slightest degree impair her happiness. She had done
+nothing herself, she had neither earned money nor created
+any of the objects which adorned her; nor was she capable
+of doing the one or the other. Yet she felt proud as well as
+happy, because she was young and superbly healthy, and not
+unattractive. These were her high virtues. And her attitude
+was so right that nobody would have disagreed with her.</p>
+
+<p>Her left ear was listening for the sound, through the
+unlatched window, of the arrival of the automobile with
+Musa and his fiddle inside it.</p>
+
+<p>Then the door leading from Mademoiselle&#8217;s bedroom
+opened sharply, and Mademoiselle appeared, with her grey
+hair, her pale shining forehead, her sardonic grin, and the
+new dress of those Empire colours, magenta and green.
+Elise stood behind, trembling with satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Audrey began. But she heard the automobile,
+and told Elise to run and be ready to open the front
+door of the flat.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Rather showy, isn&#8217;t it? Rather daring?&#8221; said Miss
+Ingate, advancing self-consciously and self-deprecating.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; answered Audrey. &#8220;It&#8217;s a nice question
+between you and the Queen of Sheba.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Miss Ingate beheld in the mirror the masterpiece
+of an illustrious male dressmaker-a masterpiece in
+which no touch of the last fashion was abated-and little
+Essex Winnie grinning from within it.</p>
+
+<p>She screamed. And forthwith putting her hands behind
+her neck she began to unhook the corsage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What are you doing, Winnie?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m taking it off.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But why?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because I&#8217;m not going to wear it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you&#8217;ve nothing else to wear.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t help that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you can&#8217;t come. What on earth shall you do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I dare say I shall go to bed. Or I might shoot myself.
+But if you think that I&#8217;m going outside this room in this
+dress, you&#8217;re a perfect simpleton, Audrey. I don&#8217;t mind
+being a fool, but I won&#8217;t look one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey heard Musa enter the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>She pulled the door to, keeping her hand on the knob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very well, Winnie,&#8221; she said coldly, and swept into
+the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>As she and Musa left the pink rose-shaded flat, she heard
+a burst of tears from Elise in the bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;21 Rue d&#8217;Aumale,&#8221; she curtly ordered the chauffeur,
+who sat like a god obscurely in front of the illuminated
+interior of the carriage. Musa&#8217;s violin case lay amid the
+cushions therein.</p>
+
+<p>The chauffeur approvingly touched his hat. The Rue
+d&#8217;Aumale was a good street.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wonder what his surname is?&#8221; Audrey thought
+curiously. &#8220;And whether he&#8217;s in love or married, and has
+children.&#8221; She knew nothing of him save that his Christian
+name was Michel.</p>
+
+<p>She was taciturn and severe with Musa.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_17" id="chapter_17" />CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>SOIRÉE</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur Foa&mdash;which floor?&#8221; Audrey asked once again
+of the aged concierge in the Rue d&#8217;Aumale. This time she
+got an answer. It was the fifth or top floor. Musa said
+nothing, permitting himself to be taken about like a parcel,
+though with a more graceful passivity. There was no lift,
+but at each floor a cushioned seat for travellers to use and
+a palm in a coloured pot in a niche for travellers to gaze
+upon as they rested. The quality of the palms, however,
+deteriorated floor by floor, and on the fourth and fifth floors
+the niches were empty. A broad embroidered bell-pull,
+twitched, gave rise to one clanging sound within the abode
+of the Foas, and the clanging sound reacted upon a small
+dog which yapped loudly and continued to yap until the
+visitors had entered and the door been closed again.
+Monsieur came out of a room into the small entrance-hall,
+accompanied by a considerable noise of conversation. He
+beamed his ravishment; he kissed hands; he helped with the
+dark blue cloak.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I brought Monsieur Musa in my car,&#8221; said Audrey.
+&#8220;The weather&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Foa bowed low to Monsieur Musa, and
+Monsieur Musa bowed low to Monsieur Foa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur, your accident I hope....&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And so on.</p>
+
+<p>Cloak, overcoat, hat, stick&mdash;everything except the violin
+case&mdash;were thrown pell-mell on to a piece of furniture in
+the entrance-hall. Monsieur Foa, instead of being in evening
+dress, was in exactly the same clothes as he had worn
+at his first meeting with Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Foa appeared in the doorway. She was a slim
+blonde Italian of pure descent, whereas only the paternal
+grandfather of Monsieur Foa had been Italian. Madame
+Foa, who had called on Audrey at the Danube, exhibited the
+same symptoms of pleasure as her husband.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But your friend? But your friend?&#8221; cried she.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, being led gradually into the drawing-room, explained
+that Miss Ingate had been prevented at the last
+moment, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>The distinction of Madame Foa&#8217;s simple dress had
+reassured Audrey to a certain extent, but the size of the
+drawing-room disconcerted her again. She had understood
+that the house of the Foas was the real esoteric centre of
+musical Paris, and she had prepared herself for vast and
+luxurious salons, footmen, fountains of wine, rare flowers,
+dandies, and the divine shoulders of operatic sopranos who
+combined wit with the most seductive charm. The drawing-room
+of the Foas was not as large as her own drawing-room
+at the Danube. Still it was full, and double doors leading
+to an unseen dining-room at right angles to its length produced
+an illusion of space. Some of the men and some of
+the women were elegant, and even very elegant; others
+were not. Audrey instantly with her expert eye saw that
+the pictures on the walls were of the last correctness, and a
+few by illustrious painters. Here and there she could see
+scrawled on them &#8220;à mon ami, André Foa.&#8221; Such
+phenomena were balm. Everybody in the room was presented
+to her, and with the greatest particularity, and the
+host and hostess gazed on her as on an idol, a jewel, an
+exquisite and startling discovery. Musa found two men he
+knew. The conversation was resumed with energy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now,&#8221; said Madame Foa in English, sitting down
+intimately beside Audrey, with a loving gesture, &#8220;We will
+have a little talk, you and I. I find our friend Madame
+Piriac met you last year.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! Yes,&#8221; murmured Audrey, fatally struck, but
+admirably dissembling, for she was determined to achieve
+the evening successfully. &#8220;Madame Piriac, will she come
+to-night?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I fear not,&#8221; replied Madame Foa. &#8220;She would if she
+could.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should so like to have seen her again,&#8221; said Audrey
+eagerly. She was so relieved at Madame Piriac&#8217;s not
+coming that she felt she could afford to be eager.</p>
+
+<p>And Monsieur Foa, a little distance off, threw a sign into
+the duologue, and called:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You permit me? Your dress ... <em>Exquise! Exquise!</em>
+And these pigs of French persist in saying that the English
+lack taste!&#8221; He clapped his hand to his forehead in
+despair of the French.</p>
+
+<p>Then the clanging sound supervened, and the little fox-terrier
+yapped, and Monsieur Foa went out, ejaculating
+&#8220;Ah!&#8221; and Madame Foa went into the doorway. Audrey
+glanced round for Musa, but he was out of sight in the
+dining-room. Several people turned at once and spoke to
+her, including two composers who had probably composed
+more impossibilities for amateur pianists than any other two
+men who ever lived, and a musical critic with large dark
+eyes and an Eastern air, who had come from the Opera very
+sarcastic about the Opera. One of the composers asked the
+critic whether he had not heard Musa play.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said the critic. &#8220;I heard him in the Ternes
+Quarter&mdash;somewhere. He plays very agreeably. Madame,&#8221;
+he addressed Audrey. &#8220;I was discussing with these gentlemen
+whether it be not possible to define the principle of
+beauty in music. Once it is defined, my trade will be much
+simplified, you see. What say you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>How could she discourse on the principle of beauty in
+music when she had the whole weight of the evening on her
+shoulders? Musa was the whole weight of the evening.
+Would he succeed? She was his mother, his manager, his
+creator. He was her handiwork. If he failed she would
+have failed. That was her sole interest in him, but it was
+an overwhelming interest. When would he be asked to
+play? Useless for them to flatter her about her dress, to
+treat her like a rarity, if they offered callous, careless, off-hand
+remarks, such as &#8220;He plays very agreeably.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She stammered:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I only know what I like.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>One of the composers jumped up excitedly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>VoilĂ </em> Madame has said the final word. You hear
+me, the final word, the most profound. Argue as you will,
+perfect the art of criticism to no matter what point, and you
+will never get beyond the final word of Madame.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The critic shrugged his shoulders, and with a smile bowed
+to the ravishing utterer of last words on the most baffling of
+subjects. This fluttered person soon perceived that she had
+been mistaken in supposing that the room was full. The
+clanging sound kept recurring, the dog kept barking, and
+new guests continually poured into the room, thereby proving
+that it was not full. All comers were introduced to Audrey,
+whose head was a dizzy riot of strange names. Then at last
+a girl sang, and was applauded. Madame Foa played for
+her. &#8220;Now,&#8221; thought Audrey, &#8220;they will ask Musa.&#8221;
+Then one of the composers played the piano, his themes
+punctuated by the clanging sound and by the dog. The
+room was asphyxiating, but no one except Audrey seemed
+to be inconvenienced. Then several guests rang in quick
+succession.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame!&#8221; the suave and ardent voice of Foa could
+be heard in the entrance-hall. &#8220;And thou, Roussel ...
+Ippolita, Ippolita!&#8221; he called to his wife. &#8220;It is Roussel.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey did not turn her head. She could not. But presently
+Roussel, in a blue suit with a wonderful flowing bow
+of a black necktie in <em>crĂªpe de Chine</em>, was led before her. And
+Musa was led before Roussel. Audrey, from nervousness, was
+moved to relate the history of Musa&#8217;s accident to Roussel.</p>
+
+<p>The moment had arrived. Roussel sat down to the piano.
+Musa tuned his fiddle.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;From what appears,&#8221; murmured Monsieur Foa to nobody
+in particular, with an ecstatic expectant smile on his
+face, &#8220;this Musa is all that is most amazing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then, in the silence, the clanging sound was renewed,
+and the fox-terrier reacted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;André, my friend,&#8221; cried Madame Foa, skipping into
+the hall. &#8220;Will you do me the pleasure of exterminating
+this dog?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Delicate osculatory explosions and pretty exclamations
+in the hall! The hostess was encountering an old friend.
+There was also a man&#8217;s deep English voice. Then a hush.
+The man&#8217;s voice produced a very strange effect upon Audrey.
+Roussel began to play. Musa held his bow aloft. Creeping
+steps in the doorway made Audrey look round. A lady
+smiled and bowed to her. It was Madame Piriac, resplendent
+and serene.</p>
+
+<p>Musa played the Caprice. Audrey did not hear him,
+partly because the vision of Madame Piriac, and the man&#8217;s
+deep voice, had extremely perturbed her, and partly because
+she was so desperately anxious for Musa&#8217;s triumph. She
+had decided that she could make his triumph here the
+prelude to tremendous things. When he had finished she
+held her breath....</p>
+
+<p>The applause, after an instant, was sudden and extremely
+cordial. Monsieur Foa loudly clapped, smiling at Audrey.
+Roussel patted Musa on the back and chattered to him
+fondly. On each side of her Audrey could catch murmured
+exclamations of delight. Musa himself was certainly
+pleased and happy.... He had played at Foa&#8217;s, where it
+was absolutely essential to play if one intended to conquer
+Paris and to prove one&#8217;s pretensions; and he had found
+favour with this satiated and fastidious audience.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Ouf!&#8221;</em> sighed the musical critic Orientally lounging on
+a chair. &#8220;André, has it occurred to you that we are
+expiring for want of air?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A window was opened, and a shiver went through the
+assembly.</p>
+
+<p>The clanging sounded again, but no dog, for the dog had
+been exterminated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dauphin, my old pig!&#8221; Foa&#8217;s greeting from the
+entrance floated into the drawing-room, and then a very impressed: &#8220;Mademoiselle&#8221; from Madame Foa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; cried Dauphin. &#8220;Musa has played? He
+played well? So much the better. What did I tell you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And he entered the drawing-room with the satisfied air
+of having fed Musa from infancy and also of having taught
+him all he knew about the violin.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Foa followed him, and with her was Miss Ingate,
+gorgeous and blushing. The whole company was now on its
+feet and moving about. Miss Ingate scuttered to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; she whispered. &#8220;Here I am. I came partly to
+satisfy that hysterical Elise, and Monsieur Dauphin met me
+on the stairs. But really I came because I&#8217;ve had another
+letter from Miss Nickall. She&#8217;s been and got her arm
+broken in a street row. I knew those policemen would do
+it one day. I always said they would.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Audrey seemed not to be listening. With a side-long
+gaze she saw Madame Piriac talking with a middle-aged
+Englishman, whose back alone was visible to her.
+Madame Piriac laughed and vanished out of sight into the
+dining-room. The Englishman turned and met Audrey&#8217;s
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly leaving Miss Ingate, Audrey walked straight
+up to the Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good evening,&#8221; she said in a low voice. &#8220;What is
+your name?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gilman,&#8221; he answered, with a laugh. &#8220;I only this
+instant recognised you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Mr. Gilman,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;will you oblige me
+very much by not recognising me? I want us to be introduced.
+I am most particularly anxious that no one should
+know I&#8217;m the same girl who helped you to jump off your
+yacht at Lousey Hard last year.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she moved quickly away.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_18" id="chapter_18" />CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A DECISION</h3>
+
+
+<p>The entire company was sitting or standing round the table
+in the dining-room. It was a table at which eight might
+have sat down to dinner with a fair amount of comfort; and
+perhaps thirty-eight now were successfully claiming an
+interest in it. Not at the end, but about a third of the way
+down one side, Madame Foa brewed tea in a copper
+receptacle over a spirit lamp. At the other extremity was a
+battalion of glasses, some syphons and some lofty bottles.
+Except for a border of teacups and glasses the rest of the
+white expanse was empty, save that two silver biscuit boxes
+and a silver cigarette box wandered up and down it according
+to the needs of the community. Audrey was sitting next
+to the Oriental musical critic, on her left, and on her right
+she had a beautiful stout woman who could speak nothing
+but Polish, but who expressed herself very clearly in the
+language of smiles, nods, and shrugs; to Audrey she seemed
+to be extremely romantic; the musical critic could converse
+somewhat in Polish, and occasionally he talked across Audrey
+to the Pole. Several other languages were flying about.
+The subject of discussion was feminism, chiefly as practised
+in England. It was Miss Ingate who had begun it; her
+striking and peculiar appearance, and in particular her
+frock, had given importance to her lightest word. People
+who comprehended naught of English listened to her
+entranced. The host, who was among these, stood behind
+her in a state of ecstasy. Her pale forehead reddened; her
+sardonic grin became deliciously self-conscious. &#8220;I know
+I&#8217;m skidding,&#8221; she cried. &#8220;I know I&#8217;m skidding.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What does she say? Skeed&mdash;skeed?&#8221; demanded the
+host.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey interpreted. Shouts of laughter!</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! These English! These Englishwomen!&#8221; said
+the host. &#8220;I adore them. I adore them all. They alone
+exist.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s vehy serious!&#8221; protested Miss Ingate. &#8220;It&#8217;s vehy
+serious!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We shall go to London to-morrow, shan&#8217;t we,
+Winnie?&#8221; said Audrey across the table to her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; agreed Miss Ingate. &#8220;I think we ought. We&#8217;re
+as free as birds. When the police have broken our arms we
+can come back to Paris to recover. I shan&#8217;t feel comfortable
+until I&#8217;ve been and had my arm broken&mdash;it&#8217;s vehy
+serious.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What does she say? What is it that she says?&#8221; from
+the host.</p>
+
+<p>More interpretation. More laughter, but this time an
+impressed laughter. And Audrey perceived that just as she
+was regarding the Polish woman as romantic, so the whole
+company was regarding herself and Miss Ingate as romantic.
+She could feel the polite, curious eyes of twenty men upon
+her; and her mind seemed to stiffen into a formidable
+resolve. She grew conscious of the lifting of all depression,
+all anxiety. Her conscience was at rest. She had been
+thinking for more than a week past: &#8220;I ought to go to
+London.&#8221; How often had she not said to herself: &#8220;If any
+woman should be in this movement, I should be in this
+movement. I am a coward as long as I stay here, dallying
+my time away.&#8221; Now the decision was made, absolutely.</p>
+
+<p>The Oriental musical critic turned to glance upward
+behind his chair. Then he vacated it. The next instant
+Madame Piriac was sitting in his place.</p>
+
+<p>She said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you really going to London to-morrow, Madame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Madame, really!&#8221; answered Audrey firmly, without
+the least hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How I regret it! For this reason. I wished so much
+to make your acquaintance. I mean&mdash;to know you a little.
+You go perhaps in the afternoon? Could you not do me
+the great pleasure of coming to lunch with me? I inhabit
+the Quai Voltaire. It is all that is most convenient.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was startled and suspicious, but she could not
+deny the persuasiveness of the invitation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! Madame!&#8221; she said. &#8220;I know not at what hour
+we go. But even if it should be in the afternoon there is
+the packing&mdash;you know&mdash;in a word....&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Listen,&#8221; Madame Piriac proceeded, bending even more
+intimately towards her. &#8220;Be very, very kind. Come to see
+me to-night. Come in my car. I will see that you reach
+the Rue Delambre afterwards.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But Madame, we are at the HĂ´tel du Danube. I have
+my own car. You are very amiable.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac was a little taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So much the better,&#8221; she said, in a new tone. &#8220;The
+HĂ´tel du Danube is nearer still. But come in my car.
+Mademoiselle Ingate can return in yours. Do not desolate
+me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Does she know who I am?&#8221; thought Audrey, and
+then: &#8220;What do I care if she does?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she said aloud:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame, it is I who would be desolated to deprive
+myself of this pleasure.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A considerable period elapsed before they could leave,
+because of the complex discussion concerning feminism
+which was delicately raging round the edge of the table.
+The animation was acute, but it was purely intellectual.
+The guests discussed the psychology of English suffragettes,
+sympathetically, admiringly; they were even wonderstruck;
+yet they might have been discussing the psychology of the
+ancient Babylonians, so perfect was their detachment, so
+completely unclouded by any prejudice was their desire to
+reach the truth. Many of the things which they imperturbably
+and politely said made Audrey feel glad that she
+was a widow. Had she not been a widow, possibly they
+would not have been uttered.</p>
+
+<p>And when Madame Piriac and Audrey did rise to go,
+both host and hostess began to upbraid. The host, indeed,
+barred the doorway with his urbane figure. They were not
+kind, they were not true friends, to leave so soon. The
+morrow had no sort of importance. The hour was scarcely
+one o&#8217;clock. Other guests were expected.... Madame
+Piriac alone knew how to handle the situation; she appealed
+privately to Madame Foa. Having appealed to Madame
+Foa, she disappeared with Madame Foa, and could not be
+found when Audrey and Miss Ingate were ready to leave.
+While these two waited in the antechamber, Monsieur Foa
+said suddenly in a confidential tone to Audrey:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is charming, Musa, quite charming.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you like his playing?&#8221; Audrey demanded boldly.</p>
+
+<p>She could not understand why it should be necessary for
+a violinist to play and to succeed at this house before he could
+capture Paris. She was delighted excessively with the
+home, but positively it bore no resemblance to what she had
+anticipated; nor did it seem to her to possess any of the
+attributes of influence; for one of her basic ideas about the
+world was that influential people must be dull and formal,
+moving about with deliberation in sombrely magnificent
+interiors.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Monsieur Foa. &#8220;I like it. He plays
+admirably.&#8221; And he spoke sincerely. Audrey, however,
+was a little disappointed because Monsieur Foa did not
+assert that Musa was the most marvellous genius he had
+ever listened to.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am very, very content to have heard him,&#8221; said
+Monsieur Foa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you think he will succeed in Paris?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! Madame! There is the Press. There are the
+snobs.... In fine....&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose if he had money?&#8221; Audrey murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! Madame! In Paris, if one has money, one has
+everything. Paris&mdash;it is not London, where to succeed one
+must be truly successful. But he is a player very highly
+accomplished. It is miraculous that he should have played
+so long in a café&mdash;Dauphin told me the history.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa appeared, and after him Madame Piriac. More
+appeals, more reproaches, more asseverations that friends
+who left so early as one o&#8217;clock in the morning were not
+friends&mdash;and the host at length consented to open the door.
+At that very instant the bell clanged. Another guest had
+arrived.</p>
+
+<p>When, after the long descent of the stairs (which, however,
+unlike the stairs of the Rue Delambre, were lighted),
+Audrey saw seven automobiles in the street, she veered again
+towards the possibility that the Foas might after all be
+influential. Musa and Mr. Gilman, the yachtsman, had
+left with the women. Audrey told Miss Ingate to drive
+Musa home. She said not a word to him about her
+departure the next afternoon, and he made no reference to
+it. As the most imposing automobile moved splendidly
+away, Mr. Gilman held open the door of Madame Piriac&#8217;s
+vehicle.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman sat down opposite to the women. In the
+enclosed space the rumour of his heavy breathing was
+noticeable. Madame Piriac began to speak in English&mdash;her
+own English&mdash;with a unique accent that Audrey at once
+loved.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You commence soon the yachting, my oncle?&#8221; said
+she, and turning to Audrey: &#8220;Mistair Gilman is no oncle
+to me. But he is a great friend of my husband. I call
+always him oncle. Do not I, oncle? Mistair Gilman lives
+only for the yachting. Every year in May we lose him, till
+September.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Really!&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Her heart was apprehensively beating. She even suspected
+for an instant that both of them knew who she was,
+and that Mr. Gilman, before she had addressed him in the
+drawing-room, had already related to Madame Piriac the
+episode of Mozewater. Then she said to herself that the
+idea was absurd; and lastly, repeating within her breast
+that she didn&#8217;t care, she became desperately bold.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should love to buy a yacht,&#8221; she said, after a pause.
+&#8220;We used to live far inland and I know nothing of the sea;
+in fact I scarcely saw it till I crossed the Channel, but I
+have always dreamed about it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You must come and have a look at my new yacht, Mrs.
+Moncreiff,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman in his solemn, thick voice. &#8220;I
+always say that no yacht is herself without ladies on board,
+a yacht being feminine, you see.&#8221; He gave a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! My oncle!&#8221; Madame Piriac broke in. &#8220;I see
+in that no reason. If a yacht was masculine then I could
+see the reason in it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps not one of my happiest efforts,&#8221; said Mf.
+Gilman with resignation. &#8220;I am a dull man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, no!&#8221; Madame Piriac protested. &#8220;You are a dear.
+But why have you said nothing to-night at the Foas in the
+great discussion about feminism? Not one word have you
+said!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I really don&#8217;t understand it,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman.
+&#8220;Either everybody is mad, or I am mad. I dare say I am
+mad.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Madame Piriac. &#8220;I said not much myself,
+but I enjoyed it. It was better than the music, music, which
+they talk always there. People talk too much shops in
+these days. It is out-to-place and done over.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean overdone?&#8221; asked Mr. Gilman mildly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, overdone, if you like better that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean shop, Hortense?&#8221; asked Mr. Gilman
+further.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shop, shop! The English is impossible!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The automobile crossed the Seine and arrived in the
+deserted Quai Voltaire.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_19" id="chapter_19" />CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BOUDOIR</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the setting of her own boudoir Madame Piriac equalled,
+and in some ways surpassed, the finest pictures which
+Audrey had imagined of her. Her evening dress made
+Audrey doubt whether after all her own was the genuine
+triumph which she had supposed; in Madame Piriac&#8217;s
+boudoir, and close by Madame Piriac, it had disconcertingly
+the air of being an ingenious but unconvincing imitation of
+the real thing.</p>
+
+<p>But Madame Piriac&#8217;s dress had the advantage of being
+worn with the highest skill and assurance; Madame Piriac
+knew what the least fold of her dress was doing, in the way
+of effect, on the floor behind her back. And Madame
+Piriac was mistress, not only of her dress, but of herself
+and all her faculties. A handsome woman, rather more than
+slim, but not plump, she had an expression of confidence, of
+knowing exactly what she was about, of foreseeing all her
+effects, which Audrey envied more than she had ever envied
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Audrey came into the room she had said to
+herself: &#8220;I will have a boudoir like this.&#8221; It was an
+interior in which every piece of furniture was loaded with
+objects personal to its owner. So many signed photographs,
+so much remarkable bric-Ă -brac, so many intimate
+contrivances of ornamental comfort, Audrey had never
+before seen within four walls. The chandelier, comprising
+ten thousand crystals, sparkled down upon a
+complex aggregate of richness overwhelming to everybody
+except Madame Piriac, who subdued it, understood it, and
+had the key to it. Audrey wondered how many servants
+took how many hours to dust the room. She was sure,
+however, that whatever the number of servants required,
+Madame Piriac managed them all to perfection. She longed
+violently to be as old as Madame Piriac, whom she
+assessed at twenty-nine and a half, and to be French, and to
+know all about everything in life as Madame Piriac did.
+Yet at the same time she was extremely determined to be
+Audrey, and not to be intimidated by Madame Piriac or by
+anyone.</p>
+
+<p>Just as they were beginning to suck iced lemonade up
+straws&mdash;a delightful caprice of Madame Piriac&#8217;s, well suited
+to catch Audrey&#8217;s taste&mdash;the door opened softly, and a tall,
+very dark, bearded man, appreciably older than Madame
+Piriac, entered with a kind of soft energy, and Mr. Gilman
+followed him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! My friend!&#8221; murmured Madame Piriac. &#8220;You
+give me pleasure. This is Madame Moncreiff, of whom I
+have spoken to you. Madame&mdash;my husband. We have just
+come from the Foas.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Piriac bent over Audrey&#8217;s hand, and smiled
+with vivacity, and they talked a little of the evening, carelessly,
+as though time existed not. And then Monsieur
+Piriac said to his wife:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dear friend. I have to work with this old Gilman.
+We shall therefore ask you to excuse us. Till to-morrow,
+then. Good night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good night, my friend. Do not do harm to yourself.
+Good night, my oncle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Piriac saluted with formality but with sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; thought Audrey, as the men went away. &#8220;I
+should want to marry exactly him if I did want to marry.
+He doesn&#8217;t interfere; he isn&#8217;t curious; he doesn&#8217;t want to
+know. He leaves her alone. She leaves him alone. How
+clever they are!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My husband is now chief of the Cabinet of the Foreign
+Minister,&#8221; said Madame Piriac with modest pride. &#8220;They
+kill themselves, you know, in that office&mdash;especially in these
+times. But I watch. And I tell Monsieur Gilman to watch....
+How nice you are when you sit in a chair like that!
+Only Englishwomen know how to use an easy chair....
+To say nothing of the frock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame Piriac,&#8221; Audrey brusquely demanded with an
+expression of ingenuous curiosity. &#8220;Why did you bring me
+here?&#8221; It was the cry of an animal at once rash and
+rather desperate, determined to unmask all the secret
+dangers that might be threatening.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I much desired to see you,&#8221; Madame Piriac answered
+very smoothly, &#8220;in order to apologise to you for my
+indiscreet question on the night when we first met. Your
+fairy tale about your late husband was a very proper reply to
+the attitude of Madame Rosamund&mdash;as you all call her. It
+was very clever&mdash;so clever that I myself did not appreciate
+it until after I had spoken. Ever since that moment I have
+wanted to explain, to know you more. Also your pretence
+of going to sleep in the automobile showed what in a woman
+I call distinguished talent.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, Madame, I assure you that I really was asleep.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So much the better. The fact proves that your
+instinct for the right thing is quite exceptional. It is not
+that I would criticise Madame Rosamund, who has genius.
+Nevertheless her genius causes her to commit errors of
+which others would be incapable.... So she has captured
+you, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Captured me!&#8221; Audrey protested&mdash;and she was
+made stronger by the flattering reference to her distinguished
+talent. &#8220;I&#8217;ve never seen her from that day to
+this!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. But she has captured you. You are going.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Going where?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To London, to take part in these riots.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shan&#8217;t have anything to do with riots.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Within a month you will have been in a riot, Madame ...
+and I shall regret it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And even if I am, Madame! You are a friend of
+Rosamund&#8217;s. You must be in sympathy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In sympathy with what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;With&mdash;with all this suffragism, feminism. I am anyway!&#8221;
+Audrey sat up straight. &#8220;It&#8217;s horrible that women
+don&#8217;t have the Vote. And it&#8217;s horrible the things they have
+to suffer in order to get it. But they <em>will</em> get it!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why do you say &#8216;they&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I mean &#8216;we.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Supposing you meant &#8216;they,&#8217; after all? And you did,
+Madame. Let me tell you. You ask me if I sympathise
+with suffragism. You might as well ask me if I sympathise
+with a storm or with an earthquake, or with a river running
+to the sea. Perhaps I do. But perhaps I do not. That
+has no importance. Feminism is a natural phenomenon; it
+was unavoidable. You Englishwomen will get your vote.
+Even we in France will get it one day. It cannot be denied....
+Sympathy is not required. But let us suppose that all
+women joined the struggle. What would happen to women?
+What would happen to the world? Just as nunneries were
+a necessity of other ages, so even in this age women must
+meditate. Far more than men they need to understand
+themselves. Until they understand themselves how can they
+understand men? The function of women is to understand.
+Their function is also to preserve. All the beautiful and
+luxurious things in the world are in the custody of women.
+Men would never of themselves keep a tradition. If there is
+anything on earth worth keeping, women must keep it.
+And the tradition will be lost if every woman listens to
+Madame Rosamund. That is what she cannot see. Her
+genius blinds her. You say I am a friend of Madame
+Rosamund. I am. Madame Rosamund was educated in
+Paris, at the same school as my aunt and myself. But I
+have never helped her in her mission. And I never will.
+My vocation is elsewhere. When she fled over here from
+the English police, she came to me. I received her. She
+asked me to drive her to certain addresses. I did so. She
+was my guest. I surrounded her with all that she had
+abandoned, all that her genius had forced her to abandon.
+But I never spoke to her of her work, nor she to me of it.
+Still, I dare to think that I was of some value to the woman
+in Madame Rosamund.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey felt very young and awkward and defiant. She
+felt defiant because Madame Piriac had impressed her,
+and she was determined not to be impressed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So you wanted to tell me all this,&#8221; said she, putting
+down her glass, with the straws in it, on a small round
+table laden with tiny figures in silver. &#8220;Why did you
+want to tell me, Madame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wanted to tell you because I want you to do nothing
+that you will regret. You greatly interested me the moment
+I saw you. And when I saw you in that studio, in that
+Quarter, I feared for you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Feared what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I feared that you might mistake your vocation&mdash;that
+vocation which is so clearly written on your face. I saw
+a woman young and free and rich, and I was afraid that
+she might waste everything.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But do you know anything about me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac paused before replying.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing but what I see. But I see that you are in
+a high degree what all women are to a greater extent
+than men&mdash;an individualist. You know the feeling that
+comes over a woman in hours of complete intimacy with
+a man? You know what I mean?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes!&#8221; Audrey agreed, blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In those moments we perceive that only the individual
+counts with us. And with you, above all, the individual
+should count. Unless you use your youth and your freedom
+and your money for some individual, you will never be
+content; you will eternally regret. All that is in your face.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey blushed more, thinking of certain plans formed
+in that head of hers. She said nothing. She was both
+very pleased and very exasperated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have a relative in England, a young girl,&#8221; Madame
+Piriac proceeded, &#8220;in some unpronounceable county. We
+write to each other. She is excessively English.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was scarlet. Several times during the sojourn
+in Paris she had sent letters (to Madame Piriac) to be
+posted in Essex by Mr. Foulger. These letters were full
+of quaint inventions about winter life in Essex, and other
+matters.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac, looking reflectively at the red embers
+of wood in the grate, went on:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She says she may come to Paris soon. I have often
+asked her to come, but she has refused. Perhaps next
+month I shall go to England to fetch her. I should like
+her to know you&mdash;very much. She is younger than you
+are, but only a little, I think.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall be delighted, if I am here,&#8221; Audrey stammered,
+and she rose. &#8220;You are a very kind woman. Very, very
+amiable. You do not know how much I admire you. I
+wish I was like you. But I am not. You have seen only
+one side of me. You should see the inside. It is very
+strange. I must go to London. I am forced to go to
+London. I should be a coward if I did not go to London.
+Tell me, is my dress really good? Or is it a deception?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac smiled, and kissed her on both cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is good,&#8221; said Madame Piriac. &#8220;But your maid is
+not all that she ought to be. However, it is good.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you had simply praised it, and only that, I should
+not have been content,&#8221; said Audrey, and kissed Madame
+Piriac in the English way, the youthful and direct way.</p>
+
+<p>Not another word about the male sex, the female sex,
+tradition or individualism, passed between them.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman was summoned to take Audrey across the
+river to the right bank. They went in a taxi. He was
+protective and very silent. But just as the cab was
+turning out of the Rue de Rivoli into the Rue Castiglione
+he said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall obey you absolutely, Mrs. Moncreiff. It is
+a great pleasure for an old, lonely man to keep a secret
+for a young and charming woman. A greater pleasure
+than you can possibly imagine. You may count on me.
+I am not a talker, but you have put me under an obligation,
+and I am very grateful.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She took care that her thanks should reward him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; she burst out in the rose-coloured secrecy
+of the bedroom, &#8220;has Elise gone to bed? ... All right.
+Well, I&#8217;m lost. Madame Piniac is going to England to
+fetch me.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_20" id="chapter_20" />CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>PAGET GARDENS</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Has anything happened in this town?&#8221; asked Audrey
+of Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>It was the afternoon of the day following their arrival
+in London from Paris, and it was a fine afternoon. They
+were walking from the Charing Cross Hotel, where they
+had slept, to Paget Gardens.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Anything happened?&#8221; repeated Miss Ingate. &#8220;What
+you mean? I don&#8217;t see anything vehy particular on the
+posters.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Everybody looks so sad and worried, compared with
+people in Paris.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So they do! So they do!&#8221; cried Miss Ingate. &#8220;Oh,
+yes! So they do! I wondered what it was seemed so
+queer. That&#8217;s it. Well, of course you mustn&#8217;t forget we&#8217;re
+in England. I always did say it was a vehy peculiar place.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do <em>we</em> look like that?&#8221; Audrey suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I expect we do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m quite sure that I don&#8217;t, Winnie, anyway. I&#8217;m
+really very cheerful. I&#8217;m surprisingly cheerful.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was true. Also she both looked and felt more girlish
+than ever in Paris. Impossible to divine, watching her in
+her light clothes, and with her airy step, that she was the
+relict of a man who had so tragically died of blood-poisoning
+caused by bad table manners.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve a good mind to ask a policeman,&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better not,&#8221; Miss Ingate warned her.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey instantly turned into the roadway, treating the
+creosoted wood as though it had been rose-strewn velvet,
+and reached a refuge where a policeman was standing. The
+policeman bent with benevolence and politeness to listen to
+her tale.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Excuse me,&#8221; she said, smiling innocently up at him,
+&#8220;but is anything the matter?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>What</em> street, miss?&#8221; he questioned, bending lower.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is anything the matter? All the people round here are
+so gloomy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The policeman glanced at her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There will be something the matter,&#8221; he remarked
+calmly. &#8220;There will be something the matter pretty soon
+if I have much more of that suffragette sauce. I thought
+you was one of them the moment I saw you, but I wasn&#8217;t
+sure.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was the first time Audrey had ever spoken to a
+policeman, save Inspector Keeble, at Moze, who was a
+friendly human being. And she had a little pang of fear.
+The policeman was like a high wall of blue cloth, with a
+marvellous imitation of a human face at the top, and above
+the face a cupola.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank you,&#8221; she murmured reproachfully, and
+hastened back to Miss Ingate, who heard the tale with a
+grinning awe that was, nevertheless, sardonic. They
+pressed onwards to Piccadilly Circus, where the only normal
+and cheerful living creatures were the van horses and the
+flower-women; and up Regent Street, through crowds of
+rapt and mystical women and romantical men who had
+apparently wandered out of a play by Henrik Ibsen.</p>
+
+<p>They then took a motor-bus, which was full of the same
+enigmatic, far-gazing heroines and heroes. When they
+got off, the conductor pointed dreamily in a certain direction
+and murmured the words: &#8220;Paget Square.&#8221; Their desire
+was Paget Gardens, and, after finding Paget Square, Paget
+Mansions, Paget Houses, Paget Street, Paget Mews, and
+Upper Paget Street, they found Paget Gardens. It was a
+terrace of huge and fashionable houses fronting on an
+immense, blank brick wall. The houses were very lofty;
+so lofty that the architect, presumably afraid of hitting
+heaven with his patent chimney cowls, had sunk the lowest
+storey deep into the earth. Looking over the high palisades
+which protected the pavement from the precipice thus made,
+one could plainly see the lowest storey and all that was
+therein.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whoever can she be staying with?&#8221; exclaimed Miss
+Ingate. &#8220;It&#8217;s a marchioness at least. There&#8217;s no doubt
+the very best people are now in the movement.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey went first up massive steps, and, choosing with
+marked presence of mind the right bell, rang it, expecting
+to see either a butler or a footman.</p>
+
+<p>A young woman, however, answered the ring. She wore
+a rather shabby serge frock, but no apron, and she did not
+resemble any kind of servant. Her ruddy, heavy, and
+slightly resentful face fronted the visitors with a steady,
+challenging stare.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Does Miss Nickall live here?&#8221; asked Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aye! She does!&#8221; came the answer, with a northern
+accent.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve come to see how she is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Happen ye&#8217;d better step inside, then,&#8221; said the young
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>They stepped inside to an enormous and obscure interior;
+the guardian banged the door, and negligently led them
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is a large house,&#8221; Miss Ingate ventured, against the
+silent intimidation of the place.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One o&#8217; them rich uns,&#8221; said the guardian. &#8220;She
+lends it to the Cause when she doesn&#8217;t want it herself, to
+show her sympathy. Saves her a caretaker&mdash;they all know
+I&#8217;m one to look right well after a house.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Having passed two very spacious rooms and a wide
+staircase, she opened the door of a smaller but still a considerable
+room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here y&#8217;are,&#8221; she muttered.</p>
+
+<p>This room, like the others, was thoroughly sheeted, and
+thus presented a misty and spectral appearance. All the
+chairs, the chandelier, and all the pictures, were masked
+in close-fitting pale yellow. The curtains were down, the
+carpet was up, and a dust sheet was spread under the table
+in the middle of the floor.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s some friends of yours,&#8221; said the guardian,
+throwing her words across the room.</p>
+
+<p>In an easy chair near the fireplace sat Miss Nickall, her
+arm in splints and in a sling. She was very thin and very
+pallid, and her eyes brightly glittered. The customary kind
+expression of her face was modified, though not impaired,
+by a look of vague apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mind how ye handle her,&#8221; the guardian gave warning,
+when Nick yielded herself to be embraced.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re just a bit of my Paris come to see me,&#8221; said
+Nick, with her American accent. Then through her tears:
+&#8220;How&#8217;s Tommy, and how&#8217;s Musa, and how&#8217;s&mdash;how&#8217;s my
+studio? Oh! This is Miss Susan Foley, sister of Jane
+Foley. Jane will be here for tea. Susan&mdash;Miss Ingate and
+Mrs. Moncreiff.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Susan gave a grim bob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is Jane Foley coming? Does she live here?&#8221; asked
+Miss Ingate, properly impressed by the name of her who
+was the St. George of Suffragism, and perhaps the most
+efficient of all militants. &#8220;Audrey, we are in luck!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Nick had gathered items of information about
+Paris, she burst out:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t believe I&#8217;ve only met you once before. You&#8217;re
+just like old friends.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So we are old friends,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;Your letters
+to Winnie have made us old friends.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And when did you come over?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Last night,&#8221; Miss Ingate replied. &#8220;We should have
+called this morning to see you, but Mrs. Moncreiff had so
+much business to do and people to see. I don&#8217;t know what
+it all was. She&#8217;s very mysterious.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As a fact, Audrey had had an interview with Mr.
+Foulger, who, with laudable obedience, had come up to
+town from Chelmsford in response to a telegram. Miss
+Ingate was aware of this, but she was not aware of other
+and more recondite interviews which Audrey had accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And how did this happen?&#8221; eagerly inquired Miss
+Ingate, at last, pointing to the bandaged arm.</p>
+
+<p>Nick&#8217;s face showed discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Please don&#8217;t let us talk about that,&#8221; said Nick. &#8220;It
+was a policeman. I don&#8217;t think he meant it. I had
+chained myself to the railings of St. Margaret&#8217;s Church.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Susan Foley put in laconically:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s not to be worried. I hope ye&#8217;ll stay for tea.
+We shall have tea at five sharp. Janey&#8217;ll be in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can&#8217;t they sleep here, Susan?&#8221; Nick whimpered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course they can, and welcome,&#8221; said Susan.
+&#8220;There&#8217;s more empty beds in this barracks than they could
+sleep in if they slept all day and all night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But we&#8217;re staying at an hotel. We can&#8217;t possibly put
+you to all this trouble,&#8221; Audrey protested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No trouble. It&#8217;s my business. It&#8217;s what I&#8217;m here
+for,&#8221; said Susan Foley. &#8220;I&#8217;d sooner have it than mill work
+any day o&#8217; the week.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re just going to be very mean if you don&#8217;t stay
+here,&#8221; Nick faltered. Tears stood in her eyes again. &#8220;You
+don&#8217;t know how I feel.&#8221; She murmured something about
+Betty Burke&#8217;s doings,</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We will stay! We will stay!&#8221; Miss Ingate agreed
+hastily. And, unperceived by Nick, she gave Audrey a
+glance in which irony and tenderness were mingled. It
+was as if she had whispered, &#8220;The nerves of this angel have
+all gone to pieces. We must humour the little sentimental
+simpleton.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_21" id="chapter_21" />CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>JANE</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve begun, ye see,&#8221; said Susan Foley.</p>
+
+<p>It was two minutes past five, and Miss Ingate and
+Audrey, followed by Nick with her slung arm, entered the
+sheeted living-room. Tremendous feats had been performed.
+All the Moncreiff and Ingate luggage, less than two hours
+earlier lying at the Charing Cross Hotel, was now in two
+adjoining rooms on the third floor of the great house in
+Paget Gardens. Drivers and loiterers had assisted, under
+the strict and taciturn control of Susan Foley. Also Nick,
+Miss Ingate, and Audrey had had a most intimate conversation,
+and the two latter had changed their attire to suit the
+station of campers in a palace.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s lovely to be quite free and independent,&#8221; Audrey
+had said, and the statement had been acclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley was seated opposite her sister at the small
+table plainly set for five. She rose vivaciously, and came
+forward with outstretched hand. She wore a blue skirt and
+a white blouse and brown boots. She was twenty-eight,
+but her rather small proportions and her plentiful golden,
+fluffy hair made her seem about twenty. Her face was less
+homely than Susan&#8217;s, and more mobile. She smiled somewhat
+shyly, with an extraordinary radiant cheerfulness. It
+was impossible for her to conceal the fact that she was very
+good-natured and very happy. Finally, she limped.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Susan <em>will</em> have the meals prompt,&#8221; she said, as they
+all sat down. &#8220;And as Susan left home on purpose to look
+after me, of course she&#8217;s the mistress. As far as that goes,
+she always was.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Susan was spreading jam on a slice of bread-and-butter
+for the one-armed Nick.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I dare say you don&#8217;t remember me playing the barrel
+organ all down Regent Street that day, do you?&#8221; said
+Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes; quite well. You were magnificent!&#8221; answered
+Jane, with blue eyes sparkling.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, though I only just saw you&mdash;I was so busy&mdash;I
+should remember you anywhere, Miss Foley,&#8221; said Miss
+Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you notice any difference in her?&#8221; questioned
+Susan Foley harshly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;N-o,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;Except, perhaps, she looks
+even younger.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t you notice she&#8217;s lame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, well&mdash;yes, I did. But you didn&#8217;t expect me to
+mention that, did you? I thought your sister had just
+sprained her ankle, or something.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Susan. &#8220;It&#8217;s for life. Tell them about it,
+Jenny. They don&#8217;t know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley laughed lightly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was all in the day&#8217;s work,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It was at
+my last visit to Holloway.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, gazing at her entranced, like a child, murmured
+with awe:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you been to prison, then?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Three times,&#8221; said Jane pleasantly. &#8220;And I shall be
+going again soon. I&#8217;m only out while they&#8217;re trying to
+think of some new way of dealing with me, poor things!
+I&#8217;m generally watched. It must cost them a fearful lot of
+money. But what are they to do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But how were you lamed? I can&#8217;t eat any tea if you
+don&#8217;t tell me&mdash;really I can&#8217;t!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, all right!&#8221; Jane laughed. &#8220;It was after that
+Liberal mass meeting in Peel Park, at Bradford. I&#8217;d begun
+to ask questions, as usual, you know&mdash;questions they can&#8217;t
+answer&mdash;and then some Liberal stewards, with lovely rosettes
+in their buttonholes, came round me and started cutting my
+coat with their penknives. They cut it all to pieces. You
+see that was the best argument they could think of in the
+excitement of the moment. I believe they&#8217;d have cut up
+every stitch I had, only perhaps it began to dawn on them
+that it might be awkward for them. Then two of them
+lifted me up, one by the feet and the other by the shoulders,
+and carried me off. They wouldn&#8217;t let me walk. I told
+them they&#8217;d hurt my leg, but they were too busy to listen.
+As soon as they came across a policeman they said they had
+done it all to save me from being thrown into the lake by
+a brutal and infuriated mob. I just had enough breath left
+to thank them. Of course, the police weren&#8217;t going to stand
+that, so I was taken that night to London. Everything was
+thought of except my tea. But I expect they forgot that on
+purpose so that I should be properly hungry when I got to
+Holloway. However, I said to myself, &#8216;If I can&#8217;t eat and
+drink when <em>I</em> want, I won&#8217;t eat and drink when <em>they</em> want!&#8217;
+And I didn&#8217;t.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;After I&#8217;d paid my respects at Bow Street, and was
+back at Holloway, I just stamped on everything they offered
+me, and wrote a petition to the Governor asking to be
+treated as a political prisoner. Instead of granting the petition
+he kept sending me more and more beautiful food, and
+I kept stamping on it. Then three magistrates arrived and
+sat on my case, and sentenced me to the punishment cells.
+They ran off as soon as they&#8217;d sentenced me. I said I
+wouldn&#8217;t go to their punishment cells. I told everybody
+again how lame I was. So five wardresses carried me there,
+but they dropped me twice on the way. It was a very
+interesting cell, the punishment cell was. If it had been
+in the Tower, everybody would go to look at it because of
+its quaintness. There were two pools of water near to the
+bed. I was three days in the cell, and those pools of water
+were always there; I could see them because from where I
+lay on the bed the light glinted on them. Just one gleam
+from the tiny cobwebby window high up. I hadn&#8217;t anything
+to read, of course, but even if I&#8217;d had something I
+couldn&#8217;t see to read. The bed was two planks, just raised
+an inch or two above the water, and the pillow was wooden.
+Never any trouble about making beds like that! The entire
+furniture of this cosy drawing-room was&mdash;you&#8217;ll never
+guess&mdash;a tree-stump, meant for a chair, I think. And on
+this tree-stump was an india-rubber cup. I could just see it
+across the cell.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At night the wardresses were struck with pity, or
+perhaps it was the Governor. Anyhow, they brought me
+a mattress and a rug. They told me to get up off the
+bed, and I told them I couldn&#8217;t get up, couldn&#8217;t even
+turn over. So they said, &#8216;Very well, then; you can do
+without these things,&#8217; and they took them away. The
+funny thing was that I really couldn&#8217;t get up. If I tried
+to move, my leg made me want to shriek.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;After three days they decided to take me to the prison
+hospital. I shrieked all the way&mdash;couldn&#8217;t help it. They
+laughed. So then I laughed. In the hospital, the doctor
+decided that my left ankle was sprained and my right
+thigh broken. So I had the best of them, after all. They
+had to admit they were wrong. It was most awkward
+for them. Then I thought I might as well begin to eat.
+But they had to be very careful what they gave me. I
+hadn&#8217;t had anything for nearly six days, you see. They
+were in a fearful stew. Doctor was there day and night.
+And it wasn&#8217;t his fault. I told him he had all my sympathies.
+He said he was very sorry I should be lame for life, but
+it couldn&#8217;t be helped, as the thigh had been left too long.
+I said, &#8216;Please don&#8217;t mention it.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But did they keep you after that?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Keep me! They implored my friends to take me away.
+No man was ever more relieved that the poor dear Governor
+of Holloway Prison, and the Home Secretary himself, too,
+when I left in a motor ambulance. The Governor raised
+his hat to two of my friends. He would have eaten out
+of my hand if I&#8217;d had a few more days to tame him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey&#8217;s childlike and intense gaze had become extremely
+noticeable. Jane Foley felt it upon herself, and grew a
+little self-conscious. Susan Foley noticed it with eager
+and grim pride, and she made a sharp movement instead
+of saying: &#8220;Yes, you do well to stare. You&#8217;ve got
+something worth staring at.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Nick noticed it, with moisture in her glittering, hysteric
+eyes. Miss Ingate noticed it ironically. &#8220;You, pretending
+to be a widow, and so knowing and so superior! Why,
+you&#8217;re a schoolgirl!&#8221; said the expressive curve of Miss
+Ingate&#8217;s shut lips.</p>
+
+<p>And, in fact, Audrey was now younger than she had
+ever been in Paris. She was the girl of six or seven
+years earlier, who, at night at school, used to insist upon
+hearing stories of real people, either from a sympathetic
+teacher or from the other member of the celebrated secret
+society. But she had never heard any tale to compare
+with Jane Foley&#8217;s. It was incredible that this straightforward,
+simple girl at the table should be the world-renowned
+Jane Foley. What most impressed Audrey in
+Jane was Jane&#8217;s happiness. Jane was happy, as Audrey
+had not imagined that anyone could be happy. She had
+within her a supply of happiness that was constantly
+bubbling up. The ridiculousness and the total futility of
+such matters as motor-cars, fine raiment, beautiful boudoirs
+and correctness smote Audrey severely. She saw that there
+was only one thing worth having, and that was the
+mysterious thing that Jane Foley had. This mysterious
+thing rendered innocuous cruelty, stupidity and injustice,
+and reduced them to rather pathetic trifles.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I never saw all this in the papers!&#8221; Audrey
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No paper&mdash;I mean no respectable paper&mdash;would print it.
+Of course, we printed it in our own weekly paper.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why wouldn&#8217;t any respectable paper print it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because it&#8217;s not nice. Don&#8217;t you see that I ought
+to have been at home mending stockings instead of gallivanting
+round with Liberal stewards and policemen and
+prison governors?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why aren&#8217;t you mending stockings?&#8221; asked Audrey,
+with a delicious quizzical smile that crept gradually through
+the wonder and admiration in her face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You pal!&#8221; cried Jane Foley impulsively. &#8220;I must
+hug you!&#8221; And she did. &#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you why I&#8217;m not
+mending stockings, and why Susan has had to leave off
+mending stockings in order to look after me. Susan and
+I worked in a mill when she was ten and I was eleven.
+We were &#8216;tenters.&#8217; We used to get up at four or five
+in the morning and help with the housework, and then
+put on our clogs and shawls and be at the mill at six.
+We worked till twelve, and then in the afternoon we went
+to school. The next day we went to school in the morning
+and to the mill in the afternoon. When we were thirteen
+we left school altogether, and worked twelve hours a day
+in the mill. In the evenings we had to do housework.
+In fact, all our housework was done before half-past five
+in the morning and after half-past six in the evening.
+We had to work just as hard as the men and boys in the
+mill. We got a great deal less money and a great deal
+less decent treatment; but to make up we had to slave
+in the early morning and late at night, while the men
+either snored or smoked. I was all right. But Susan
+wasn&#8217;t. And a lot of women weren&#8217;t, especially young
+mothers with babies. So I learnt typewriting on the quiet,
+and left it all to try and find out whether something couldn&#8217;t
+be done. I soon found out&mdash;after I&#8217;d heard Rosamund
+speak. That&#8217;s the reason I&#8217;m not mending stockings.
+I&#8217;m not blaming anybody. It&#8217;s no one&#8217;s fault, really. It
+certainly isn&#8217;t men&#8217;s fault. Only something has to be
+altered, and most people detest alterations. Still, they
+do get done somehow in the end. And so there you
+are!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should love to help,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I expect I&#8217;m
+not much good, but I should love to.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She dared not refer to her wealth, of which, in fact,
+she was rather ashamed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, you can help, all right,&#8221; said Jane Foley, rising.
+&#8220;Are you a member?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. But I will be to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ll give you something to do,&#8221; said Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh yes!&#8221; remarked Miss Ingate. &#8220;They&#8217;ll keep you
+busy enough&mdash;<em>and</em> charge you for it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Susan Foley began to clear the table.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Supper at nine,&#8221; said she curtly.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_22" id="chapter_22" />CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DETECTIVE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey and Miss Ingate were writing letters to Paris.
+Jane Foley had gone forth again to a committee meeting,
+which was understood to be closely connected with a great
+Liberal demonstration shortly to be held in a Midland
+fortress of Liberalism. Miss Nickall, in accordance with
+medical instructions, had been put to bed. Susan Foley
+was in the basement, either clearing up tea or preparing
+supper.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, putting her pen between her teeth and
+looking up from a blotting-pad, said to Audrey across
+the table:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you writing to Musa?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly not!&#8221; said Audrey, with fire. &#8220;Why should
+I write to Musa?&#8221; She added: &#8220;But you can write to
+him, if you like.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Can I?&#8221; observed Miss Ingate, grinning.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey knew of no reason why she should blush before
+Miss Ingate, yet she began to blush. She resolved not to
+blush; she put all her individual force into the enterprise
+of resisting the tide of blood to her cheeks, but the tide
+absolutely ignored her, as the tide of ocean might have
+ignored her.</p>
+
+<p>She rose from the table, and, going into a corner,
+fidgeted with the electric switches, turning certain additional
+lights off and on.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; said Miss Ingate; &#8220;I&#8217;ll write to him.
+I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;ll expect something. Have you finished your
+letters?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, what&#8217;s this one on the table, then?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shan&#8217;t go on with that one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Any message for Musa?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You might tell him,&#8221; said Audrey, carefully examining
+the drawn curtains of the window, &#8220;that I happened to
+meet a French concert agent this morning who was very
+interested in him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you?&#8221; cried Miss Ingate. &#8220;Where?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was when I was out with Mr. Foulger. The agent
+asked me whether I&#8217;d heard a man named Musa play in
+Paris. Of course I said I had. He told me he meant
+to take him up and arrange a tour for him. So you might
+tell Musa he ought to be prepared for anything.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wonders will never cease!&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;Have
+I got enough stamps?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see anything wonderful in it,&#8221; Audrey sharply
+replied. &#8220;Lots of people in Paris know he&#8217;s a great
+player, and those Jew concert agents are always awfully
+keen&mdash;at least, so I&#8217;m told. Well, perhaps, after all, you&#8217;d
+better not tell him. It might make him conceited....
+Now, look here, Winnie, do hurry up, and let&#8217;s go out
+and post those letters. I can&#8217;t stand this huge house.
+I keep on imagining all the empty rooms in it. Hurry
+up and come along.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Shortly afterwards Miss Ingate shouted downstairs into
+the earth:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Foley, we&#8217;re both just going out to post some
+letters.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The faint reply came:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Supper at nine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At the farther corner of Paget Square they discovered
+a pillar-box standing solitary in the chill night among the
+vast and threatening architecture.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do let&#8217;s go to a café,&#8221; suggested Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A café?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. I want to be jolly. I must break loose somewhere
+to-night. I can&#8217;t wait till to-morrow. I was feeling
+splendid till Jane Foley went. Then the house began to
+get on my nerves, not to mention Susan Foley, with her
+supper at nine. Do all people in London fix their meals
+hours and hours beforehand? I suppose they do. We
+used to at Moze. But I&#8217;d forgotten. Come <em>along</em>, Winnie.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But there are no cafés in London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There must be some cafés somewhere.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Only public-houses and restaurants. Of course, we
+could go to a teashop, but they&#8217;re all shut up now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, what do people do in London when they
+want to be jolly? I always thought London was a
+terrific town.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They never want to be jolly,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;If
+they feel as if they couldn&#8217;t help being jolly, then they
+hire a private room somewhere and draw the blinds
+down.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With no more words, Audrey seized Miss Ingate by
+the arm and they walked off, out of the square and into
+empty and silent streets where highly disciplined gas-lamps
+kept strict watch over the deportment of colossal houses.
+In their rapid stroll they seemed to cover miles, but they
+could not escape from the labyrinth of tremendous and
+correct houses, which in squares and in terraces and in
+crescents displayed the everlasting characteristics of comfort,
+propriety and self-satisfaction. Now and then a wayfarer
+passed them. Now and then a taxicab sped through the
+avenues of darkness like a criminal pursued by the impalpable.
+Now and then a red light flickered in a porch instead
+of a white one. But there was no surcease from the sinister
+spell until suddenly they emerged into a long, wide, illumined
+thoroughfare of shut shops that stretched to infinity on
+either hand. And a vermilion motor-bus meandered by,
+and this motor-bus was so sad, so inexpressibly wistful, in
+the solemn wilderness of the empty artery, that the two
+women fled from the strange scene and penetrated once
+more into the gigantic and fearful maze from which they
+had for an instant stood free. Soon they were quite lost.
+Till that day and night Audrey had had a notion that Miss
+Ingate, though bizarre, did indeed know every street in
+London. The delusion was destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never mind,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;If we keep on we&#8217;re
+bound to come to a cabstand, and then we can take a taxi
+and go wherever we like&mdash;Regent Street, Piccadilly, anywhere.
+That&#8217;s the convenience of London. As soon as
+you come to a cabstand you&#8217;re all right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And then, in the distance, Audrey saw a man apparently
+tampering with a gate that led to an area.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why,&#8221; she said excitedly, &#8220;that&#8217;s the house we&#8217;re
+staying in!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course it isn&#8217;t!&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;This isn&#8217;t
+Paget Gardens, because there are houses on both sides of it
+and there&#8217;s a big wall on one side of Paget Gardens. I&#8217;m
+sure we&#8217;re at least two miles off our beds.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, how is it Nick&#8217;s hairbrushes are on the
+window-sill there, where she put them when she went to
+bed? I can see them quite plain. This is the side street&mdash;what&#8217;s-its-name?
+There&#8217;s the wall over there at the end.
+Don&#8217;t you remember&mdash;it&#8217;s a corner house. This is the side
+of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I believe you&#8217;re right,&#8221; admitted Miss Ingate. &#8220;What
+can that man be doing there?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They plainly saw him open the gate and disappear down
+the area steps.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a burglar,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;This part must be a
+regular paradise for burglars.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;More likely a detective,&#8221; Miss Ingate suggested.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was thrilled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do hope it is!&#8221; she murmured. &#8220;How heavenly!
+Miss Foley said she was being watched, didn&#8217;t she?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What had we better do?&#8221; Miss Ingate faltered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do, Winnie?&#8221; Audrey whispered, tugging at her arm.
+&#8220;We must run in at the front door and tell Supper-at-nine-o&#8217;clock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They kept cautiously on the far side of the street until
+the end of it, when they crossed over, nipped into the dark
+porch of the house and rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>Susan Foley opened for them. There was no light in
+the hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, is there?&#8221; said Susan Foley, very calmly, when
+she heard the news. &#8220;I think I know who it is. I&#8217;ve seen
+him hanging round my scullery door before. How did he
+climb over those railings?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He didn&#8217;t. He opened the gate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I locked the gate myself this afternoon. So he&#8217;s
+got a key. I shall manage him all right. We&#8217;ll get the
+fire-extinguishers. There&#8217;s about a dozen of &#8217;em, I should
+think, in this house. They&#8217;re rather heavy, but we can
+do it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Turning on the light in the hall, she immediately lifted
+from its hook a red-coloured metal cone about twenty inches
+long and eight inches in diameter at the base. &#8220;In case of
+fire drive in knob by hard blow against floor, and let
+liquid play on flames,&#8221; she read the instructions on the
+side. &#8220;I know them things,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It spurts out
+like a fountain, and it&#8217;s a rather nasty chemistry sort of a
+fluid. I shall take one downstairs to the scullery, and the
+others we&#8217;ll have upstairs in the room over Miss Nickall&#8217;s.
+We can put &#8217;em in the housemaid&#8217;s lift.... I shall open
+the scullery door and leave it a bit open like, and when he
+comes in I&#8217;ll be ready for him behind the door with this.
+If he thinks he can come spying after our Janey like
+this&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Miss Ingate began.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You aren&#8217;t feeling very well, are ye, miss?&#8221; Susan
+Foley demanded, as she put two extinguishers into the
+housemaid&#8217;s lift. &#8220;Better go and sit down in the parlour.
+You won&#8217;t be wanted. Mrs. Moncreiff and me can
+manage.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, we can!&#8221; agreed Audrey enthusiastically. &#8220;Run
+along, Winnie.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After about two minutes of hard labour Susan ran away
+and brought a key to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You sneak out,&#8221; she said, &#8220;and lock the gate on him.
+I lay he&#8217;ll want a new suit of clothes when I done with
+him!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Ecstatically, joyfully, Audrey took the key and departed.
+Miss Ingate was sitting in the hall, staring about her like an
+undecided bird. Audrey crept round into the side street.
+Nobody was in sight. She could not see over the railings,
+but she could see between them into the abyss of the area.
+The man was there. She could distinguish his dark form
+against the inner wall. With every conspiratorial precaution,
+she pulled the gate to, inserted the key, and locked it.</p>
+
+<p>A light went up in the scullery window, of which the
+blind was drawn. The man peeped at the sides of the
+blind. Then the scullery door was opened. The man
+started. A piece of wood was thrown out on to the floor
+of the area, and the door swung outwards. Then the
+light in the scullery was extinguished. The man waited
+a few moments. He had noticed that the door was not
+quite closed, and the interstice irresistibly fascinated him.
+He approached and put his hand against the door. It
+yielded. He entered. The next instant there was a bang
+and a cry, and a strong spray of white liquid appeared, in
+the middle of which was the man&#8217;s head. The door slammed
+and a bolt was shot. The man, spluttering, coughing, and
+swearing, rubbed his eyes and wiped water from his face
+with his hands. His hat was on the ground. At first he
+could not see at all, but presently he felt his way towards
+the steps and began to climb them. Audrey ran off towards
+the corner. She could see and hear him shaking the gate and
+then trying to get a key into it. But as Audrey had left her
+key in the other side of the lock, he failed in the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing was that a window opened in the high
+wall-face of the house and an immense stream of liquid
+descended full on the man&#8217;s head. Susan Foley was at
+the window, but only the nozzle of the extinguisher could
+be seen. The man tried to climb over the railings; he did
+not succeed; they had been especially designed to prevent
+such feats. He ran down the steps. The shower faithfully
+followed him. In no corner of his hiding did the bountiful
+spray neglect him. As soon as one supply of liquid
+slackened another commenced. Sometimes there were two
+at once. The man ran up the steps again and made another
+effort to reach the safety of the street. Audrey could restrain
+herself no more. She came, palpitating with joyous
+vitality, towards the area gate with the innocent mien of
+a passer-by.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whatever is the matter?&#8221; she exclaimed, stopping as
+if thunderstruck. But in the gloom her eyes were dancing
+fires. She was elated as she had never been.</p>
+
+<p>The man only coughed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You oughtn&#8217;t to take shower-baths like this in the
+street,&#8221; she said, veiling the laughter in her voice. &#8220;It&#8217;s
+not allowed. But I suppose you&#8217;re doing it for a bet or
+something.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The downpour ceased.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here, miss,&#8221; said he, between coughs, &#8220;unlock this
+gate for me. Here&#8217;s the key.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall do no such thing,&#8221; Audrey replied. &#8220;I believe
+you&#8217;re a burglar. I shall fetch a policeman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she turned back.</p>
+
+<p>In the house, Miss Ingate was coming slowly down the
+stairs, a fire-extinguisher in her arms, like a red baby. She
+had a sardonic smile, but there was diffidence in it, which
+showed, perhaps, that it was directed within.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve saved one,&#8221; she said, pointing to an extinguisher,
+&#8220;in case there should be a fire in the night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A little later Susan Foley appeared at the door of the
+living-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nine o&#8217;clock,&#8221; she announced calmly. &#8220;Supper&#8217;s
+ready. We shan&#8217;t wait for Jane.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Jane Foley arrived, a reconnaissance proved that
+the martyrised detective had contrived to get away.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_23" id="chapter_23" />CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BLUE CITY</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the following month, on a Saturday afternoon, Audrey,
+Miss Ingate, and Jane Foley were seated at an open-air
+café in the Blue City.</p>
+
+<p>The Blue City, now no more, was, as may be remembered,
+Birmingham&#8217;s reply to the White City of London,
+and the imitative White City of Manchester. Birmingham,
+in that year, was not imitative, and, with its chemical
+knowledge, it had discovered that certain shades of blue
+would resist the effects of smoke far more successfully than
+any shade of white. And experience even showed that these
+shades of blue were improved, made more delicate and
+romantic, by smoke. The total impression of the show&mdash;which
+it need hardly be said was situated in the polite
+Edgbaston district&mdash;was ethereal, especially when its
+minarets and towers, all in accordance with the taste of the
+period, were beheld from a distance. Nor was the exhibition
+entirely devoted to pleasure. It had a moral object, and
+that object was to demonstrate the progress of civilisation
+in our islands. Its official title, indeed, was &#8220;The National
+Progress Exhibition,&#8221; but the citizens of Birmingham and
+the vicinity never called it anything but the Blue City.</p>
+
+<p>On that Saturday afternoon a Cabinet Minister historically
+hostile to the idols of Birmingham was about to
+address a mass meeting in the Imperial Hall of the
+Exhibition, which held seven thousand people, in order to
+prove to Birmingham that the Government of which he was
+a member had done far more for national progress than any
+other Government had done for national progress in the same
+length of time. The presence of the Cabinet Minister
+accounted for the presence of Jane Foley; the presence of
+Jane Foley accounted for the presence of Audrey; and the
+presence of Audrey accounted for the presence of Miss
+Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Although she was one of the chief organisers of victory,
+and perhaps&mdash;next to Rosamund and the family trio whose
+Christian names were three sweet symphonies&mdash;the principal
+asset of the Suffragette Union, Jane Foley had not taken
+an active part in the Union&#8217;s arrangements for suitably
+welcoming the Cabinet Minister; partly because of her
+lameness, partly because she was writing a book, and partly
+for secret reasons which it would be unfair to divulge.
+Nearly at the last moment, however, in consequence of news
+that all was not well in the Midlands, she had been sent to
+Birmingham, and, after evading the watch of the police, she
+had arrived on the previous day in Audrey&#8217;s motor-car,
+which at that moment was waiting in the automobile park
+outside the principal gates of the Blue City.</p>
+
+<p>The motor-car had been chosen as a means of transit
+for the reason that the railway stations were being watched
+for notorious suffragettes by members of a police force
+whose reputations were at stake. Audrey owed her
+possession of a motor-car to the fact that the Union officials
+had seemed both startled and grieved when, in response to
+questions, she admitted that she had no car. It was communicated
+to her that members of the Union as rich as she
+reputedly was were expected to own cars for the general
+good. Audrey thereupon took measures to own a car.
+Having seen in many newspapers an advertisement in which
+a firm of middlemen implored the public thus: &#8220;Let us run
+your car for you. Let us take all the worry and responsibility,&#8221;
+she interviewed the firm, and by writing out a
+cheque disembarrassed herself at a stroke of every anxiety
+incident to defective magnetos, bad petrol, bad rubber,
+punctures, driving licences, bursts, collisions, damages, and
+human chauffeurs. She had all the satisfactions of owning
+a car without any of the cares. One of the evidences of
+progress in the Blue City was an exhibit of this very firm
+of middlemen.</p>
+
+<p>From the pale blue tripod table at which sat the three
+women could be plainly seen the vast Imperial Hall, flanked
+on one side by the great American Dragon Slide, a side-show
+loudly demonstrating progress, and on the other by
+the unique Joy Wheel side-show. At the doorway of the
+latter a man was bawling proofs of progress through a
+megaphone.</p>
+
+<p>Immense crowds had been gathering in the Imperial
+Hall, and the lines of political enthusiasts bound thither
+were now thinning. The Blue City was full of rumours, as
+that the Cabinet Minister was too afraid to come, as that
+he had been smuggled to the hall inside a tea-chest, and
+as that he had walked openly and unchallenged through the
+whole Exhibition. It was no rumour, but a sure fact, that
+two women had been caught hiding on the roof of the
+Imperial Hall, under natural shelters formed by the beams
+and boarding supporting the pediment of the eastern façade,
+and that they were ammunitioned with flags and leaflets and
+a silk ladder, and had made a hole in the roof exactly over
+the platform. These two women had been seen in charge
+of policemen at the Exhibition police-station. It was understood
+by many that they were the last hope of militancy
+that afternoon; many others, on the contrary, were convinced
+that they had been simply a feint.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Miss Ingate suddenly, glancing up at the
+Imperial clock, &#8220;I think I shall move outside and sit in the
+car. I think that&#8217;ll be the best place for me. I said that
+night in Paris that I&#8217;d get my arm broken, but I&#8217;ve changed
+my mind about that.&#8221; She rose.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; protested Audrey, &#8220;aren&#8217;t you going to see
+it out?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you afraid?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know that I&#8217;m afraid. I played the barrel
+organ all the way down Regent Street, and it was smashed
+to pieces. But I don&#8217;t want to go to prison. Really, I
+don&#8217;t <em>want</em> to. If me going to prison would bring the Vote
+a single year nearer, I should say: &#8216;Let it wait a year.&#8217; If
+me not going to prison meant no Vote for ever and ever, I
+should say: &#8216;Well, struggle on without the Vote.&#8217; I&#8217;ve no
+objection to other people going to prison, if it suits them,
+but it wouldn&#8217;t suit me. I know it wouldn&#8217;t. So I shall
+go outside and sit in the car. If you don&#8217;t come, I shall
+know what&#8217;s happened, and you needn&#8217;t worry about me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The dame duly departed, her lips and eyes equally ironic
+about her own prudence and about the rashness of others.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s have some more lemonade&mdash;shall we?&#8221; said
+Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, let&#8217;s!&#8221; agreed Audrey, with rapture. &#8220;And more
+sponge-cake, too! You do look lovely like that!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do I?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley had her profuse hair tightly bound round her
+head and powdered grey. It was very advisable for her
+to be disguised, and her bright hair was usually the chief
+symptom of her in those disturbances which so harassed
+the police. She now had the appearance of a neat old lady
+kept miraculously young by a pure and cheerful nature.
+Audrey, with a plain blue frock and hat which had cost
+more than Jane Foley would spend on clothes in twelve
+months, had a face dazzling by its ingenuous excitement
+and expectation. Her little nose was extraordinarily pert;
+her forehead superb; and all her gestures had the same
+vivacious charm as was in her eyes. The white-aproned,
+streamered girl who took the order for lemonade and
+sponge-cakes to a covered bar ornamented by advertisements
+of whisky, determined to adopt a composite of the
+styles of both the customers on her next ceremonious
+Sunday. And a large proportion of the other sippers and
+nibblers and of the endless promenading crowds regarded
+the pair with pleasure and curiosity, never suspecting that
+one of them was the most dangerous woman in England.</p>
+
+<p>The new refreshments, which had been delayed by
+reason of an altercation between the waitress and three
+extreme youths at a neighbouring table, at last arrived,
+and were plopped smartly down between Audrey and Miss
+Foley. Having received half a sovereign from Audrey, the
+girl returned to the bar for change. &#8220;None o&#8217; your sauce!&#8221;
+she threw out, as she passed the youths, who had
+apparently discovered new arguments in support of their
+case. Audrey was fired by the vigorous independence of the
+girl against three males.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care if we are caught!&#8221; she murmured low,
+looking for the future through the pellucid tumbler. She
+added, however: &#8220;But if we are, I shall pay my own fine.
+You know I promised that to Miss Ingate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all right, so long as you don&#8217;t pay mine, my
+dear,&#8221; said Jane Foley with an affectionate smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jenny!&#8221; Audrey protested, full of heroine-worship.
+&#8220;How could you think I would ever do such a mean thing!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There came a dull, vague, voluminous sound from the
+direction of the Imperial Hall. It lasted for quite a number
+of seconds.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s beginning,&#8221; said Jane Foley. &#8220;I do feel sorry
+for him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are we to start now?&#8221; Audrey asked deferentially.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no!&#8221; Jane laughed. &#8220;The great thing is to let
+them think everything&#8217;s all right. And then, when they&#8217;re
+getting careless, let go at them full bang with a beautiful
+surprise. There&#8217;ll be a chance of getting away like that.
+I believe there are a hundred and fifty stewards in the meeting,
+and they&#8217;ll every one be quite useless.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At intervals a muffled roar issued from the Imperial
+Hall, despite the fact that the windows were closely shut.</p>
+
+<p>In due time Jane Foley quietly rose from the table, and
+Audrey did likewise. All around them stretched the imposing
+blue architecture of the Exhibition, forming vistas
+that ended dimly either in the smoke of Birmingham or the
+rustic haze of Worcestershire. And, although the Imperial
+Hall was crammed, every vista was thickly powdered with
+pleasure-seekers and probably pleasure-finders. Bands
+played. Flags waved. Brass glinted. Even the sun
+feebly shone at intervals through the eternal canopy of
+soot. It was a great day in the annals of the Blue City
+and of Liberalism.</p>
+
+<p>And Jane Foley and Audrey turned their backs upon all
+that, and&mdash;Jane concealing her limp as much as possible&mdash;sauntered
+with affected nonchalance towards the precincts
+of the Joy Wheel enclosure. Audrey was inexpressibly uplifted.
+She felt as if she had stepped straight into romance.
+And she was right&mdash;she had stepped into the most vivid
+romance of the modern age, into a world of disguises,
+flights, pursuits, chicane, inconceivable adventures, ideals,
+martyrs and conquerors, which only the Renaissance or the
+twenty-first century could appreciate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lend me that, will you?&#8221; said Jane persuasively to
+the man with the megaphone at the entrance to the enclosure.</p>
+
+<p>He was, quite properly, a very loud man, with a loud
+thick voice, a loud purple face, and a loud grey suit. To
+Audrey&#8217;s astonishment, he smiled and winked, and gave up
+the megaphone at once.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey paid sixpence at the turnstile, admittance for two
+persons, and they were within the temple, which had a
+roof like an umbrella over the central, revolving portion of
+it, but which was somewhat open to the skies around the
+rim. There were two concentric enclosing walls, the inner
+one was unscalable, and the outer one about five feet six
+inches high. A second loud man was calling out:
+&#8220;Couples please. Ladies <em>and</em> gentlemen. Couples if <em>you</em> please.&#8221; Obediently, numbers of the crowd disposed themselves
+in pairs in the attitudes of close affection on the
+circling floor which had just come to rest, while the
+remainder of the numerous gathering gazed upon them with
+sarcastic ecstasy. Then the wheel began slowly to turn,
+and girls to shriek in the plenitude of happiness. And
+progress was proved geometrically.</p>
+
+<p>Jane, bearing the megaphone, slipped by an aperture
+into the space between the two walls, and Audrey followed.
+Nobody gave attention to them except the second loud man,
+who winked the wink of knowledge. The fact was that
+both the loud men, being unalterable Tories, had been very
+willing to connive at Jane Foley&#8217;s scheme for the affliction
+of a Radical Minister.</p>
+
+<p>The two girls over the wall had an excellent and
+appetising view of the upper part of the side of the Imperial
+Hall, and of its high windows, the nearest of which was
+scarcely thirty feet away.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hold this, will you?&#8221; said Jane, handing the megaphone
+to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Jane drew from its concealment in her dress a small
+piece of iron to which was attached a coloured streamer
+bearing certain words. She threw, with a strong movement
+of the left arm, because she was left-handed. She
+had practised throwing; throwing was one of her several
+specialties. The bit of iron, trailing its motto like a comet
+its tail, flew across space and plumped into the window
+with a pleasing crash and disappeared, having triumphed
+over uncounted police on the outskirts and a hundred and
+fifty stewards within. A roar from the interior of the hall
+supervened, and varied cries.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Give me the meg,&#8221; said Jane gently.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant she was shouting through the megaphone,
+an instrument which she had seriously studied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Votes for women. Why do you torture women?
+Votes for women. Why do you torture women?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The uproar increased and subsided. A masterful voice
+resounded within the interior. Many people rushed out of
+the hall. And there was a great scurry of important and
+puzzled feet within a radius of a score of yards.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think I&#8217;ll try the next window,&#8221; said Jane, handing
+over the megaphone. &#8220;You shout while I throw.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey&#8217;s heart was violently beating. She took the
+megaphone and put it to her lips, but no sound would come.
+Then, as though it were breaking through an obstacle, the
+sound shot forth, and to Audrey it was a gigantic voice
+that functioned quite independently of her will. Tremendously
+excited by the noise, she bawled louder and still
+louder.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve missed,&#8221; said Jane calmly in her ear. &#8220;That&#8217;s
+enough, I think. Come along.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But they can&#8217;t possibly see us,&#8221; said Audrey, breathless,
+lowering the instrument.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come along, dear,&#8221; Jane Foley insisted.</p>
+
+<p>People with open mouths were crowding at the aperture
+of the inner wall, but, Jane going first, both girls pushed
+safely through the throng. The wheel had stopped. The
+entire congregation was staring agog, and in two seconds
+everybody divined, or had been nudged to the effect, that
+Jane and Audrey were the authoresses of the pother.</p>
+
+<p>Jane still leading, they made for the exit. But the first
+loud man rushed chivalrously in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perlice!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;Two bobbies a-coming.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here!&#8221; said the second loud man. &#8220;Here, misses.
+Get on the wheel. They&#8217;ll never get ye if ye sit in the
+middle back to back.&#8221; He jumped on to the wheel himself,
+and indicated the mathematical centre. Jane took the suggestion
+in a flash; Audrey was obedient. They fixed themselves
+under directions, dropping the megaphone. The
+wheel started, and the megaphone rattled across its smooth
+surface till it was shot off. A policeman ran in, and hesitated;
+another man, in plain clothes, and wearing a rosette,
+ran in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s them,&#8221; said the rosette. &#8220;I saw her with the
+grey hair from the gallery.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The policeman sprang on to the wheel, and after terrific
+efforts fell sprawling and was thrown off. The rosette met
+the same destiny. A second policeman appeared, and with
+the fearless courage of his cloth, undeterred by the spectacle
+of prostrate forms, made a magnificent dash, and was
+equally floored.</p>
+
+<p>As Audrey sat very upright, pressing her back against
+the back of Jane Foley and clutching at Jane Foley&#8217;s skirts
+with her hands behind her&mdash;the locked pair were obliged thus
+to hold themselves exactly over the axis of the wheel, for
+the slightest change of position would have resulted in their
+being flung to the circumference and into the blue grip of
+the law&mdash;she had visions of all her life just as though she
+had been drowning. She admitted all her follies and
+wondered what madness could have prompted her remarkable
+escapades both in Paris and out of it. She remembered
+Madame Piriac&#8217;s prophecy. She was ready to wish
+the past year annihilated and herself back once more in
+parental captivity at Moze, the slave of an unalterable
+routine imposed by her father, without responsibility, without
+initiative and without joy. And she lived again through
+the scenes in which she had smiled at the customs official,
+fibbed to Rosamund, taken the wounded Musa home in the
+taxi, spoken privily with the ageing yacht-owner, and
+laughed at the drowned detective in the area of the palace
+in Paget Gardens.</p>
+
+<p>Everything happened in her mind while the wheel went
+round once, showing her in turn to the various portions
+of the audience, and bringing her at length to a second view
+of the sprawling policemen. Whereupon she thought
+queerly: &#8220;What do I care about the vote, really?&#8221; And
+finally she thought with anger and resentment: &#8220;What a
+shame it is that women haven&#8217;t got the vote!&#8221; And then
+she heard a gay, quiet sound. It was Jane Foley laughing
+gently behind her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can you see the big one now, darling?&#8221; asked Jane
+roguishly. &#8220;Has he picked himself up again?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey laughed.</p>
+
+<p>And at last the audience laughed also. It laughed
+because the big policeman, unconquerable, had made
+another intrepid dash for the centre of the wheel and fallen
+upon his stomach as upon a huge india-rubber ball. The
+audience did more than laugh&mdash;it shrieked, yelled, and
+guffawed. The performance to be witnessed was worth ten
+times the price of entry. Indeed no such performance had
+ever before been seen in the whole history of popular amusement.
+And in describing the affair the next morning as
+&#8220;unique&#8221; the <em>Birmingham Daily Post</em> for once used that
+adjective with absolute correctness. The policemen tried
+again and yet again. They got within feet, within inches,
+of their prey, only to be dragged away by the mysterious
+protector of militant maidens&mdash;centrifugal force. Probably
+never before in the annals of the struggle for political
+freedom had maidens found such a protection, invisible,
+sinister and complete. Had the education of policemen in
+England included a course of mechanics, these particular
+two policemen would have known that they were seeking
+the impossible and fighting against that which was stronger
+than ten thousand policemen. But they would not give up.
+At each fresh attempt they hoped by guile to overcome their
+unseen enemy, as the gambler hopes at each fresh throw to
+outwit chance. The jeers of the audience pricked them to
+desperation, for in encounters with females like Jane Foley
+and Audrey they had been accustomed to the active
+sympathy of the public. But centrifugal force had
+rendered them ridiculous, and the public never sympathises
+with those whom ridicule has covered. The strange and side-splitting
+effects of centrifugal force had transformed about a
+hundred indifferent young men and women into ardent and
+convinced supporters of feminism in its most advanced form.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of her slow revolution Audrey saw the
+rosetted steward arguing with the second loud man, no
+doubt to persuade him to stop the wheel. Then out of the
+tail of her eye she saw the steward run violently from the
+tent. And then while her back was towards the entrance
+she was deafened by a prodigious roar of delight from the
+mob. The two policemen had fled also&mdash;probably for reinforcements
+and appliances against centrifugal force. In
+their pardonable excitement they had, however, committed
+the imprudence of departing together. An elementary
+knowledge of strategy should have warned them against
+such a mistake. The wheel stopped immediately. The
+second loud man beckoned with laughter to Jane Foley and
+Audrey, who rose and hopefully skipped towards him.
+Audrey at any rate was as self-conscious as though she had
+been on the stage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s th&#8217; back way,&#8221; said the second loud man,
+pointing to a coarse curtain in the obscurity of the nether
+parts of the enclosure.</p>
+
+<p>They ran, Jane Foley first, and vanished from the
+regions of the Joy Wheel amid terrific acclamations given
+in a strong Midland accent.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment they found themselves in a part of
+the Blue City which nobody had taken the trouble to paint
+blue. The one blue object was a small patch of sky, amid
+clouds, overhead. On all sides were wooden flying
+buttresses, supporting the boundaries of the Joy Wheel
+enclosure to the south-east, of the Parade Restaurant and
+Bar to the south-west, and of a third establishment of good
+cheer to the north. Upon the ground were brick-ends,
+cinders, bits of wood, bits of corrugated iron, and all the
+litter and refuse cast out of sight of the eyes of visitors to
+the Exhibition of Progress.</p>
+
+<p>With the fear of the police behind them they stumbled
+forward a few yards, and then saw a small ramshackle
+door swinging slightly to and fro on one hinge. Jane Foley
+pulled it open. They both went into a narrow passage.
+On the mildewed wall of the passage was pinned up a notice
+in red ink: &#8220;Any waitress taking away any apron or cap
+from the Parade Restaurant and Bar will be fined one
+shilling.&#8221; Farther on was another door, also ajar. Jane
+Foley pushed against it, and a tiny room of irregular shape
+was disclosed. In this room a stout woman in grey was
+counting a pile of newly laundered caps and aprons, and
+putting them out of one hamper into another. Audrey
+remembered seeing the woman at the counter of the
+restaurant and bar.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The police are after us. They&#8217;ll be here in a minute,&#8221;
+said Jane Foley simply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; exclaimed the woman in grey, with the carelessness
+of fatigue. &#8220;Are you them stone-throwing lot?
+They&#8217;ve just been in to tell me about it. What d&#8217;ye do
+it for?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We do it for you&mdash;amongst others,&#8221; Jane Foley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nay! That ye don&#8217;t!&#8221; said the woman positively.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve got a vote for the city council, and I want no more.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, you don&#8217;t want us to get caught, do you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I don&#8217;t know as I do. Ye look a couple o&#8217; bonny
+wenches.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s have two caps and aprons, then,&#8221; said Jane
+Foley smoothly. &#8220;We&#8217;ll pay the shilling fine.&#8221; She
+laughed lightly. &#8220;And a bit more. If the police get in
+here we shall have to struggle, you know, and they&#8217;ll break
+the place up.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey produced another half-sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But what shall ye do with yer hats and coats?&#8221; the
+woman demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Give them to you, of course.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The woman regarded the hats and coats.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t get near them coats,&#8221; she said. &#8220;And if I
+put on one o&#8217; them there hats my old man &#8217;ud rise from the
+grave&mdash;that he would. Still, I don&#8217;t wish ye any harm.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She shut and locked the door.</p>
+
+<p>In about a minute two waitresses in aprons and
+streamered caps of immaculate purity emerged from the
+secret places of the Parade Restaurant and Bar, slipped
+round the end of the counter, and started with easy indifference
+to saunter away into the grounds after the manner
+of restaurant girls who have been gifted with half an hour
+off. The tabled expanse in front of the Parade erection was
+busy with people, some sitting at the tables and supporting
+the establishment, but many more merely taking advantage
+of the pitch to observe all possible exciting developments of
+the suffragette shindy.</p>
+
+<p>And as the criminals were modestly getting clear, a loud
+and imperious voice called:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hey!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, lacking experience, hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hey there!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They both turned, for the voice would not be denied.
+It belonged to a man sitting with another man at a table
+on the outskirts of the group of tables. It was the voice
+of the rosetted steward, who beckoned in a not unfriendly
+style.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bring us two liqueur brandies, miss,&#8221; he cried. &#8220;And
+look slippy, if ye please.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The sharp tone, so sure of obedience, gave Audrey a
+queer sensation of being in reality a waitress doomed to
+tolerate the rough bullying of gentlemen urgently desiring
+alcohol. And the fierce thought that women&mdash;especially
+restaurant waitresses&mdash;must and should possess the Vote
+surged through her mind more powerfully than ever.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll never have the chance again,&#8221; she muttered to herself.
+And marched to the counter.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Two liqueur brandies, please,&#8221; she said to the woman
+in grey, who had left her apron calculations. &#8220;That&#8217;s all
+right,&#8221; she murmured, as the woman stared a question at
+her. Then the woman smiled to herself, and poured out
+the liqueur brandies from a labelled bottle with startling
+adroitness, and dashed the full glasses on to a brass tray.</p>
+
+<p>As Audrey walked across the gravel carefully balancing
+the tray, she speculated whether the public eye would notice
+the shape of her small handbag, which was attached by a
+safety pin to her dress beneath the apron, and whether her
+streamers were streaming out far behind her head.</p>
+
+<p>Before she could put the tray down on the table, the
+rosetted steward, who looked pale, snatched one of the
+glasses and gulped down its entire contents.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wanted it!&#8221; said he, smacking his lips. &#8220;I wanted
+it bad. They&#8217;ll catch &#8217;em all right. I should know the
+young &#8217;un again anywhere. I&#8217;ll swear to identify her in
+any court. And I will. Tasty little piece o&#8217; goods, too! ...
+But not so good-looking as you,&#8221; he added, gazing
+suddenly at Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;None o&#8217; your sauce,&#8221; snapped Audrey, and walked off,
+leaving the tray behind.</p>
+
+<p>The two men exploded into coarse but amiable laughter,
+and called to her to return, but she would not. &#8220;You can
+pay the other young lady,&#8221; she said over her shoulder,
+pointing vaguely to the counter where there was now a
+bevy of other young ladies.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later Miss Ingate, and the chauffeur also,
+received a very appreciable shock. Half an hour later the
+car, having called at the telegraph office, and also at the
+aghast lodgings of the waitresses to enable them to reattire
+and to pack, had quitted Birmingham.</p>
+
+<p>That night they reached Northampton. At the post
+office there Jane Foley got a telegram. And when the three
+were seated in a corner of the curtained and stuffy dining-room
+of the small hotel, Jane said, addressing herself
+specially to Audrey:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It won&#8217;t be safe for us to return to Paget Gardens
+to-morrow. And perhaps not to any of our places in
+London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That won&#8217;t matter,&#8221; said Audrey, who was now
+becoming accustomed to the world of conspiracy and
+chicane in which Jane Foley carried on her existence with
+such a deceiving air of the matter-of-fact. &#8220;We&#8217;ll go anywhere,
+won&#8217;t we, Winnie?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Miss Ingate assented.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Jane Foley. &#8220;I&#8217;ve just had a telegram
+arranging for us to go to Frinton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t mean Frinton-on-Sea?&#8221; exclaimed Miss
+Ingate, suddenly excited.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It <em>is</em> on the sea,&#8221; said Jane. &#8220;We have to go
+through Colchester. Do you know it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do I know it!&#8221; repeated Miss Ingate. &#8220;I know
+everybody in Frinton, except the Germans. When I&#8217;m at
+home I buy my bacon at Frinton. Are you going to an
+hotel there?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Jane. &#8220;To some people named Spatt.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s nobody that is anybody named Spatt living at
+Frinton,&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They haven&#8217;t been there long.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; murmured Miss Ingate. &#8220;Of course if that&#8217;s
+it...! I can&#8217;t guarantee what&#8217;s happened since I began
+my pilgrimages. But I think I shall wriggle off home
+quietly as soon as we get to Colchester. This afternoon&#8217;s
+business has been too feverish for me. When the policeman
+held up his hand as we came through Ellsworth I thought
+you were caught. I shall just go home.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care much about going to Frinton, Jenny,&#8221; said
+Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, Moze lay within not many miles of Frinton-on-Sea.</p>
+
+<p>Then Audrey and Miss Ingate observed a phenomenon
+that was both novel and extremely disturbing. Tears came
+into the eyes of Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t say it, Audrey, don&#8217;t say it!&#8221; she appealed in
+a wet voice. &#8220;I shall have to go myself. And you simply
+can&#8217;t imagine how I hate going all alone into these houses
+that we&#8217;re invited to. I&#8217;d much sooner be in lodgings, as
+we were last night. But these homes in quiet places here
+and there are very useful sometimes. They all belong to
+members of the Union, you know; and we have to use them.
+But I wish we hadn&#8217;t. I&#8217;ve met Mrs. Spatt once. I didn&#8217;t
+think you&#8217;d throw me over just at the worst part. The
+Spatts will take all of us and be glad.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>("They won&#8217;t take me,&#8221; said Miss Ingate under her
+breath.)</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall come with you,&#8221; said Audrey, caressing the
+recreant who, while equal to trifles such as policemen, magistrates,
+and prisons, was miserably afraid of a strange
+home. In fact Audrey now liked Jane much more than
+ever, liked her completely&mdash;and perhaps admired her rather
+less, though her admiration was still intense. And the
+thought in Audrey&#8217;s mind was: &#8220;Never will I desert this
+girl! I&#8217;m a militant, too, now, and I shall stick by her.&#8221;
+And she was full of a happiness which she could not understand
+and which she did not want to understand.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning all the newspaper posters in Northhampton
+bore the words: &#8220;Policemen and suffragettes on
+Joy Wheel,&#8221; or some variation of these words. And they
+bore nothing else. And in all the towns and many of the
+villages through which they passed on the way to Colchester,
+the same legend greeted their flying eyes. Audrey
+and Miss Ingate, in the motor-car, read with great care all
+the papers. Audrey blushed at the descriptions of herself,
+which were flattering. It seemed that the Cabinet Minister&#8217;s
+political meeting had been seriously damaged by the episode,
+for the reason that rumours of the performance on the Joy
+Wheel had impaired the spell of eloquence and partially
+emptied the hall. And this was the more disappointing in
+that the police had been sure that nothing untoward would
+occur. It seemed also that the police were on the track of
+the criminals.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are they!&#8221; exclaimed Jane Foley with a beautiful
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>Then the car approached a city of towers on a hill, and
+as it passed by the station, which was in the valley, Miss
+Ingate demanded a halt. She got out in the station yard
+and transferred her belongings to a cab.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall drive home from here,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve often
+done it before. After all, I did play the barrel organ all
+the way down Regent Street. Surely I can rest on the
+barrel organ, can&#8217;t I, Miss Foley&mdash;at my age? ... What
+a business I shall have when I <em>do</em> get home, and nobody
+expecting me!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And when certain minor arrangements had been made,
+the car mounted the hill into Colchester and took the
+Frinton road, leaving Miss Ingate&#8217;s fly far behind.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_24" id="chapter_24" />CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SPATTS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The house of the Spatts was large, imposing and variegated.
+It had turrets, balconies, and architectural nooks in such
+quantity that the unaided individual eye could not embrace
+it all at once. It overlooked, from a height, the grounds
+of the Frinton Sports Club, and a new member of this club,
+upon first beholding the residence, had made the immortal
+remark: &#8220;It wants at least fourteen people to look at it.&#8221;
+The house stood in the middle of an unfinished garden,
+which promised ultimately to be as heterogeneous as itself,
+but which at present was merely an expanse of sorely
+wounded earth.</p>
+
+<p>The time was early summer, and therefore the summer
+dining-room of the Spatts was in use. This dining-room
+consisted of one white, windowed wall, a tiled floor, and a
+roof of wood. The windows gave into the winter dining-room,
+which was a white apartment, sparsely curtained and
+cushioned with chintz, and containing very few pieces of
+furniture or pictures. The Spatts considered, rightly, that
+furniture and pictures were unhygienic and the secret lairs
+of noxious germs. Had the Spatts flourished twenty-five years
+earlier their dining-room would have been covered with
+brown paper upon which would have hung permanent photographs
+of European masterpieces of graphic art, and there
+would have been a multiplicity of draperies and specimens
+of battered antique furniture, with a warming-pan or so
+suspended here and there in place of sporting trophies. But
+the Spatts had not begun to flourish twenty-five years ago.
+They flourished very few years ago and they still flourish.</p>
+
+<p>As the summer dining-room had only one wall, it follows
+that it was open to the powers of the air. This result had
+been foreseen by the Spatts&mdash;had indeed been expressly
+arranged, for they believed strongly in the powers of the
+air, as being beneficent powers. It is true that they generally
+had sniffling colds, but their argument was that these
+maladies had no connection whatever with the powers of the
+air, which, according to their theory, saved them from
+much worse.</p>
+
+<p>They and their guests were now seated at dinner.
+Twilight was almost lost in night. The table was
+illuminated by four candles at the corners, and flames of
+these candles flickered in the healthful evening breeze,
+dropping pink wax on the candlesticks. They were surrounded
+by the mortal remains of tiny moths, but other
+tiny moths would not heed the warning and continually shot
+themselves into the flames. On the outskirts of the table
+moved with silent stealth the forms of two middle-aged and
+ugly servants.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Spatt was very tall and very thin, and the
+simplicity of her pale green dress&mdash;sole reminder of the
+brown-paper past&mdash;was calculated to draw attention to these
+attributes. She had an important reddish nose, and a
+mysterious look of secret confidence, which never left her
+even in the most trying crises. Mr. Spatt also was very
+tall and very thin. His head was several sizes too small,
+and part of his insignificant face, which one was apt to miss
+altogether in contemplating his body, was hidden under a
+short grey beard. Siegfried Spatt, the sole child of the
+union, though but seventeen, was as tall and as thin as his
+father and his mother; he had a pale face and red hands.</p>
+
+<p>The guests were Audrey, Jane Foley, and a young
+rubicund gentleman, beautifully clothed, and with fair
+curly locks, named Ziegler. Mr. Ziegler was far more perfectly
+at ease than anybody else at the table, which indeed
+as a whole was rendered haggard and nervous by the precarious
+state of the conversation, expecting its total
+decease at any moment. At intervals someone lifted the
+limp dying body&mdash;it sank back&mdash;was lifted again&mdash;struggled
+feebly&mdash;relapsed. Young Siegfried was excessively tongue-tied
+and self-conscious, and his demeanour frankly admitted
+it. Jane Foley, acknowledged heroine in certain fields, sat
+like a schoolgirl at her first dinner-party. Audrey maintained
+her widowhood, but scarcely with credit. Mr. and
+Mrs. Spatt were as usual too deeply concerned about the
+awful condition of the universe to display that elasticity of
+mood which continuous chatter about nothing in particular
+demands. And they were too worshipful of the best London
+conventions not to regard silence at table as appalling. In
+the part of the country from which Jane Foley sprang, hosts
+will sit mute through a meal and think naught of it. But
+Mr. and Mrs. Spatt were of different stuff. All these five
+appeared to be in serious need of conversation pills. Only
+Mr. Ziegler beheld his companions with a satisfied equanimity
+that was insensible to spiritual suffering. Happily at the
+most acute moments the gentle night wind, meandering
+slowly from the east across leagues of North Sea, would
+induce in one or another a sneeze which gave some semblance
+of vitality and vigour to the scene.</p>
+
+<p>After one of these sneezes it was that Jane Foley,
+conscience-stricken, tried to stimulate the exchanges by an
+effort of her own.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what are the folks like in Frinton?&#8221; she demanded,
+blushing, and looking up. As she looked up young Siegfried
+looked down, lest he might encounter her glance and be
+utterly discountenanced.</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley&#8217;s question was unfortunate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We know nothing of them,&#8221; said Mrs. Spatt, pained.
+&#8220;Of course I have received and paid a few purely formal
+calls. But as regards friends and acquaintances, we prefer
+to import them from London. As for the holiday-makers,
+one sees them, naturally. They appear to lead an exclusively
+physical existence.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear,&#8221; put in Mr. Spatt stiffly. &#8220;The residents
+are no better. The women play golf all day on that
+appalling golf course, and then after tea they go into the
+town to change their library books. But I do not believe
+that they ever read their library books. The mentality of
+the town is truly remarkable. However, I am informed
+that there are many towns like it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You bet!&#8221; murmured Siegfried Spatt, and then tried,
+vainly, to suck back the awful remark whence it had come.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ziegler, speaking without passion or sorrow, added
+his views about Frinton. He asserted that it was the worst
+example of stupid waste of opportunities he had ever encountered,
+even in England. He pointed out that there
+was no band, no pier, no casino, no shelters&mdash;and not even
+a tree; and that there were no rules to govern the place.
+He finished by remarking that no German state would
+tolerate such a pleasure resort. In this judgment he
+employed an excellent English accent, with a scarcely perceptible
+thickening of the t&#8217;s and thinning of the d&#8217;s.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ziegler left nothing to be said.</p>
+
+<p>Then the conversation sighed and really did expire. It
+might have survived had not the Spatts had a rule, explained
+previously to those whom it concerned, against
+talking shop. Their attachment to this rule was heroic.
+In the present instance shop was suffragism. The Spatts
+had developed into supporters of militancy in a very
+curious way. Mrs. Spatt&#8217;s sister, a widow, had been
+mixed up with the Union for years. One day she was fined
+forty shillings or a week&#8217;s imprisonment for a political
+peccadillo involving a hatpin and a policeman. It was useless
+for her to remind the magistrate that she, like Mrs.
+Spatt, was the daughter of the celebrated statesman B&mdash;&mdash;,
+who in the fifties had done so much for Britain. (Lo!
+The source of that mysterious confidence that always supported
+Mrs. Spatt!) The magistrate had no historic sense.
+She went to prison. At least she was on the way thither
+when Mr. Spatt paid the fine in spite of her. The same
+night Mr. Spatt wrote to his favourite evening paper to
+point out the despicable ingratitude of a country which would
+have imprisoned a daughter of the celebrated B&mdash;&mdash;, and
+announced that henceforward he would be an active supporter
+of suffragism, which hitherto had interested him only
+academically. He was a wealthy man, and his money and
+his house and his pen were at the service of the Union&mdash;but
+always with discretion.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey and Jane Foley had learnt all this privately from
+Mrs. Spatt on their arrival, after they had told such part
+of their tale as Jane Foley had deemed suitable, and they
+had further learnt that suffragism would not be a welcome
+topic at their table, partly on account of the servants and
+partly on account of Mr. Ziegler, whose opinions were quite
+clearly opposed to the movement, but whom they admired
+for true and rare culture. He was a cousin of German
+residents in First Avenue and, visiting them often,
+had been discovered by Mr. Spatt in the afternoon-tea
+train.</p>
+
+<p>And just as the ices came to compete with the night
+wind, the postman arrived like a deliverer. The postman
+had to pass the dining-room <em>en route</em> by the circuitous drive
+to the front door, and when dinner was afoot he would
+hand the letters to the parlourmaid, who would divide
+them into two portions, and, putting both on a salver,
+offer the salver first to Mrs. and then to Mr. Spatt, while
+Mr. or Mrs. Spatt begged guests, if there were any, to
+excuse the quaint and indeed unusual custom, pardonable
+only on the plea that any tidings from London ought to be
+savoured instantly in such a place as Frinton.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving his little pile untouched for some time,
+Mr. Spatt took advantage of the diversion caused by the
+brushing of the cloth and the distribution of finger-bowls to
+glance at the topmost letter, which was addressed in a
+woman&#8217;s hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s coming!&#8221; he exclaimed, forgetting to apologise
+in the sudden excitement of news, &#8220;Good heavens!&#8221; He
+looked at his watch. &#8220;She&#8217;s here. I heard the train
+several minutes ago! She must be here! The letter&#8217;s
+been delayed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who, Alroy?&#8221; demanded Mrs. Spatt earnestly. &#8220;Not
+that Miss Nickall you mentioned?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, my dove.&#8221; And then in a grave tone to the
+parlourmaid: &#8220;Give this letter to your mistress.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spatt, cheered by the new opportunity for conversation,
+and in his eagerness abrogating all rules, explained
+how he had been in London on the previous day for a performance
+of Strauss&#8217;s <em>Elektra</em>, and according to his custom
+had called at the offices of the Suffragette Union to see
+whether he could in any manner aid the cause. He had
+been told that a house in Paget Gardens lent to the Union
+had been basely withdrawn from service by its owner on
+account of some embroilment with the supreme police
+authorities at Scotland Yard, and that one of the inmates,
+a Miss Nickall, the poor young lady who had had her arm
+broken and was scarcely convalescent, had need of quietude
+and sea air. Mr. Spatt had instantly offered the hospitality
+of his home to Miss Nickall, whom he had seen in a cab
+and who was very sweet. Miss Nickall had said that she
+must consult her companion. It now appeared that the companion
+was gone to the Midlands. This episode had
+occurred immediately before the receipt of the telegram from
+head-quarters asking for shelter for Miss Jane Foley and
+Mrs. Moncreiff.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spatt&#8217;s excitement had now communicated itself
+to everybody except Mr. Ziegler and Siegfried Spatt. Jane
+Foley almost recovered her presence of mind, and Mrs.
+Spatt was extraordinarily interested to learn that Miss
+Nickall was an American painter who had lived long in
+Paris, and that Audrey had first made her acquaintance in
+Paris, and knew Paris well. Audrey&#8217;s motor-car had produced
+a considerable impression on Aurora Spatt, and this
+impression was deepened by the touch about Paris. After
+breathing mysterious orders into the ear of the parlourmaid
+Mrs. Spatt began to talk at large about music in
+Paris, and Mr. Spatt made comparisons between the principal
+opera houses in Europe. He proclaimed for the Scala at
+Milan; but Mr. Ziegler, who had methodically according to
+a fixed plan lived in all European capitals except Paris&mdash;whither
+he was soon going, said that Mr. Spatt was quite
+wrong, and that Milan could not hold a candle to Munich.
+Mrs. Spatt inquired whether Audrey had heard Strauss&#8217;s
+<em>Elektra</em> at the Paris Opera House. Audrey replied that
+Strauss&#8217;s <em>Elektra</em> had not been given at the Paris Opera
+House.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; said Mrs. Spatt. &#8220;This prejudice against the
+greatest modern masterpieces because they are German is
+a very sad sign in Paris. I have noticed it for a long
+time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, who most irrationally had begun to be annoyed
+by the blandness of Mr. Ziegler&#8217;s smile, answered with a
+rival blandness:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In Paris they do not reproach Strauss because he is
+German, but because he is vulgar.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Spatt had a martyrised expression. In her heart
+she felt a sick trembling of her religious belief that <em>Elektra</em>
+was the greatest opera ever composed. For Audrey had the
+prestige of Paris and of the automobile. Mrs. Spatt, however,
+said not a word. Mr. Ziegler, on the other hand,
+after shuffling some seconds for utterance, ejaculated with
+sublime anger:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Vulgar!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His rubicundity had increased and his blandness was
+dissolved. A terrible sequel might have occurred, had not
+the crunch of wheels on the drive been heard at that very
+instant. The huge, dim form of a coach drawn by a ghostly
+horse passed along towards the front door, just below the
+diners. Almost simultaneously the electric light above the
+front door was turned on, casting a glare across a section
+of the inchoate garden, where no flower grew save the
+dandelion. Everybody sprang up. Host and hostess,
+urged by hospitality, spun first into the drive, and came
+level with the vehicle precisely as the vehicle opened its
+invisible interior. Jane Foley and Audrey saw Miss Nickall
+emerge from it rather slowly and cautiously, with her white
+kind face and her arm all swathed in white.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Mr. Spatt,&#8221; came the American benevolent
+voice of Nick. &#8220;How glad I am to see you. And this is
+Mrs. Spatt? Mrs. Spatt! Delighted. Your husband is
+the kindest, sweetest man, Mrs. Spatt, that I&#8217;ve met in
+years. It is perfectly sweet of you to have me. I shouldn&#8217;t
+have inflicted myself on you&mdash;no, I shouldn&#8217;t&mdash;only you
+know we have to obey orders. I was told to come here,
+and here I&#8217;ve come, with a glad heart.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was touched by the sight and voice of grey-haired
+Nick, with her trick of seeing nothing but the best
+in everybody, transforming everybody into saints, angels,
+and geniuses. Her smiles and her tones were irresistible.
+They were like the wand of some magical princess come to
+break a sinister thrall. They nearly humanised the gaunt
+parlourmaid, who stood grimly and primly waiting until
+these tedious sentimental preliminaries should cease from
+interfering with her duties in regard to the luggage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We have friends of yours here, Miss Nickall,&#8221;
+simpered Mrs. Spatt, after she had given a welcome. She
+had seen Jane Foley and Audrey standing expectant just
+behind Mr. Spatt, and outside the field of the electric beam.</p>
+
+<p>Nick glanced round, hesitated, and then with a sudden
+change of all her features rushed at the girls regardless
+of her arm. Her joy was enchanting.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was afraid&mdash;I was afraid&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; she murmured as she
+kissed them. Her eyes softly glistened.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; she exclaimed, after a moment. &#8220;And I <em>have</em>
+got a surprise for you! I have just! You may say it&#8217;s
+some surprise.&#8221; She turned towards the cab. &#8220;Musa,
+now do come out of that wagon.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And from the blackness of the cab&#8217;s interior gingerly
+stepped Musa, holding a violin case in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Spatt,&#8221; said Nick. &#8220;Let me introduce Mr. Musa.
+Mr. Musa is perhaps the greatest violinist in Paris&mdash;or
+in Europe. Very old friend of ours. He came over to
+London unexpectedly just as I was starting for Liverpool
+Street station this afternoon. So I did the only thing
+I could do. I couldn&#8217;t leave him there&mdash;I brought him
+along, and we want Mr. Spatt to recommend us an hotel
+in Frinton for him.&#8221; And while Musa was shyly in his
+imperfect English greeting Mr. and Mrs. Spatt, she whispered
+to Audrey: &#8220;You don&#8217;t know. You&#8217;d never guess.
+A big concert agent in Paris has taken him up at last.
+He&#8217;s going to play at a lot of concerts, and they actually
+paid him two thousand five hundred francs in advance.
+Isn&#8217;t it a perfect dream?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, who had seen Musa&#8217;s trustful glance at Nick
+as he descended from the cab, was suddenly aware of
+a fierce pang of hate for the benignant Nick, and a
+wave of fury against Musa. The thing was very disconcerting.</p>
+
+<p>After self-conscious greetings, Musa almost dragged
+Audrey away from the others.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s you I came to London to see,&#8221; he muttered in
+an unusual voice.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_25" id="chapter_25" />CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MUTE</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was upon this evening that Audrey began alarmingly
+to develop the quality of being incomprehensible&mdash;even to
+herself. Like most young women and men, she had been
+convinced from an early age that she was mysteriously
+unlike all other created beings, and&mdash;again like most young
+men and women&mdash;she could find, in the secrecy of her
+own heart, plenty of proof of a unique strangeness. But
+now her unreason became formidable. There she sat with
+her striking forehead and her quite unimportant nose, in
+the large austere drawing-room of the Spatts, which was
+so pervaded by artistic chintz that the slightest movement
+in it produced a crackle&mdash;and wondered why she was so
+much queerer than other girls could possibly be.</p>
+
+<p>Neither the crackling of chintz nor the aspect of the
+faces in the drawing-room was conducive to clear psychological
+analysis. Mr. Ziegler, with a glass of Pilsener
+by his side on a small table and a cigar in his richly
+jewelled hand, reposed with crossed legs in an easy chair.
+He had utterly recovered from the momentary irritation
+caused by Audrey&#8217;s attack on Strauss, and his perfect
+beaming satisfaction with himself made a spectacle which
+would have distracted an Indian saint from the contemplation
+of eternity and nothingness. Mr. and Mrs. Spatt,
+seated as far as was convenient from one another on a
+long sofa, their emaciated bodies very upright and alert,
+gazed with intense expectation at Musa. Musa stood in
+the middle of the room, tuning his violin with little twangs
+and listening to the twangs as to a secret message.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Nickall, being an invalid, had excusably gone to
+bed, and Jane Foley, sharer of her bedroom, had followed.
+The happy relief on Jane&#8217;s face as she said good night
+to her hosts had testified to the severity of the ordeal of
+hospitality through which she had so heroically passed.
+She might have been going out of prison instead of going
+out of the most intellectual drawing-room in Frinton.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, too, would have liked to retire, for automobiles
+and sensations had exhausted her; but just at this point
+her unreason had begun to operate. She would not leave
+Musa alone, because Miss Nickall was leaving him alone.
+Yet she did not feel at all benevolent towards Musa. She
+was angry with him for having quitted Paris. She was
+angry with him for having said to her, in such a peculiar
+tone: &#8220;It&#8217;s you I came to London to see.&#8221; She was angry
+with him for not having found an opportunity, during the
+picnic meal provided for the two new-comers after the
+regular dinner, to explain why he had come to London
+to see her. She was angry with him for that dark hostility
+which he had at once displayed towards Mr. Ziegler,
+though she herself hated the innocent Mr. Ziegler with
+the ferocity of a woman of the Revolution. And further,
+she was glad, ridiculously glad, that Musa had come to
+London to see her. Lastly she was aware of a most
+irrational objection to the manner in which Miss Nickall
+and Musa said good night to one another, and the obvious
+fact that Musa in less than an hour had reached terms of
+familiarity with Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>She thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I haven&#8217;t the faintest idea why he has given up his
+practising in Paris to come to see me. But if it is what
+I feel sure it is, there will be trouble.... Why do I
+stay in this ghastly drawing-room? I am dying to go to
+sleep, and I simply detest everybody in the room. I detest
+Musa more than all, because as usual he has been acting
+like a child.... Why can&#8217;t you smile at him, Audrey
+Moze? Why frown and pretend you&#8217;re cross when you
+know you aren&#8217;t, Audrey Moze? ... I am cross, and
+he shall suffer. Was this a time to leave his practising&mdash;and
+the concerts soon coming on? I positively prefer this
+Ziegler man to him. Yes, I do.&#8221; So ran her reflections,
+and they annoyed her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What would you wish me to play?&#8221; asked Musa,
+when he had definitely finished twanging. Audrey noticed
+that his English accent was getting a little less French.
+She had to admit that, though his appearance was extravagantly
+un-British, it was distinguished. The immensity
+of his black silk cravat made the black cravat of Mr. Spatt
+seem like a bootlace round his thin neck.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whatever you like, Mr. Musa,&#8221; replied Aurora Spatt.
+&#8220;<em>Please!</em>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And as a fact the excellent woman, majestic now in
+spite of her red nose and her excessive thinness, did not
+care what Musa played. He had merely to play. She
+had decided for herself, from the conversation, that he
+was a very celebrated performer, and she had ascertained,
+by direct questioning, that he had never performed in
+England. She was determined to be able to say to all
+comers till death took her that &#8220;Musa&mdash;the great Musa,
+you know&mdash;first played in England in my own humble
+drawing-room.&#8221; The thing itself was actually about to
+occur; nothing could stop it from occurring; and the thought
+of the immediate realisation of her desire and ambition
+gave Mrs. Spatt greater and more real pleasure than she
+had had for years; it even fortified her against the possible
+resentment of her cherished Mr. Ziegler.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;French music&mdash;would you wish?&#8221; Musa suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is there any French music? That is to say, of artistic
+importance?&#8221; asked Mr. Ziegler calmly. &#8220;I have never
+heard of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He was not consciously being rude. Nor was he trying
+to be funny. His question implied an honest belief. His
+assertion was sincere. He glanced, blinking slightly, round
+the room, with a self-confidence that was either terrible
+or pathetic, according to the degree of your own self-confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said to herself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad this isn&#8217;t my drawing-room.&#8221; And she was
+almost frightened by the thought that that skull opposite
+to her was absolutely impenetrable, and that it would
+go down to the grave unpierced with all its collection of
+ideas intact and braggart.</p>
+
+<p>As for Mr. and Mrs. Spatt they were both in the
+state of not knowing where to look. Immediately their
+gaze met another gaze it leapt away as from something
+dangerous or obscene.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will play Debussy&#8217;s Toccata for violin solo,&#8221; Musa
+announced tersely. He had blushed; his great eyes were
+sparkling. And he began to play.</p>
+
+<p>And as soon as he had played a few bars, Audrey
+gave a start, fortunately not a physical start, and she
+blushed also. Musa sternly winked at her. Frenchmen
+do not make a practice of winking, but he had learnt the
+accomplishment for fun from Miss Thompkins in Paris.
+The wink caused Audrey surreptitiously to observe Mr.
+and Mrs. Spatt. It was no relief to her to perceive that
+these two were listening to Debussy&#8217;s Toccata for solo
+violin with the trained and appreciative attention of people
+who had heard it often before in the various capitals of
+Europe, who knew it by heart, and who knew at just what
+passages to raise the head, to give a nod of recognition
+or a gesture of ecstasy. The bare room was filled with
+the sound of Musa&#8217;s fiddle and with the high musical
+culture of Mr. and Mrs. Spatt. When the piece was over
+they clapped discreetly, and looked with soft intensity at
+Audrey, as if murmuring: &#8220;You, too, are a cultured
+cosmopolitan. You share our emotion.&#8221; And across the
+face of Mrs. Spatt spread a glow triumphant, for Musa
+now positively had played for the first time in England in
+her drawing-room, and she foresaw hundreds of occasions
+on which she could refer to the matter with a fitting air of
+casualness. The glow triumphant, however, paled somewhat
+as she felt upon herself the eye of Mr. Ziegler.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is Siegfried, Alroy?&#8221; she demanded, after
+having thanked Musa. &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t have had him miss
+that Debussy for anything, but I hadn&#8217;t noticed that he
+was gone. He adores Debussy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think it is like bad Bach,&#8221; Mr. Ziegler put in
+suddenly. Then he raised his glass and imbibed a good
+portion of the beer specially obtained and provided for
+him by his hostess and admirer, Mrs. Spatt.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you <em>really</em>?&#8221; murmured Mrs. Spatt, with deprecation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s something in the comparison,&#8221; Mr. Spatt
+admitted thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why not like good Bach?&#8221; Musa asked, glaring in
+a very strange manner at Mr. Ziegler.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bosh!&#8221; ejaculated Mr. Ziegler with a most notable
+imperturbability. &#8220;Only Bach himself could com-pose good
+Bach.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa&#8217;s breathing could be heard across the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Eh bien!</em>&#8220; said Musa. &#8220;Now I will play for you
+Debussy&#8217;s Toccata. I was not playing it before. I was
+playing the Chaconne of Bach, the most famous composition
+for the violin in the world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He did not embroider the statement. He left it in its
+nakedness. Nor did he permit anybody else to embroider
+it. Before a word of any kind could be uttered he had
+begun to play again. Probably in all the annals of artistic
+snobbery, no cultured cosmopolitan had ever been made
+to suffer a more exquisite moral torture of humiliation
+than Musa had contrived to inflict upon Mr. and Mrs.
+Spatt in return for their hospitality. Their sneaped
+squirmings upon the sofa were terrible to witness. But
+Mr. Ziegler&#8217;s sensibility was apparently quite unaffected.
+He continued to smile, to drink, and to smoke. He seemed
+to be saying to himself: &#8220;What does it matter to me that
+this miserable Frenchman has caught me in a mistake?
+I could eat him, and one day I shall eat him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After a little while Musa snatched out of his right-hand
+lower waistcoat pocket the tiny wooden &#8220;mute&#8221;
+which all violinists carry without fail upon all occasions
+in all their waistcoats; and, sticking it with marvellous
+rapidity upon the bridge of the violin, he entered upon a
+pianissimo, but still lively, episode of the Toccata. And
+simultaneously another melody faint and clear could be
+heard in the room. It was Mr. Ziegler humming &#8220;The
+Watch on the Rhine&#8221; against the Toccata of Debussy.
+Thus did it occur to Mr. Ziegler to take revenge on Musa
+for having attempted to humiliate him. Not unsurprisingly,
+Musa detected at once the competitive air. He continued
+to play, gazing hard at his violin and apparently entranced,
+but edging little by little towards Mr. Ziegler. Audrey
+desired either to give a cry or to run out of the room.
+She did neither, being held to inaction by the spell of Mr.
+Ziegler&#8217;s perfect unconcern as, with the beer glass lifted
+towards his mouth, he proceeded steadily to work through
+&#8220;The Watch on the Rhine,&#8221; while Musa lilted out the
+delicate, gay phrases of Debussy. The enchantment upon
+the whole room was sinister and painful. Musa got closer
+to Mr. Ziegler, who did not blench nor cease from his
+humming. Then suddenly Musa, lowering his fiddle and
+interrupting the scene, snatched the mute from the bridge
+of the violin.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have put it on the wrong instrument,&#8221; he said thickly,
+with a very French intonation, and simultaneously he
+shoved the mute with violence into the mouth of Mr.
+Ziegler. In doing so, he jerked up Mr. Ziegler&#8217;s elbow,
+and the remains of the beer flew up and baptised Mr.
+Ziegler&#8217;s face and vesture. Then he jammed the violin
+into its case, and ran out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Barbare! Imbécile! Sauvage!</em>&#8220; he muttered ferociously
+on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>The enchantment was broken. Everybody rose, and not
+the least precipitately the streaming Mr. Ziegler, who, ejecting
+the mute with much spluttering, and pitching away his
+empty glass, sprang towards the door, with justifiable
+homicide in every movement.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Ziegler!&#8221; Audrey appealed to him, snatching at
+his dress-coat and sticking to it.</p>
+
+<p>He turned, furious, his face still dripping the finest
+Pilsener beer.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If your dress-coat is not wiped instantly, it will be
+ruined,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Ach! Meiner Frack!</em>&#8220; exclaimed Mr. Ziegler, forgetting
+his deep knowledge of English. His economic
+instincts had been swiftly aroused, and they dominated all
+the other instincts. &#8220;<em>Meiner Frack!</em> Vill you vipe it?&#8221;
+His glance was imploring.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Mrs. Spatt will attend to it,&#8221; said Audrey with
+solemnity, and walked out of the room into the hall. There
+was not a sign of Musa; the disappearance of the violinist
+was disquieting; and yet it made her glad&mdash;so much so
+that she laughed aloud. A few moments later Mr. Ziegler
+stalked forth from the house which he was never to enter
+again, and his silent scorn and the grandeur of his displeasure
+were terrific. He entirely ignored Audrey, who had
+nevertheless been the means of saving his <em>Frack</em> for him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_26" id="chapter_26" />CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>NOCTURNE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Soon afterwards Audrey, who had put on a hat, went out
+with Mr. Spatt to look for Musa. Not until shortly before
+the musical performance had the Spatts succeeded in persuading
+Musa to &#8220;accept their hospitality for the night.&#8221;
+(The phrase was their own. They were incapable of saying
+&#8220;Let us put you up.") Meanwhile his bag had been left in
+the hall. This bag had now vanished. The parlourmaid,
+questioned, said frigidly that she had not touched it because
+she had received no orders to touch it. Musa himself must
+therefore have removed it. With bag in one hand and
+fiddle case in the other, he must have fled, relinquishing
+nothing but the mute in his flight. He knew naught of
+England, naught of Frinton, and he was the least practical
+creature alive. Hence Audrey, who was in essence his
+mother, and who knew Frinton as some people know London,
+had said that she would go and look for him. Mr.
+Spatt, ever chivalrous, had impulsively offered to accompany
+her. He could indeed do no less. Mrs. Spatt, overwhelmed
+by the tragic sequel to her innocent triumphant, had retired
+to the first floor.</p>
+
+<p>The wind blew, and it was very dark, as Audrey and
+her squire passed along Third Avenue to the front. They
+did not converse&mdash;they were both too shy, too impressed by
+the peculiarity of the predicament. They simply peered.
+They peered everywhere for the truant form of Musa
+balanced on one side by a bag and on the other by a fiddle
+case. From the trim houses, each without exception new,
+twinkled discreet lights, with glimpses of surpassingly
+correct domesticity, and the wind rustled loudly through the
+foliage of the prim gardens, ruffling them as it might have
+ruffled the unwilling hair of the daughters of an arch-deacon.
+Nobody was abroad. Absurd thoughts ran
+through Audrey&#8217;s head. A letter from Mr. Foulger had
+followed her to Birmingham, and in the letter Mr. Foulger
+had acquainted her with the fact that Great Mexican Oil
+shares had just risen to £2 3s. apiece. She knew that she
+had 180,000 of them, and now under the thin protection of
+Mr. Spatt she tried to reckon 180,000 times £2 3s. She
+could not do the sum. At any rate she could not be sure
+that she did it correctly. However, she was fairly well convinced
+beneath the dark, impenetrable sky that the answer
+totalled nearly £400,000, that was, ten million francs.
+And the ridiculousness of an heiress who owned over ten
+million francs wandering about a place like Frinton with a
+man like Mr. Spatt, searching for another man like Musa,
+struck her as exceeding the bounds of the permissible. She
+considered that she ought to have been in a magnificent
+drawing-room of her own in Park Lane or the Avenue du
+Bois de Boulogne, welcoming counts, princes, duchesses,
+diplomats and self-possessed geniuses of finished manners,
+with witty phrase that displayed familiarity with all that
+was profoundest and most brilliant in European civilisation.
+Life seemed to be disappointing her, and assuredly money
+was not the thing that she had imagined it to be.</p>
+
+<p>She thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If this walking lamp-post does not say something soon
+I shall scream.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spatt said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It seems to be blowing up for rain.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She screamed in the silent solitude of Frinton.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so sorry,&#8221; she apologised quickly. &#8220;I thought I
+saw something move.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One does,&#8221; faltered Mr. Spatt.</p>
+
+<p>They were now in the shopping street, where in the
+mornings the elect encounter each other on expeditions to
+purchase bridge-markers, chocolate, bathing costumes and
+tennis balls. It was a black and empty canyon through
+which the wind raced.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He may be down&mdash;down on the shore,&#8221; Mr. Spatt
+timidly suggested. He seemed to be suggesting suicide.</p>
+
+<p>They turned and descended across the Greensward to
+the shore, which was lined with hundreds of bathing huts,
+each christened with a name, and each deserted, for the
+by-laws of the Frinton Urban District Council judiciously
+forbade that the huts should be used as sleeping-chambers.
+The tide was very low. They walked over the wide flat
+sands, and came at length to the sea&#8217;s roar, the white
+tumbling of foamy breakers, and the full force of the south-east
+wind. Across the invisible expanse of water could be
+discerned the beam of a lightship. And Audrey was aware
+of mysterious sensations such as she had not had since she
+inhabited Flank Hall and used to steal out at nights to
+watch the estuary. And she thought solemnly: &#8220;Musa is
+somewhere near, existing.&#8221; And then she thought: &#8220;What
+a silly thought! Of course he is!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see somebody coming!&#8221; Mr. Spatt burst out in a
+dramatic whisper. But the precaution of whispering was
+useless, because the next instant, in spite of himself, he
+loudly sneezed.</p>
+
+<p>And about two hundred yards off on the sands Audrey
+made out a moving figure, which at that distance did in
+fact seem to have vague appendages that might have resembled
+a bag and a fiddle case. But the atmosphere of
+the night was deceptive, and the figure as it approached
+resolved itself into three figures&mdash;a black one in the middle
+of two white ones. A girl&#8217;s coarse laugh came down the
+wind. It could not conceivably have been the laugh of any
+girl who went into the shopping street to buy bridge-markers,
+chocolate, bathing costumes or tennis balls. But
+it might have been&mdash;it not improbably was&mdash;the laugh of
+some girl whose mission was to sell such things. The trio
+meandered past, heedless. Mr. Spatt said no word, but he
+appreciably winced. The black figure in the midst of the
+two white ones was that of his son Siegfried, reputedly so
+fond of Debussy. As the group receded and faded, a fragment
+of a music-hall song floated away from it into the
+firmament.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m afraid it&#8217;s not much use looking any longer,&#8221; said
+Mr. Spatt weakly. &#8220;He&mdash;he may have gone back to the
+house. Let us hope so.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At the chief garden gate of the Spatt residence they
+came upon Miss Nickall, trying to open it. The sling
+round her arm made her unmistakable. And Miss Nickall
+having allowed them to recover from a pardonable astonishment
+at the sight of her who was supposed to be exhausted
+and in bed, said cheerfully:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve found him, and I&#8217;ve put him up at the Excelsior
+Hotel.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Spatt had related the terrible episode to her guest,
+who had wilfully risen at once. Miss Nickall had had luck,
+but Audrey had to admit that these American girls were
+stupendously equal to an emergency. And she hated the
+angelic Nick for having found Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We tried first to find a café,&#8221; said Nick. &#8220;But there
+aren&#8217;t any in this city. What do you call them in England&mdash;public-houses,
+isn&#8217;t it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; agreed Mr. Spatt in a shaking voice. &#8220;Public-houses
+are not permitted in Frinton, I am glad to say.&#8221; And
+he began to form an intention, subject to Aurora&#8217;s approval,
+to withdraw altogether from the suffrage movement, which
+appeared to him to be getting out of hand.</p>
+
+<p>As they were all separating for the night Audrey and
+Nick hesitated for a moment in front of each other, and
+then they kissed with a quite unusual effusiveness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever really liked her,&#8221; said Audrey
+to herself.</p>
+
+<p>What Nick said to herself is lost to history.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_27" id="chapter_27" />CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE GARDEN</h3>
+
+
+<p>The next morning, after a night spent chiefly in thought,
+Audrey issued forth rather early. Indeed she was probably
+the first person afoot in the house of the Spatts, the parlour-maid
+entering the hall just as Audrey had managed to open
+the front door. As the parlour-maid was obviously not yet
+in that fullness and spruceness of attire which parlour-maids
+affect when performing their mission in life, Audrey decided
+to offer no remark, explanatory or otherwise, and passed
+into the garden with nonchalance as though her invariable
+habit when staying in strange houses was to get up before
+anybody else and spy out the whole property while the
+helpless hosts were yet in bed and asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was a magnificent morning: no wind, no cloud,
+and the sun rising over the sea; not a trace of the previous
+evening&#8217;s weather. Audrey had not been in the leafy street
+more than a moment when she forgot that she was tired
+and short of sleep, and also very worried by affairs both
+private and public. Her body responded to the sun, and
+her mind also. She felt almost magically healthy, strong
+and mettlesome, and, further, she began to feel happy; she
+rather blamed herself for this tendency to feel happy, calling
+herself heedless and indifferent. She did not understand
+what it is to be young. She had risen partly because of the
+futility of bed, but more because of a desire to inspect again
+her own part of the world after the unprecedented absence
+from it.</p>
+
+<p>Frinton was within the borders of her own part of the
+world, and, though she now regarded it with the condescending
+eyes of a Parisian and Londoner, she found pleasure in
+looking upon it and in recognising old landmarks and recent
+innovations. She saw, on the Greensward separating the
+promenade from the beach, that a rustic seat had been
+elaborately built by the Council round the great trunk of the
+only tree in Frinton; and she decided that there had been
+questionable changes since her time. And in this way she
+went on. However, the splendour and reality of the sun,
+making such an overwhelming contrast with the insubstantial
+phenomena of the gloomy night, prevented undue
+cerebral activity. She reflected that Frinton on a dark night
+and Frinton on a bright morning were not like the same
+place, and she left it at that, and gazed at the façade of the
+Excelsior Hotel, wondering for an instant why she should be
+interested in it, and then looking swiftly away.</p>
+
+<p>She had to glance at all the shops, though none of
+them was open except the dairy-shop; and in the shopping
+street, which had a sunrise at one end and the
+railway station at the other, she lit on the new palatial
+garage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My car may be in there,&#8221; she thought.</p>
+
+<p>After the manner of most car-owners on tour, she had
+allowed the chauffeur to disappear with the car in the
+evening where he listed, confident that the next morning
+he and it would reappear cleansed and in good running
+order.</p>
+
+<p>The car was in the garage, almost solitary on a floor
+of asphalt under a glass roof. An untidy youth, with the
+end of a cigarette clinging to his upper lip in a way to
+suggest that it had clung there throughout the night and
+was the last vestige of a jollification, seemed to be dragging
+a length of hose from a hydrant towards the car, the while
+his eyes rested on a large notice: &#8220;Smoking absolutely
+prohibited. By order.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then from the other extremity of the garage came a
+jaunty, dapper, quasi-martial figure, in a new grey uniform,
+with a peaked grey cap, bright brown leggings, and bright
+brown boots to match&mdash;the whole highly brushed, polished,
+smooth and glittering. This being pulled out of his pocket
+a superb pair of kid gloves, then a silver cigarette-case, and
+then a silver match-box, and he ignited a cigarette&mdash;the
+unrivalled, wondrous first cigarette of the day&mdash;casting down
+the match with a large, free gesture. At sight of him the
+untidy youth grew more active.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look &#8217;ere,&#8221; said the being to the youth, &#8220;what the &#8217;ell
+time did I tell you to have that car cleaned by, and you
+not begun it!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Pointing to the clock, he lounged magnificently to and
+fro, spreading smoke around the intimidated and now industrious
+youth. The next second he caught sight of
+Audrey, and transformed himself instantaneously into what
+she had hitherto imagined a chauffeur always was; but in
+those few moments she had learnt that the essence of a
+chauffeur is godlike, and that he toils not, neither does
+he swab.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning, madam,&#8221; in a soft, courtly voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Were you wanting the car, madam?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was not, but the suggestion gave her an idea.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can we take it as it is?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, madam. I&#8217;ll just look at the petrol gauge ...
+But ... I haven&#8217;t had my breakfast, madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What time do you have it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, madam, when you have yours.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all right, then. You&#8217;ve got hours yet. I want
+you to take me to Flank Hall.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Flank Hall, madam?&#8221; His tone expressed the fact
+that his mind was a blank as to Flank Hall.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Audrey had comprehended that the situation
+of Flank Hall was not necessarily known to every chauffeur
+in England, and that a stay of one night in Frinton might
+not have been enough to familiarise this particular one with
+the geography of the entire district, she replied that she
+would direct him.</p>
+
+<p>They were held up by a train at the railway crossing,
+and a milk-cart and a young pedestrian were also held up.
+When Audrey identified the pedestrian she wished momentarily
+that she had not set out on the expedition. Then
+she said to herself that really it did not matter, and why
+should she be afraid ... etc., etc. The pedestrian was
+Musa. In French they greeted each other stiffly, like
+distant acquaintances, and the train thundered past.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was taking the air, simply, Madame,&#8221; said Musa,
+with his ingenuous shy smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Take it in my car,&#8221; said Audrey with a sudden resolve.
+&#8220;In one hour at the latest we shall have returned.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She had a great deal to say to him and a great deal
+to listen to, and there could not possibly be any occasion
+equal to the present, which was ideal.</p>
+
+<p>He got in; the chauffeur manoeuvred to oust the milk-cart
+from its rightful precedence, the gates opened, and the
+car swung at gathering speed into the well-remembered road
+to Moze. And the two passengers said nothing to each
+other of the slightest import. Musa&#8217;s escape from Paris
+was between them; the unimaginable episode at the Spatts
+was between them; the sleepless night was between them.
+(And had she not saved him by her presence of mind from
+the murderous hand of Mr. Ziegler?) They had a million
+things to impart. And yet naught was uttered save a few
+banalities about the weather and about the healthfulness of
+being up early. They were bashful, constrained, altogether
+too young and inexperienced. They wanted to behave in
+the grand, social, easeful manner of a celebrated public performer
+and an heiress worth ten million francs. And they
+could only succeed in being a boy and a girl. The chauffeur
+alone, at from thirty to forty miles an hour, was worthy of
+himself and his high vocation. Both the passengers regretted
+that they had left their beds. Happily the car
+laughed at the alleged distance between Frinton and Moze.
+In a few minutes, as it seemed, with but one false turning,
+due to the impetuosity of the chauffeur, the vehicle drew
+up before the gates of Flank Hall. Audrey had avoided
+the village of Moze. The passengers descended.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is my house,&#8221; Audrey murmured.</p>
+
+<p>The gates were shut but not locked. They creaked as
+Audrey pushed against them. The drive was covered with
+a soft film of green, as though it were gradually being
+entombed in the past. The young roses, however, belonged
+emphatically to the present. Dewdrops hung from them
+like jewels, and their odour filled the air. Audrey turned
+off the main drive towards the garden front of the house,
+which had always been the aspect that she preferred, and
+at the same moment she saw the house windows and the
+thrilling perspective of Mozewater. One of the windows
+was open. She was glad, because this proved that the
+perfect Aguilar, gardener and caretaker, was after all
+imperfect. It was his crusty perfection that had ever set
+Audrey, and others, against Aguilar. But he had gone to
+bed and forgotten a window&mdash;and it was the French
+window. While, in her suddenly revived character of a
+harsh Essex inhabitant, she was thinking of some sarcastic
+word to say to Aguilar about the window, another window
+slowly opened from within, and Aguilar&#8217;s head became
+visible. Once more he had exasperatingly proved his perfection.
+He had not gone to bed and forgotten a window.
+But he had risen with exemplary earliness to give air to
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;d mornin&#8217;, miss,&#8221; mumbled the unsmiling Aguilar,
+impassively, as though Audrey had never been away from
+Moze.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Aguilar.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t expect ye so early, miss.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But how could you be expecting me at all?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Ingate come home yesterday. She said you
+couldn&#8217;t be far off, miss.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not Miss ... <em>Mrs.</em>&mdash;Moncreiff,&#8221; said Audrey firmly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I beg your pardon, madam,&#8221; Aguilar responded with absolute
+imperturbability. &#8220;She never said nothing about that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And he proceeded mechanically to the next window.</p>
+
+<p>The yard-dog began to bark. Audrey, ignoring Musa,
+went round the shrubbery towards the kennel. The
+chained dog continued to bark, furiously, until Audrey was
+within six feet of him, and then he crouched and squirmed
+and gave low whines and his tail wagged with extreme
+rapidity. Audrey bent down, trembling.... She could
+scarcely see.... There was something about the green
+film on the drive, about the look of the house, about the
+sheeted drawing-room glimpsed through the open window,
+about the view of Mozewater...! She felt acutely and
+painfully sorry for, and yet envious of, the young girl in a
+plain blue frock who used to haunt the house and the
+garden, and who had somehow made the house and the
+garden holy for evermore by her unhappiness and her longings....
+Audrey was crying.... She heard a step and
+stood upright. It was Musa&#8217;s step.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have never seen you so exquisite,&#8221; said Musa in a
+murmur subdued and yet enthusiastic. All his faculties
+seemed to be dwelling reflectively upon her with passionate
+appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>They had at last begun to talk, really&mdash;he in French, and
+she partly in French and partly in English. It was her
+tears, or perhaps her gesture in trying to master them, that
+had loosed their tongues. The ancient dog was forgotten,
+and could not understand why. Audrey was excusably
+startled by Musa&#8217;s words and tone, and by the sudden change
+in his attitude. She thought that his personal distinction
+at the moment was different from and superior to any other
+in her experience. She had a comfortable feeling of condescension
+towards Nick and towards Jane Foley. And
+at the same time she blamed Musa, perceiving that as usual
+he was behaving like a child who cannot grasp the great
+fact that life is very serious.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; she said. &#8220;That&#8217;s all very fine, that is. You
+pretend this, that, and the other. But why are you here?
+Why aren&#8217;t you at work in Paris? You&#8217;ve got the chance
+of a lifetime, and instead of staying at home and
+practising hard and preparing yourself, you come gadding
+over to England simply because there&#8217;s a bit of money in
+your pocket!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was very young, and in the splendour of the
+magnificent morning she looked the emblem of simplicity;
+but in her heart she was his mother, his sole fount of
+wisdom and energy and shrewdness.</p>
+
+<p>Pain showed in his sensitive features, and then appeal,
+and then a hot determination.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I came because I could not work,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because you couldn&#8217;t work? Why couldn&#8217;t you
+work?&#8221; There was no yielding in her hard voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know! I don&#8217;t know! I suppose it is because
+you are not there, because you have made yourself
+necessary to me; or,&#8221; he corrected quickly, &#8220;because <em>I</em>
+have made you necessary to myself. Oh! I can practise
+for so many hours per day. But it is useless. It is not
+authentic practice. I think not of the music. It is as if
+some other person was playing, with my arm, on my violin.
+I am not there. I am with you, where you are. It is the
+same day after day, every day, every day. I am done for.
+I am convinced that I am done for. These concerts will
+infallibly be my ruin, and I shall be shamed before all Paris.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And did you come to England to tell me this?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was relieved, for she had thought of another explanation
+of his escapade, and had that explanation proved
+to be the true one, she was very ready to make unpleasantness
+to the best of her ability. Nevertheless, though
+relieved in one direction, she was gravely worried in another.
+She had undertaken the job of setting Musa grandiosely
+on his artistic career, and the difficulties of it were growing
+more and more complex and redoubtable.</p>
+
+<p>She said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you seemed so jolly when you arrived last night.
+Nobody would have guessed you had a care in the world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I had not,&#8221; he replied eagerly, &#8220;as soon as I saw you.
+The surprise of seeing you&mdash;it was that.... And you left
+Paris without saying good-bye! Why did you leave Paris
+without saying good-bye? Never since the moment when
+I learnt that you had gone have I had the soul to practise.
+My violin became a wooden box; my fingers, too, were of
+wood.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped. The dog sniffed round.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was melting in bliss. She could feel herself
+dissolving. Her pleasure was terrible. It was true that
+she had left Paris without saying good-bye to Musa. She
+had done it on purpose. Why? She did not know.
+Perhaps out of naughtiness, perhaps.... She was aware
+that she could be hard, like her father. But she was glad,
+intensely glad, that she had left Paris so, because the result
+had been this avowal. She, Audrey, little Audrey, scarcely
+yet convinced that she was grown up, was necessary to the
+genius whom all the Quarter worshipped! Miss Thompkins
+was not necessary to him, Miss Nickall was not necessary
+to him, though both had helped to provide the means to
+keep him alive. She herself alone was necessary to him.
+And she had not guessed it. She had not even hoped for
+it. The effect of her personality upon Musa was mysterious&mdash;she
+did not affect to understand it&mdash;but it was obviously
+real and it was vital. If anything in the world could surpass
+the pleasure, her pride surpassed it. All tears were forgotten.
+She was the proudest young woman in the world;
+and she was the wisest, and the most harassed, too. But the
+anxieties were delicious to her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am essential to him,&#8221; she thought ecstatically. &#8220;I
+stand between him and disaster. When he has succeeded
+his success will be my work and nobody else&#8217;s. I have a
+mission. I must live for it.... If anyone had told me
+a year ago that a great French genius would be absolutely
+dependent upon me, and that I meant for him all the
+difference between failure and triumph, I should have
+laughed.... And yet!...&#8221; She looked at him surreptitiously.
+&#8220;He&#8217;s an angel. But he&#8217;s also a baby.&#8221; The
+feelings of motherhood were as naught compared to hers.</p>
+
+<p>Then she remarked harshly, icily:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I shall be much obliged if you will go back to
+Paris at once&mdash;to-day. <em>Somebody</em> must have a little sense.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Just at this point Aguilar interrupted. He came slouching
+round the corner of the clipped bushes, untidy, shabby,
+implacable, with some set purpose in his hard blue eyes.
+She could have annihilated him with satisfaction, but the
+fellow was indestructible as well as implacable.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Could I have a word with ye, madam?&#8221; he mumbled,
+putting on his well-known air of chicane.</p>
+
+<p>With the unexplained Musa close by her she could not
+answer: &#8220;Wait a little. I&#8217;m engaged.&#8221; She had to be
+careful. She had to make out especially that she and the
+young man were up to nothing in particular, nothing that
+had the slightest importance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is it, Aguilar?&#8221; she questioned, inimically.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s down here,&#8221; said Aguilar, who recked not of the
+implications of a tone. And by the mere force of his glance
+he drew his mistress away, out of sight of Musa and the
+dog.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is that your motor-car at the gates, madam?&#8221; he
+demanded gloomily and confidentially, his gaze now fixed
+on the ground or on his patched boots.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course it is,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;Why, what&#8217;s the
+matter?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all right then,&#8221; said he. &#8220;But I thought it
+might belong to another person, and I had to make sure.
+Now if ye&#8217;ll just step along a bit farther, I&#8217;ve a little thing
+as I want to point out to ye, madam. It&#8217;s my duty to point
+it out, let others say <em>what</em> they will.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He walked ahead doggedly, and Audrey crossly came
+after, until they arrived nearly at the end of the hedge
+which, separating the upper from the lower garden, hid
+from those immediately behind it all view of the estuary.
+Here, still sheltered by the hedge, he stopped and Audrey
+stopped, and Aguilar absently plucked up a young plantain
+from the turf and dropped it into his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s been a man a-hanging round this place since
+yesterday mornin&#8217;,&#8221; said Aguilar intimately. &#8220;I call him a
+suspicious character&mdash;at least, I <em>did</em>, till last night. He
+ain&#8217;t slept in the village, that I do know, but he&#8217;s about
+again this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey with impatience. &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you
+tell Inspector Keeble? Or have you quarrelled with
+Inspector Keeble again?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not that as would ha&#8217; stopped me from acquainting
+Inspector Keeble with the circumstances if I thought
+it my duty so to do,&#8221; replied Aguilar. &#8220;But the fact is I
+saw the chap talking to Inspector Keeble yesterday evening.
+He don&#8217;t know as I saw him. It was that as made me
+think; now is he a suspicious character or ain&#8217;t he? Of
+course Keeble&#8217;s a rare simple-minded &#8217;un, as we all know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what do you want me to do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought you might like to have a look at him yeself,
+madam. And if you&#8217;ll just peep round the end of this hedge
+casual-like, ye&#8217;ll see him walking across the salting from
+Lousey Hard. He&#8217;s a-comin&#8217; this way. Casual-like now&mdash;and
+he won&#8217;t see ye.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had to obey. She peeped casual-like, and she
+did in fact see a man on the salting, and this man was
+getting nearer. She could see him very plainly in the
+brilliant clearness of the summer morning. After the
+shortest instant of hesitation she recognised him beyond
+any doubt. It was the detective who had been so
+plenteously baptised by Susan Foley in the area of the house
+at Paget Gardens. Aguilar looked at Audrey, and Audrey
+annoyed herself somewhat by blushing. However, an agreeable
+elation quickly overcame the blush.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_28" id="chapter_28" />CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>ENCOUNTER</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning,&#8221; Audrey cried, very gaily, to the still
+advancing detective, who, after the slightest hesitation in
+the world, responded gaily:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The man&#8217;s accent struck her. She said to herself, with
+amusement:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s Irish!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had left the astonished but dispassionate gardener
+at the hedge, and was now emerging from the scanty and
+dishevelled plantation close to the boundary wall of the
+estate. She supposed that the police must have been on her
+track and on the track of Jane Foley, and that by some
+mysterious skill they had hunted her down. But she did
+not care. She was not in the least afraid. The sudden
+vision of a jail did not affright her. On the contrary her
+chief sensation was one of joyous self-confidence, which
+sensation had been produced in her by the remarks and the
+attitude of Musa. She had always known that she was both
+shy and adventurous, and that the two qualities were
+mutually contradictory; but now it appeared to her that
+diffidence had been destroyed, and that that change which
+she had ever longed for in her constitution had at least
+really come to pass.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t seem very surprised to see me,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, madam,&#8221; said the detective, &#8220;I&#8217;m not paid to
+be surprised&mdash;in my business.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He had raised his hat. He was standing on the dyke,
+and from that height he looked somewhat down upon
+Audrey leaning against the wall. The watercourse and the
+strip of eternally emerald-green grass separated them.
+Though neither tall nor particularly handsome, he was a
+personable man, with a ready smile and alert, agile movements.
+Audrey was too far off to judge of his eyes, but
+she was quite sure that they twinkled. The contrast
+between this smart, cheerful fellow and the half-drowned
+victim in the area of the house in Paget Gardens was quite
+acute.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now I&#8217;ve a good mind to hold a meeting for your
+benefit,&#8221; said Audrey, striving to recall the proper phrases
+of propaganda which she had heard in the proper quarters
+in London during her brief connection with the cause.
+However, she could not recall them, &#8220;But there&#8217;s no need
+to,&#8221; she added. &#8220;A gentleman of your intelligence must be
+of our way of thinking.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About the vote, of course. And so your conduct is all
+the more shocking.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why!&#8221; he exclaimed, laughing. &#8220;If it comes to that,
+your own sex is against you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had heard this argument before, and it had the
+same effect on her as on most other stalwarts of the new
+political creed. It annoyed her, because there was something
+in it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The vast majority of women are with us,&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My wife isn&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But your wife isn&#8217;t the vast majority of women,&#8221;
+Audrey protested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh yes, she is,&#8221; said the detective, &#8220;so far as I&#8217;m
+concerned. Every wife is, so far as her husband is concerned.
+Sure, you ought to know that!&#8221; In his Irish
+way he doubled the &#8220;r&#8221; of the word &#8220;sure,&#8221; and somehow
+this trick made Audrey like him still more. &#8220;My wife
+believes,&#8221; he concluded, &#8220;that woman&#8217;s sphere is the
+home.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>("His wife is stout,&#8221; Audrey decided within herself, on
+no grounds whatever. &#8220;If she wasn&#8217;t, she couldn&#8217;t be a
+vast majority.")</p>
+
+<p>Aloud she said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, why can&#8217;t you leave them alone in their
+sphere, instead of worrying them and spying on them down
+areas?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;D&#8217;ye mean at Paget Gardens?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; he laughed. &#8220;That wasn&#8217;t professional&mdash;if
+you&#8217;ll excuse me being so frank. That was just due to
+human admiration. It&#8217;s not illegal to admire a young
+woman, I suppose, even if she is a suffragette.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What young woman are you talking about?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Susan Foley, of course. I won&#8217;t tell you what
+I think of her, in spite of all she did, because I&#8217;ve learnt
+that it&#8217;s a mistake to praise one woman to another. But
+I don&#8217;t mind admitting that her going off to the north has
+made me life a blank. If I&#8217;d thought she&#8217;d go, I should
+never have reported the affair at the Yard. But I was
+annoyed, and I&#8217;m rather hasty.&#8221; He paused, and ended
+reflectively: &#8220;I committed follies to get a word with the
+young lady, and I didn&#8217;t get it, but I&#8217;d do the same again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And you a married man!&#8221; Audrey burst out, startled,
+and diverted, at the explanation, but at the same time outraged
+by a confession so cynical.</p>
+
+<p>The detective pulled a silky moustache.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When a wife is very strongly convinced that her
+sphere is the home,&#8221; he retorted slowly and seriously,
+&#8220;you&#8217;re tempted at times to let her have the sphere all
+to herself. That&#8217;s the universal experience of married men,
+and ye may believe me, miss&mdash;madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now Miss Foley&#8217;s gone north, you&#8217;ve decided to
+come and admire <em>me</em> in <em>my</em> home!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So it is your home!&#8221; murmured the detective with
+an uncontrolled quickness which wakened Audrey&#8217;s old
+suspicions afresh&mdash;and which created a new suspicion, the
+suspicion that the fellow was simply playing with her.
+&#8220;I assure you I came here to recover; I&#8217;d heard it was
+the finest climate in England.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Recover?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, from fire-extinguishers. D&#8217;ye know I coughed
+for twenty-four hours after that reception?... And you
+should have seen my clothes! The doctor says my lungs
+may never get over it.... That&#8217;s what comes of
+admiration.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s what comes of behaving as no married man ought
+to behave.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did I say I was married?&#8221; asked the detective with
+an ingenuous air. &#8220;Well, I may be. But I dare say I&#8217;m
+only married just about as much as you are yourself,
+madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Upon this remark he raised his hat and departed along
+the grassy summit of the sea-wall.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey flushed for the second time that morning, and
+more strikingly than before. She was extremely discontented
+with, and ashamed of, herself, for she had meant
+to be the equal of the detective, and she had not been.
+It was blazingly clear that he had indeed played with her&mdash;or,
+as she put it in her own mind: &#8220;He just stuffed
+me up all through.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She tried to think logically. Had he been pursuing
+the motor-car all the way from Birmingham? Obviously
+he had not, since according to Aguilar he had been in the
+vicinity of Moze since the previous morning. Hence he
+did not know that Audrey was involved in the Blue City
+affair, and he did not know that Jane Foley was at
+Frinton. How he had learnt that Audrey belonged to
+Moze, and why and what he had come to investigate at
+Moze, she could not guess. Nor did these problems appear
+to her to have an importance at all equal to the importance
+of hiding from the detective that she had been staying
+at Frinton. If he followed her to Frinton he would inevitably
+discover that Jane Foley was at Frinton, and the
+sequel would be more imprisonment for Jane. Therefore
+Audrey must not return to Frinton. Having by a masterly
+process of ratiocination reached this conclusion, she began
+to think rather better of herself, and ceased blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar,&#8221; she demanded excitedly, having gone back
+through the plantation. &#8220;Did Miss Ingate happen to say
+where I was staying last night?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must run into the house and write a note to her,
+and you must take it down instantly.&#8221; In her mind she
+framed the note, which was to condemn Miss Ingate to
+the torture of complete and everlasting silence about the
+episode at the Blue City and the flight eastwards.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_29" id="chapter_29" />CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>FLIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8221;Fast, madam, did you say?&#8221; asked the chauffeur, bending
+his head back from the wheel as the car left the gates
+of Flank Hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Fast.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Colchester road?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really just as quick to take the Frinton road for
+Colchester&mdash;it&#8217;s so much straighter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, no, no! On no account. Don&#8217;t go near Frinton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey leaned back in the car. And as speed increased
+the magnificence of the morning again had its effect on
+her. The adventure pleased her far more than the perils
+of it, either for herself or for other people, frightened
+her. She knew that she was doing a very strange thing
+in thus leaving the Spatts and her luggage without a
+word of explanation before breakfast; but she did not
+care. She knew that for some reason which she did not
+comprehend the police were after her, as they had been
+after nearly all the great ones of the movement; but she
+did not care. She was alive in the rushing car amid the
+magnificence of the morning. Musa sat next to her. She
+had more or less incompletely explained the situation to
+him&mdash;it was not necessary to tell everything to a boy who
+depended upon you absolutely for his highest welfare&mdash;such
+boys must accept, thankfully, what they received.
+And Musa had indeed done so. He appeared to be quite
+happy and without anxieties. That was the worst
+He had wanted to be with her, and he was with her, and
+he cared for nothing else. He had no interest in what
+might happen next. He yielded himself utterly to the enjoyment
+of her presence and of the magnificent morning.</p>
+
+<p>And yet Musa, whom Audrey considered that she understood
+as profoundly as any mother had ever understood
+any child&mdash;even Musa could surprise.</p>
+
+<p>He said, without any preparation:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I calculate that I shall have 3,040 francs in hand after
+the concerts, assuming that I receive only the minimum.
+That is, after paying the expenses of my living.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But do you know how much it costs you to live?&#8221;
+Audrey demanded, with careless superiority.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Assuredly. I write all my payments down in a little
+book. I have done so since some years.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Every sou?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. Every sou.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But do you save, Musa?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Save!&#8221; he repeated the word ingenuously. &#8220;Till
+now to save has been impossible for me. But I have
+always kept in hand one month&#8217;s subsistence. I could not
+do more. Now I shall save. You reproached me with
+having spent money in order to come to see you in
+England. But I regarded the money so spent as part of
+the finance of the concerts. Without seeing you I could
+not practise. Without practice I could not play. Without
+playing I could not earn money. Therefore I spent money
+in order to get money. Such, Madame, was the commercial
+side. What a beautiful lawn for tennis you have
+in your garden!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was more than surprised, she was staggered
+by the revelation of the attitude of genius towards money.
+She had not suspected it. Then she remembered the simple
+natural tome in which Musa had once told her that both
+Tommy and Nick contributed to his income. She ought
+to have comprehended from that avowal more than she,
+in fact, had comprehended. And now the first hopes of
+worldly success were strongly developing that unsuspected
+trait in the young man&#8217;s character. Audrey was aware
+of a great fear. Could he be a genius, after all? Was
+it conceivable that an authentic musical genius should enter
+up daily in a little book every sou he spent?</p>
+
+<p>A rapid, spitting, explosive sound, close behind the
+car and a little to the right, took her mind away from
+Musa and back to the adventure. She looked round, half
+expecting what she should see&mdash;and she saw it, namely,
+the detective on a motor-cycle. It was an &#8220;Indian&#8221; machine
+and painted red. And as she looked, the car, after taking
+a corner, got into a straight bit of the splendid road and
+the motor-bicycle dropped away from it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can&#8217;t you shake off that motor-bicycle thing?&#8221; Audrey
+rather superciliously asked the chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>Having first looked at his mirror, the chauffeur, who,
+like a horse, could see in two directions at once, gazed
+cautiously at the road in front and at the motor-bicycle
+behind, simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I doubt it, madam,&#8221; he said. And yet his tone and
+glance expressed deep scorn of the motor-bicycle. &#8220;As
+a general rule you can&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should have thought you could beat a little thing
+like that,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Them things can do sixty when they&#8217;ve a mind to,&#8221;
+said the chauffeur, with finality, and gave all his attention
+to the road.</p>
+
+<p>At intervals he looked at his mirror. The motor-bicycle
+had vanished into the past, and as it failed to reappear he
+gradually grew confident and disdainful. But just as the
+car was going down the short hill into the outskirts of
+Colchester the motor-bicycle came into view once more.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where to, madam?&#8221; inquired the chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is Colchester, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221; she demanded nervously,
+though she knew perfectly well that it was Colchester.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Straight through! Straight through!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The London road?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. The London road,&#8221; she agreed. London was,
+of course, the only possible destination.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But breakfast, madam?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! The usual thing,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;ll have
+yours when I have mine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But we shall run out of petrol, madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never mind,&#8221; said Audrey sublimely.</p>
+
+<p>The chauffeur, with characteristic skill, arranged that
+the car should run out of petrol precisely in front of the
+best hotel in Chelmsford, which was about half-way to
+London. The motor-bicycle had not been seen for several
+miles. But scarcely had they resumed the journey, by
+the Epping road, when it came again into view&mdash;in front
+of them. How had the fellow guessed that they would
+take the longer Epping road instead of the shorter
+Romford road?</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When shall we be arriving in Frinton?&#8221; Musa inquired,
+beatific.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We shan&#8217;t be arriving in Frinton any more,&#8221; said
+Audrey. &#8220;We must go straight to London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is like a dream,&#8221; Musa murmured, as it were
+in ecstasy. Then his features changed and he almost
+screamed: &#8220;But my violin! My violin! We must go
+back for it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Violin!&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;That&#8217;s nothing! I&#8217;ve even
+come without gloves.&#8221; And she had.</p>
+
+<p>She reassured Musa as to the violin, and the chauffeur
+as to the abandoned Gladstone bag containing the chauffeur&#8217;s
+personal effects, and herself as to many things. An
+hour and twenty minutes later the car, with three people
+in it, thickly dusted even to the eyebrows, drew up in
+the courtyard of Charing Cross railway station, and the
+motor-cycle was visible, its glaring red somewhat paled,
+in the Strand outside. The time was ten-fifteen.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We shall take the eleven o&#8217;clock boat train for Paris,&#8221;
+she said to Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You also?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. He was in heaven. He could even do
+without his violin.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How nice it is not to be bothered with luggage,&#8221;
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>The chauffeur was pacified with money, of which Audrey
+had a sufficiency.</p>
+
+<p>And all the time Audrey kept saying to herself:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to Paris to please Musa, so don&#8217;t let
+him think it! I&#8217;m only going so as to put the detective
+off and keep Jane Foley out of his clutches, because if I
+stay in London he&#8217;ll be bound to find everything out.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>While Musa kept watch for the detective at the door
+of the telegraph office Audrey telegraphed, as laconically
+as possible, to Frinton concerning clothes and the violin,
+and then they descended to subterranean marble chambers
+in order to get rid of dust, and they came up to earth
+again, each out of a separate cellar, renewed. And, lastly,
+Audrey slipped into the Strand and bought a pair of gloves,
+and thereafter felt herself to be completely equipped against
+the world&#8217;s gaze.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_30" id="chapter_30" />CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>ARIADNE</h3>
+
+
+<p>A few days later an automobile&mdash;not Audrey&#8217;s but a large
+limousine&mdash;bumped, with slow and soft dignity, across the
+railway lines which diversify the quays of Boulogne harbour
+and, having hooted in a peculiar manner, came to a stop
+opposite nothing in particular.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here we are,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, reaching to open
+the door. &#8220;You can see her masthead light.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was getting dark. Behind, over the station, a very
+faint flush lightened the west, and in front, across the
+water, and reflected in the water, the thousand lamps of
+the town rose in tiers to the lofty church which stood out
+a dark mass against the summer sky. On the quays the
+forms of men moved vaguely among crates and packages,
+and on the water, tugs and boats flitted about, puffing,
+or with the plash of oars, or with no sound whatever.
+And from the distance arrived the reverberation of electric
+trams running their courses in the maze of the town.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac and Audrey descended, after Mr. Gilman,
+from the car and Mr. Gilman turned off the electric light
+in the interior and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do not trouble about the luggage, I beg you,&#8221; said
+Mr. Gilman, breathing, as usual, rather noticeably. &#8220;<em>Bon
+soir</em>, Leroux. Don&#8217;t forget to meet the nine-thirty-five.&#8221;
+This last to the white-clad chauffeur, who saluted sharply.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment two sailors appeared over the edge
+of the quay, and a Maltese cross of light burst into radiance
+at the end of a sloping gangway, whose summit was
+just perched on the solid masonry of the port. The sailors
+were clothed in blue, with white caps, and on their breasts
+they bore the white-embroidered sign: &#8220;<em>Ariadne, R.T.Y.C.</em>&#8220;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look lively, lads, with the luggage,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then another figure appeared under the Maltese cross.
+It was clad in white ducks, with a blue reefer ornamented
+in gold, and a yachting cap crowned in white: a stoutish
+and middle-aged figure, much like Mr. Gilman himself in
+bearing and costume, except that Mr. Gilman had no gold
+on his jacket.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, skipper!&#8221; greeted Mr. Gilman, jauntily and
+spryly. In one moment, in one second, Mr. Gilman had
+grown at least twenty years younger.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Captain Wyatt,&#8221; he presented the skipper to the
+ladies. &#8220;And this is Mr. Price, my secretary, and Doctor
+Cromarty,&#8221; as two youths, clothed exactly to match Mr.
+Gilman, followed the skipper up the steep incline of the
+gangway.</p>
+
+<p>And now Audrey could see the <em>Ariadne</em> lying below, for
+it was only just past low water and the tide was scarcely
+making. At the next berth higher up, with lights gleaming
+at her innumerable portholes and two cranes hard at work
+producing a mighty racket on her, lay a Channel steamer,
+which, by comparison with the yacht, loomed enormous, like
+an Atlantic liner. Indeed, the yacht seemed a very little and
+a very lowly and a very flimsy flotation on the dark water,
+and her illuminated deck-house was no better than a toy.
+On the other hand, her two masts rose out of the deep high
+overhead and had a certain impressiveness, though not
+quite enough.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is this what we&#8217;re going on? I thought it was a big
+yacht.&#8221; And she had a qualm.</p>
+
+<p>And then a bell rang twice, extremely sweet and mellow,
+somewhere on the yacht. And Audrey was touched by the
+beauty of its tone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Two bells. Nine o&#8217;clock,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman. &#8220;Will
+you come aboard? I&#8217;ll show you the way.&#8221; He tripped
+down the gangway like a boy. Behind could be heard the
+sailors giving one another directions about the true method
+of handling luggage.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had met Madame Piriac by sheer hazard in a
+corset shop in the Rue de la Chaussée-d&#8217;Antin. The fugitive
+from justice had been obliged, in the matter of wardrobe,
+to begin life again on her arrival trunkless in Paris, and
+the business of doing so was not disagreeable. Madame
+Piriac had greeted her with most affectionate warmth. One
+of her first suggestions had been that Audrey should accompany
+her on a short yachting trip projected by Mr. Gilman.
+She had said that though the excellent Gilman was her
+uncle, and her adored uncle, he was not her real uncle, and
+that therefore, of course, she was incapable of going unaccompanied,
+though she would hate to disappoint the dear
+man. As for Monsieur Piriac, the destiny of France was in
+his hands, and the moment being somewhat critical, he
+would not quit the Ministry of Foreign Affairs without
+leaving a fixed telegraphic address.</p>
+
+<p>On the next day Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac had
+called on Audrey at the HĂ´tel du Danube, and the invitation
+became formal. It was pressing and flattering. Why
+refuse it? Mr. Gilman was obviously prepared to be her
+slave. She accepted, with enthusiasm. And she said to
+herself that in doing so she was putting yet another spoke
+in the wheel of the British police. Immediately afterwards
+she learnt that Musa also had been asked. Madame Piriac
+informed her, in reply to a sort of protest, that Musa&#8217;s first
+concert was postponed by the concert agency until the
+autumn. &#8220;I never heard of that!&#8221; Audrey had cried.
+&#8220;And why should you have heard of it? Have you not
+been in England?&#8221; Madame Piriac had answered, a little
+surprised at Audrey&#8217;s tone. Whereupon Audrey had said
+naught. The chief point was that Musa could take a holiday
+without detriment to his career. Moreover, Mr. Gilman,
+who possessed everything, possessed a marvellous violin,
+which he would put at the disposal of Musa on the yacht if
+Musa&#8217;s own violin had not been found in the meantime.
+The official story was that Musa&#8217;s violin had been mislaid or
+lost on the MĂ©tropolitain Railway, and the fact that he had
+been to England somehow did not transpire at all.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman had gone forward in advance to make sure
+that his yacht was in a state worthy to receive two such
+ladies, and he had insisted on meeting them in his car
+at Abbeville on the way to Boulogne. He had not insisted
+on meeting Musa similarly. He was a peculiar and in
+some respects a stiff-necked man. He had decided, in his
+own mind, that he would have the two women to himself
+in the car, and so indeed it fell out. Nevertheless his attitude
+to Musa, and Madame Piriac&#8217;s attitude to Musa, and
+everybody&#8217;s attitude to Musa, had shown that the mere
+prospect of star-concerts in a first-class hall had very
+quickly transformed Musa into a genuine Parisian lion. He
+was positively courted. His presence on the yacht was
+deemed an honour, and that was why Mr. Gilman had asked
+him. Audrey both resented the remarkable change and was
+proud of it&mdash;as a mother perhaps naturally would do and
+be. The admitted genius was to arrive the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>On boarding the <em>Ariadne</em> in the wake of Mr. Gilman and
+Madame Piriac, the first thing that impressed Audrey was
+the long gangway itself. It was made of thin resilient steel,
+and the handrails were of soft white rope, almost like silk,
+and finished off with fancy knots; and at the beginning of
+the gangway, on the dirty quay, lay a beautiful mat bearing
+the name of the goddess, while at the end, on the pale,
+smooth deck, was another similar mat. The obvious costliness
+of that gangway and those superlative mats made
+Audrey feel poor, in spite of her ten million francs. And
+the next thing that impressed her was that immediately she
+got down on deck the yacht, in a very mysterious manner,
+had grown larger, and much larger. At the forward extremity
+of the deck certain blue figures lounging about
+seemed to be quite a long way off, indeed in another world.
+Here and there on the deck were circles of yellow or white
+rope, coiled as precisely and perfectly as Audrey could coil
+her own hair. Mr. Gilman led them to the door of the deck-house
+and they gazed within. The sight of the interior
+drew out of the ravished Audrey an ecstatic exclamation:
+&#8220;What a darling!&#8221; And at the words she saw that Mr.
+Gilman, for all his assumed nonchalant spryness, almost
+trembled with pleasure. The deck-house was a drawing-room
+whose walls were of carved and inlaid wood. Orange-shaded
+electric bulbs hung on short, silk cords from the
+ceiling, and flowers in sconces showed brilliantly between
+the windows, which were draped with curtains of silk matching
+the thick carpet. Several lounge chairs and a table of
+bird&#8217;s-eye maple completed the place, and over the table
+were scattered newspapers and illustrated weeklies. Everything,
+except the literature, was somewhat diminished in
+size, but the smallness of the scale only intensified the
+pleasure derived from the spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>Then they went &#8220;downstairs,&#8221; as Audrey said; but Mr.
+Gilman corrected her and said &#8220;below,&#8221; whereupon Audrey
+retorted that she should call it the &#8220;ground floor,&#8221; and Mr.
+Gilman laughed as she had never heard a man of his age
+laugh. The sight of the ground floor still further increased
+Audrey&#8217;s notion of the dimensions of the yacht, whose corridors
+and compartments appeared to stretch away endlessly
+in two directions. At the foot of the curving staircase Mr.
+Gilman, pulling aside a curtain, announced: &#8220;This is the
+saloon.&#8221; When she heard the word Audrey expected a
+poky cubicle, but found a vast drawing-room with more
+books than she had ever seen in any other drawing-room,
+many pictures, an open piano, with music on it; sofas in
+every quarter, and about a thousand cupboards and drawers,
+each with a silver knob or handle. Above all was a dome of
+multi-coloured glass, and exactly beneath the dome a table
+set for supper, with the finest napery, cutlery and crystal.
+The apartment was dazzlingly lighted, and yet not a single
+lamp could be detected in the act of illumination. A real
+parlourmaid suddenly appeared at the far end of the room,
+and behind her two stewards in gilt-buttoned white Eton
+jackets and black trousers. Mr. Gilman, with seriousness,
+bade the parlourmaid take charge of the ladies and show
+them the sleeping-cabins.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Choose any cabins you like,&#8221; said he, as Madame
+Piriac and Audrey rustled off.</p>
+
+<p>There might have been hundreds of sleeping-cabins. And
+there did, in fact, appear to be quite a number of them,
+to say nothing of two bathrooms. They inspected all of
+them save one, which was locked. In an awed voice the
+parlourmaid said, &#8220;That is the owner&#8217;s cabin.&#8221; At another
+door she said, in a different, disdainful voice, &#8220;That only
+leads to the galley and the crew&#8217;s quarters.&#8221; Audrey
+wondered what a galley could be, and the mystery of that
+name, and the mystery of the two closed doors, merely made
+the whole yacht perfect. The sleeping-cabins surpassed all
+else&mdash;they were so compact, so complex, so utterly complete.
+No large bedchamber, within Audrey&#8217;s knowledge, held so
+much apparatus, and offered so much comfort and so much
+wardrobe room as even the least of these cabins. It was
+impossible, to be sure, that in one&#8217;s amused researches one
+had not missed a cupboard ingeniously disguised somewhere.
+And the multiplicity of mirrors, and the message of the
+laconic monosyllable &#8220;Hot&#8221; on silver taps, and the discretion
+of the lighting, all indicated that the architect and
+creator of these marvellous microcosms had &#8220;understood.&#8221;
+The cosy virtue of littleness, and the entire absurdity of
+space for the sake of space, were strikingly proved, and
+the demonstration amounted, in Audrey&#8217;s mind, to a new and
+delicious discovery.</p>
+
+<p>The largest of the cabins had two berths at right angles
+to one another, each a lovely little bed with a running screen
+of cashmere. Having admired it once, they returned to it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you know, my dear,&#8221; said Madame Piriac in
+French, &#8220;I have an idea. You will tell me if it is not
+good.... If we shared this cabin ...! In this so curious
+machine one feels a satisfaction, somehow, in being very
+near the one to the other. The ceiling is so low.... That
+gives you sensations&mdash;human sensations.... I know not
+if you experience the same....&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Let&#8217;s!&#8221; Audrey exclaimed impulsively in
+English. &#8220;Do let&#8217;s!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the parlourmaid had gone, and before the luggage
+had come down, Madame Piriac caught Audrey to her and
+kissed her fervently on both cheeks, amid the glinting confusion
+of polished woods and draperies and silver mountings
+and bevelled glass.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am so content that you came, my little one!&#8221;
+murmured Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>The next minute the cabin and the corridor outside were
+full of open trunks and bags, over which bent the forms of
+Madame Piriac, Audrey and the parlourmaid. And all the
+drawers were gaping, and the doors of all the cupboards
+swinging, and the narrow beds were hidden under piles of
+variegated garments. And while they were engaged in the
+breathless business of installing themselves in the celestial
+domain, strange new thoughts flitted about like mice in
+Audrey&#8217;s head. She felt as though she were in a refuge
+from the world, and as though her conscience was being
+narcotised. In that cabin, firm as solid land and yet floating
+on the water, with Mr. Gilman at hand her absolute slave&mdash;in
+that cabin the propaganda of women&#8217;s suffrage presented
+itself as a very odd and very remote phenomenon, a phenomenon
+scarcely real. She had positively everything she
+wanted without fighting for it. The lion&#8217;s share of life was
+hers. Comfort and luxury were desirable and beautiful
+things, not to be cast aside nor scorned. Madame Piriac
+was a wise woman and a good woman. She was a happy
+woman.... There was a great deal of ugliness in sitting
+on Joy Wheels and being chased by policemen. True, as she
+had heard, a crew of nineteen human beings was necessary
+to the existence of Mr. Gilman and his guests on board the
+yacht. Well, what then? The nineteen were undoubtedly
+well treated and in clover. And the world was the world;
+you had to take it as you found it.... And then in her
+mind she had a glimpse of the blissful face of Jane Foley&mdash;blissful
+in a different way from any other face she had met
+in all her life. Disconcerting, this glimpse, for an instant,
+but only for an instant! She, Audrey, was blissful, too.
+The intense desire for joy and pleasure surged up in her....
+The bell which she had previously heard struck three;
+its delicate note vibrated long through the yacht, unwilling
+to expire. Half-past nine, and supper and the chivalry of
+Mr. Gilman waiting for them in the elegance of the saloon!</p>
+
+<p>As the two women approached the <em>portière</em> which
+screened the forward entrance to the saloon, they heard
+Mr. Gilman say, in a weary and resigned voice:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I suppose there&#8217;s nothing better than a whisky
+and soda.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And the vivacious reply of a steward:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very good, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The owner was lounging in a corner, with a gloomy,
+bored look on his face. But as soon as the <em>portière</em> stirred
+and he saw the smiles of Madame Piriac and Audrey upon
+him, his whole demeanour changed in an instant. He
+sprang up, laughed, furtively smoothed his waistcoat, and
+managed to convey the general idea that he had a keen
+interest in life, and that the keenest part of that interest
+was due to a profound instinctive desire to serve these two
+beautiful benefactors of mankind&mdash;the idea apparently being
+that the charming creatures had conferred a favour on the
+human race by consenting to exist. He cooed round them,
+he offered them cushions, he inquired after their physical
+condition, he expressed his fear lest the cabins had not
+contained every convenience that caprice might expect. He
+was excited; surely he was happy! Audrey persuaded herself
+that this must, after all, be his true normal condition
+while aboard the yacht, and that the ennui visible on his
+features a moment earlier could only have been transient and
+accidental.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am sure the piano is as wonderful as all else on
+board,&#8221; said Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do play!&#8221; he entreated. &#8220;I love to hear music here.
+My secretary plays for me when I am alone.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I, who do not adore music!&#8221; Madame Piriac protested
+against the invitation. But she sat down on the clamped
+music stool and began a waltz.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, dropping into a seat by Audrey.
+&#8220;I wish I danced!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you don&#8217;t mean to say you don&#8217;t,&#8221; said Audrey,
+with fascination. She felt that she could fascinate him, and
+that it was her duty to fascinate him.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman responded to the challenge.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose I do,&#8221; he said modestly. &#8220;We must have a
+dance on deck one night. I&#8217;ll tell my secretary to get the
+gramophone into order. I have a pretty good one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How lovely!&#8221; Audrey agreed. &#8220;I do think the
+<em>Ariadne&#8217;s</em> the most heavenly thing, Mr. Gilman! I&#8217;d no
+idea what a yacht was! I hope you&#8217;ll tell me the proper
+names for all the various parts&mdash;you know what I mean.
+I hate to use the wrong words. It&#8217;s not polite on a yacht,
+is it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His smile was entranced.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You and I will go round by ourselves to-morrow morning,
+Mrs. Moncreiff,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the steward appeared with the whisky and
+soda, but Mr. Gilman dismissed him with a sharp gesture,
+and he vanished back into the unexplored parts of the
+vessel. The implication was that the society of Audrey
+made whisky and soda a superfluity for Mr. Gilman.
+Although she was so young, he treated her with exactly
+the same deference as he lavished on Madame Piriac,
+indeed with perhaps a little more. If Madame Piriac was
+for him the incarnation of sweetness and balm and majesty,
+so also was Audrey, and Audrey had the advantage of
+novelty. She was growing, morally, every minute. The
+confession of Musa had filled her with a good notion of
+herself. The impulsive flattery of Madame Piriac in the
+joint cabin, and now the sincere, grave homage of Mr. Gilman,
+caused her to brim over with consciousness that she
+was at last somebody.</p>
+
+<p>An automobile hooted on the quay, and at the disturbing
+sound Madame Piriac ceased to play and swung round on
+the stool.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&mdash;that must be our other lady guest,&#8221; said Mr.
+Gilman, who had developed nervousness; his cheeks flushed
+darkly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah?&#8221; cautiously smiled Madame Piriac, who was
+plainly taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman. &#8220;Miss Thompkins. Before I
+knew for certain that Mrs. Moncreiff could come with you,
+Hortense, I asked Miss Thompkins if she would care to
+come. I only got her answer this morning&mdash;it was delayed.
+I meant to tell you.... You are a friend of Miss Thompkins,
+aren&#8217;t you?&#8221; He turned to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey replied gaily that she knew Tommy very well.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d better go up,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, and he departed,
+and his back, though a nervous back, seemed to be defying
+Madame Piriac and Audrey to question in the slightest
+degree his absolute right to choose his own guests on his
+own yacht.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Strange man!&#8221; muttered Madame Piriac. It was a
+confidence to Audrey, who eagerly accepted it as such.
+&#8220;Imagine him inviting Mees Thompkins without a word to
+us, without a word! But, you know, my dear uncle was
+always bizarre, mysterious. Yet&mdash;is he mysterious, or is
+he ingenuous?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But how did he come to know Miss Thompkins?&#8221;
+Audrey demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! You have not heard that? Miss Thompkins gave
+a&mdash;a musical tea in her studio, to celebrate these concerts
+which are to occur. Musa asked the Foas to come. They
+consented. It was understood they should bring friends.
+Thus I went also, and Monsieur Gilman being at my orders
+that afternoon, he went too. Never have I seen so strange
+a multitude! But it was amusing. And all Paris has begun
+to talk of Musa. Miss Thompkins and my uncle became
+friends on the instant. I assume that it was her eyes. Also
+those Americans have vivacity, if not always distinction.
+Do you not think so?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes! And do you mean to say that on the strength
+of that he asked her to go yachting?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, he had called several times.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aren&#8217;t you surprised she accepted?&#8221; asked Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Madame Piriac. &#8220;It is another code, that
+is all. It is a surprise, but she will be amusing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure she will,&#8221; Audrey concurred. &#8220;I&#8217;m frightfully
+fond of her myself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They glanced at each other very intimately, like long-established
+allies who fear an aggression&mdash;and are ready
+for it.</p>
+
+<p>Then steps were heard. Miss Thompkins entered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; drawled Miss Thompkins, gazing first at
+Audrey and then at Madame Piriac. &#8220;Of all the loveliest
+shocks&mdash;&mdash;Say, Musa&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Behind her stood Musa. It appeared that he had been
+able to get away by the same train as Tommy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_31" id="chapter_31" />CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NOSTRUM</h3>
+
+
+<p>The hemisphere of heaven was drenched in moonlight, and&mdash;rare
+happening either on British earth or on the waters
+surrounding it, in mid-summer&mdash;the night was warm. In
+the midst of the glittering sea the yacht moved without the
+appearance of motion; only by leaning over the rail and
+watching the bubbles glide away from her could you detect
+her progress. There were no waves, no ripples, nothing
+but a scarcely perceptible swell. The gentle breeze, unnoticeable
+on deck, was abaft; all the sails had been
+lowered and stowed except the large square sail bent on a
+yard to the mainmast and never used except with such a
+wind. The <em>Ariadne</em> had a strong flood tide under her, and
+her 200-h.p. twin motors were stopped. Hence there
+was no tremor in the ship and no odour of paraffin in the
+nostrils of those who chanced to wander aft of the engine-room.
+The deck awning had been rolled up to the centre,
+and at the four corners of its frame had been hung four
+temporary electric lights within Chinese lanterns. A
+radiance ascended from the saloon skylight; the windows
+of the deck-house blazed as usual, but the deck-house was
+empty; a very subdued glow indicated where the binnacle
+was. And, answering these signs of existence, could be
+distinguished the red and green lights of steamers, the firm
+rays of lighthouses, and the red or white warnings of gas-buoys
+run by clockwork.</p>
+
+<p>The figures of men and women&mdash;the women in pale
+gowns, the men in blue-and-white&mdash;lounged or strolled on
+the spotless deck which unseen hands swabbed and stoned
+every morning at 6 o&#8217;clock; and among these figures passed
+the figure of a steward with a salver, staying them with
+flagons, comforting them with the finest exotic fruit.
+Occasionally the huge square sail gave an idle flap. &#8220;Get
+that lead out, &#8217;Orace,&#8221; commanded a grim voice from the
+wheel. A splash followed, as a man straddled himself over
+the starboard bow, swung a weighted line to and fro and
+threw it from him. &#8220;Four.&#8221; Another splash. &#8220;Four.&#8221;
+Another splash. &#8220;Four.&#8221; Another splash. &#8220;Three-half.&#8221;
+Another splash. &#8220;Three-half.&#8221; Another splash. &#8220;Three.&#8221;
+Another splash. &#8220;Two-half.&#8221; Another splash. &#8220;Three.&#8221;
+Another splash. &#8220;Five.&#8221; &#8220;That&#8217;ll do, &#8217;Orace,&#8221; came the
+voice from the wheel. Then an entranced silence.</p>
+
+<p>The scene had the air of being ideal. And yet it was
+not. Something lacked. That something was the owner.
+The owner lay indisposed in the sacred owner&#8217;s cabin. And
+this was a pity because a dance had been planned for that
+night. It might have taken place without the owner, but
+the strains of the gramophone and especially the shuffling
+of feet on the deck would have disturbed him. True, he
+had sent up word by Doctor Cromarty that he was not to
+be considered. But the doctor had delivered the message
+without any conviction, and the unanimous decision was
+that the owner must, at all costs, be considered.</p>
+
+<p>It was Ostend, on top of the owner&#8217;s original offer to
+Audrey, that had brought about the suggestion of a dance.
+They had coasted up round Gris-Nez from Boulogne to
+Ostend, and had reached the harbour there barely in time
+to escape from the worst of a tempest that had already
+begun to produce in the minds of sundry passengers a grave
+doubt whether yachting was, after all, the most delightful
+of pursuits. Some miles before the white dome of the
+Kursaal was sighted the process of moral decadence had set
+in, and passengers were lying freely to each other, and
+boastfully lying, just as though somebody had been accusing
+them of some dreadful crime of cowardice or bad breeding
+instead of merely inquiring about the existence of physical
+symptoms over which they admittedly had no control whatever.
+The security of a harbour, with a railway station not
+fifty yards from the yacht&#8217;s bowsprit, had restored them,
+by dint of calming secret fears, to their customary condition
+of righteousness and rectitude. Several days of
+gusty rainstorms had elapsed at Ostend, and the passengers
+had had the opportunity to study the method of managing
+a yacht, and to visit the neighbourhood. The one was as
+wondrous as the other. They found letters and British and
+French newspapers on their plates at breakfast. And the
+first object they had seen on the quay, and the last object
+they saw there, was the identical large limousine which they
+had left on the quay at Boulogne. It would have taken
+them to Ghent but for the owner&#8217;s powerful objection to
+their eating any meal off the yacht. Seemingly he had a
+great and sincere horror of local viands and particularly of
+local water. He was their slave; they might demand anything
+from him; he was the very symbol of hospitality and
+chivalry, but somehow they could not compass a meal
+away from the yacht. Similarly, he would have them leave
+the Kursaal not later than ten o&#8217;clock, when the evening had
+not veritably begun. They did not clearly understand by
+what means he imposed his will, but he imposed it.</p>
+
+<p>The departure from Ostend was accomplished after the
+glass had begun to rise, but before it had finished rising, and
+there were apprehensions in the saloon and out of it, when
+the spectacle of the open sea, and the feel of it under the
+feet, showed that, as of old, water was still unstable. The
+process of moral decadence would have set in once more
+but for the prudence and presence of mind of Audrey, who
+had laid in a large stock of the specific which had been of
+such notable use to herself and Miss Ingate on previous
+occasions. Praising openly its virtues, confessing frankly
+her own weakness and preaching persuasively her own
+faith, she had distributed the nostrum, and in about a
+quarter of an hour had established a justifiable confidence.
+Mr. Gilman alone would not partake, and indeed she had
+hardly dared to offer the thing to so experienced a sailor.
+The day had favoured her. The sea grew steadily more
+tranquil, and after skirting the Belgian and French coasts
+for some little distance the <em>Ariadne</em>, under orders, had
+turned her nose boldly northward for the estuary of the
+Thames. The <em>Ariadne</em> was now in the midst of that very
+complicated puzzle of deeps and shallows. The passengers,
+in fact, knew that they were in the region of the North
+Edinburgh, but what or where the North Edinburgh was
+they had only the vaguest idea. The blot on the voyage
+had been the indisposition of Mr. Gilman, who had taken
+to his berth early, and who saw nobody but his doctor,
+through whom he benignantly administered the world of the
+yacht. Doctor Cromarty had a face which imparted nothing
+and yet implied everything. He said less and meant more
+than even the average pure-blooded Scotsman. It was
+imparted that Mr. Gilman had a chronic complaint. The
+implications were vast and baffling.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We shall dance after all,&#8221; said Miss Thompkins, bending
+with a mysterious gesture over Audrey, who reclined in
+a deck-chair near the companion leading to the deserted
+engine-room. Miss Thompkins was dressed in lacy white,
+with a string of many tinted beads round her slim neck.
+Her tawny hair was arranged in a large fluffiness, and the
+ensemble showed to a surprised Audrey what Miss
+Thompkins could accomplish when she deemed the occasion
+to be worthy of an effort.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shall we? What makes you think so, dear?&#8221; absently
+asked Audrey, in whom the scene had induced profound
+reflections upon life and the universe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;ll come up on deck,&#8221; said Miss Thompkins, disclosing
+her teeth in an inscrutable smile that the moonbeams
+made more strange than it actually was. &#8220;Like to know
+how I know? Sure you&#8217;d like to know, Mrs. Simplicity?&#8221;
+Her beads rattled above Audrey&#8217;s insignificant upturned
+nose. &#8220;Isn&#8217;t a yacht the queerest little self-contained state
+you ever visited? It&#8217;s as full of party politics as
+Massachusetts; and that&#8217;s some. Well, I didn&#8217;t use all my
+medicine you gave me. Didn&#8217;t need it. So I&#8217;ve shared it
+with <em>him</em>. I got the empty packet with all the instructions
+on it, and I put two of my tablets in it, and if he hasn&#8217;t
+swallowed them by this time my name isn&#8217;t Anne Tuckett
+Thompkins.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you don&#8217;t mean he&#8217;s been&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey, you&#8217;re making a noise like a goose. &#8217;Course
+I do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But how did you manage to&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I gave them to Mr. Price, with instructions to leave
+them by the&mdash;er&mdash;bedside. Mr. Price is a friend. I hope
+I&#8217;ve made that plain these days to everybody, including Mr.
+Gilman. Mr. Price is a good sample of what painters are
+liable to come to after they&#8217;ve found out they don&#8217;t care
+for the smell of oil-tubes. I knew him when he always
+said &#8216;Puvis&#8217; instead of &#8216;Puvis de Chavannes.&#8217; He&#8217;s cured
+now. If I hadn&#8217;t happened to know he&#8217;d be on board I
+shouldn&#8217;t have dared to come. He&#8217;s my lifebuoy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I assure you, Tommy, Mr. Gilman refused the
+stuff from me. He did.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Dove! Wood-pigeon! Of course he refused it.
+He was bound to. Owner of a two-hundred-and-fifty-ton
+yacht taking a remedy for sea-sickness in public on the
+two-hundred-and-fifty-ton yacht! The very idea makes you
+shiver. But he&#8217;ll take it down there. And he won&#8217;t ask
+any questions. And he&#8217;ll hide it from the doctor. And
+he&#8217;ll pretend, and he&#8217;ll expect everybody else to pretend,
+that he&#8217;s never been within a mile of the stuff.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tommy, I don&#8217;t believe you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And he&#8217;s a lovely man, all the same.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tommy, I don&#8217;t believe you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you do. You&#8217;d like not to, but you can&#8217;t help it.
+I sometimes do bruise people badly in their organ of
+illusions-about-human-nature, but it is fun, after all,
+isn&#8217;t it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Getting down to the facts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Accompanied by the tattoo of her necklace, Miss
+Thompkins moved away in the direction of Madame Piriac,
+who was engaged with Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Admit I&#8217;m rather brilliant to-night,&#8221; she threw over
+her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>The dice seem to be always loaded in favour of the
+Misses Thompkins of society. Less than a quarter of an
+hour later Doctor Cromarty, showing his head just above
+the level of the deck, called out:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Price, ye can wind up that box o&#8217; yours. Mr. Gilman
+is coming on deck. He&#8217;s wonderful better.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_32" id="chapter_32" />CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE BINNACLE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The owner was at the wheel. But he had not got there
+at once. This singular man, who strangely enough was
+wearing one of his most effulgent and heterogeneous club
+neckties, had begun by dancing. He danced with all three
+ladies, one after the other; and he did not merely dance&mdash;he
+danced modernly, he danced the new dances to the new
+tunes, given off like intoxicating gas from the latest of
+gramophones. He knew how to hold the arm of a woman
+above her head, while coiling his own around it in the
+manner of a snake, and he knew how to make his very
+body a vast syncopation. The effect of his arrival was as
+singular as himself. Captain Wyatt, Doctor Cromarty and
+Mr. Price withdrew to that portion of the deck about the
+wheel which convention had always roped off for them with
+invisible ropes. The captain, by custom, messed by himself,
+whereas the other two had their meals in the saloon,
+entering and leaving quickly and saying little while at table.
+But apart from meals the three formed a separate clan on
+the yacht. The indisposition of the owner had dissolved
+this clan into the general population of the saloon. The
+recovery of the owner re-created it. Mr. Price had suddenly
+begun to live arduously for the gramophone alone.
+And when summoned by the owner to come and form half
+of the third couple for dancing, Doctor Cromarty had the
+air of arousing himself from a meditation upon medicine.
+Also, the passengers themselves danced with conscientiousness,
+with elaborate gusto and with an earnest desire to
+reach a high standard. And between dances everybody
+went up to Mr. Gilman and said how lovely it all was. And
+it really was lovely.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman had taken the wheel after about the sixth
+dance. Approaching Audrey, who owed him the next dance,
+he had said that the skipper had hinted something about his
+taking the wheel and he thought he had better oblige the
+old fellow, if Audrey was quite, quite sure she didn&#8217;t mind,
+and would she come and sit by him instead&mdash;for one dance?
+... As soon as two sailors had fixed cushions for Audrey,
+and the skipper had given the owner the course, all persons
+seemed to withdraw respectfully from the pair, who were
+in the shadow of a great spar, with the glimmer of the
+binnacle just in front of them. The square sail had been
+lowered, and the engines started, and a steady, faint throb
+kept the yacht mysteriously alive in every plank of her.
+The gramophone and the shuffle of feet continued, because
+Mr. Gilman had expressly desired that his momentary
+defection with a lady and in obedience to duty should not
+bring the ball to an end. Laughter and even giggles came
+from the ballroom. Males were dancing together. The
+power of the moon had increased. The binnacle-light, however,
+threw up a radiance of its own on to Mr. Gilman&#8217;s
+lowered face, the face of a kind, a good, and a dependably
+expert individuality who was watching over the
+safety, the welfare and the highest interests of every soul
+on board.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was very sorry to be laid up to-day,&#8221; Mr. Gilman
+began suddenly, in a very quiet voice, frowning benevolently
+at the black pointer on the compass. &#8220;But, of
+course, you know my great enemy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I don&#8217;t,&#8221; said Audrey gently.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hasn&#8217;t Doc told you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Doctor Cromarty? No, he doesn&#8217;t tell much.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, looking round quickly and
+shyly, rather in the manner of a boy, &#8220;it&#8217;s liver.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey seemed to read in his face, first, that Doctor
+Cromarty had received secret orders never to tell anybody
+anything, and, second, that the great enemy was not liver.
+And she thought: &#8220;So this is human nature! Mature
+men, wise men, dignified men, do descend to these paltry
+deceits just in order to keep up appearances, though they
+must know quite well that they don&#8217;t deceive anyone who
+is worth deceiving.&#8221; The remarkable fact was that she
+did not feel in the least shocked or disdainful. She merely
+decided&mdash;and found a certain queer pleasure in the decision&mdash;that
+human nature was a curious phenomenon, and that
+there must be a lot of it on earth. And she felt kindly
+towards Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;d said gout&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; she remarked. &#8220;I always
+understood that men generally had gout.&#8221; And she consciously,
+with intention, employed a simple, innocent tone,
+knowing that it misled Mr. Gilman, and wanting it to
+mislead him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No!&#8221; he went on. &#8220;Liver. All sailors suffer from
+it, more or less. It&#8217;s the bugbear of the sea. I have a
+doctor on board because, with a score or so of crew, it&#8217;s
+really a duty to have a doctor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I quite see that,&#8221; Audrey agreed, thinking mildly:
+&#8220;You only have a doctor on board because you&#8217;re always
+worrying about your own health.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;However,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, &#8220;he&#8217;s not much use to
+me personally. He doesn&#8217;t understand liver. Scotsmen
+never do. Fortunately, I have a very good doctor in Paris.
+I prefer French doctors. And I&#8217;m sure they&#8217;re right on the
+great liver question. All English doctors tell you to take
+plenty of violent exercise if you want to shake off a liver
+attack. Quite wrong. Too much exercise tires the body
+and so it tires the liver as well&mdash;obviously. What&#8217;s the
+result? You can see, can&#8217;t you? The liver works worse
+than ever. Now, a French doctor will advise complete rest
+until the attack is over. <em>Then</em> exercise, if you like; but not
+before. Of course, <em>you</em> don&#8217;t know you&#8217;ve got a liver, and
+I dare say you think it&#8217;s very odd of me to talk about my
+liver. I&#8217;m sure you do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t, honestly. I like you to talk like that. It&#8217;s
+very interesting.&#8221; And she thought: &#8220;Suppose Tommy
+was wrong, after all! ... She&#8217;s very spiteful.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s you all over, Mrs. Moncreiff. You understand
+men far better than any other woman I ever saw, unless,
+perhaps, it&#8217;s Madame Piriac.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Mr. Gilman! How can you say such a thing?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not the first time you&#8217;ve heard it, I wager!&#8221; said
+Mr. Gilman. &#8220;And it won&#8217;t be the last! Any man who
+knows women can see at once that you are one of the
+women who understand. Otherwise, do you imagine I
+should have begun upon my troubles?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Now, at any rate, he was sincere&mdash;she was convinced
+of that. And he looked very smart as he spied the horizon
+for lights and peered at the compass, and moved the wheel
+at intervals with a strong, accustomed gesture. And,
+assuredly, he looked very experienced. Audrey blushed.
+She just had to believe that there must be something in
+what he said concerning her talent. She had noticed it herself
+several times.</p>
+
+<p>In an interval of the music the sea washed with a long
+sound against the bow of the yacht; then silence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do love that sudden wash against the yacht,&#8221; said
+Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; agreed Mr. Gilman, &#8220;so do I. All doctors tell
+me that I should be better if I gave up yachting. But I
+won&#8217;t. I couldn&#8217;t. Whatever it costs in health, yachting&#8217;s
+worth it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! It must be!&#8221; cried Audrey, with enthusiasm.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve never been on a yacht before, but I quite agree with
+you. I feel as if I could live on a yacht for ever&mdash;always
+going to new places, you know; that&#8217;s how I feel.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You do?&#8221; Mr. Gilman exclaimed and gazed at her for
+a moment with a sort of ecstasy. Audrey instinctively
+checked herself. &#8220;There&#8217;s a freemasonry among those
+who like yachting.&#8221; His eyes returned to the compass.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve kept your secret. I&#8217;ve kept it like something precious.
+I&#8217;ve enjoyed keeping it. It&#8217;s been a comfort to me. Now
+I wonder if you&#8217;ll do the same for me, Mrs. Moncreiff?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do what?&#8221; Audrey asked weakly, intimidated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Keep a secret. I shouldn&#8217;t dream of telling it to
+Madame Piriac. Will you? May I tell you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, if you think you can trust me,&#8221; said Audrey, concealing,
+with amazing ease and skill, her excitement and
+her mighty pleasure in the scene.... &#8220;He wouldn&#8217;t dream
+of telling it to Madame Piriac.&#8221; ... It is doubtful whether
+she had ever enjoyed anything so much, and yet she was
+as prim as a nun.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not a happy man, Mrs. Moncreiff. Materially, I&#8217;ve
+everything a man can want, I suppose. But I&#8217;m not happy.
+You may laugh and say it&#8217;s my liver. But it isn&#8217;t. You&#8217;re
+a woman of the world; you know what life is; and yet
+experience hasn&#8217;t spoilt you. I could say anything
+to you; anything! And you wouldn&#8217;t be shocked, would
+you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Audrey, hoping, nevertheless, that he would
+not say &#8220;anything, anything,&#8221; but somehow simultaneously
+hoping that he would. It was a disconcerting sensation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I want you always to remember that I&#8217;m unhappy and
+never to tell anybody,&#8221; Mr. Gilman resumed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But why?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It will be a kindness to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I mean, why are you unhappy?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My opinions have all changed. I used to think I could
+be independent of women. Not that I didn&#8217;t like women!
+I did. But when I&#8217;d left them I was quite happy. You
+know what the facts of life are, Mrs. Moncreiff. Young as
+you are you are older than me in some respects, though I
+have a long life before me. It&#8217;s just because I have a long
+life before me&mdash;dyspeptics are always long-lived&mdash;that I&#8217;m
+afraid for the future. It wouldn&#8217;t matter so much if I was
+an old man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; asked Audrey adventurously, &#8220;why should you
+be unhappy because your opinions have changed? What
+opinions?&#8221; She endeavoured to be perfectly judicial and
+indifferent, and yet kind.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What opinions? Well, about Woman Suffrage, for
+instance. You remember that night at the Foas&#8217;, and
+what I remarked afterwards about what you all said?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I remember,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;But can <em>you</em>
+remember it? Fancy you remembering a thing like that!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I remember every word that was said. It changed me....
+Not at first. Oh, no! Not for several days, perhaps
+weeks. I fought against it. Then I said to myself, &#8216;How
+absurd to fight against it!&#8217; ... Well, I&#8217;ve come to believe
+in women having the vote. You&#8217;ve no more stanch supporter
+than I am. I <em>want</em> women to have the vote. And
+you&#8217;re the first person I&#8217;ve ever said that to. I want <em>you</em>
+to have the vote.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled at her, and she saw scores and scores of
+excellent qualities in his smile; she could not believe that
+he had any defect whatever. His secret was precious to
+her. She considered that he had confided it to her in a
+manner both distinguished and poetical. He had shown a
+quality which no youth could have shown. Youths were
+inferior, crude, incomplete. Not that Mr. Gilman was not
+young! Emphatically he was young, but her conception
+of the number of years comprised in youthfulness had been
+enlarged. She saw, as in a magical enlightenment, that
+forty was young, fifty was young, any age was young provided
+it had the right gestures. As for herself, she was
+without age. The obvious fact that Mr. Gilman was her
+slave touched her; it saddened her, but sweetly; it gave her
+a new sense of responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>She said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I still don&#8217;t see why this change of view should make
+you unhappy. I should have thought it would have just the
+opposite effect.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It has altered all my desires,&#8221; he replied. &#8220;Do you
+know, I&#8217;m not really interested in this new yacht now! And
+that&#8217;s the truth.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Gilman!&#8221; she checked him. &#8220;How can you say
+such a thing?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It now appeared that she was not a nice girl. If she
+had been a nice girl she would not have comprehended
+what Mr. Gilman was ultimately driving at. The word
+&#8220;marriage&#8221; would never have sounded in her brain. And
+she would have been startled and shocked had Mr. Gilman
+even hinted that there was such a word in the dictionary.
+But not being, after all, a nice girl, she actually dwelt on
+the notion of marriage with somebody exactly like Mr.
+Gilman. She imagined how fine and comfortable and final
+it would be. She admitted that despite her riches and her
+independence she would be and could be simply naught until
+she possessed a man and could show him to the world as
+her own. Strange attitude for a wealthy feminist, but she
+had the attitude! And, moreover, she enjoyed having it;
+she revelled in it. She desired, impatiently, that Mr.
+Gilman should proceed further. She thirsted for his next
+remark. And her extremely deceptive features displayed
+only a blend of simplicity and soft pity. Those features did
+not actually lie, for she was ingenuous without being aware
+of it and her pity for the fellow-creature whose lot she could
+assuage with a glance was real enough. But they did
+suppress about nine-tenths of the truth.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I tell you,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, &#8220;there is nothing I could
+not say to you. And&mdash;and&mdash;of course, you&#8217;ll say I scarcely
+know you&mdash;yet&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clearly he was proceeding further. She waited as
+in a theatre one waits for a gun to go off on the stage.
+And then the gun did go off, but not the gun she was
+expecting.</p>
+
+<p>Skipper Wyatt&#8217;s head popped up like a cannon shot out
+of a hole in the forward deck, and it gazed sharply and
+apprehensively around the calm, moonlit sea. Mr. Gilman
+was, beyond question, perturbed by the movements of that
+head, though he could not see the expression of the eyes.
+This was the first phenomenon. The second phenomenon
+was a swirling of water round the after part of the ship, and
+this swirling went on until the water was white with a thin
+foam.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Reverse those d&mdash;&mdash;d engines!&#8221; shouted Captain
+Wyatt, quite regardless of the proximity of refined women.
+He had now sprung clear of the hole and was running aft.
+The whole world of the yacht could not but see that he was
+coatless and that his white shirtsleeves, being rather long,
+were kept in position by red elastic rings round his arms.
+&#8220;Is that blithering engineer asleep?&#8221; continued Captain
+Wyatt, ignoring the whole system of yacht etiquette.
+&#8220;She&#8217;s getting harder on every second!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ay, ay, skipper!&#8221; came a muffled voice from the engine-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And not too soon either!&#8221; snapped the captain.</p>
+
+<p>The yacht throbbed more violently; the swirling increased
+furiously. The captain stared over the rail. Then,
+after an interval, he stamped on the deck in disgust.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shut off!&#8221; he yelled. &#8220;It&#8217;s no good.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The yacht ceased to throb. The swirling came to an
+end, and the thin white foam faded into flat sombre water.
+Whereupon Captain Wyatt turned back to the wheel, which,
+in his extreme haste, he had passed by.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve run her on to the sand, sir,&#8221; said he to Mr.
+Gilman, respectfully but still accusingly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no! Impossible!&#8221; Mr. Gilman defended himself,
+pained by the charge.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s hard on, anyhow, sir. And many a good yacht&#8217;s
+left her bones on this Buxey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you gave me the course,&#8221; protested Mr. Gilman,
+with haughtiness.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Wyatt bent down and looked at the binnacle.
+He was contentedly aware that the compass of a yacht hard
+aground cannot lie and cannot be made to lie. The camera
+can lie; the speedometer of an automobile after an accident
+can lie&mdash;or can conceal the truth and often does, but the
+compass of a yacht aground is insusceptible to any
+blandishment; it shows the course at the moment of striking
+and nothing will persuade it to alter its evidence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What course did I give you, sir?&#8221; asked Captain
+Wyatt.</p>
+
+<p>And as Mr. Gilman hesitated in his reply, the skipper
+pointed silently to the compass.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s the chart? Let me see the chart,&#8221; said Mr.
+Gilman with sudden majesty.</p>
+
+<p>The chart in its little brass frame was handy. Mr.
+Gilman examined it in a hostile manner; one might say that
+he cross-examined it, and with it the horizon. &#8220;Ah!&#8221; he
+muttered at length, peering at the print under the chart,
+&#8220;&#8216;Corrected 1906.&#8217; Out of date. Pity they don&#8217;t re-issue
+these charts oftener.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His observations had no relation whatever to the matter
+in hand; considered as a contribution to the unravelling of
+the matter in hand they were merely idiotic. Nevertheless,
+such were the exact words he uttered, and he appeared to
+get great benefit and solace from them. They somehow
+enabled him to meet, quite satisfactorily, the gaze of his
+guests who had now gathered in the vicinity of the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey alone showed a desire to move away from the
+wheel. The fact was that the skipper had glanced at her
+in a peculiar way and his eyes had seemed to say, with
+disdain: &#8220;Women! Women again!&#8221; Nothing but that!
+The implications, however, were plain. Audrey may have
+been discountenanced by the look in the captain&#8217;s eyes, but
+at the same time she had an inward pride, because it was
+undeniable that Mr. Gilman, owing to his extreme and
+agitated interest in herself, had put the yacht off the course
+and was thereby imperilling numerous lives. Audrey liked
+that. And she exonerated Mr. Gilman, and she hated the
+captain for daring to accuse him, and she mysteriously
+nursed the wounded dignity of Mr. Gilman far better than
+he could nurse it himself.</p>
+
+<p>Her feelings were assuredly complex, and they grew
+more complex when the sense of danger began to dominate
+them. The sense of danger came to her out of the
+demeanour of her companions and out of the swift appearance
+on deck of every member of the crew, including the
+parlourmaid, and including three men who were incompletely
+clothed. The yacht was no longer a floating hotel,
+automobile and dancing-saloon; it was a stranded wreck.
+Not a passenger on board knew whether the tide was
+making or ebbing, but, secretly, all were convinced that it
+was ebbing and that they would be left on the treacherous
+sand and ultimately swallowed up therein, even if a storm
+did not supervene and smash the craft to bits in the classical
+manner. The skipper&#8217;s words about the bones of many a
+good yacht had escaped no ear.</p>
+
+<p>Further, not a passenger knew where the yacht was or
+whither, exactly, she was bound or whether the glass was
+rising or falling, for guests on yachts seldom concern themselves
+about details. Of course, signals might be made to
+passing ships, but signals were often, according to maritime
+history, unheeded, and the ocean was very large and empty,
+though it was only the German Ocean.... Musa was
+nervous and angry. Audrey knew from her intimate knowledge
+of him that he was angry and she wondered why he
+should be angry. Madame Piriac, on the other hand, was
+entirely calm. Her calmness seemed to say to those
+responsible, and even to the not-responsible passenger:
+&#8220;You got me into this and it is inconceivable that you should
+not get me out of it. I have always been looked after and
+protected, and I must be looked after and protected now.
+I absolutely decline to be worried.&#8221; But Miss Thompkins
+was worried, she was very seriously alarmed; fear was in
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do think it&#8217;s a shame!&#8221; she broke out almost loudly,
+in a trembling voice, to Audrey. &#8220;I do think it&#8217;s a shame
+you should go flirting with poor Mr. Gilman when he&#8217;s steering.&#8221;
+And she meant all she said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Me flirting!&#8221; Audrey exclaimed, passionately resentful.</p>
+
+<p>Withal, the sense of danger continued to increase. Still
+there were the boats. There were the motor-launch, the
+cutter and the dinghy. The sea was&mdash;for the present&mdash;calm
+and the moon encouraging.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lower the dinghy there and look lively now!&#8221; cried
+the captain.</p>
+
+<p>This command more than ever frightened all the
+passengers who, in their nervousness and alarm, had tried
+to pretend to themselves that nervousness and alarm were
+absurd, and that first-class yachts never did, and could not,
+get wrecked. The command was a thunderstroke. It
+proved that the danger was immediate and intense. And
+the thought of all the beautiful food and drink on board,
+and all the soft cushions and the electric hair-curlers and the
+hot-water supply and the ice gave no consolation whatever.
+The idea of the futility and wickedness of luxury desolated
+the guests and made them austere, and yet even in that
+moment they speculated upon what goods they might take
+with them.</p>
+
+<p>And why the dinghy, though it was a dinghy of large
+size? Why not the launch?</p>
+
+<p>After the dinghy had been dropped into the sea an old
+sail was carefully spread amidships over her bottom and she
+was lugged, by her painter, towards the bow of the yacht
+where, with much grating of windlasses and of temperaments
+and voices, an anchor was very gently lowered into her and
+rested on the old sail. The anchor was so immense that it
+sank the dinghy up to Her gunwale, and then she was
+rowed away to a considerable distance, a chain grinding
+after her, and in due time the anchor was pitched with a
+great splash into the water. The sound of orders and of
+replies vibrated romantically over the surface of the water.
+Then a windlass was connected with the engine, and the
+passengers comprehended that the intention was to drag
+the yacht off the sand by main force. The chain clacked
+and strained horribly. The shouting multiplied, as though
+the vessel had been a great beast that could be bullied into
+obedience. The muscles of all passengers were drawn taut
+in sympathy with the chain, and at length there was a lurch
+and the chain gradually slackened.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s off!&#8221; breathed the captain. &#8220;We&#8217;ve saved a
+good half-hour.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;d have floated off by herself,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman
+grandly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, sir,&#8221; said the captain. &#8220;But if it had happened
+to be the ebb, sir&mdash;&#8221; He left it at that and began on a
+new series of orders, embracing the dinghy, the engines, the
+anchor and another anchor.</p>
+
+<p>And all the passengers resumed their courage and their
+ancient notions about the excellence of luxury, and came to
+the conclusion that navigation was a very simple affair, and
+in less than five minutes were sincerely convinced that they
+had never known fear.</p>
+
+<p>Later, the impressive sight was witnessed of Madame
+Piriac, on her shoulders such a cloak as certainly had never
+been seen on a yacht before, bearing Mr. Gilman&#8217;s valuable
+violin like a jewel casket. She had found it below and
+brought it up on deck.</p>
+
+<p>The <em>Ariadne</em>, was now passing to port those twinkling
+cities of delight, Clacton and Frinton, and the long pier of
+Walton stretched out towards it, a string of topazes. The
+moon was higher and brighter than ever, but clouds had
+heaped themselves up to windward, and the surface of the
+water was rippled. Moreover, the yacht was now working
+over a strong, foul tide. The company, with the exception
+of Mr. Gilman, who had gone below&mdash;apparently in order
+to avoid being on the same deck with Captain Wyatt&mdash;had
+decided that Musa should be asked to play. Although the
+sound of his practising had escaped occasionally through
+the porthole of a locked cabin, he had not once during
+the cruise performed for the public benefit. Dancing was
+finished. Why should not the yacht profit by the presence
+of a great genius on board? The doctor and the
+secretary were of one mind with the women that there
+was no good answer to this question, and even the crew
+obviously felt that the genius ought to show what he was
+made of.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dare we ask you?&#8221; said Madame Piriac to the youth,
+offering him the violin case. Her supplicatory tone and
+attitude, though they were somewhat assumed, proved to
+what a height Musa had recently risen as a personage.</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated, leaning against the rail and nervously
+fingering it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know it is a great deal to ask. But you would give
+us so much pleasure,&#8221; said Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>Musa replied in a dry, curt voice:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should prefer not to play.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! But Musa&mdash;&#8221; There was a general protest.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I cannot play,&#8221; Musa exclaimed with impatience, and
+moved almost savagely away.</p>
+
+<p>The experience was novel for Madame Piriac, left
+standing there, as it were, respectfully presenting the
+violin case to the rail. This beautiful and not unpampered
+lady was accustomed to see her commands received as an
+honour; and when she condescended to implore, the effect
+usually was to produce a blissful and deprecatory confusion
+in the person besought. Her husband and Mr. Gilman had
+for a number of years been teaching her that whatever
+she desired was the highest good and the most complete
+felicity to everybody concerned in the fulfilment of the
+desire. She bore the blow from Musa admirably, keeping
+both her smile and her dignity, and with one gesture
+excusing Musa to all beholders as a capricious and a
+sensitive artist in whom moodiness was lawful. It was
+exquisitely done. It could not have been better done. But
+not even Madame Piriac&#8217;s extreme skill could save the
+episode from having the air of a social disaster. The
+gaiety which had been too feverishly resumed after the
+salvage of the yacht from the sandbank expired like a
+pricked balloon. People silently vanished, and only Audrey
+was left on the after deck.</p>
+
+<p>It was after a long interval that she became aware
+of the reappearance of Musa. Seemingly, he had been in
+the engine-room; since the beginning of the cruise he had
+shown a fancy for both the engine-room and the engineer.
+To her surprise, he marched straight towards her deckchair.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must speak to you,&#8221; he said with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Must you?&#8221; Audrey replied, full of hot resentment.
+&#8220;I think you&#8217;ve been horrid, Musa. Perfectly horrid! But
+I suppose you have your own notions of politeness now.
+Everything has been done for you, and&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is that?&#8221; he stopped her. &#8220;Everything has
+been done for me. What is it that has been done for
+me? I play for years, I am ignored. Then I succeed.
+I am noticed. Men of affairs offer me immense sums.
+But am I surprised? Not the least in the world. It is
+the contrary which would have surprised me. It was
+inevitable that I should succeed. But note well&mdash;it is I
+myself who succeed. It is not my friends. It is not
+the concert agent. Do I regard the concert agent as a
+benefactor? Again, not the least in the world. You say
+everything has been done for me. Nothing has been done
+for me, Madame.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, yes,&#8221; faltered Audrey, who was in a dilemma,
+and therefore more resentful than ever. &#8220;I&mdash;I only mean
+your friends have always stood by you.&#8221; She gathered
+courage, sat up erect in her deck-chair, and finished
+haughtily: &#8220;And now you&#8217;re conceited. You&#8217;re insufferably
+conceited.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because I refused to play?&#8221; He laughed stridently
+and grimly. &#8220;No. I refused to play because I could
+not, because I was outside myself with jealousy. Yes,
+jealousy. You do not know jealousy. Perhaps you
+are incapable of it. But permit me to tell you, Madame,
+that jealousy is one of the finest and most terrible emotions.
+And that is why I must speak to you. I cannot live
+and see you flirt so seriously with that old idiot. I
+cannot live.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey jumped up from the chair.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa! I shall never speak to you again.... Me ...
+flirt.... And you call Mr. Gilman an old idiot!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What words would you employ, Madame? He was
+so agitated by your intimate conversation that he brought
+us all near to death, in any case. Moreover, it jumps
+to the eyes that the decrepit satyr is mad about you.
+Mad!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Musa&#8217;s voice broke. In the midst of all her fury
+Audrey was relieved that it did break, for the reason that
+it was getting very loud, and the wheel, with Captain
+Wyatt thereat, was not far off.</p>
+
+<p>There was one thing to do, and Audrey did it. She
+walked away rapidly. And, as she did so, she was startled
+to discover a sob in her throat. The drawn, highly
+emotionalised face of Musa remained with her. She was
+angry, indignant, infuriated, and yet her feelings were
+not utterly unpleasant, though she wanted them to be so.
+In the first place, they were exciting. And in the second
+place&mdash;what was it?&mdash;well, she had the strange, sweet
+sensation of being, somehow, the mainspring of the universe,
+of being immensely important in the scheme of things.</p>
+
+<p>She thought her cup was full. It was not. Staring
+blankly over the side of the ship she saw a buoy float
+slowly by. She saw it with the utmost clearness, and on
+its round black surface was painted in white letters the
+word &#8220;Flank.&#8221; There could not be two Flank buoys. It
+was the Flank buoy of the Mozewater navigable channel.
+... She glanced around. The well-remembered shores of
+Mozewater were plainly visible under the moon. In the
+distance, over the bowsprit, she could discern the mass
+of the tower of Mozewater church. She could not distinguish
+Flank Hall, but she knew it was there. Why
+were they threading the Mozewater channel? It had been
+distinctly given out that the yacht would make Harwich
+harbour. Almost unconsciously she turned in the direction
+of the wheel, where Captain Wyatt was. Then, controlling
+herself, she moved away. She knew that she could not
+speak to the captain. She went below, and, before she
+could escape, found the saloon populated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Mrs. Moncreiff!&#8221; cried Madame Piriac. &#8220;It is
+a miraculous coincidence. You will never guess. One tells
+me we are going to the village of Moze for the night;
+it is because of the tide. You remember, I told you. It
+is where lives my little friend, Audrey Moze. To-morrow
+I visit her, and you must come with me. I insist that
+you come with me. I have never seen her. It will be
+all that is most palpitating.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_33" id="chapter_33" />CHAPTER XXXIII</h2>
+
+
+<h3>AGUILAR&#8217;S DOUBLE LIFE</h3>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac came down into the saloon the next
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! You are still hiding yourself here!&#8221; she murmured
+gaily to Audrey, who was alone among the cushions.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was just resting,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;Remember what
+a night we had!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was true that the yacht had not been berthed at
+Lousey Hard until between two and three o&#8217;clock in the
+morning, and that no guest had slept until after the job
+was done, though more than one had tried to sleep. It
+was also true that in consequence the saloon breakfast
+had been abrogated, that even the saloon lunch lacked
+vicacity, and that at least one passenger was at that
+moment dozing in his cabin. But not on account of fatigue
+and somnolence was Audrey remaining in the saloon instead
+of taking the splendid summer afternoon on deck under
+the awning. She felt neither tired nor sleepy. The true
+secret was that she feared the crowd of village idlers,
+quidnuncs, tattlers and newsmongers who all day gazed
+from Lousey Hard at the wonder-yacht.</p>
+
+<p>Examining the line of faces as well as she could through
+portholes, she recognised nearly every one of them, and
+was quite sure that every one of them would recognise her
+face. To go ashore or to stay prominently on deck would,
+therefore, be to give away her identity and to be forced,
+sooner or later, to admit that she had practised a long
+and naughty deception. She could conceive some of those
+villagers greeting her loudly from the Hard if she should
+appear; for Essex manners were marked by strange freedoms.
+Her situation would be terrible. It, in fact, was terrible.
+Risks surrounded her like angry dogs. Musa, for example,
+ought surely to have noticed that the estuary in which
+the yacht lay was the same estuary which he had seen
+not long before from the garden of the house stated by
+Audrey to be her own, and he ought to have commented
+eagerly on the marvellous coincidence. Happily, he had
+not yet done so&mdash;no doubt because he had spent most of
+the time in bed. If and when he did so there would naturally
+be an excited outcry and a heavy rain of amazed questions
+which simply could not be answered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am going almost at once to call on my little friend
+Audrey Moze, at Flank Hall,&#8221; said Madame Piriac. &#8220;The
+house looks delicious from the deck. If you will come
+up I will show it to you. It is precisely like the picture
+post card which the dear little one sent to me last year.
+Are you ready to come with me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, darling, hadn&#8217;t you better go alone?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But certainly not, darling! You are not serious.
+The meeting will be very agitating. With a third person,
+however, it will be less so. I count on you absolutely,
+as I have said already. Nay, I insist. I invoke your
+friendship.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She may be out. She may be away altogether.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In that case we shall return,&#8221; said Madame Piriac
+briefly, and, not giving Audrey time to reply further, she
+vanished, with a firm carriage and an obstinate look in
+her eyes, towards the sleeping-cabins.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant Mr. Gilman himself entered the saloon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Moncreiff,&#8221; he started nervously, in a confidential
+and deprecating tone, &#8220;this is the first chance I have had
+to tell you. We came into Mozewater without my orders.
+I won&#8217;t say against my orders, but certainly not with them.
+On the plea that I had retired, Captain Wyatt changed
+our destination last night without going through the formality
+of consulting me. We ought to have made Harwich,
+but I am now told that we were running short of paraffin,
+and that if we had continued to Harwich we should have
+had the worst of the tide against us, whereas in coming
+up Mozewater the tide helped us; also that Captain Wyatt
+did not care about trying to get into Harwich harbour at
+night with the wind in its present quarter, and rising as
+it was then. Of course, Wyatt is responsible for the
+safety of the ship, and it is true that I had her designed
+with a very light draught on purpose for such waters as
+Mozewater; but he ought to have consulted me. We might
+get away again on this tide, but Hortense will not hear
+of it. She has a call to pay, she says. I can only tell you
+how sorry I am. And I do hope you will forgive me.&#8221; The
+sincerity and alarm of his manly apology were touching.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, Mr. Gilman,&#8221; said Audrey, with the simplicity
+which more and more she employed in talking to her host,
+&#8220;there is nothing to forgive. What can it matter to me
+whether we come here or go to Harwich?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought, I was afraid&mdash;&#8221; Mr. Gilman hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In short ... your secret, Mrs. Moncreiff, which you
+asked me to keep, and which I have kept. It was here,
+at this very spot, with my old barge-yacht, that I first
+had the pleasure of meeting you. And I thought ...
+perhaps you had reasons.... However, your secret is
+safe.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How nice you are, Mr. Gilman!&#8221; Audrey said, with
+a gentle smile. &#8220;You&#8217;re kindness itself. But there is
+nothing to trouble about, really. Keep my little secret by
+all means, if you don&#8217;t mind. As for anything else&mdash;that&#8217;s
+perfectly all right.... Shall we go on deck?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He thanked her without words.</p>
+
+<p>She was saying to herself, rather desperately:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;After all, what do I care? I haven&#8217;t committed a
+crime. It&#8217;s nobody&#8217;s business but my own. And I&#8217;m
+worth ten million francs. And if the fat&#8217;s in the fire, and
+anything is found out, and people don&#8217;t like it&mdash;well, they
+must do the other thing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Thus she went on deck, and her courage was rewarded
+by the discovery of a chair on the starboard side of the
+deck-house, from which she could not possibly be seen by
+any persons on the Hard. She took this chair like a gift
+from heaven. The deck was busy enough. Mr. Price,
+the secretary, was making entries in an account book.
+Dr. Cromarty was pacing to and fro, expectant. Captain
+Wyatt was arguing with the chauffeur of a vast motor-van
+from Clacton, and another motor-van from Colchester was
+also present on the Hard. Rows of paraffin cans were
+ranged against the engine-room hatchway, and the odour
+of paraffin was powerfully conflicting with the odour of
+ozone and possibly ammonia from the marshes. Parcels
+kept coming down by hand from the village of Moze. Fresh
+water also came in barrels on a lorry, and lumps of ice
+in a dog-cart. The arrival of six bottles of aspirin, brought
+by a heated boy on a bicycle, from Clacton, and seized
+with gusto by Dr. Cromarty, completed the proof that
+money will not only buy anything, but will infallibly draw
+it to any desired spot, however out of the way the spot
+may be. The probability was that neither paraffin nor ice
+nor aspirin had ever found itself on Lousey Hard before
+in the annals of the world. Yet now these things forgathered
+with ease and naturalness owing to the magic
+of the word &#8220;yacht&#8221; in telegrams.</p>
+
+<p>And over the scene floated the wavy, inspiring folds of
+the yacht&#8217;s immense blue ensign, with the Union Jack in
+the top inside corner.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Price went into the deck-house and began to count
+money.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Price,&#8221; demanded Mr. Gilman urgently, &#8220;did you
+look up the facts about this village?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was just looking up the place in &#8216;East Coast Tours,&#8217;
+sir, when the paraffin arrived,&#8221; replied Mr. Price. &#8220;It says
+that Moze is mentioned in &#8216;Green&#8217;s Short History of the
+English People.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! Very interesting. That work is a classic. It
+really treats of the English people, and not solely of their
+kings and queens. Dr. Cromarty, Mr. Price is busy, will
+you mind bringing me the catalogue of the library up here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cromarty obeyed, and Mr. Gilman examined the
+typewritten, calf-bound volume.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said he. &#8220;Yes. I thought we had Green on
+board, and we have. I should like extremely to know what
+Green says about Moze. It must have been in the Anglo-Saxon
+or Norman period. Dr. Cromarty, will you mind
+bringing me up the first three volumes of Green? You
+will find them on shelf Z8. Also the last volume, for the
+index.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later Mr. Gilman, with three volumes of
+Green on his knees and one in his hand, said reproachfully
+to Mr. Price:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Price, I requested you to see that the leaves of
+all our books were cut. These volumes are absolutely
+uncut.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, sir, I&#8217;m working through them as fast as I can.
+But I haven&#8217;t got to shelf Z8 yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I cannot stop to cut them now,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman,
+politely displeased. &#8220;What a pity! It would have been
+highly instructive to know what Green says about Moze.
+I always like to learn everything I can about the places we
+stop at. And this place must be full of historic interest.
+Wyatt, have you had that paraffin counted properly?&#8221; He
+spoke very coldly to the captain.</p>
+
+<p>It thus occurred that what John Richard Green
+said about Moze was never known on board the yacht
+<em>Ariadne</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey listened to the episode in a reverie. She was
+thinking about Musa&#8217;s intractability and inexcusable rudeness,
+and about what she should do in the matter of Madame
+Piriac&#8217;s impending visit to Audrey Moze at Flank Hall, and
+through the texture of these difficult topics she could see,
+as it were, shining the sprightly simplicity, the utter ingenuousness,
+the entirely reliable fidelity of Mr. Gilman.
+She felt, rather than consciously realised, that he was a dull
+man. But she liked his dullness; it reassured her; it was
+tranquillising; it was even adorable. She liked also his
+attitude towards Moze. She had never suspected, no one
+had ever hinted to her, that Moze was full of historic interest.
+But looking at it now from the yacht which had miraculously
+wafted her past the Flank buoy at dead of night, she perceived
+Moze in a quite new aspect&mdash;a pleasure which she
+owed to Mr. Gilman&#8217;s artless interest in things. (Not that
+he was artless in all affairs! No; in the great masculine
+affairs he must be far from artless, for had he not made all
+his money himself?)</p>
+
+<p>Then Madame Piriac appeared on deck, armed and determined.
+Audrey found, as hundreds of persons had found,
+that it was impossible to deny Madame Piriac. Beautiful,
+gracious, elegant, kind, when she would have a thing she
+would have it. Audrey had to descend and prepare herself.
+She had to reascend ready for the visit. But at the critical
+and dreadful moment of going ashore to affront the crowd
+she had a saving idea. She pointed to Flank Hall and its
+sloping garden, and to the sea-wall against which the high
+spring tide was already washing, and she suggested that
+they should be rowed thither in the dinghy instead of
+walking around by the sea-wall or through&#8217; the village.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But we cannot climb over that dyke,&#8221; Madame Piriac
+protested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, we can,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I can see steps in
+it from here, and I can see a gate at the bottom of the
+garden.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What a vision you have, darling!&#8221; murmured Madame
+Piriac. &#8220;As you wish, provided we get there.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The dinghy, at Audrey&#8217;s request, was brought round
+to the side of the yacht opposite from the Hard, and,
+screening her face as well as she could with an open
+parasol, she tripped down by the steps into it. If only
+Aguilar was away from the premises she might be saved,
+for the place would be shut up, and there would be nothing
+to do but return. Should Madame Piriac suggest going into
+the village to inquire&mdash;well, Audrey would positively refuse
+to go into the village. Yes, she would refuse!</p>
+
+<p>As the boat moved away from the yacht, Musa showed
+himself on deck. Madame Piriac signalled to him a salutation
+of the finest good humour. She had forgotten his
+pettishness. By absolutely ignoring it she had made it as
+though it had never existed. This was her art. Audrey,
+observing the gesture, and Musa&#8217;s smiling reply to it,
+acquired wisdom. She saw that she must treat Musa as
+Madame Piriac treated him. She had undertaken the enterprise
+of launching him on a tremendous artistic career, and
+she must carry it through. She wanted to make a neat,
+clean job of the launching, and she would do it dispassionately,
+like a good workwoman. He had admitted&mdash;nay, he
+had insisted&mdash;that she was necessary to him. Her pride in
+that fact had a somewhat superior air. He might be the
+most marvellous of violinists, but he was also a child, helpless
+without her moral support. She would act accordingly.
+It was absurd to be angry with a child, no matter what his
+vagaries.... At this juncture of her reflections she noticed
+that Mr. Gilman and Miss Thompkins had quitted the yacht
+together and were walking seawards. They seemed very
+intimate, impregnated with mutual understanding. And
+Audrey was sorry that Mr. Gilman was quite so simple,
+quite so straightforward and honest.</p>
+
+<p>When the dinghy arrived at the sea-wall Audrey won
+the stalled admiration of the sailor in charge of the boat by
+pointing at once to the best&mdash;if not the only&mdash;place fit for a
+landing. The sailor was by no means accustomed to such
+<em>flair</em> in a yacht&#8217;s guests. Indeed, it had often astonished him
+that people who, as a class, had so little notion of how to
+get into or out of a dinghy could have succeeded, as they
+all apparently had, in any department of life.</p>
+
+<p>With continuing skill, Audrey guided Madame Piriac
+over the dyke and past sundry other obstacles, including a
+watercourse, to a gate in the wall which formed the frontier
+of the grounds of Flank Hall. The gate seemed at first to
+be unopenably fastened, but Audrey showed that she
+possessed a genius with gates, and opened it with a twist
+of the hand. They wandered through a plantation and then
+through an orchard, and at length saw the house. There
+was not a sign of Aguilar, but the unseen yard-dog began
+to bark, hearing which, Madame Piriac observed in French:
+&#8220;The property seems a little neglected, but there must
+be someone at home.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar is bound to come now!&#8221; thought Audrey.
+&#8220;And I am lost!&#8221; Then she added to herself: &#8220;And I
+don&#8217;t care if I <em>am</em> lost. What an unheard-of lark!&#8221;
+And to Madame Piriac she said lightly:
+&#8220;Well, we must explore.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The blinds were nearly all up on the garden front. And
+one window&mdash;the French window of the drawing-room&mdash;was
+wide open.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The crisis will be here in one minute at the latest,&#8221;
+thought Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Evidently Miss Moze is at home,&#8221; said Madame Piriac,
+gazing at the house. &#8220;Yes, it is distinguished. It is what
+I had expected.... But ought we not to go to the front
+door?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think we ought,&#8221; Audrey agreed.</p>
+
+<p>They went round the side of the house, into the main
+drive, and without hesitation Madame Piriac rang the front
+door bell, which they could plainly hear. &#8220;I must have my
+cards ready,&#8221; said she, opening her bag. &#8220;One always
+hears how exigent you are in England about such details,
+even in the provinces. And, indeed, why not?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer to the bell. Madame Piriac rang
+again, and there was still no answer. And the dog had
+ceased to bark.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Mon Dieu!</em>&#8220; she muttered. &#8220;Have you observed,
+darling, that all the blinds are down on this façade?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She rang a third time. Then, without a word, they
+returned slowly to the garden front.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How mysterious! <em>Mon Dieu!</em> How English it all
+is!&#8221; muttered Madame Piriac. &#8220;It gives me fear.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had almost decided definitely that she was saved
+when she happened to glance through the open window of
+the drawing-room. She thought she saw a flicker within.
+She looked again. She could not be mistaken. Then she
+noticed that all the dust sheets had been removed from the
+furniture, that the carpet had been laid, that a table had
+been set for tea, that there were flowers and china and a
+teapot and bread-and-butter and a kettle and a spirit-lamp
+on the table. The flicker was the flicker of the blue flame
+of the spirit-lamp. The kettle over it was puffing out steam.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey exclaimed, within herself:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She had caught him at last. There were two cups and
+saucers&mdash;the best ancient blue-and-white china, out of the
+glass-fronted china cupboard in that very room! The
+celibate Aguilar, never known to consort with anybody at
+all, was clearly about to entertain someone to tea, and the
+aspect of things showed that he meant to do it very well.
+True, there was no cake, but the bread-and-butter was
+expertly cut and attractively arranged. Audrey felt sure
+that she was on the track of Aguilar&#8217;s double life, and that
+a woman was concerned therein. She was angry, but she
+was also enormously amused and uplifted. She no longer
+cared the least bit about the imminent danger threatening
+her incognito. Her sole desire was to entrap Aguilar, and
+with deep joy she pictured his face when he should come into
+the room with his friend and find the mistress of the house
+already installed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think we had better go in here, darling,&#8221; she said to
+Madame Piriac, with her hand on the French window.
+&#8220;There is no other entrance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Eh bien!</em> It is your country, not mine. You know
+the habits. I follow you,&#8221; said Madame Piriac calmly.
+&#8220;After all, my dear little Audrey ought to be delighted to
+see me. I have several times told her that I should come.
+All the same, I expected to announce myself.... What a
+charming room! So this is the English provinces!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The room was certainly agreeable to the eye. And
+Audrey seemed to see it afresh, to see it for the first time
+in her life. And she thought: &#8220;Can this be the shabby old
+drawing-room that I hated so?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The kettle continued to puff vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If they don&#8217;t come soon,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;the water will
+be all boiled away and the kettle burnt. Suppose we make
+the tea?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac raised her eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is your country,&#8221; she repeated. &#8220;That appears to
+be singular, but I have not the English habits.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she sat down, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey opened the tea caddy, put three spoonfuls of tea
+into the pot, and made the tea.</p>
+
+<p>The clock struck on the mantelpiece. The clock was
+actually going. Aguilar was ever thorough in his actions.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Four minutes to brew, and if they don&#8217;t come we&#8217;ll
+have tea,&#8221; said Audrey, tranquil in the assurance that the
+advent of Aguilar could not now be long delayed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you take milk and sugar, darling?&#8221; she asked
+Madame Piriac at the end of the four minutes, which they
+had spent mainly in a curious silence. &#8220;I believe you do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A little bread-and-butter? I&#8217;m sorry there&#8217;s no cake
+or jam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was while Madame Piriac was stirring her first cup
+that the drawing-room door opened, and at once there was
+a terrific shriek.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The invader was Miss Ingate. Close behind Miss Ingate
+came Jane Foley.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_34" id="chapter_34" />CHAPTER XXXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TANK-ROOM</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8221;Did you get my letter?&#8221; breathed Miss Ingate weakly,
+after she had a little recovered from the shock, which had
+the appearance of being terrific.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;How could I? We&#8217;re yachting.
+Madame Piriac, you know Miss Ingate, don&#8217;t you? And
+this is my friend Jane Foley.&#8221; She spoke quite easily and
+naturally, though Miss Ingate in her intense agitation had
+addressed her as Audrey, whereas the Christian name of
+Mrs. Moncreiff, on the rare occasions when a Christian name
+became necessary or advisable, had been Olivia&mdash;or, infrequently,
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yachting!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. Haven&#8217;t you seen the yacht at the Hard?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No! I did hear something about it, but I&#8217;ve been too
+busy to run after yachts. We&#8217;ve been too busy, haven&#8217;t we,
+Miss Foley? I even have to keep my dog locked up. I
+don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;ll say. Aud&mdash;Mrs. Moncreiff! I
+really don&#8217;t! But we acted for the best. Oh! How
+dreadfully exciting my life does get at times! Never since
+I played the barrel organ all the way down Regent Street
+have I&mdash;! Oh! dear!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have my tea, and do sit down, Winnie, and remember
+you&#8217;re an Essex woman!&#8221; Audrey adjured her, going to
+the china cupboard to get more cups.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>I&#8217;ll</em> just tell you all about it, Mrs. Moncreiff, if you&#8217;ll
+let me,&#8221; Jane Foley began with a serene and happy smile,
+as she limped to a chair. &#8220;I&#8217;m quite ready to take all the
+consequences. It&#8217;s the police again, that&#8217;s all. I don&#8217;t
+know how exactly they got on the track of the Spatts at
+Frinton. But I dare say you&#8217;ve seen that the police have
+seized a lot of documents at our head-quarters. Perhaps
+that explains it. Anyway I caught sight of our old friend
+at Paget Gardens nosing about, and so as soon as it was
+dark I left the Spatts. It&#8217;s a horrid thing to say, but I
+never was so glad about anything as I was at leaving the
+Spatts. I didn&#8217;t tell them where I was going, and they
+didn&#8217;t ask. I&#8217;m sure the poor things were very relieved to
+have me go. Miss Ingate tells me to-day she&#8217;s heard they&#8217;ve
+both resigned from the Union. Mr. Spatt went up to
+London on purpose to do it. And can you be surprised?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you can, and yet you can&#8217;t!&#8221; exclaimed Miss
+Ingate. &#8220;You can, and yet you can&#8217;t!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I met Miss Ingate on Frinton front,&#8221; Jane Foley proceeded.
+&#8220;She was just getting into her carriage. I had
+my bag and I asked her to drive me to the station. &#8216;To the
+station?&#8217; she said. &#8216;What for? There&#8217;s no train to-night.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No more there wasn&#8217;t!&#8221; Miss Ingate put in, &#8220;I&#8217;d been
+dining at the Proctors&#8217; and it was after ten, I know it was
+after ten because they never let me leave until after ten, in
+spite of the long drive I have. Fancy there being a train
+from Frinton after ten! So of course I brought Miss Foley
+along. Oh! It was vehy interesting. Vehy interesting.
+You see we had to think of the police. I didn&#8217;t want the
+police coming poking round my house. It would never do,
+in a little place like Moze. I should never hear the last of
+it. So I&mdash;I thought of Flank Hall. I&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley went on:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Ingate was sure you wouldn&#8217;t mind, Mrs. Moncreiff.
+And personally I was quite certain you wouldn&#8217;t
+mind. We left the carriage at Miss Ingate&#8217;s, and carried
+the bag in turns. And I stood outside while Miss Ingate
+woke up Mr. Aguilar. It was soon all right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must say Aguilar was vehy reasonable,&#8221; said Miss
+Ingate. &#8220;Vehy reasonable. And he&#8217;s got a great spite
+against my dear Inspector Keeble. He suggested everything.
+He never asked any questions, so I told him. You
+do, you know. He suggested Miss Foley should have a
+bed in the tank-room, so that if there was any trouble all
+the bedrooms should look innocent.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did he tell you I&#8217;d come here to see him not long
+since?&#8221; Audrey demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why didn&#8217;t you pop in to see <em>me?</em> I was hurt
+when I got your note.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did he tell you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course he didn&#8217;t. He never tells anybody anything.
+That sort of thing&#8217;s very useful at times, especially when
+it&#8217;s combined with a total lack of curiosity. He fixed every,
+thing up. And he keeps the gates locked, so that people
+can&#8217;t wander in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He didn&#8217;t lock the gate at the bottom of the garden,
+because it won&#8217;t lock,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;And so he didn&#8217;t
+keep me from wandering in.&#8221; She felt rather disappointed
+that Aguilar should once more have escaped her reproof and
+that the dream of his double life should have vanished away,
+but she was determined to prove that he was not perfect.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t know about that,&#8221; said Miss Ingate.
+&#8220;It wouldn&#8217;t startle me to hear that he knew you were intending
+to come. All I know is that Miss Foley&#8217;s been
+here for several days. Not a soul knows except me and
+Aguilar. And it seems to get safer every day. She does
+venture about the house now, though she never goes into
+the garden while it&#8217;s light. It was Aguilar had the idea
+of putting this room straight for her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And it was he who cut the bread-and-butter,&#8221; added
+Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And this was to be our first tea-party!&#8221; Miss Ingate
+half shrieked. &#8220;I&#8217;d come&mdash;I do come, you know, to keep
+an eye on things as you asked me&mdash;I&#8217;d come, and we were
+just having a cosy little chat in the tank-room. Aguilar&#8217;s
+gone to Colchester to get a duplicate key of the front gates.
+He left me his, so I could get in and lock up after myself,
+and he put the water on to boil before leaving. I said to
+Miss Foley, I said, up in the tank-room: &#8216;Was that a ring
+at the door?&#8217; But she said it wasn&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been a little deaf since I was in prison,&#8221; said
+Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now we come down and find you here! I&mdash;I hope
+I&#8217;ve done right.&#8221; This, falteringly, from Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course you have, you silly old thing,&#8221; Audrey
+reassured her. &#8220;It&#8217;s splendid!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whenever I think of the police I laugh,&#8221; said Miss
+Ingate in an unsettled voice. &#8220;I can&#8217;t help it. They can&#8217;t
+possibly suspect. And they&#8217;re looking everywhere, everywhere!
+I can&#8217;t help laughing.&#8221; And suddenly she burst
+into tears.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Now! Winnie, dear. Don&#8217;t spoil it all!&#8221;
+Audrey protested, jumping up.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac, who had hitherto maintained the most
+complete passivity, restrained her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Leave her tranquil!&#8221; murmured Madame Piriac in
+French. &#8220;She is not spoiling it. On the contrary! One is
+content to see that she is a woman!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And then Miss Ingate laughed, and blushed, and called
+herself names.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And so you haven&#8217;t had my letter,&#8221; said she. &#8220;I wish
+you had had it. But what is this yachting business? I
+never heard of such goings-on. Is it your yacht? This
+world is getting a bit too wonderful for me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The answer to these questions was cut short by rather
+heavy masculine footsteps approaching the door of the
+drawing-room. Miss Ingate grew instantly serious. Audrey
+and Jane looked at each other, and Jane Foley went quickly
+but calmly to the door and opened it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! It&#8217;s Mr. Aguilar&mdash;returned!&#8221; she said, quietly.
+&#8220;Is anything the matter, Mr. Aguilar?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar, hat in hand, entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good afternoon, Aguilar,&#8221; Audrey greeted him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;Noon, madam,&#8221; he responded, exactly as though he
+had been expecting to find the mistress there. &#8220;It&#8217;s like
+this. I&#8217;ve just seen Inspector Keeble and that there detective
+as was here afore&mdash;<em>you</em> know, madam&#8221; (nodding to
+Audrey) &#8220;and I fancy they&#8217;re a-coming this way, so I
+thought I&#8217;d better cut back and warn ye. I don&#8217;t think they
+saw me. I was too quick for &#8217;em. Was the bread-and-butter
+all right, Miss Ingate? Thank ye.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate had risen.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I ought to go home,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I feel sure it would
+be wiser for me to go home. I never could talk to
+detectives.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley snatched at one of the four cups and saucers
+on the table, and put it back, all unwashed, into the china
+cupboard.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Three cups will be enough for them to see, if they
+come,&#8221; she said, with a bright, happy smile to Audrey.
+&#8220;Yes, Miss Ingate, you go home. I&#8217;m ever so much
+obliged to you. Now, I&#8217;ll go upstairs and Aguilar shall
+lock me in the tank-room and push the key under the door.
+We are causing you a lot of trouble, Mrs. Moncreiff, but
+you won&#8217;t mind. It might have been so much worse.&#8221; She
+laughed as she went.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And suppose I meet those police on the way out, what
+am I to say to them?&#8221; asked Miss Ingate when Jane Foley
+and Aguilar had departed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If they&#8217;re very curious, tell them you&#8217;ve been here to
+have tea with me and that Aguilar cut the bread-and-butter,&#8221;
+Audrey replied. &#8220;The detective will be interested to see me.
+He chased me all the way to London not long since. Au
+revoir, Winnie.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dear friend,&#8221; said Madame Piriac, with admirable
+though false calm. &#8220;Would it not be more prudent to
+fly back at once to the yacht&mdash;if in truth this is the same
+police agent of whom you recounted to me with such
+drollness the exploits? It is not that I am afraid&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nor I,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;There is no danger except to
+Jane Foley.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! You cannot abandon her. That is true. Nevertheless
+I regret ...&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, darling,&#8221; Audrey exclaimed. &#8220;You would insist
+on my coming!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The continuing presence of Miss Ingate, who had lost one
+glove and her purse, rendered this brief conversation somewhat
+artificial. And no sooner had Miss Ingate got away&mdash;by
+the window, for the sake of dispatch&mdash;than a bell made
+itself heard, and Aguilar came back to the drawing-room in
+the rĂ´le of butler.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Inspector Keeble and a gentleman to see you, madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bring them in,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar&#8217;s secret glance at Inspector Keeble as he brought
+in the visitors showed that his lifelong and harmless enemy
+had very little to hope from his goodwill.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wait a moment, you!&#8221; called the detective as Aguilar,
+like a perfect butler, was vanishing. &#8220;Good afternoon,
+ladies. Excuse me, I wish to question this man.&#8221; He
+indicated Aguilar with a gesture of apologising for Aguilar.</p>
+
+<p>Inspector Keeble, an overgrown mass of rectitude and
+kindliness, greeted Audrey with that constraint which
+always afflicted him when he was beneath any roof more
+splendid than that of his own police-station.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, Aguilar,&#8221; said the detective, &#8220;it&#8217;s you that&#8217;ll be
+telling me. Ye&#8217;ve got a woman concealed in the house.
+Where is she?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He knew, then, this ferreting and divinatory Irishman!
+Of course Miss Ingate must have committed some indiscretion,
+or was it that Aguilar was less astute than he
+gave the impression of being? Audrey considered that all
+was lost, and she was aware of a most unpleasant feeling
+of helplessness and inefficiency. Then she seemed to receive
+inspiration and optimism from somewhere. She knew not
+exactly from where, but perhaps it was from the shy stiffness
+of the demeanour of her old acquaintance, Inspector Keeble.
+Moreover, the Irishman&#8217;s twinkling eyes were a challenge
+to her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Aguilar!&#8221; she exclaimed. &#8220;I&#8217;m very sorry to
+hear this. I knew women were always your danger, but
+I never dreamt you would start carrying on in my
+absence.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar fronted her, and their eyes met. Audrey gazed
+at him steadily. There was no smile in Audrey&#8217;s eyes,
+but there was a smile glimmering mysteriously behind
+them, and after a couple of seconds this phenomenon
+aroused a similar phenomenon behind the eyes of Aguilar.
+Audrey had the terrible and god-like sensation of lifting
+a hired servant to equality with herself. She imagined
+that she would never again be able to treat him as Aguilar,
+and she even feared that she would soon begin to cease
+to hate him. At the same time she observed slight signs
+of incertitude in the demeanour of the detective.</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar replied coldly, not to Audrey, but to the
+police:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If Inspector Keeble or anybody else has been mixing
+my name up with any scandal about females, I&#8217;ll have
+him up for slander and libel and damages as sure as I
+stand here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Inspector Keeble looked away, and then looked at the
+detective&mdash;as if for support in peril.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean to say, Aguilar, that you haven&#8217;t got
+a woman hidden in the house at this very moment?&#8221; the
+detective demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll thank ye to keep a civil tongue in your head,&#8221;
+said Aguilar. &#8220;Or I&#8217;ll take ye outside and knock yer face
+sideways. Pardon me, madam. Of course I ain&#8217;t got no
+woman concealed on the premises. And mark ye, if I
+lose my place through this ye&#8217;ll hear of it. And I shall
+put a letter in the <em>Gardeners&#8217; Chronicle</em>, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, ye can go,&#8221; the detective responded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; sneered Aguilar. &#8220;I can go. Yes, and I shall
+go. But not so far but what I can protect my interests.
+And I&#8217;ll make this village too hot for Keeble before I&#8217;ve
+done, police or no police.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And with a look at Audrey like the look of a knight
+at his lady after a joust, Aguilar turned to leave the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar,&#8221; Audrey rewarded him. &#8220;You needn&#8217;t be
+afraid about your place.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank ye, m&#8217;m.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;May I ask what your name is?&#8221; Audrey inquired of
+the detective as soon as Aguilar had shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hurley,&#8221; replied the detective.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought it might be,&#8221; said Audrey, sitting down,
+but not offering seats. &#8220;Well, Mr. Hurley, after all your
+running after Miss Susan Foley, don&#8217;t you think it&#8217;s rather
+unfair to say horrid things about a respectable man like
+Aguilar? You were funny about that stout wife of
+yours last time I saw you, but you must remember that
+Aguilar can&#8217;t be funny about his wife, because he hasn&#8217;t
+got one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I really don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re driving at, miss,&#8221;
+said Mr. Hurley simply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, what were you driving at when you followed
+me all the way to London the other day?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madam,&#8221; said Mr. Hurley, &#8220;I didn&#8217;t follow you to
+London. I only happened to arrive at Charing Cross about
+twenty seconds after you, that was all. As a matter of
+fact, nearly half of the way you were following me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I hope you were satisfied.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I only want to know one thing,&#8221; the detective retorted.
+&#8220;Am I speaking to Mrs. Olivia Moncreiff?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey hesitated, glancing at Madame Piriac, who, in
+company with the vast Inspector Keeble, was carefully
+inspecting the floor. She invoked wisdom and sagacity
+from heaven, and came to a decision.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not that I know of,&#8221; she answered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then, if you please, who are you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What!&#8221; exclaimed Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;re in the village
+of Moze itself and you ask who I am. Everybody knows
+me. My name is Audrey Moze, of Flank Hall, Moze,
+Essex. Any child in Moze Street will tell you that. Inspector
+Keeble knows as well as anybody.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac proceeded steadily with the inquiry into
+the carpet. Audrey felt her heart beating.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Unmarried?&#8221; pursued the detective.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Most decidedly,&#8221; said Audrey with conviction.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then what&#8217;s the meaning of that ring on your finger,
+if you don&#8217;t mind my asking?&#8221; the detective continued.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly Audrey was flustered, but only for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Hurley,&#8221; said she; &#8220;I wear it as a protection
+from men of all ages who are too enterprising.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She spoke archly, with humour; but now there was no
+answering humour in the features of Mr. Hurley, who
+seemed to be a changed man, to be indeed no longer even
+an Irishman. And Audrey grew afraid. Did he, after all,
+know of her share in the Blue City enterprise? She had
+long since persuaded herself that the police had absolutely
+failed to connect her with that affair, but now uncertainty
+was born in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must search the house,&#8221; said the detective.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What for?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have to arrest a woman named Jane Foley,&#8221; answered
+Mr. Hurley, adding somewhat grimly: &#8220;The name will be
+known to ye, I&#8217;m thinking.... And I have reason to
+believe that she is now concealed on these premises.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The directness of the blow was terrific. It was almost
+worse than the blow itself. And Audrey now believed
+everything that she had ever heard or read about the
+miraculous ingenuity of detectives. Still, she did not
+regard herself as beaten, and the thought of the yacht
+lying close by gave her a dim feeling of security. If she
+could only procure delay!...</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to let you search my house,&#8221; she said
+angrily. &#8220;I never heard of such a thing! You&#8217;ve got
+no right to search my house.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh yes, I have!&#8221; Mr. Hurley insisted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, let me see your paper&mdash;I don&#8217;t know what you
+call it. But I know you can&#8217;t do anything-without a
+paper. Otherwise any bright young-man might walk into
+my house and tell me he meant to search it. Keeble, I&#8217;m
+really surprised at <em>you</em>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Inspector Keeble blushed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very sorry, miss,&#8221; said he contritely. &#8220;But the
+law&#8217;s the law. Show the lady your search-warrant, Mr.
+Hurley.&#8221; His voice resembled himself.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hurley coughed. &#8220;I haven&#8217;t got a search-warrant
+yet,&#8221; he remarked. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t expect&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better go and get one, then,&#8221; said Audrey,
+calculating how long it would take three women to transport
+themselves from the house to the yacht, and perpending
+upon the probable behaviour of Mr. Gilman under a given
+set of circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will,&#8221; said Mr. Hurley. &#8220;And I shan&#8217;t be long.
+Keeble, where is the nearest justice of the peace?...
+You&#8217;d better stay here or hereabouts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I got to go to the station to sign on my three constables,&#8221;
+Inspector Keeble protested awkwardly, looking
+at his watch, which also resembled himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better stay here or hereabouts,&#8221; repeated Mr.
+Hurley, and he moved towards the door. Inspector Keeble,
+too, moved towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey let them get into the passage, and then she
+was vouchsafed a new access of inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Hurley,&#8221; she called, in a bright, unoffended tone.
+&#8220;After all, I see no reason why you shouldn&#8217;t search the
+house. I don&#8217;t really want to put you to any unnecessary
+trouble. It is annoying, but I&#8217;m not going to be annoyed.&#8221;
+The ingenuous young creature expected Mr. Hurley to be
+at once disarmed and ashamed by this kind offer. She
+was wrong. He was evidently surprised, but he gave no
+evidence of shame or of the sudden death in his brain of
+all suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s better,&#8221; he said calmly. &#8220;And I&#8217;m much
+obliged.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll come with you,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;Madame Piriac,&#8221;
+she addressed Hortense with averted eyes. &#8220;Will you
+excuse me for a minute or two while I show these gentlemen
+the house?&#8221; The fact was that she did not care just
+then to be left alone with Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I beg you, darling! &#8220;Madame Piriac granted
+the permission with overpowering sweetness.</p>
+
+<p>The procedure of Mr. Hurley was astonishing to Audrey;
+nay, it was unnerving. First he locked the front door
+and the garden door and pocketed the keys. Then he
+locked the drawing-room on the passage side and pocketed
+that key. He instructed Inspector Keeble to remain in
+the hall at the foot of the stairs. He next went into the
+kitchen and the sculleries and locked the outer doors in
+that quarter. Then he descended to the cellars, with Audrey
+always in his wake. Having searched the cellars and the
+ground floor, he went upstairs, and examined in turn all
+the bedrooms with a thoroughness and particularity which
+caused Audrey to blush. He left nothing whatever to
+chance, and no dust sheet was undisturbed. Audrey said
+no word. The detective said no word. But Audrey kept
+thinking: &#8220;He is getting nearer to the tank-room.&#8221; A
+small staircase led to the attic floor, upon which were only
+servants&#8217; bedrooms and the tank-room. After he had
+mounted this staircase and gone a little way along the
+passage he swiftly and without warning dashed back and
+down the staircase. But nothing seemed to happen, and
+he returned. The three doors of the three servants&#8217;
+bedrooms were all ajar. Mr. Hurley passed each of them
+with a careless glance within. At the end of the corridor,
+in obscurity, was the door of the tank-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s this?&#8221; he asked abruptly. And he knocked
+nonchalantly on the door of the tank-room.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was acutely alarmed lest Jane Foley should
+respond, thinking the knock was that of a friend. She
+saw how idiotic she had been not to warn Jane by means
+of loud conversation with the detective.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s the tank-room,&#8221; she said loudly. &#8220;I&#8217;m afraid
+it&#8217;s locked.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; murmured Mr. Hurley negligently, and he turned
+the searchlight of his gaze upon the three bedrooms, which
+he examined as carefully as he had examined anything in
+the house. The failure to discover in any cupboard or
+corner even the shadow of a human being did not appear
+to discourage him in the slightest degree. In the third
+bedroom&mdash;that is to say, the one nearest the head of
+the stairs and farthest from the tank-room&mdash;he suddenly
+beckoned to Audrey, who was standing in the doorway.
+She went within the room and he pushed the door to,
+without, however, quite shutting it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now about the tank-room, Miss Moze,&#8221; he began
+quietly. &#8220;You say it&#8217;s locked?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said the quaking Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As a matter of form I&#8217;d better just look in. Will
+you kindly let me have the key?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why not?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey acquired tranquillity as she went on: &#8220;It&#8217;s at
+Frinton. Friends of mine there keep a punt on Mozewater,
+and I let them store the sail and things in
+the tank-room. There&#8217;s plenty of room. I give them
+the key because that&#8217;s more satisfactory. The tank-room
+isn&#8217;t wanted at all, you see, while I&#8217;m away from
+home.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who are these friends?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. and Mrs. Spatt,&#8221; said Audrey at a venture.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see,&#8221; said the detective.</p>
+
+<p>They came downstairs, and the detective made it known
+that he would re-visit the drawing-room. Inspector Keeble
+followed them. In that room Audrey remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now I hope you&#8217;re satisfied.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hurley merely said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you please ring for Aguilar?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey complied. But she had to ring three times before
+the gardener&#8217;s footsteps were heard on the uncarpeted stone
+floor of the hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar,&#8221; Mr. Hurley demanded. &#8220;Where is the key
+of the tank-room?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey sank into a chair, knowing profoundly that
+all was lost.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s at Mrs. Spatt&#8217;s at Frinton,&#8221; replied Aguilar glibly.
+&#8220;Mistress lets her have that room to store some boat-gear
+in. I expected she&#8217;d ha&#8217; been over before this to get it
+out. But the yachting season seems to start later and
+later every year these times.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey gazed at the man as at a miracle-worker.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I think that&#8217;s all,&#8221; said Mr. Hurley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, it isn&#8217;t,&#8221; Audrey corrected him. &#8220;You&#8217;ve got all
+my keys in your pocket&mdash;except one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the police had gone Audrey said to Aguilar in
+the hall:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar, how on earth did you&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But she was in such a state of emotion at the realisation
+of dangers affronted and past that she could not finish.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sorry I was so long answering the bell, m&#8217;m,&#8221;
+replied Aguilar strangely. &#8220;But I&#8217;d put my list slippers
+on&mdash;them as your father made me wear when I come into
+the house, mornings, to change the plants, and I thought
+it better to put my boots on again before I come....
+Shall I put the keys back in the doors, madam?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So saying he touched his front hair, after his manner,
+and took the keys and retired. Audrey was as full of
+fear as of gratitude. Aguilar daunted her.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_35" id="chapter_35" />CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE THIRD SORT OF WOMAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;It was quite true what I told the detective. So I
+suppose you&#8217;ve finished with me for evermore!&#8221; Audrey
+burst out recklessly, as soon as she and Madame Piriac
+were alone together. The supreme moment had come, and
+she tried to grasp it like a nettle. Her adventurous
+rashness was, she admitted, undeniable. She had spoken
+the truth to the police officer about her identity and her
+spinsterhood because with unusual wisdom she judged that
+fibs or even prevarication on such a subject to such an
+audience might entangle her in far more serious difficulties
+later on. Moreover, with Inspector Keeble present, she
+could not successfully have gone very far from the truth.
+It was a pity that Madame Piriac had witnessed the scene,
+for really, when Audrey came to face it, the deception
+which she had practised upon Madame Piriac was of a
+monstrous and inexcusable kind. And now that Madame
+Piriac knew the facts, many other people would have
+to know the facts&mdash;including probably Mr. Gilman. The
+prospect of explanations was terrible. In vain Audrey
+said to herself that the thing was naught, that she had
+acted within her rights, and that anyhow she had long
+ago ceased to be diffident and shy!... She was intimidated
+by her own enormities. And she also thought: &#8220;How
+could I have been silly enough to tell that silly tale about
+the Spatts? More complications. And poor dear Inspector
+Keeble will be so shocked.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After a short pause Madame Piriac replied, in a grave
+but kind tone:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why would you that I should have finished with you
+for ever? You had the right to call yourself by any name
+you wished, and to wear any ring-that pleased your caprice.
+It is the affair of nobody but yourself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I&#8217;m so glad you take it like that,&#8221; said Audrey
+with eager relief. &#8220;That&#8217;s just what <em>I</em> thought all along!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But it <em>is</em> your affair!&#8221; Madame Piriac finished, with
+a peculiar inflection of her well-controlled voice. &#8220;I mean,&#8221;
+she added, &#8220;you cannot afford to neglect it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No&mdash;of course not,&#8221; Audrey agreed, rather dashed, and
+with a vague new apprehension. &#8220;Naturally I shall tell you
+everything, darling. I had my reasons. I&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The principal question is, darling,&#8221; Madame Piriac
+stopped her. &#8220;What are you going to do now? Ought we
+not to return to the yacht?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I must look after Jane Foley!&#8221; cried Audrey. &#8220;I
+can&#8217;t leave her here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why not? She has Miss Ingate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, worse luck for her! Winnie would make the most
+dreadful mess of things if she wasn&#8217;t stopped. If Winnie
+was right out of it, and Jane Foley had only herself and
+Aguilar to count on, there might be a chance. But not else.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is by pure hazard that you are here. Nobody expected
+you. What would this young girl Mees Foley have
+done if you had not been here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s no good wasting time about that, darling, because
+I <em>am</em> here, don&#8217;t you see?&#8221; Audrey straightened her
+shoulders and put her hands behind her back.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My little one,&#8221; said Madame Piriac with a certain
+solemnity. &#8220;You remember our conversation in my boudoir.
+I then told you that you would find yourself in a riot within
+a month, if you continued your course. Was I right?
+Happily you have escaped from that horrible complication.
+Go no farther. Listen to me. You were not created for
+these adventures. It is impossible that you should be
+happy in them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But look at Jane Foley,&#8221; said Audrey eagerly. &#8220;Is she
+not happy? Did you ever see anybody as happy as Jane?
+I never did.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That is not happiness,&#8221; replied Madame Piriac. &#8220;That
+is exaltation. It is morbid. I do not say that it is not right
+for her. I do not say that she is not justified, and that that
+which she represents is not justified. But I say that a rĂ´le
+such as hers is not your rĂ´le. To commence, she does not
+interest herself in men. For her there are no men in the
+world&mdash;there are only political enemies. Do you think I
+do not know the type? We have it, <em>chez nous</em>. It is full of
+admirable qualities&mdash;but it is not your type. For you,
+darling, the world is inhabited principally by men, and the
+time will come&mdash;perhaps soon&mdash;when for you it will be inhabited
+principally by one man. If you remain obdurate,
+there must inevitably arrive a quarrel between that man and
+these&mdash;these riotous adventures.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No man that I could possibly care for,&#8221; Audrey retorted,
+&#8220;would ever object to me having an active interest
+in&mdash;er&mdash;politics.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I agree, darling,&#8221; said Madame Piriac. &#8220;He would
+not object. It is you who would object. The quarrel would
+occur within your own heart. There are two sorts of women&mdash;individualists
+and fanatics. It was always so. I am a
+woman, and I know what I&#8217;m saying. So do you. Well,
+you belong to the first sort of woman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t,&#8221; Audrey protested. Nevertheless she recollected
+her thoughts on the previous night, near the
+binnacle and Mr. Gilman, about the indispensability of a
+man and about the futility of the state of not owning and
+possessing a man. The memory of these thoughts only
+rendered her more obstinate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you will not have the courage to tell me that you
+are a fanatic?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There is a third sort of woman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Darling, believe me, there is not.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s going to be, anyhow!&#8221; said Audrey with
+decision, and in English. &#8220;And I won&#8217;t leave Jane
+Foley in the lurch, either!... Now I&#8217;ll just run up
+and have a talk with her, if you don&#8217;t mind waiting a
+minute or two.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But what are you going to do?&#8221; Madame Piriac
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;It is obvious that there is only
+one safe thing to do. I shall take Jane on board the yacht.
+We shall sail off, and she&#8217;ll be safe.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;On the yacht!&#8221; repeated Madame Piriac, truly
+astounded. &#8220;But my poor oncle will never agree. You do
+not know him. You do not know how peculiar he is. Never
+will he agree! Besides&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Darling,&#8221; said Audrey quietly and confidently. &#8220;If he
+does not agree, I undertake to go into a convent for the rest
+of my days.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac was silent.</p>
+
+<p>Just as she was opening the door to go upstairs, Audrey
+suddenly turned back into the room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Darling,&#8221; she said, kissing Madame Piriac. &#8220;How
+calmly you&#8217;ve taken it!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Taken what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About me not being Mrs. Moncreiff nor a widow nor
+anything of that kind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, darling,&#8221; answered Madame Piriac with exquisite
+tranquillity. &#8220;Of course I knew it before.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You knew it before!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly. I knew it the first time I saw you, in the
+studio of Mademoiselle Nickall. You were the image of
+your father! The image, I repeat&mdash;except perhaps the nose.
+Recollect that as a child I saw your father. I was left with
+my mother&#8217;s relatives, until matters should be arranged;
+but he came to Paris. Then before matters could be
+arranged my mother died, and I never saw him again. But
+I could never forget him.... Then also, in my boudoir that
+night, you blushed&mdash;it was very amusing&mdash;when I mentioned
+Essex and Audrey Moze. And there were other
+things.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For instance?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Darling, you were never quite convincing as a widow&mdash;at
+any rate to a Frenchwoman. You may have deceived
+American and English women. But not myself. You did
+not say the convincing things when the conversation took
+certain turns. That is all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You knew who I was, and you never told me!&#8221;
+Audrey pouted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Had I the right, darling? You had decided upon your
+identity. It would have been inexcusable on my part to
+inform you that you were mistaken in so essential a detail.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac gently returned Audrey&#8217;s kiss.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So that was why you insisted on me coming with you
+to-day!&#8221; murmured Audrey, crestfallen. &#8220;You are a
+marvellous actress, darling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have several times been told so,&#8221; Madame Piriac
+admitted simply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What on earth did you expect would happen?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not that which has happened,&#8221; said Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, if you ask me,&#8221; said Audrey with gaiety and a
+renewal of self-confidence.&#8221; I think it&#8217;s all happened
+splendidly.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_36" id="chapter_36" />CHAPTER XXXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE DINGHY</h3>
+
+
+<p>When the pair got back to the sea-wall the tide had considerably
+ebbed, and where the dinghy had floated there
+was nothing more liquid than exquisitely coloured mud.
+Nevertheless water still lapped the yacht, whereas on the
+shore side of the yacht was now no crowd. The vans and
+carts had all departed, and the quidnuncs and observers of
+human nature, having gazed steadily at the yacht for some
+ten hours, had thought fit to depart also. The two women
+looked about rather anxiously, as though Mr. Gilman had
+basely marooned them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But what must we do?&#8221; demanded Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! We can walk round on the dyke,&#8221; said Audrey
+superiorly. &#8220;Unless the stiles frighten you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is about to rain,&#8221; said Madame Piriac, glancing at
+the high curved heels of her shoes.</p>
+
+<p>The sky, which was very wide and variegated over
+Mozewater, did indeed seem to threaten.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the dinghy appeared round the forefoot
+of the <em>Ariadne</em>. Mr. Gilman and Miss Thompkins were in
+it, and Mr. Gilman was rowing with gentleness and dignity.
+They had, even afar off, a tremendous air of intimacy; each
+leaned towards the other, face to face, and Tommy had
+her chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees. And
+in addition to an air of intimacy they had an air of mystery.
+It was surprising, and perhaps a little annoying, to Audrey
+that those two should have gone on living to themselves, in
+their own self-absorbed way, while such singular events had
+been happening to herself in Flank Hall. She put several
+fingers in her mouth and produced a piercing long-distance
+whistle which effectively reached the dinghy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My poor little one!&#8221; exclaimed Madame Piriac,
+shocked in spite of her broadmindedness by both the sound
+and the manner of its production.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I learnt that when I was twelve,&#8221; said Audrey.
+&#8220;It took me four months, but I did it. And nobody except
+Miss Ingate knows that I can do it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The occupants of the dinghy were signalling their
+intention to rescue, and Mr. Gilman used his back nobly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But we cannot embark here!&#8221; Madame Piriac complained.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes!&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You see those white stones? ...
+It&#8217;s quite easy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the dinghy had done about half the journey
+Madame Piriac murmured:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By the way, who are you, precisely, for the present?
+It would be prudent to decide, darling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey hesitated an instant.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who am I? ... Oh! I see. Well, I&#8217;d better keep
+on being Mrs. Moncreiff for a bit, hadn&#8217;t I?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is as you please, darling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The fact was that Audrey recoiled from a general confession,
+though admitting it to be ultimately inevitable.
+Moreover, she had a slight fear that each of her friends in
+turn might make a confession ridiculous by saying: &#8220;We
+knew all along, of course.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The dinghy was close in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My!&#8221; cried Tommy. &#8220;Who did that whistle? It was
+enough to beat the cars.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wouldn&#8217;t you like to know!&#8221; Audrey retorted.</p>
+
+<p>The embarkation, under Audrey&#8217;s direction, was accomplished
+in safety, and, save for one tiny French scream, in
+silence. The silence, which persisted, was peculiar. Each
+pair should have had something to tell the other, yet nothing
+was told, or even asked. Mr. Gilman rowed with careful
+science, and brought the dinghy alongside the yacht in an
+unexceptionable manner. Musa stood on deck apart, acting
+indifference. Madame Piriac, having climbed into the
+<em>Ariadne</em>, went below at once. Miss Thompkins, seeing her
+friend Mr. Price half-way down the saloon companion,
+moved to speak to him, and they vanished together. Mr.
+Gilman was respectfully informed by the engineer that the
+skipper and Dr. Cromarty were ashore.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How nice it is on the water!&#8221; said Audrey to Mr.
+Gilman in a low, gentle voice. &#8220;There is a channel round
+there with three feet of water in it at low tide.&#8221; She
+sketched a curve in the air with her finger.
+&#8220;Of course you know this part,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman
+cautiously and even apprehensively. His glance seemed to
+be saying: &#8220;And it was you who gave that fearful whistle,
+too! Are you, can you be, all that I dreamed?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do,&#8221; Audrey answered. &#8220;Would you like me to show
+it you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should be more than delighted,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture he summoned a man to untie the dinghy
+again and hold it, and the man slid down into the dinghy
+like a monkey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll pull,&#8221; said Audrey, in the boat.</p>
+
+<p>The man sprang out of the dinghy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One instant!&#8221; Mr. Gilman begged her, standing up in
+the sternsheets, and popping his head through a porthole
+of the saloon. &#8220;Mr. Price!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sir?&#8221; From the interior.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you be good enough to play that air with thirty-six
+variations, of Beethoven&#8217;s? We shall hear splendidly
+from the dinghy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Audrey said to herself: &#8220;You don&#8217;t want him to
+flirt with Tommy while you&#8217;re away, so you&#8217;ve given him
+something to keep him busy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman remarked under his breath to Audrey:
+&#8220;I think there is nothing finer than to hear Beethoven
+on the water.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! There isn&#8217;t!&#8221; she eagerly concurred.</p>
+
+<p>Ignoring the thirty-six variations of Beethoven, Audrey
+rowed slowly away, and after about a hundred yards the
+boat had rounded a little knoll which marked the beginning
+of a narrow channel known as the Lander Creek. The
+thirty-six variations, however, would not be denied; they
+softly impregnated the whole beautiful watery scene.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman suddenly, &#8220;perhaps your
+ladyship was not quite pleased at me rowing-about with
+Miss Thompkins&mdash;especially after I had taken her for a
+walk.&#8221; He smiled, but his voice was rather wistful.
+Audrey liked him prodigiously in that moment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Foolish man!&#8221; she replied, with a smile far surpassing
+his, and she rested on her oars, taking care to keep the
+boat in the middle of the channel. &#8220;Do you know why I
+asked you to come out? I wanted to talk to you quite
+privately. It is easier here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so glad!&#8221; he said simply and sincerely. And
+Audrey thought: &#8220;Is it possible to give so much
+pleasure to an important and wealthy man with so little
+trouble?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Of course you know who I really am,
+don&#8217;t you, Mr. Gilman?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I only know you&#8217;re Mrs. Moncreiff,&#8221; he answered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I&#8217;m not! Surely you&#8217;ve heard something? Surely
+it&#8217;s been hinted in front of you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never!&#8221; said he.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But haven&#8217;t you asked&mdash;about my marriage, for
+instance?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To ask might have been to endanger your secret,&#8221; he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see!&#8221; she murmured. &#8220;How frightfully loyal you
+are, Mr. Gilman! I do admire loyalty. Well, I dare say
+very, very few people do know. So I&#8217;ll tell you. That&#8217;s
+my home over there.&#8221; And she pointed to Flank Hall,
+whose chimneys could just be seen over the bank.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I admit that I had thought so,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But naturally that was your home as a girl, before your
+marriage.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve never been married, Mr. Gilman,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;m
+only what the French call a <em>jeune fille</em>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His face changed; he seemed to be withdrawing alarmed
+into himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never&mdash;been married?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! You <em>must</em> understand me!&#8221; she went on, with
+an appealing vivacity. &#8220;I was all alone. I was in mourning
+for my father and mother. I wanted to see the world.
+I just had to see it! I expect I was very foolish, but it
+was so easy to put a ring on my finger and call myself Mrs.
+And it gave me such advantages. And Miss Ingate agreed.
+She was my mother&#8217;s oldest friend.... You&#8217;re vexed
+with me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You always seemed so wise,&#8221; Mr. Gilman faltered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! That&#8217;s only the effect of my forehead!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And yet, you know, I always thought there was something
+very innocent about you, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know what <em>that</em> was,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;But
+honestly I acted for the best. You see I&#8217;m rather rich.
+Supposing I&#8217;d only gone about as a young marriageable
+girl&mdash;what frightful risks I should have run, shouldn&#8217;t I?
+Somebody would be bound to have married me for my
+money. And look at all I should have missed&mdash;without this
+ring! I should never have met you in Paris, for instance,
+and we should never have had those talks.... And&mdash;and
+there&#8217;s a lot more reasons&mdash;I shall tell you another time&mdash;about
+Madame Piriac and so on. Now do say you aren&#8217;t
+vexed!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8221;I think you&#8217;ve been splendid,&#8221; he said, with enthusiasm.
+&#8220;I think the girls of to-day <em>are</em> splendid! I&#8217;ve
+been a regular old fogey, that&#8217;s what it is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now there&#8217;s one thing I want you not to do,&#8221; Audrey
+proceeded. &#8220;I want you not to alter the way you talk to
+me. Because I&#8217;m really just the same girl I was last night.
+And I couldn&#8217;t bear you to change.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t! I won&#8217;t! But of course&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, no! No buts. I won&#8217;t have it. Do you know
+why I told you just this afternoon? Well, partly because
+you were so perfectly sweet last night. And partly because
+I&#8217;ve got a favour to ask you, and I wouldn&#8217;t ask it until
+I&#8217;d told you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t ask me a favour,&#8221; he replied, &#8220;because it
+wouldn&#8217;t be a favour. It would be my privilege.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But if you put it like that I can&#8217;t ask you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You must!&#8221; he said firmly.</p>
+
+<p>Then she told him something of the predicament of
+Jane Foley. He listened with an expression of trouble.
+Audrey finished bluntly: &#8220;She&#8217;s my friend. And I want
+you to take her on the yacht to-night after it&#8217;s dark.
+Nobody but you can save her. There! I&#8217;ve asked
+you!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane Foley!&#8221; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>She could see that he was aghast. The syllables of that
+name were notorious throughout Britain. They stood for
+revolt, damage to property, defiance of law, injured policemen,
+forcible feeding, and all sorts of phenomena that
+horrified respectable pillars of society.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s the dearest thing!&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;ve no
+idea. You&#8217;d love her. And she&#8217;s done as much for
+Women&#8217;s Suffrage as anybody in the world. She&#8217;s a real
+heroine, if you like. You couldn&#8217;t help the cause better
+than by helping her. And I know how keen you are to
+help.&#8221; And Audrey said to herself: &#8220;He&#8217;s as timid as a
+girl about it. How queer men are, after all!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But what are we to do with her afterwards?&#8221; asked
+Mr. Gilman. There was perspiration on his brow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sail straight to France, of course. They couldn&#8217;t
+touch her there, you see, because it&#8217;s political. It <em>is</em>
+political, you know,&#8221; Audrey insisted proudly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And give up all our cruise?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey bent forward, as she had seen Tommy do. She
+smiled enchantingly. &#8220;I quite understand,&#8221; she said, with
+a sort of tenderness. &#8220;You don&#8217;t want to do it. And it
+was a shame of me even to suggest it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I do want to do it,&#8221; he protested with splendid
+despairful resolve. &#8220;I was only thinking of you&mdash;and the
+cruise. I do want to do it. I&#8217;m absolutely at your disposal.
+When you ask me to do a thing, I&#8217;m only too
+proud. To do it is the greatest happiness I could have.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey replied softly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You deserve the Victoria Cross.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whatever do you mean?&#8221; he demanded nervously.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know exactly what I mean,&#8221; she said. &#8220;But
+you&#8217;re the nicest man I ever knew.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He blushed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You mustn&#8217;t say that to me,&#8221; he deprecated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall, and I shall.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The sound of the thirty-six variations still came very
+faintly over the water. The sun sent cataracts of warm
+light across all the estuary. The water lapped against the
+boat, and Audrey was overwhelmed by the inexplicable
+marvel of being alive in the gorgeous universe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall have to back water,&#8221; she said, low. &#8220;There&#8217;s
+no room to turn round here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose we&#8217;d better say as little about it as possible,&#8221;
+he ventured.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Not a word! Not a word till it&#8217;s done.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, of course.&#8221; He was drenched in an agitating
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Five bells rang clear from the yacht, overmastering the
+thirty-six variations.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So he&#8217;d never agree, wouldn&#8217;t he, Madame Piriac!&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_37" id="chapter_37" />CHAPTER XXXVII</h2>
+
+
+<h3>AFLOAT</h3>
+
+
+<p>That night, which was an unusually dark night for the time
+of year, Audrey left the yacht, alone, to fetch Jane Foley.
+She had made a provisional plan with Jane and Aguilar, and
+the arrangement with Mr. Gilman had been of the simplest,
+necessitating nothing save a brief order from the owner to
+the woman whom Audrey could always amuse Mr. Gilman by
+calling the &#8220;parlourmaid,&#8221; but who was more commonly
+known as the stewardess. This young married creature had
+prepared a cabin. For the rest little had been said. The
+understanding between Mr. Gilman and Audrey was that
+Mrs. Moncreiff should continue to exist, and that not a
+word as to the arrival of Jane Foley should escape either of
+them until the deed was accomplished. It is true that
+Madame Piriac knew of the probable imminence of the
+affair, but Madame Piriac was discretion elegantly attired,
+and from the moment they had left Flank Hall together she
+had been wise enough not even to mention Jane Foley
+to Audrey. Madame Piriac appreciated the value of
+ignorance in a questionable crisis. Mr. Gilman had been
+less guarded. Indeed he had shown a tendency to discuss
+the coming adventure with Audrey in remote corners&mdash;a
+tendency which had to be discouraged because it gave to
+both of them a too obvious air of being tremendous conspirators,
+Also Audrey had had to dissuade him from
+accompanying her to the Hall. He had rather conventional
+ideas about women being abroad alone after dark, and he
+abandoned them with difficulty even now.</p>
+
+<p>As there were no street lamps alight in summer in the
+village of Moze, Audrey had no fear of being recognised;
+moreover, recognition by her former fellow-citizens could
+now have no sinister importance; she did not much care
+who recognised her. The principal gates of Flank Hall were
+slightly ajar, as arranged with Aguilar, and she passed with
+a suddenly aroused heart up the drive towards the front
+entrance of the house. In spite of herself she could not get
+rid of an absurd fear that either Mr. Hurley or Inspector
+Keeble or both would jump out of the dark bushes and slip
+handcuffs upon her wrists. And the baffling invisibility of
+the sky further affected her nerves. There ought to have
+been a lamp in the front hall, but no ray showed through
+the eighteenth century fanlight over the door. She rang
+the bell cautiously. She heard the distant ting. Aguilar,
+according to the plan, ought to have opened; but he did not
+open; nobody opened. She was instantly sure that she knew
+what had happened. Mr. Hurley had been to Frinton and
+ascertained that the Spatt story as to the tank-room was
+an invention, and had returned with a search warrant and
+some tools. But in another ten seconds she was equally sure
+that nothing of the sort could have happened, for it was an
+axiom with her that Aguilar&#8217;s masterly lying, based on
+masterly listening at an attic door, had convinced Mr.
+Hurley of the truth of the story about the tank-room.</p>
+
+<p>Accidentally pushing against the front door with an
+elbow in the deep obscurity, she discovered that it was not
+latched. This was quite contrary to the plan. She stepped
+into the house. The unforeseeing simpleton had actually
+come on the excursion without a box of matches! She felt
+her way, aided by the swift returning memories of childhood,
+to the foot of the stairs, and past the stairs into the
+kitchen, for in ancient days a candlestick with a box of
+matches in it had always been kept on the ledge of the
+small square window that gave light to the passage between
+the hall and the kitchen. Her father had been most severely
+particular about that candlestick (with matches) being-always
+ready on that ledge in case of his need. Ridiculous,
+of course, to expect a candlestick to be still there! Times
+change so. But she felt for it, and there it was, and the
+matches too! She lit the candle. The dim scene thus
+revealed seemed strange enough to her after the electricity
+of the HĂ´tel du Danube and of the yacht. It made her
+want to cry....</p>
+
+<p>She was one of those people who have room in their
+minds for all sorts of things at once. And thus she could
+simultaneously be worried to an extreme about Jane Foley,
+foolish and sad about her immensely distant childhood, and
+even regretful that she had admitted the fraudulence of the
+wedding-ring on her hand. On the last point she had a
+very strong sense of failure and disillusion. When she had
+first donned a widow&#8217;s bonnet she had meant to have wondrous
+adventures and to hear marvellous conversations as a
+widow. And what had she done with her widowhood after
+all? Nothing. She could not but think that she ought to
+have kept it a little longer, on the chance....</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar made a practice of sleeping in the kitchen; he
+considered that a house could only be well guarded at night
+from the ground floor. There was his bed, in the corner
+against the brush and besom cupboard, all made up. Its
+creaselessness, so characteristic of Aguilar, had not been
+disturbed. The sight of the narrow bed made Audrey think
+what a strange existence was the existence of Aguilar.
+... Then, with a boldness that was half bluster, she went
+upstairs, and the creaking of the woodwork was affrighting.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane! Jane, dear!&#8221; she called out, as she arrived
+at the second-storey landing. The sound of her voice was
+uncanny in the haunted stillness. All Audrey&#8217;s infancy
+floated up the well of the stairs and wrapped itself round
+her and tightened her throat. She went along the passage
+to the door of the tank-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane, Jane!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>No answer! The door was locked. She listened. She
+put her ear against the door in order to catch the faintest
+sound of life within. But she could only hear the crude,
+sharp ticking of the cheap clock which, as she knew,
+Aguilar had supplied to Jane Foley. The vision of Jane
+lying unconscious or dead obsessed her. Then she thrust
+it away and laughed at it. Assuredly Aguilar and Jane
+must have received some alarm as to a reappearance of
+the police; they must have fled while there had yet been
+time. Where could they have gone? Of course, through
+the garden and plantation and down to the sea-wall,
+whence Jane might steal to the yacht. Audrey turned
+back towards the stairs, and the vast intimidating emptiness
+of the gloomy house, lit by a single flickering candle,
+assaulted her. She had to fight it before she could descend.
+The garden door was latched, but not locked. Extinguishing
+the candle, she went forth. The gusty breeze from the
+estuary was now damp on her cheek with the presage
+of rain. She hurried, fumbling as it were, through the
+garden. When she achieved the hedge the spectacle of
+the yacht, gleaming from stem to stern with electricity,
+burst upon her; it shone like something desired and unattainable.
+Carefully she issued from the grounds by the
+little gate and crossed the intervening space to the dyke.
+A dark figure moved in front of her, and her heart violently
+jumped.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is that you, madam?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was the cold, imperturbable voice of Aguilar. At
+once she felt reassured.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is Miss Foley?&#8221; she demanded in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got her down here, ma&#8217;am,&#8221; said Aguilar. &#8220;I
+presume as you&#8217;ve been to the house. We had to leave
+it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But the door of the tank-room was locked!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, ma&#8217;am. I locked it a-purpose.... I thought
+as it would keep the police employed a bit when they
+come. I seen my cousin Sarah when I went to tell Miss
+Ingate as you instructed me. My cousin Sarah seen
+Keeble. They been to Frinton to Mrs. Spatt&#8217;s, and they
+found out about <em>that</em>. And now the &#8217;tec&#8217;s back, or nearly.
+I reckon it was the warrant as was delaying him. So I
+out with Miss Foley. I thought I could take her across
+to the yacht from here. It wouldn&#8217;t hardly be safe for
+her to walk round by the dyke. Hurley may have several
+of his chaps about by this time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But there&#8217;s not water enough, Aguilar.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, madam. I dragged the old punt down. She
+don&#8217;t draw three inches. She&#8217;s afloat now, and Miss
+Foley&#8217;s in her. I was just a-going off. If you don&#8217;t mind
+wetting your feet&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In one minute Audrey had splashed into the punt.
+Jane Foley took her hand in silence, and she heard Jane&#8217;s
+low, happy laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it funny?&#8221; Jane whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey squeezed her hand.</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar pushed off with an oar, and he continued to
+use the oar as a punt-pole, so that no sound of their
+movement should reach the bank. Water was pouring into
+the old sieve, and they touched ground once. But Aguilar
+knew precisely what he was about and got her off again.
+They approached the yacht with the slow, sure inexorability
+of Aguilar&#8217;s character. A beam from the portholes of
+the saloon caught Aguilar&#8217;s erect figure. He sat down,
+poling as well as he could from the new position. When
+they were a little nearer he stopped dead, holding the
+punt firm by means of the pole fixed in the mud.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s there afore us!&#8221; he murmured, pointing.</p>
+
+<p>Under the Maltese cross of electric lights at the inner
+end of the gangway could clearly be seen the form of
+Mr. Hurley, engaged in conversation with Mr. Gilman.
+Mr. Hurley was fairly on board.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_38" id="chapter_38" />CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2>
+
+
+<h3>IN THE UNIVERSE</h3>
+
+<p>When Audrey, having been put ashore in execution of
+a plan arranged with those naturally endowed strategists,
+Aguilar and Jane Foley, arrived at the Hard by way of
+the sea-wall, Mr. Hurley was still in parley with Mr.
+Gilman under the Maltese cross of electric lights. From
+the distance Mr. Gilman had an air of being somewhat
+intimidated by the Irishman, but as soon as he distinguished
+the figure of Audrey at the shore end of the
+gangway his muscles became mysteriously taut, and his
+voice charged with defiance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have already told you, sir,&#8221; Audrey heard him say,
+&#8220;there is no such person aboard the yacht. And I most
+certainly will not allow you to search. You have no right
+whatever to search, and you know it. You have my word.
+My name is Gilman. You may have heard of me. I&#8217;m
+chairman of the Board of Foodstuffs, Limited. Gilman, sir.
+And I shall feel obliged if you will leave my decks.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you sailing to-night?&#8221; asked Mr. Hurley placidly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What the devil has that got to do with you, sir?&#8221;
+replied Mr. Gilman gloriously.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, standing behind the detective and unseen by
+him, observed the gloriousness of Mr. Gilman&#8217;s demeanour
+and also Mr. Gilman&#8217;s desire that she should note the
+same and appreciate it. She nodded violently several times
+to Mr. Gilman, to urge him to answer the detective in
+the affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ye-es, sir. Since you are so confoundedly inquisitive,
+I am sailing to-night. I shall sail as soon as the tide
+serves,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman hurriedly and fiercely, and then
+glanced again at Audrey for further approval.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where for?&#8221; Mr. Hurley demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where I please, sir,&#8221; Mr. Gilman snorted. By this
+time he evidently imagined that he was furious, and was
+taking pleasure in his fury.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hurley, having given a little ironic bow, turned
+to leave and found himself fronting Audrey, who stiffly
+ignored his salute. The detective gone, Mr. Gilman walked
+to and fro, breathing more loudly than ever, and unsuccessfully
+pretending to a scattered audience, which consisted
+of the skipper, Mr. Price, Dr. Cromarty, and sundry deck-hands,
+that he had done nothing in particular and was
+not a hero. As Audrey approached him he seemed to lay
+all his glory with humble pride at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, he brought that on himself!&#8221; said Audrey,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He did,&#8221; Mr. Gilman concurred, gazing at the Hard
+with inimical scorn.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She can&#8217;t come&mdash;now,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;It wouldn&#8217;t
+be safe. He means to stay on the Hard till we&#8217;re gone.
+He&#8217;s a very suspicious man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hurley was indeed lingering just beyond the immediate
+range of the <em>Ariadne&#8217;s</em> lamps.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can&#8217;t come! What a pity! What a pity!&#8221; murmured
+Mr. Gilman, with an accent that was not a bit
+sincere. The news was the best he had heard for hours.
+&#8220;But I suppose,&#8221; he added, &#8220;we&#8217;d better sail just the
+same, as I&#8217;ve said we should?&#8221; He did not want to run
+the risk of getting Jane Foley after all.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Do!&#8221; Audrey exclaimed. &#8220;It will be lovely! If it
+doesn&#8217;t rain&mdash;and even if it does rain! We all like sailing at
+night.... Are the others in the saloon? I&#8217;ll run down.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Wyatt,&#8221; the owner sternly accosted the captain.
+&#8220;When can we get off?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! About midnight,&#8221; Audrey answered quickly,
+before Mr. Wyatt could compose his lips.</p>
+
+<p>The men gazed at each other surprised by this show of
+technical knowledge in a young widow. By the time Mr.
+Wyatt had replied, Audrey was descending into the saloon.
+It was Aguilar who, having ascertained the <em>Ariadne&#8217;s</em>
+draught, had made the calculation as to the earliest possible
+hour of departure.</p>
+
+<p>And in the saloon Musa was, as it were, being enveloped
+and kept comfortable in the admiring sympathy of Madame
+Piriac and Miss Thompkins. Mr. Gilman&#8217;s violin lay
+across his knees&mdash;perhaps he had been tuning it&mdash;and the
+women inclined towards him, one on either side. It was
+a sight that somewhat annoyed Audrey, who told herself
+that she considered it silly. Admitting that Musa had
+genius, she could not understand this soft flattery of
+genius. She never flattered genius herself, and she did
+not approve of others doing so. Certainly Musa was now
+being treated on the yacht as a celebrity of the first
+order, and Audrey could find no explanation of the steady
+growth in the height and splendour of his throne.
+Her arrival dissolved the spectacle. Within one minute,
+somehow, the saloon was empty and everybody on deck
+again.</p>
+
+<p>And then, drawing her away, Musa murmured to Audrey
+in a disconcerting tone that he must speak to her on a
+matter of urgency, and that in order that he might do
+so, they must go ashore and walk seawards, far from
+interruption. She consented, for she was determined to
+prove to him at close quarters that she was a different
+creature from the other two. They moved to the gangway
+amid discreet manifestations from the doctor and the
+secretary&mdash;manifestations directed chiefly to Musa and
+indicative of his importance as a notability. Audrey was
+puzzled. For her, Musa was more than ever just Musa,
+and less than ever a personage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall not return to the yacht,&#8221; he said, with an
+excited bitterness, after they had walked some distance
+along one of the paths leading past low bushes into the
+wilderness of the marsh land that bounded the estuary
+to the south. The sky was still invisible, but there was
+now a certain amount of diffused light, and the pale path
+could easily be distinguished amid the sombreness of
+green. The yacht was hidden behind one of the knolls.
+No sound could be heard. The breeze had died. That
+which was around them&mdash;on either hand, above, below&mdash;was
+the universe. They knew that they stood still in the
+universe, and this idea gave their youth the sensation of
+being very important.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is that which you say?&#8221; Audrey demanded
+sharply in French, as Musa had begun in French. She
+was aware, not for the first time with Musa, of the
+sudden possibilities of drama in a human being. She
+could scarcely make out his face, but she knew that he
+was in a mood for high follies; she knew that danger was
+gathering; she knew that the shape of the future was
+immediately to be moulded by her and him, and chiefly
+by herself. She liked it. The sensation of her importance
+was reinforced.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I say I shall never return to the yacht,&#8221; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>She thought compassionately:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Poor foolish thing!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was incalculably older and wiser than this irrational
+boy. She was the essence of wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>She said, with acid detachment:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But your luggage, your belongings? What an idea to
+leave in this manner! It is so polite, so sensible!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall not return.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; she said, &#8220;I do not at all understand
+why you are going. But what does that matter? You
+are going.&#8221; Her indifference was superb. It was so
+superb that it might have driven some men to destroy
+her on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you understand! I told you last night,&#8221; said
+Musa, overflowing with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! You told me? I forget.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Naturally Monsieur Gilman is rich. I am not rich,
+though I shall be. But you can&#8217;t wait,&#8221; Musa sneered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do not know what you mean,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; said Musa. &#8220;Once I told you that Tommy
+and Nick lent me the money with which to live. For me,
+since then, you have never been the same being. How
+stupid I was to tell you! You could not comprehend
+such a thing. Your soul is too low to comprehend it.
+Permit me to say that I have already repaid Nick. And
+at the first moment I shall repay Tommy. My position
+is secure. I have only to wait. But you will not wait.
+You are a bourgeoise of the most terrible sort. Opulence
+fascinates you. Mr. Gilman has opulence. He has nothing
+else. But he has opulence, and for you that is all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In an instant her indifference, self-control, wisdom
+vanished. It was a sad exhibition of frailty; but she
+enjoyed it, she revelled in it, giving play to everything
+in herself that was barbaric. The marsh around them
+was probably as it had been before the vikings had sailed
+into it, and Audrey rushed back with inconceivable speed
+into the past and became the primeval woman of twenty
+centuries earlier. Like almost all women she possessed
+this wondrous and affrighting faculty.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are telling a wicked untruth!&#8221; she exploded in
+English. &#8220;And what&#8217;s more, you know you are. You
+disgust me. You know as well as I do I don&#8217;t care anything
+for money&mdash;anything. Only you&#8217;re a horrid, spoilt
+beast. You think you can upset me, but you can&#8217;t. I
+won&#8217;t have it, either from you or from anybody else. It&#8217;s
+a shame, that&#8217;s what it is. Now you&#8217;ve got to apologise
+to me. I absolutely insist on it. You aren&#8217;t going to
+bully me, even if you think you are. I&#8217;ll soon show you
+the sort of girl I am, and you make no mistake! Are
+you going to apologise or aren&#8217;t you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The indecorous creature was breathing as loudly as Mr.
+Gilman himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I admit it,&#8221; said Musa yielding.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I demand your pardon. I knew that what I said was
+not true. I am outside myself. But what would you? It
+is stronger than I. This existence is terrible, on the yacht.
+I cannot support it. I shall become mad. I am ruined.
+My jealousy is intolerable.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is!&#8221; said Audrey, using French again, more calmly,
+having returned to the twentieth century.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is intolerable to me.&#8221; Then Musa&#8217;s voice changed
+and grew persuasive, rather like a child&#8217;s. &#8220;I cannot live
+without you. That is the truth. I am an artist, and you
+are necessary to me and to my career.&#8221; He lifted his head.
+&#8220;And I can offer you everything that is most brilliant.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what about my career?&#8221; Audrey questioned
+inimically.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your career?&#8221; He seemed at a loss.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. My career. It has possibly not occurred to you
+that I also may have a career.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa became appealing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You understand me,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I told you you do not
+comprehend, but you comprehend everything. It is that
+which enrages me. You have had experience. You know
+what men are. You could teach me so much. I hate young
+girls. I have always hated them. They are so tasteless, so
+insufferably innocent. I could not talk to a young girl as I
+talk to you. It would be absurd. Now as to my career&mdash;what
+I said&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa,&#8221; she interrupted him, with a sinister quietude,
+&#8220;I want to tell you something. But you must promise to
+keep it secret. Will you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He assented, impatient.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is not possible!&#8221; he exclaimed, when she had told
+him that she belonged to precisely the category of human
+beings whom he hated and despised.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it?&#8221; said she. &#8220;Now I hope you see how little
+you know, really, about women.&#8221; She laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is not possible!&#8221; he repeated. And then he said
+with deliberate ingenuousness: &#8220;I am so content. I am so
+happy. I could not have hoped for it. It is overwhelming.
+I am everything you like of the most idiotic, blind, stupid.
+But now I am happy. Could I ever have borne that you
+had loved before I knew you? I doubt if I could have borne
+it. Your innocence is exquisite. It is intoxicating to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa,&#8221; she remarked dryly; &#8220;I wish you would remember
+that you are in England. People do not talk in that
+way in England. It simply is not done. And I will not
+listen to it.&#8221; Her voice grew a little tender. &#8220;Why can
+we not just be friends?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is folly,&#8221; said he, with sudden disgust. &#8220;And it
+would kill me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then,&#8221; she replied, receding. &#8220;You&#8217;re entitled
+to die.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He advanced towards her. She kept him away with a
+gesture.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You want me to marry you?&#8221; she questioned.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is essential,&#8221; he said, very seriously. &#8220;I adore you.
+I can&#8217;t do anything because of you. I can&#8217;t think of anything
+but you. You are more marvellous than anyone can
+be. You cannot appreciate what you are to me!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And suppose you are nothing to me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But it is necessary that you should love me!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why? I see no necessity. You want me&mdash;because you
+want me. That&#8217;s all. I can&#8217;t help it if you&#8217;re mad. Your
+attitude is insulting. You have not given one thought to
+my feelings. And if I said &#8216;yes&#8217; to you, you&#8217;d marry
+me whatever my feelings were. You think only of yourself.
+It is the old attitude. And when I offer you my friendship,
+you instantly decline it. That shows how horribly French
+you are. Frenchmen can&#8217;t understand the idea of friendship
+between a man and a girl. They sneer at it. It shows
+what brutes you all are. Why should I marry you? I
+should have nothing to gain by it. You&#8217;ll be famous. Well,
+what do I care? Do you think it would be very amusing
+for me to be the wife of a famous man that was run after
+by every silly creature in Paris or London or New York?
+Not quite! And I don&#8217;t see myself. You don&#8217;t like young
+girls. I don&#8217;t like young men. They&#8217;re rude and selfish
+and conceited. They&#8217;re like babies.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The fact is,&#8221; Musa broke in, &#8220;you are in love with
+the old Gilman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is not old!&#8221; cried Audrey. &#8220;In some ways he is
+much less worn out than you are. And supposing I am in
+love with Mr. Gilman? Does it regard you? Do not be
+rude. Mr. Gilman is at any rate polite. He is not capricious.
+He is reliable. You aren&#8217;t reliable. You want someone
+upon whom you can rely. How nice for your wife! You
+play the violin. True. You are a genius. But you cannot
+always be on the platform. And when you are not on the
+platform...! Heavens! If I wish to hear you play I
+can buy a seat and come and hear you and go away again.
+But your wife, responsible for your career&mdash;she will never
+be free. Her life will be unbearable. What anxiety!
+Misery, I should say rather! You would have the lion&#8217;s
+share of everything. Now for myself I intend to have the
+lion&#8217;s share. And why shouldn&#8217;t I? Isn&#8217;t it about time
+some woman had it? You can&#8217;t have the lion&#8217;s share if you
+are not free. I mean to be free. If I marry I shall want
+a husband that is not a prison.... Thank goodness I&#8217;ve
+got money.... Without that&mdash;&mdash;!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then,&#8221; said Musa, &#8220;you have no feeling for me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Love?&#8221; she laughed exasperatingly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not that much!&#8221; She snapped her fingers. &#8220;But"&mdash;in
+a changed tone&mdash;"I <em>should</em> like to like you. I shall be
+very disgusted if your concerts are not a tremendous success.
+And they will not be if you don&#8217;t keep control over yourself
+and practise properly. And it will be your fault.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then, good-bye!&#8221; he said, coldly ignoring all her
+maternal suggestions. And turned away.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where are you going to?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do not know. But if I do not deceive myself I have
+already informed you that in certain circumstances I should
+not return to the yacht.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are worse than a schoolboy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is possible.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Anyway, <em>I</em> shan&#8217;t explain on the yacht. I shall tell
+them that I know nothing about it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But no one will believe you,&#8221; he retorted maliciously
+over his shoulder. And then he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>She at any rate was no longer surrounded by the largeness
+of the universe. He might still be, but she was not.
+She was in mind already on the yacht trying to act a
+surprise equal to the surprise of the others when Musa
+failed to reappear. She was very angry with him, not
+because he had been a rude schoolboy and was entirely impossible
+as a human being, but because she had allowed
+herself to leave the yacht with him and would therefore be
+compelled sooner or later to answer questions about him.
+She seriously feared that Mr. Gilman might refuse to sail
+unless she confessed to him her positive knowledge that
+Musa would not be seen again, and that thus she might
+have to choose between the failure of her plans for Jane
+Foley and her own personal discomfiture.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of being in the mighty universe she was
+struggling amid the tiresome littleness of society on a yacht.
+She hated yachts for their very cosiness and their quality
+of keeping people close together who wanted to be far
+apart. And as she watched the figure of Musa growing
+fainter she was more than ever impressed by the queerness of
+men. Women seemed to be so logical, so realistic, so
+understandable, so calculable, whereas men were enigmas
+of waywardness and unreason. At just that moment her
+feet reminded her that they had been wetted by the adventure
+in the punt, and she said to herself sagely that she
+must take precautions against a chill.</p>
+
+<p>And then she thought she detected some unusual phenomenon
+behind a clump of bushes to the right which hid a
+plank-bridge across a waterway. She would have been
+frightened if she had not been very excited. And in her
+excitement she marched straight up to the clump, and
+found Mr. Hurley in a crouching posture. She started, and
+recovered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I might have known!&#8221; she said disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We all make mistakes,&#8221; said Mr. Hurley defensively.
+&#8220;We all make mistakes. I knew I&#8217;d made a mistake as
+soon as I got here, but I couldn&#8217;t get away quietly enough.
+And you talked so loud. Ye&#8217;ll admit I had just cause for
+suspicion. And being a very agreeable lady ye&#8217;ll pardon
+me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She blushed, and then ceased blushing because it was
+too dark for him to perceive the blush, and she passed on
+without a word. When, across the waste, she had come
+within sight of the yacht again, she heard footsteps behind
+her, and turned to withstand the detective. But the
+overtaker was Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is necessary that I should return to the yacht,&#8221; he
+said savagely. &#8220;The thought of you and Monsieur Gilman
+together, without me.... No! I did not know myself.
+ ... I did not know myself.... It is impossible for me
+to leave.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She made no answer. They boarded the yacht as though
+they had been for a stroll. Few could have guessed that
+they had come back from the universe terribly scathed.
+Accepting deferential greetings as a right, Musa vanished
+rapidly to his cabin.</p>
+
+<p>Several hours later Audrey and Mr. Gilman, alone among
+the passengers, were standing together, both tarpaulined,
+on the starboard bow, gazing seaward as the yacht cautiously
+felt her way down Mozewater. Captain Wyatt, and not
+Mr. Gilman, was at the binnacle. A little rain was falling
+and the night was rather thick but not impenetrable.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s the light!&#8221; said Audrey excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What sharp eyes you have!&#8221; said Mr. Gilman. &#8220;I
+can see it, too.&#8221; He spoke a word to the skipper, and
+the skipper spoke, and then the engine went still more
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>The yacht approached the Flank buoy dead slow,
+scarcely stemming the tide. The Moze punt was tied up
+to the buoy, and Aguilar held a lantern on a boathook,
+while Jane Foley, very wet, was doing a spell of baling.
+Aguilar dropped the boathook and, casting off, brought
+the punt alongside the yacht. The steps were lowered and
+Jane Foley, with laughing, rain-sprinkled face, climbed up.
+Aguilar handed her bag which contained nearly everything
+she possessed on earth. She and Audrey kissed calmly, and
+Audrey presented Mr. Gilman to a suddenly shy Jane. In
+the punt Miss Foley had been seen to take an affectionate
+leave of Aguilar. She now leaned over the rail.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good-bye!&#8221; she said, with warmth. &#8220;Thanks ever so
+much. It&#8217;s been splendid. I do hope you won&#8217;t be too
+wet. Can you row all the way home?&#8221; She shivered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall go back on the tide, Miss Foley,&#8221; answered
+Aguilar.</p>
+
+<p>He touched his cap to Audrey, mumbled gloomily a
+salutation, and loosed his hold on the yacht; and at once the
+punt felt the tide and began to glide away in the darkness
+towards Moze. The yacht&#8217;s engine quickened. Flank
+buoy faded.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman and the two girls made a group.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re wonderful! You really are!&#8221; said Mr. Gilman,
+addressing apparently the pair of them. He was enthusiastic.
+... He added with grandeur, &#8220;And now for
+France!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do hope Mr. Hurley is still hanging about Moze,&#8221;
+said Audrey. &#8220;Mr. Gilman, shall I show Miss Foley her
+cabin? She&#8217;s rather wet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, do! Oh, do, please! But don&#8217;t forget that we
+are to have supper together. I insist on supper.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Audrey thought: &#8220;How agreeable he is! How
+kind-hearted! He hasn&#8217;t got any &#8216;career&#8217; to worry about,
+and I adore him, and he&#8217;s as simple as knitting.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_39" id="chapter_39" />CHAPTER XXXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE IMMINENT DRIVE</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; cried Miss Thompkins. &#8220;You can see it from
+here. It&#8217;s funny how unreal it seems, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She pointed at one of the large white-curtained windows
+of the restaurant, through which was visible a round
+column covered with advertisements of theatres, music-halls,
+and concert-halls, printed in many colours and announcing
+superlative delights. Names famous wherever
+pleasure is understood gave to their variegated posters a
+pleasant air of distinguished familiarity&mdash;names of theatres
+such as &#8220;VariĂ©tĂ©s,&#8221; &#8220;Vaudeville,&#8221; &#8220;ChĂ¢telet,&#8221; &#8220;ThĂ©Ă¢tre
+Français,&#8221; &#8220;Folies-Bergère,&#8221; and names of persons such as
+&#8220;Sarah Bernhardt,&#8221; &#8220;Huegenet,&#8221; &#8220;Le Bargy,&#8221; &#8220;Litvinne,&#8221;
+&#8220;Lavallière.&#8221; But the name in the largest type&mdash;dark
+crimson letters on rose paper&mdash;the name dominating all the
+rest, was the name of Musa. The ingenuous stranger to
+Paris was compelled to think that as an artist Musa was
+far more important than anybody else. Along the length of
+all the principal boulevards, and in many of the lesser
+streets, the ingenuous stranger encountered, at regular distances
+of a couple of hundred yards or so, one of these
+columns planted on the kerb; and all the scores of them
+bore exactly the same legend; they all spoke of nothing but
+blissful diversions, and they all put Musa ahead of anybody
+else in the world of the stage and the platform. Sarah
+Bernhardt herself, dark blue upon pale, was a trifle compared
+to Musa on the columns. And it had been so for
+days. Other posters were changed daily&mdash;changed by
+mysterious hands before even bread-girls were afoot with
+their yards of bread&mdash;but the space given to Musa repeated
+always the same tidings, namely that Musa ("the great
+violinist") was to give an orchestral concert at the Salle
+Xavier, assisted by the Xavier orchestra, on Thursday,
+September 24, at 9 P.M. Particulars of the programme
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>Paris was being familiarised with Musa. His four
+letters looked down upon the fever of the thoroughfares;
+they were perused by tens of thousands of sitters in cafés
+and in front of cafés; they caught the eye of men and
+women fleeing from the wrath to come in taxicabs; they
+competed successfully with newspaper placards; and on that
+Thursday&mdash;for the Thursday in question had already run
+more than half its course&mdash;they had so entered into the
+sub-conscious brain of Paris that no habitué of the streets,
+whatever his ignorant indifference to the art of music,
+could have failed to reply with knowledge, on hearing Musa
+mentioned, &#8220;Oh, yes!&#8221; implying that he was fully acquainted
+with the existence of the said Musa.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy was right: there did seem to be a certain unreality
+about the thing, yet it was utterly real.</p>
+
+<p>All the women turned to glance at the name through the
+window, and some of them murmured sympathetic and interested
+exclamations and bright hopes. There were five
+women: Miss Thompkins, Miss Nickall, Madame Piriac,
+Miss Ingate and Audrey. And there was one man&mdash;Mr.
+Gilman. And the six were seated at a round table in the
+historic Parisian restaurant. Mr. Gilman had the air
+triumphant, and he was entitled to it. The supreme moment
+of his triumph had come. Having given a luncheon to these
+ladies, he had just asked, with due high negligence, for the
+bill. If there was one matter in which Mr. Gilman was a
+truly great expert, it was the matter of giving a meal in a
+restaurant. He knew how to dress for such an affair&mdash;with
+strict conventionality but a touch of devil-may-care youthfulness
+in the necktie. He knew how to choose the
+restaurant; he had about half a dozen in his répertoire&mdash;all
+of the first order and for the most part combining the
+exclusive with the amusing&mdash;entirely different in kind from
+the pandemonium where Audrey had eaten on the night of
+her first arrival in Paris; he knew how to get the best out
+of head-waiters and waiters, who in these restaurants were
+not head-waiters and waiters but worldly priests and
+acolytes; his profound knowledge of cookery sprang from
+a genuine interest in his stomach, and he could compose a
+menu in a fashion to command the respect of head-waiters
+and to excite the envy of musicians composing a sonata; he
+had the wit to look in early and see to the flowers; above all
+he was aware what women liked in the way of wine, and
+since this was never what he liked in the way of wine, he
+would always command a half-bottle of the extra dry for
+himself, but would have it manipulated with such discretion
+that not a guest could notice it. He paid lavishly and
+willingly, convinced by hard experience that the best is
+inestimable, but he felt too that the best was really quite
+cheap, for he knew that there were imperfectly educated
+people in the world who thought nothing of paying the price
+of a good meal for a mere engraving or a bit of china.
+Withal, he never expected his guests truly to appreciate the
+marvels he offered them. They could not, or very rarely.
+Their twittering ecstatic praise, which was without understanding,
+sufficed for him, though sometimes he would give
+gentle diffident instruction. This trait in him was very
+attractive, proving the genuineness of his modesty.</p>
+
+<p>The luncheon was partly to celebrate the return of various
+persons to Paris, but chiefly in honour of Musa&#8217;s concert.
+Musa could not be present, for distinguished public performers
+do not show themselves on the day of an appearance.
+Mr. Gilman had learnt this from Madame Piriac, whom he
+had consulted as to the list of guests. It is to be said that
+he bore the absence of Musa from his table with stoicism.
+For the rest, Madame Piriac knew that he wanted no other
+men, and she had suggested none. She had assumed that
+he desired Audrey, and had pointed out that Audrey could
+not well be invited without Miss Ingate, who, sick of her
+old Moze, had rejoined Audrey in the splendour of the HĂ´tel
+du Danube. Mr. Gilman had somehow mentioned Miss
+Thompkins, whereupon Madame Piriac had declared that
+Miss Thompkins involved Miss Nickall, who after a complete
+recovery from the broken arm had returned for a while to
+her studio. And then Mr. Gilman had closed the list, saying
+that six was enough, and exactly the right number.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At what o&#8217;clock are you going for the drive?&#8221; asked
+Madame Piriac in her improved, precise English. She
+looked equally at her self-styled uncle and at Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I ordered the car for three o&#8217;clock,&#8221; answered Mr.
+Gilman. &#8220;It is not yet quite three.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The table with its litter of ash-trays, empty cups, empty
+small glasses, and ravaged sweets, and the half-deserted
+restaurant, and the polite expectant weariness of the priests
+and acolytes, all showed that the hour was in fact not quite
+three&mdash;an hour at which such interiors have invariably the
+aspect of roses overblown and about to tumble to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>And immediately upon the reference to the drive everybody
+at the table displayed a little constraint, avoiding the
+gaze of everybody else, thus demonstrating that the imminent
+drive was a delicate, without being a disagreeable, topic.
+Which requires explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman had not been seen by any of his guests
+during the summer. He had landed them at Boulogne from
+the <em>Ariadne</em>&mdash;sound but for one casualty. That casualty
+was Jane Foley, suffering from pneumonia, which had presumably
+developed during the evening of exposure spent
+with Aguilar in the leaking punt and in rain showers.
+Madame Piriac and Audrey took her to Wimereux and there
+nursed her through a long and sometimes dangerous illness.
+Jane possessed no constitution, but she had obstinacy, which
+saved her. In her convalescence, part of which she spent
+alone with Audrey (Madame Piriac having to pay visits to
+Monsieur Piriac), she had proceeded with the writing of a
+book, and she had also received in conclave the rarely seen
+Rosamund, who like herself was still a fugitive from British
+justice. These two had been elaborating a new plan of
+campaign, which was to include an incursion by themselves
+into England, and which had in part been confided by Jane
+to Audrey, who, having other notions in her head, had been
+somewhat troubled thereby. Audrey&#8217;s conscience had
+occasionally told her to throw herself heartily into the campaign,
+but her individualistic instincts had in the end kept
+her safely on a fence between the campaign and something
+else. The something else was connected with Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman had written to her regularly; he had sent
+dazzling subscriptions to the Suffragette Union; and
+Audrey had replied regularly. His letters were very simple,
+very modest, and quite touching. They were dated from
+various coastal places. However, he never came near
+Wimereux, though it was a coastal place. Audrey had
+excusably deemed this odd; but Madame Piriac having once
+said with marked casualness, &#8220;I hinted to him that he might
+with advantage stay away,&#8221; Audrey had concealed her
+thoughts on the point. And one of her thoughts was that
+Madame Piriac was keeping them apart so as to try them,
+so as to test their mutual feelings. The policy, if it was
+a policy, was very like Madame Piriac; it had the effect
+of investing Mr. Gilman in Audrey&#8217;s mind with a peculiar
+romantic and wistful charm, as of a sighing and obedient
+victim. Then Jane Foley and Rosamund had gone off somewhere,
+and Madame Piriac and Audrey had returned to
+Paris, and had found that practically all Paris had returned
+to Paris too. And on the first meeting with Mr. Gilman it
+had been at once established that his feelings and those of
+Audrey had surmounted the Piriac test. Within forty-eight
+hours all persons interested had mysteriously assumed
+that Mr. Gilman and Audrey were coupled together by fate
+and that a delicious crisis was about to supervene in their
+earthly progress. And they had become objects of exquisite
+solicitude. They had also become perfect. A circle of
+friends and acquaintances waited in excited silence for a
+palpitating event, as a populace waits for the booming gunfire
+which is to inaugurate a national rejoicing. And when
+the news exuded that he was taking her for a drive to
+Meudon, which she had never seen, alone, all decided beyond
+any doubt that <em>he would do it during the drive</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Hence the nice constraint at the table when the drive
+grew publicly and avowedly imminent.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, as the phrase is, &#8220;felt her position keenly,&#8221; but
+not unpleasantly, nor with understanding. Not a word had
+passed of late between herself and Mr. Gilman that any
+acquaintance might not have listened to. Indeed, Mr.
+Gilman had become slightly more formal. She liked him
+for that, as she liked him for a large number of qualities.
+She did not know whether she loved him. And strange to
+say, the question did not passionately interest her. The
+only really interesting questions were: Would he propose
+to her? And would she accept him? She had no logical
+ground for assuming that he would propose to her. None
+of her friends had informed her of the general expectation
+that he would propose to her. Yet she knew that everybody
+expected him to propose to her quite soon&mdash;indeed within
+the next couple of hours. And she felt that everybody was
+right. The universe was full of mysteries for Audrey. As
+regards her answer to any proposal, she foresaw&mdash;another
+mystery&mdash;that it would not depend upon self-examination or
+upon reason, or upon anything that could be defined. It
+would depend upon an instinct over which her mind&mdash;nay,
+even her heart&mdash;had no control. She was quite certainly
+aware that this instinct would instruct her brain to instruct
+her lips to say &#8220;Yes.&#8221; The idea of saying &#8220;No&#8221; simply
+could not be conceived. All the forces in the universe would
+combine to prevent her from saying &#8220;No.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The one thing that might have countered that enigmatic
+and powerful instinct was a consideration based upon the
+difference between her age and that of Mr. Gilman. It is
+true that she did not know what the difference was, because
+she did not know Mr. Gilman&#8217;s age. And she could not ask
+him. No! Such is the structure of society that she could
+not say to Mr. Gilman, &#8220;By the way, Mr. Gilman, how old
+are you?&#8221; She could properly ascertain his tastes about
+all manner of fundamental points, such as the shape of chair-legs,
+the correct hour for dining, or the comparative merits
+of diamonds and emeralds; but this trifle of information
+about his age could not be asked for. And he did not make
+her a present of it. She might have questioned Madame
+Piriac, but she could not persuade herself to question Madame
+Piriac either. However, what did it matter? Even if she
+learnt his age to a day, he would still be precisely the same
+Mr. Gilman. And let him be as old or as young as he might,
+she was still his equal in age. She was far more than six
+months older than she had been six months ago.</p>
+
+<p>The influence of Madame Piriac through the summer had
+indirectly matured her. For above all Madame Piriac had
+imperceptibly taught her the everlasting joy and duty of
+exciting the sympathy, admiration and gratitude of the other
+sex. Hence Audrey had aged at a miraculous rate because
+in order to please Mr. Gilman she wished&mdash;possibly without
+knowing it&mdash;to undo the disparity between herself and him.
+This may be strange, but it is assuredly more true than
+strange. To the same ends she had concealed her own age.
+Nobody except Miss Ingate knew how old she was. She
+only made it clear, when doubts seemed to exist, that she
+had passed her majority long before. Further, her wealth,
+magnified by legend, assisted her age. Not that she was so
+impressed by her wealth as she had been. She had met
+American women in Paris compared to whom she was at
+destitution&#8217;s door. She knew one woman who had kept a
+2,000-ton yacht lying all summer in the outer harbour at
+Boulogne, and had used it during that period for exactly
+eleven hours.</p>
+
+<p>Few of these people had an establishment. They would
+rent floors in hotels, or chĂ¢teaux in Touraine, or yachts, but
+they had no home, and yet they seemed very content and
+beyond doubt they were very free. And so Audrey did not
+trouble about having a home. She had Moze, which was
+more than many of her acquaintances had. She would not
+use it, but she had it. And she was content in the knowledge
+of the power to create a home when she felt inclined
+to create one. Not that it would not have been absurd to set
+about creating a home with Mr. Gilman hanging over her
+like a destiny. It would have been rude to him to do so;
+it would have been to transgress against the inter-sexual
+code as promulgated by Madame Piriac.... She wondered
+what sort of a place Meudon was, and whether he
+would propose to her while they were looking at the view
+together.... She trembled with the sense of adventure,
+which had little to do with happiness or unhappiness....
+But <em>would</em> he propose to her? Not improbably the whole
+conception of the situation was false and she was being
+ridiculous!</p>
+
+<p>Still the nice constraint persisted as the women began
+to put on their gloves, while Mr. Gilman had a word with
+the chief priest. And Audrey had the illusion of being a
+dedicated victim. As she self-consciously and yet proudly
+handled her gloves she could not help but notice the simple
+gold wedding-ring on a certain finger. She had never
+removed it. She had never formally renounced her claim
+to the status of a widow. That she was not a widow, that
+she had been guilty of a fraud on a gullible public, was
+somehow generally known; but the facts were not referred
+to, save perhaps in rare hints by Tommy, and she had continued
+to be known as Mrs. Moncreiff. Ignominious close
+to a daring enterprise! And in the circumstances nothing
+was more out of place than the ring, bought in cold, wilful,
+calculating naughtiness at Colchester.</p>
+
+<p>Just when Miss Ingate was beginning to discuss her own
+plans for the afternoon, Mr. Price entered the restaurant,
+and as he did so Miss Thompkins, saying something about
+the small type on the poster outside, went to the window to
+examine it. Mr. Price, disguised as a discreet dandy-about-town,
+bore a parcel of music. He removed a most glossy
+hat; he bowed to the whole company of ladies, who
+responded with smiles in which was acknowledge that
+he was a dandy in addition to being a secretary; and
+lastly with deference he handed the parcel of music to
+Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So you did get it! What did I tell you?&#8221; said Mr.
+Gilman with negligent condescension. &#8220;A minute later,
+and we should have been gone.... Has Mr. Price got this
+right?&#8221; he asked Audrey, putting the music respectfully in
+front of her.</p>
+
+<p>It included the reduced score of the Beethoven violin
+concerto, and other items to be performed that night at the
+Salle Xavier.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Thank you, Mr. Price!&#8221; said Audrey. The
+music was so fresh and glossy and luscious to the eye that
+it was like a gift of fruit.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;ll do, then, Price,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman. &#8220;Don&#8217;t forget
+about those things for to-night, will you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, sir. I have a note of all of them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Price bowed and turned away, assuming his perfect
+hat. As he approached the door Tommy intercepted him;
+and said something to him in a low voice, to which he uncomfortably
+mumbled a reply. As they had admittedly been
+friends in Mr. Price&#8217;s artistic days, exception could not be
+taken to this colloquy. Nevertheless Audrey, being as
+suspicious as a real widow, regarded it ill, thinking all
+manner of things. And when Tommy, humming, came
+back to her seat on Mr. Gilman&#8217;s left hand, Audrey
+thought: &#8220;And why, after all, should she be on his left
+hand? It is of course proper that I should be on his right,
+but why should Tommy be on his left? Why not Madame
+Piriac or Miss Ingate?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what am <em>I</em> going to do this afternoon?&#8221; demanded
+Miss Ingate, lengthening the space between her nose and her
+upper lip, and turning down the corners of her lower lip.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You have to try that new dress on, Winnie,&#8221; said
+Audrey rather reprovingly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Alone? Me go alone there? I wouldn&#8217;t do it. It&#8217;s
+not respectable the way they look at you and add you up
+and question you in those trying-on rooms, when they&#8217;ve
+<em>got</em> you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, take Elise with you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Me take Elise? I won&#8217;t do it, not unless I could keep
+her mouth full of pins all the time. Whenever we&#8217;re alone,
+and her mouth isn&#8217;t full of pins, she always talks to me as
+if I was an actress. And I&#8217;m not.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then,&#8221; said Miss Nickall kindly, &#8220;come with me
+and Tommy. We haven&#8217;t anything to do, and I&#8217;m taking
+Tommy to see Jane Foley. Jane would love to see you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She might,&#8221; replied Miss Ingate. &#8220;Oh! She might.
+But I think I&#8217;ll walk across to the hotel and just go to bed
+and sleep it off.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sleep what off?&#8221; asked Tommy, with necklace rattling
+and orchidaceous eyes glittering.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Everything! Everything!&#8221; shrieked Miss
+Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>There was one other customer left in the restaurant, a
+solitary fair, fat man, and as Mr. Gilman&#8217;s party was leaving,
+Audrey last, this solitary fair, fat man caught her eye,
+bowed, and rose. It was Mr. Cowl, secretary of the
+National Reformation Society. He greeted her with the
+assurance of an old and valued friend, and he called her
+neither Miss nor Mrs.; he called her nothing at all. Audrey
+accepted his lead.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And is your Society still alive?&#8221; she asked with casual
+polite disdain.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Going strong!&#8221; said Mr. Cowl. &#8220;More flourishing
+than ever&mdash;in spite of our bad luck.&#8221; He lifted his sandy-coloured
+eyebrows. &#8220;Of course I&#8217;m here on Society business.
+In fact, I often have to come to Paris on Society
+business.&#8221; His glance deprecated the appearance of the
+table over which his rounded form was protruding.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;m glad to have seen you again,&#8221; said Audrey,
+holding out her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wonder,&#8221; said Mr. Cowl, drawing some tickets from
+his pocket. &#8220;I wonder whether you&mdash;and your friends&mdash;would
+care to go to a concert to-night at the Salle Xavier.
+The concierge at my hotel is giving tickets away, and I
+took some&mdash;rather to oblige him than anything else. For
+one never knows when a concierge may not be useful. I
+don&#8217;t suppose it will be anything great, but it will pass the
+time, and&mdash;er&mdash;strangers in Paris&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank you, Mr. Cowl, but I&#8217;m not a stranger in Paris.
+I live here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I beg your pardon,&#8221; said Mr. Cowl. &#8220;Excuse
+me. Then you won&#8217;t take them? Pity! I hate to see
+anything wasted.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was both desolated and infuriated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Remember me respectfully to Miss Ingate, please,&#8221;
+finished Mr. Cowl. &#8220;She didn&#8217;t see me as she passed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He returned the tickets to his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, Madame Piriac, standing by her automobile,
+which had rolled up with the silence of an hallucination,
+took leave of Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Eh bien! Au revoir!</em>&#8220; said she shortly, with a peculiar
+challenging half-smile, which seemed to be saying, &#8220;Are you
+going to be worthy of my education? Let us hope so.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Miss Nickall, with her grey hair growing fluffier
+under a somewhat rakish hat, said with a smile of sheer
+intense watchful benevolence:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, good-bye!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>While Nick was ecstatically thanking Mr. Gilman for
+his hospitality, Tommy called Audrey aside. Madame
+Piriac&#8217;s car had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you heard about the rehearsal this morning?&#8221;
+she asked, in a confidential tone, anxious and yet quizzical.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No! What about it?&#8221; Audrey demanded. Various
+apprehensions were competing for attention in her brain.
+The episode of Mr. Cowl had agitated her considerably.
+And now she was standing right against the column
+bearing Musa&#8217;s name in those large letters, and other
+columns up and down the gay, busy street echoed clear
+the name. And how unreal it was!... Tickets being
+given away in half-dozens!... She ought to have been
+profoundly disturbed by such a revelation, and she was.
+But here was the drive with Mr. Gilman insisting on a
+monopoly of all her faculties. And on the top of everything&mdash;Tommy
+with her strange gaze and tone! Tommy
+carefully hesitated before replying.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He lost his temper and left it in the middle&mdash;orchestra
+and conductor and Xavier and all! And he swore he
+wouldn&#8217;t play to-night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nonsense!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, he did.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who told you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Already the two women were addressing each other
+as foes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A man I know in the orchestra.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why didn&#8217;t you tell us at once&mdash;when you came?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I didn&#8217;t want to spoil the luncheon. But of
+course I ought to have done. You, at any rate, seeing
+your interest in the concert! I&#8217;m sorry.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My interest in the concert?&#8221; Audrey objected.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, my girl,&#8221; said Tommy, half cajolingly and half
+threateningly, &#8220;you aren&#8217;t going to stand there and tell
+me to my face that you haven&#8217;t put up that concert
+for him?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Put up the concert! Put up the&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Audrey knew
+she was blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Paid for it! Paid for it!&#8221; said Tommy, with
+impatience.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_40" id="chapter_40" />CHAPTER XL</h2>
+
+
+<h3>GENIUS AT BAY</h3>
+
+<p>Audrey got away from the group in front of the restaurant
+with stammering words and crimson confusion. She ran.
+She stopped a taxi and stumbled into it. There remained
+with her vividly the vision of the startled, entirely puzzled
+face of Mr. Gilman, who in an instant had been transformed
+from a happy, dignified and excusably self-satisfied
+human male into an outraged rebel whose grievance had
+overwhelmed his dignity. She had said hurriedly: &#8220;Please
+excuse me not coming with you. But Tommy says something&#8217;s
+happened to Musa, and I must go and see. It&#8217;s
+very important.&#8221; And that was all she had said. Had
+she asked him to drive her to Musa&#8217;s, Mr. Gilman would
+have been very pleased to do so; but she did not think
+of that till it was too late. Her precipitancy had been
+terrible, and had staggered even Tommy. She had no
+idea how the group would arrange itself. And she had
+no very clear idea as to what was wrong with Musa or
+how matters stood in regard to the concert. Tommy had
+asserted that she did not know whether the orchestra and
+its conductor meant to be at their desks in the evening
+just as though nothing whatever had occurred at the
+rehearsal. All was vague, and all was disturbing. She
+had asked Tommy the authority for her assertion that
+she, Audrey, was financing the concert. To which Tommy
+had replied that she had &#8220;guessed, of course.&#8221; And seeing
+that Audrey had only interviewed a concert agent once&mdash;and
+he a London concert agent with relations in Paris
+&mdash;and that she had never uttered a word about the affair
+to anybody except Mr. Foulger, who had been keeping
+an eye on the expenditure, it was not improbable that
+Tommy had just guessed. But she had guessed right.
+She was an uncanny woman. &#8220;Have you ever spoken
+to Musa about&mdash;it?&#8221; Audrey had passionately demanded;
+and Tommy had answered also passionately: &#8220;Of course
+not. I&#8217;m a white woman all through. Haven&#8217;t you learnt
+that yet?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The taxi, although it was a horse-taxi and incapable of
+moving at more than five miles an hour, reached the Rue
+Cassette, which was on the other side of the river and
+quite a long way off, in no time. That is to say, Audrey
+was not aware that any time had passed. She had
+received the address from Tommy, for it was a new
+address, Musa having admittedly risen in the world. The
+house was an old one; it had a curious staircase, with
+china knobs on the principal banisters of the rail, and
+crimson-tasselled bell cords at all the doors of the flats.
+Musa lived at the summit of it. Audrey arrived there
+short of breath, took the crimson-tasselled cord in her
+hand to pull, and then hesitated in order to think.</p>
+
+<p>Why had she come? The response was clear. She
+had come solely because she hated to see a job botched,
+and there was not a moment to lose if it was not to be
+botched. She had come, not because she had the slightest
+sympathetic interest in Musa&mdash;on the contrary, she was
+coldly angry with him&mdash;but because she had a horror of
+fiascos. She had found a genius who needed financing,
+and she, possessing some tons of money, had financed
+him, and she did not mean to see an ounce of her money
+wasted if she could help it. Her interest in the affair
+was artistic and impersonal, and none other. It was the
+duty of wealthy magnates to foster art, and she was
+fostering art, and she would have the thing done neatly
+and completely, or she would know the reason. Fancy
+a rational creature making a scene at a final rehearsal
+and swearing that he would not play, and then bolting!
+It was monstrous! People really did not do such things.
+Assuredly no artist had ever done such a thing before.
+Artists who had a concert all to themselves invariably
+appeared according to advertised promise. An artist who
+was only one among several in a programme might fall
+ill and fail to appear, for such artists are liable to the
+accidents of earthly existence. But an artist who shared
+the programme with nobody else was above the accidents
+of earthly existence and magically protected against colds,
+coughs, influenza, orange peel, automobiles, and all the
+other enemies of mankind. But, of course, Musa was
+peculiar, erratic and unpredictable beyond even the wide
+range granted by society to genius. And yet of late he
+had been behaving himself in a marvellous manner. He
+had never bothered her. On the voyage back to France
+he had not bothered her. They had separated with
+punctilious cordiality. Neither of them had written to the
+other, but she knew that he was working diligently and
+satisfactorily. He was apparently cured of her. It was
+perhaps due to the seeming completeness of his cure that
+her relations with Mr. Gilman had been what they were.
+... And now, suddenly, this!</p>
+
+<p>So with clear conscience she pulled the bell cord.</p>
+
+<p>Musa himself opened the door. He was coatless and
+in a dressing-gown, under which showed glimpses of a new
+smartness. As soon as he saw her he went very pale.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Bon jour</em>,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>He repeated the phrase stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can I come in?&#8221; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He silently signified, with a certain annoying resignation,
+that she might. For one instant she was under a
+tremendous impulse to walk grandly and haughtily down the
+stairs. But she conquered the impulse. He was so pale.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This way, excuse me,&#8221; he said, and preceded her along
+a short, narrow passage which ended in an open door leading
+into a small room. There was no carpet on the floor of
+the passage, and only a quite inadequate rug on the floor
+of the room. The furniture was scanty and poor. There
+was a table, a music stand, a cheap imitation of a Louis
+Quatorze chair, two other chairs, and some piles of music.
+No curtains to the window! Not a picture on the walls!
+On the table a dusty disorder of small objects, including ash-trays,
+and towards the back of it a little account book, open,
+with a pencil on it and a low pile of coppers and a silver
+ten-sou piece on the top of the coppers. Nevertheless this
+interior represented a novel luxuriousness for Musa; for
+previously, as Audrey knew, he had lived in one room, and
+there was no bed here. The flat, indeed, actually comprised
+three rooms. The account book and the pitiful heap
+of coins touched her. She had expended much on the enterprise
+of launching him to glory, and those coins seemed to
+be all that had filtered through to him. The whole dwelling
+was pathetic, and she thought of the splendours of her own
+daily life, of the absolute unimportance to her of such sums
+as would keep Musa in content for a year or for ten years,
+and of the grandiose, majestic, dazzling career of herself and
+Mr. Gilman when their respective fortunes should be joined
+together. And she mysteriously saw Mr. Gilman&#8217;s face
+again, and that too was pathetic. Everything was pathetic.
+She alone seemed to be hard, dominating, overbearing. Her
+conscience waked to fresh activity. Was she losing her
+soul? Where were her ideals? Could she really work in
+full honesty for the feminist cause as the wife of a man
+like Mr. Gilman? He was adorable: she felt in that
+moment that she had a genuine affection for him; but could
+Mrs. Gilman challenge the police, retort audaciously upon
+magistrates, and lie in prison? In a word, could she be a
+martyr? Would Mr. Gilman, with all his amenability, consent?
+Would she herself consent? Would it not be
+ridiculous? Thus her flying, shamed thoughts in front of
+the waiting Musa!</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then you aren&#8217;t ill?&#8221; she began.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ill!&#8221; he exclaimed. &#8220;Why do you wish that I should
+be ill?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As he answered her he removed his open fiddle case, with
+the violin inside it, from the Louis Quatorze chair, and
+signed to her to sit down. She sat down.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I heard that&mdash;this morning&mdash;at the rehearsal&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! You have heard that?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And I thought perhaps you were ill. So I came to see.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What have you heard?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Frankly, Musa, it is said that you said you would not
+play to-night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Does it concern you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It concerns everyone.... And you have been so
+good lately.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! I have been good lately. You have heard that.
+And did you expect me to continue to be good when you
+returned to Paris and passed all your days in public with
+that antique and grotesque Monsieur Gilman? All the world
+sees you. I myself have seen you. It is horrible.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She controlled herself. And the fact that she was intensely
+flattered helped her to do so.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now Musa,&#8221; she said, firmly and kindly, as on previous
+occasions she had spoken to him. &#8220;Do be reasonable. I
+refuse to be angry, and it is impossible for you to insult me,
+however much you try. But do be reasonable. Do think
+of the future. We are all wishing for your success. We
+shall all be there. And now you say you aren&#8217;t going to
+play. It is really too much.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You have perhaps bought tickets,&#8221; said Musa, and a
+flush gradually spread over his cheeks. &#8220;You have perhaps
+bought tickets, and you are afraid lest you have been
+robbed. Tranquillise yourself, Madame. If you have the
+least fear, I will instruct my agent to reimburse you. And
+why should I not play? Naturally I shall play. Accept my
+word, if you can.&#8221; He spoke with an icy and convincing
+decision.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I&#8217;m so glad!&#8221; Audrey murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What right have you to be glad, Madame? If you are
+glad it is your own affair. Have I troubled you since we
+last met? I need the sympathy of nobody. I am assured
+of a large audience. My impresario is excessively optimistic.
+And if this is so, I owe it to none but myself. You speak
+of insults. Permit me to say that I regard your patronage
+as an insult. I have done nothing, I imagine, to deserve
+it. I crack my head to divine what I have done to deserve
+it. You hear some silly talk about a rehearsal and you
+precipitate yourself <em>chez moi</em>&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Without a word Audrey rose and departed. He followed
+her to the door and held it open.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Bon jour</em>, Madame.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She descended the stairs. Perhaps it was his sudden
+illogical change of tone; perhaps it was the memory of his
+phrase, &#8220;assured of a large audience,&#8221; coupled with a
+picture of the sinister Mr. Cowl unsuccessfully trying to
+give away tickets&mdash;but whatever was the origin of the sob,
+she did give a sob. As she walked downcast through the
+courtyard she heard clearly the sounds of Musa&#8217;s violin,
+played with savage vigour.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_41" id="chapter_41" />CHAPTER XLI</h2>
+
+
+<h3>FINANCIAL NEWS</h3>
+
+<p>The Salle Xavier, or Xavier Hall, had been built, with
+other people&#8217;s money, by Xavier in order to force the
+general public to do something which the general public
+does not want to do and never would do of its own accord.
+Namely, to listen to high-class music. It had not been built,
+and it was not run, strange to say, to advertise a certain
+brand of piano. Xavier was an old Jew, of surpassing
+ugliness, from Cracow or some such place. He looked a
+rascal, and he was one&mdash;admittedly; he himself would imply
+it, if not crudely admit it. He had no personal interest in
+music, either high-class or low-class. But he possessed a
+gift for languages and he had mixed a great deal with
+musicians in an informal manner. Wagner, at Venice, had
+once threatened Xavier with a stick, and also Xavier had
+twice run away with great exponents of the rĂ´le of Isolde.
+His competence as a connoisseur of Wagner&#8217;s music, and
+of the proper methods of rendering Wagner&#8217;s music, could
+therefore not be questioned, and it was not questioned.</p>
+
+<p>He had a habit of initiating grandiose schemes for opera
+or concerts and of obtaining money therefor from wealthy
+amateurs. After a few months he would return the money
+less ten per cent. for preliminary expenses and plus his
+regrets that the schemes had unhappily fallen through owing
+to unforeseen difficulties. And wealthy amateurs were so
+astonished to get ninety per cent. of their money back from
+a rascal that they thought him almost an honest man, asked
+him to dinner, and listened sympathetically to details of
+his next grandiose scheme. The Xavier Hall was one of the
+few schemes&mdash;and the only real estate scheme&mdash;that had
+ever gone through. With the hall for a centre, Xavier laid
+daily his plans and conspiracies for persuading the public
+against its will. To this end he employed in large numbers
+clerks, printers, bill posters, ticket agents, doorkeepers, programme
+writers, programme sellers, charwomen, and even
+artists. He always had some new dodge or hope. The hall
+was let several times a week for concerts or other entertainments,
+and many of them were private speculations of
+Xavier. They were nearly all failures. And the hall,
+thoroughly accustomed to seeing itself half empty, did not
+pay interest on its capital. How could it? Upon occasions
+there had actually been more persons in the orchestra than
+in the audience. Seated in the foyer, with one eye upon a
+shabby programme girl and another upon the street outside,
+Xavier would sometimes refer to these facts in conversation
+with a titled patron, and would describe the public
+realistically and without pretence of illusion. Nevertheless,
+Xavier had grown to be a rich man, for percentages were his
+hourly food; he received them even from programme sellers.
+At nine o&#8217;clock the hall was rather less than half full,
+and this was rightly regarded as very promising, for the
+management, like the management of every place of distraction
+in Paris, held it a point of honour to start from twenty
+to thirty minutes late&mdash;as though all Parisians had many
+ages ago decided that in Paris one could not be punctual,
+and that, long since tired of waiting for each other, they
+had entered into a competition to make each other wait, the
+individual who arrived last being universally regarded as
+the winner. The members of the orchestra were filing
+negligently in from the back of the vast terraced platform,
+yawning, and ravaged by the fearful ennui of eternal high-class
+music. They entered in dozens and scores, and they
+kept on entering, and as they gazed inimically at each other,
+fingering their instruments, their pale faces seemed to be
+asking: &#8220;Why should it be necessary to collect so many
+of us in order to prove that just one single human being
+can play the violin? We can all play the violin, or something
+else just as good. And we have all been geniuses in
+our time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In strong contrast to their fatigued and disastrous indifference
+was the demeanour of a considerable group of
+demonstrators in the gallery. This body had crossed the
+Seine from the sacred Quarter, and, not owning a wardrobe
+sufficiently impressive to entitle it to ask for free seats, it
+had paid for its seats. Hence naturally its seats were the
+worst in the hall. But the group did not care. It was
+capable of exciting itself about high-class music. Moreover
+it had, for that night, an article of religious faith, to
+wit, that Musa was the greatest violinist that had ever lived
+or ever could live, and it was determined to prove this article
+of faith by sheer force of hands and feet. Therefore it was
+very happy, and just a little noisy.</p>
+
+<p>In the main part of the hall the audience could be
+divided into two species, one less numerous than the other.
+First, the devotees of music, who went to nearly every
+concert, extremely knowing, extremely blasé, extremely
+disdainful and fastidious, with precise views about every
+musical composition, every conductor, and every performer;
+weary of melodious nights at which the same melodies were
+ever heard, but addicted to them, as some people are
+addicted to vices equally deleterious. These devotees would
+have had trouble with their conscience or their instincts had
+they not, by coming to the concert, put themselves in a
+position to affirm exactly and positively what manner of a
+performer Musa was. They had no hope of being pleased
+by him. Indeed they knew beforehand that he was yet
+another false star, but they had to ascertain the truth for
+themselves, because&mdash;you see&mdash;there was a slight chance
+that he might be a genuine star, in which case their careers
+would have been ruined had they not been able to say to
+succeeding generations: &#8220;I was at his first concert. It was
+a memorable,&#8221; etc. etc. They were an emaciated tribe,
+and in fact had the air of mummies temporarily revived and
+escaped out of museums. They were shabby, but not with
+the gallery shabbiness; they were shabby because shabbiness
+was part of their unworldly refinement; and it did not
+matter&mdash;they would have got their free seats even if they
+had come in sacks and cerements.</p>
+
+<p>The second main division of the audience&mdash;and the
+larger&mdash;consisted of the jolly pleasure seekers, who had
+dined well, who respected Beethoven no more than Oscar
+Straus, and who demanded only one boon&mdash;not to be bored.
+They had full dimpled cheeks, and they were adequately
+attired, and they dropped cigarettes with reluctance in the
+foyer, and they entered adventurously with marked courage,
+well aware that they had come to something queer and
+dangerous, something that was neither a revue nor a
+musical comedy, and, while hoping optimistically for the
+best, determined to march boldly out again in the event
+of the worst. They had seven mortal evenings a week to
+dispose of somehow, and occasionally they were obliged to
+take risks. Their expressions for the most part had that
+condescension which is characteristic of those who take a
+risk without being paid for it.</p>
+
+<p>All around the hall ran a horseshoe of private boxes,
+between the balcony and the gallery. These boxes gradually
+filled. At a quarter-past nine over half of them were
+occupied; which fact, combined with the stylishness of the
+hats in them, proved that Xavier had immense skill in
+certain directions, and that on that night, for some reason
+or other, he had been doing his very best.</p>
+
+<p>At twenty minutes past nine the audience had coalesced
+and become an entity, and the group from the Quarter was
+stamping an imitation of the first bars of the C minor
+Symphony, to indicate that further delay might involve
+complications.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey sat with Miss Ingate modestly and inconspicuously
+in the fifth row of the stalls. Miss Ingate, prodigious
+in crimson, was in a state of beatitude, because she
+never went to concerts and imagined that she had inadvertently
+slipped into heaven. The mere size of the
+orchestra so overwhelmed her that she was convinced that
+it was an orchestra specially enlarged to meet the unique
+importance of Musa&#8217;s genius. &#8220;They <em>must</em> think highly of
+him!&#8221; she said. She employed the time in looking about
+her. She had already found, besides many other Anglo-Saxon
+acquaintances, Rosamund, in black, Tommy with
+Nick, and Mr. Cowl, who was one seat to Audrey&#8217;s left in
+the sixth row of the stalls. Also Mr. Gilman and Madame
+Piriac and Monsieur Piriac in a double box. Audrey and
+herself ought to have been in that box, and had the afternoon
+developed otherwise they probably would have been in that
+box. Fortunately at the luncheon, Audrey, who had
+bought various lots of seats, had with the strange cautiousness
+of a young girl left herself free to utilise or not to
+utilise the offered hospitality of Mr. Gilman&#8217;s double box,
+and Mr. Gilman had not pressed her for a decision. Was
+it not important that the hall should seem as full as
+possible? When Miss Ingate, pushing her investigations
+farther, had discovered not merely Monsieur Dauphin, but
+Mr. Ziegler, late of Frinton and now resident in Paris, her
+cup was full.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s vehy wonderful, <em>vehy</em> wonderful!&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>But it was Audrey who most deeply had the sense of
+the wonderfulness of the thing. For it was Audrey who
+had created it. Having months ago comprehended that a
+formal and splendid debut was necessary for Musa if he
+was to succeed within a reasonable space of time, she had
+willed the debut within her own brain. She alone had
+thought of it. And now the realisation seemed to her to be
+absolutely a miracle. Had she read of such an affair a
+year earlier in a newspaper&mdash;with the words &#8220;Paris,&#8221; &#8220;<em>tout
+Paris</em>,&#8221; &#8220;young genius,&#8221; and so on&mdash;she would have
+pictured it as gloriously, thrillingly romantic, and it indeed
+was gloriously and thrillingly romantic. She thought:
+&#8220;None of these people sitting around me know that
+I have brought it about, and that it is all mine.&#8221; The
+thought was sweet. She felt like an invisible African genie
+out of the Thousand and One Nights.</p>
+
+<p>And yet what had she done to bring it about? Nothing,
+simply nothing, except to command it! She had not even
+signed cheques. Mr. Foulger had signed the cheques! Mr.
+Foulger, who set down the whole enterprise as incomprehensible
+lunacy! Mr. Foulger, who had never been to
+aught but a smoking-concert in his life, and who could
+not pronounce the name of Beethoven without hesitations!
+The great deed had cost money, and it would cost more
+money; it would probably cost four hundred pounds ere it
+was finished with. An extravagant sum, but Xavier had
+motor-cars and toys even more expensive than motor-cars
+to keep up! Audrey, however, considered it a small sum,
+compared to the terrific spectacular effect obtained. And
+she was right. The attributes of money seemed entirely
+magical to her. And she was right again. She respected
+money with a new respect. And she respected herself for
+using money with such large grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>And withal she was most horribly nervous, just as
+nervous as though it was she who was doomed to face
+the indifferent and exacting audience with nothing but a
+violin bow for weapon. She was so nervous that she
+could not listen, could not even follow Miss Ingate&#8217;s simple
+remarks; she heard them as from a long distance, and
+grasped them after a long interval. Still, she was uplifted,
+doughty, and proud. The humiliation of the afternoon had
+vanished like a mist. Nay, she felt glad that Musa had
+behaved to her just as he did behave. His mien pleased
+her; his wounding words, each of which she clearly remembered,
+were a source of delight. She had never
+admired him so much. She had now no resentment against
+him. He had proved that her hopes of him were, after all,
+well justified. He would succeed. Only some silly and improbable
+accident could stop him from succeeding. She
+was not nervous about his success. She was nervous for
+him. She became him. She tuned his fiddle, gathered
+herself together and walked on to the platform, bowed to
+the dim multitudinous heads in front of him, looked at the
+conductor, waited for the opening bars, drew his bow
+across his strings at precisely the correct second, and heard
+the resulting sound under her ear. And all that before the
+conductor had appeared! Such were the manifestations of
+her purely personal desire for the achievement of a neat,
+clean job.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;See!&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;Mr. Gilman is bowing to
+us. He does look splendid, and isn&#8217;t Madame Piriac lovely?
+I must say I don&#8217;t care so much for these French husbands.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had to turn and join Miss Ingate in acknowledging
+the elaborate bow. At any rate, then, Mr. Gilman had
+not been utterly estranged by her capricious abandonment of
+him. And why should he be? He was a man of sense;
+he would understand perfectly when she explained to-morrow.
+Further, he was her slave. She was sure of him. She
+would apologise to him. She would richly recompense him
+by smiles and honey and charming persuasive simplicity.
+And he would see that with all her innocent and modest
+ingenuousness she was capable of acting seriously and
+effectively in a sudden crisis. She would rise higher in
+his esteem. As for the foreseen proposal, well&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A sporadic clapping wakened her out of those reflections.
+The conductor was approaching his desk. The orchestra
+applauded him. He tapped the desk and raised his stick.
+And there was a loud noise, the thumping of her heart.
+The concert had begun. Musa was still invisible&mdash;what
+was he doing at that instant, somewhere behind?&mdash;but the
+concert had begun. Stars do not take part in the first
+item of an orchestral concert. There is a convention that
+they shall be preluded; and Musa was preluded by the
+overture to <em>Die Meistersinger</em>. In the soft second section
+of the overture, a most noticeable babble came from a
+stage-box. &#8220;Oh! It&#8217;s the Foas,&#8221; muttered Miss Ingate.
+&#8220;What a lot of people are fussing around them!&#8221; &#8220;Hsh!&#8221;
+frowned Audrey, outraged by the interruption. Madame
+Foa took about fifty bars in which to settle herself, and
+Monsieur Foa chattered to people behind him as freely as
+if he had been in a café Nobody seemed to mind.</p>
+
+<p>The overture was applauded, but Madame Foa, instead
+of applauding, leaned gracefully back, smiling, and waved
+somebody to the seat beside her.</p>
+
+<p>Violent demonstrations from the gallery!... He was
+there, tripping down the stepped pathway between the
+drums. The demonstrations grew general. The orchestra
+applauded after its own fashion. He reached the conductor,
+smiled at the conductor and bowed very admirably.
+He seemed to be absolutely at his ease. Then there was
+a delay. The conductor&#8217;s scores had got themselves mixed
+up. It was dreadful. It was enough to make a woman
+shriek.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I say!&#8221; said a voice in Audrey&#8217;s ear. She turned as
+if shot. Mr. Cowl&#8217;s round face was close to hers. &#8220;I
+suppose you saw the <em>New York Herald</em> this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; answered Audrey impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra started the Beethoven violin Concerto.
+But Mr. Cowl kept his course.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t you?&#8221; he said. &#8220;About the Zacatecas Oil
+Corporation? It&#8217;s under a receivership. It&#8217;s gone smash.
+I&#8217;ve had an idea for some time it would. All due to these
+Mexican revolutions. I thought you might like to know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa&#8217;s bow hung firmly over the strings.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_42" id="chapter_42" />CHAPTER XLII</h2>
+
+
+<h3>INTERVAL</h3>
+
+<p>The most sinister feature of entertainments organised by
+Xavier was the intervals. Xavier laid stress on intervals;
+they gave repose, and in many cases they saved money. All
+Paris managers are inclined to give to the interval the
+importance of a star turn, and Xavier in this respect surpassed
+his rivals, though he perhaps regarded his cloak-rooms,
+which were organised to cause the largest possible
+amount of inconvenience to the largest possible number of
+people, as his surest financial buttress. Xavier could or
+would never see the close resemblance of intervals to wet
+blankets, extinguishers, palls and hostile critics. The
+Allegro movement of the Concerto was a real success, and
+the audience as a whole would have applauded even more if
+the gallery in particular had not applauded so much. The
+second or Larghetto movement was also a success, but to a
+less degree. As for the third and last movement, it put the
+gallery into an ecstasy while leaving the floor in possession
+of full critical faculties. Musa retired and had to return,
+and when he returned the floor good-humouredly joined the
+vociferous gallery in laudations, and he had to return again.
+Then the interminable interval. Silence! Murmurings!
+Silence! Creepings towards exits! And in many, very
+many hearts the secret trouble question: &#8220;Why are we
+here? What have we come for? What is all this pother
+about art and genius? Honestly, shall we not be glad and
+relieved when the solemn old thing is over?"... And
+the desolating, cynical indifference of the conductor and the
+orchestra! Often there is a clearer vision of the truth
+during the intervals of a classical concert than on a
+deathbed.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was extremely depressed in the interval after
+the Beethoven Concerto and before the Lalo. But she was
+not depressed by the news of the accident to the Zacatecas
+Oil Corporation in which was the major part of her wealth.
+The tidings had stunned rather than injured that part of her
+which was capable of being affected by finance. She had
+not felt the blow. Moreover she was protected by the
+knowledge that she had thousands of pounds in hand and
+also the Moze property intact, and further she was already
+reconsidering her newly-acquired respect for money. No!
+What depressed her was a doubt as to the genius of Musa.
+In the long dreadful pause it seemed impossible that he
+should have genius. The entire concert presented itself as
+a grotesque farce, of which she as its creator ought to be
+ashamed. She was ready to kill Xavier or his responsible
+representative.</p>
+
+<p>Then she saw the tall and calm Rosamund, with her
+grey hair and black attire and her subduing self-complacency,
+making a way between the rows of stalls towards
+her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wanted to see you,&#8221; said Rosamund, after the formal
+greetings. &#8220;Very much.&#8221; Her voice was as kind and as
+unrelenting as the grave.</p>
+
+<p>At this point Miss Ingate ought to have yielded her
+seat to the terrific Rosamund, but she failed to do so,
+doubtless by inadvertence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you come into the foyer for a moment?&#8221; Rosamund
+inflexibly suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t the interval nearly over?&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And as a fact there was not the slightest sign of the
+interval being nearly over. Audrey obediently rose. But
+the invitation had been so conspicuously addressed to herself
+that Miss Ingate, gathering her wits, remained in her
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>The foyer&mdash;decorated in the Cracovian taste&mdash;was dotted
+with cigarette smokers and with those who had fled from
+the interval. Rosamund did not sit down; she did not try
+for seclusion in a corner. She stepped well into the foyer,
+and then stood still, and absently lighted a cigarette,
+omitting to offer a cigarette to Audrey. Rosamund&#8217;s air of
+a deaconess made the cigarette extremely remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wanted to tell you about Jane Foley,&#8221; began
+Rosamund quietly. &#8220;Have you heard?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No! What?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course you haven&#8217;t. I alone knew. She has run
+away to England.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Run away! But she&#8217;ll be caught!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She may be. But that is not all. She has run away
+to get married. She dared not tell me. She wrote me.
+She put the letter in the manuscript of the last chapter
+but one of her book, which I am revising for her. She will
+almost certainly be caught if she tries to get married in
+her own name. Therefore she will get married in a false
+name. All this, however, is not what I wanted to tell
+you about.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then you shouldn&#8217;t have begun to talk about it,&#8221; said
+Audrey suddenly. &#8220;Did you expect me to let you leave it
+in the middle! Jane getting married! I do think she
+might have told me.... What next, I wonder! I suppose
+you&#8217;ve&mdash;er&mdash;lost her now?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not entirely, I believe,&#8221; said Rosamund. &#8220;Certainly
+not entirely. But of course I could never trust her again.
+This is the worst blow I have ever had. She says&mdash;but why
+go into that? Well, she does say she will work as hard
+as ever, nearly; and that her future husband strongly
+supports us&mdash;and so on.&#8221; Rosamund smiled with complete
+detachment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And who&#8217;s he?&#8221; Audrey demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;His name is Aguilar,&#8221; said Rosamund. &#8220;So she says.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. I gather&mdash;I say I gather&mdash;that he belongs to
+the industrial class. But of course that is precisely the
+class that Jane springs from. Odd! Is it not? Heredity,
+I presume.&#8221; She raised her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said nothing. She was too shocked to speak&mdash;not
+pained or outraged, but simply shaken. What in the
+name of Juno could Jane see in Aguilar? Jane, to whom
+every man was the hereditary enemy! Aguilar, who had
+no use for either man or woman! Aguilar, a man without
+a Christian name, one of those men in connection with
+whom a Christian name is impossibly ridiculous. How
+should she, Audrey, address Aguilar in future? Would he
+have to be asked to tea? These vital questions naturally
+transcended all others in Audrey&#8217;s mind.... Still (she
+veered round), it was perhaps after all just the union that
+might have been expected.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now,&#8221; said Rosamund at length, &#8220;I have a
+question to put to you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want a definite answer here and now.&#8221; She
+looked round disdainfully at the foyer. &#8220;But I do want
+to set your mind on the right track at the earliest possible
+moment&mdash;before any accidents occur.&#8221; She smiled
+satirically. &#8220;You see how frank I am with you. I&#8217;ll be
+more frank still, and tell you that I came to this concert
+to-night specially to see you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you?&#8221; Audrey murmured. &#8220;Well!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The older woman looked down upon her from a superior
+height. Her eyes were those of an autocrat. It was
+quite possible to see in them the born leader who had
+dominated thousands of women and played a drawn game
+with the British Government itself. But Audrey, at the
+very moment when she was feeling the overbearing magic
+of that gaze, happened to remember the scene in Madame
+Piriac&#8217;s automobile on the night of her first arrival in
+Paris, when she herself was asleep and Rosamund, not
+knowing that she was asleep, had been solemnly addressing
+her. Miss Ingate&#8217;s often repeated account of the scene
+always made her laugh, and the memory of it now caused
+her to smile faintly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I want to suggest to you,&#8221; Rosamund proceeded,
+&#8220;that you begin to work for me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For the suffrage&mdash;or for you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is the same thing,&#8221; said Rosamund coldly. &#8220;I
+am the suffrage. Without me the cause would not have
+existed to-day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;of course I will. I have done
+a bit already, you know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I know,&#8221; Rosamund admitted. &#8220;You did very
+well at the Blue City. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m approaching you.
+That&#8217;s why I&#8217;ve chosen you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Chosen me for what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You know that a new great campaign will soon begin.
+It is all arranged. It will necessitate my returning to
+England and challenging the police. You know also that
+Jane Foley was to have been my lieutenant-in-chief&mdash;for
+the active part of the operation. You will admit that I
+can no longer count on her completely. Will you take
+her place?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll help,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I&#8217;ll do what I can. I dare
+say I shan&#8217;t have much money, because one of those
+&#8217;accidents&#8217; you mentioned has happened to me already.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That need not trouble you,&#8221; replied Rosamund imperturbable.
+&#8220;I have always been able to get all the
+money that was needed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;ll help all I can.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s not what I ask,&#8221; said Rosamund inflexibly.
+&#8220;Will you take Jane Foley&#8217;s place? Will you give yourself
+utterly?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey answered with sudden vehemence:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I won&#8217;t. You didn&#8217;t want a definite answer, but
+there it is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But surely you believe in the cause?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the greatest of all causes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m rather inclined to think it is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why not give yourself, then? You are free. I have
+given myself, my child.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Audrey, who resented the appellation of
+&#8220;child.&#8221; &#8220;But, you see, it&#8217;s your hobby.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My hobby, Mrs. Moncreiff!&#8221; exclaimed Rosamund.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly, your hobby,&#8221; Audrey persisted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have sacrificed everything to it,&#8221; said Rosamund.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pardon me,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think you&#8217;ve
+sacrificed anything to it. You just enjoy bossing other
+people above everything, and it gives you every chance
+to boss. And you enjoy plots too, and look at the chances
+you get for that&#8217;. Mind you, I like you for it. I think
+you&#8217;re splendid. Only <em>I</em> don&#8217;t want to be a monomaniac,
+and I won&#8217;t be.&#8221; Her convictions seemed to have become
+suddenly clear and absolutely decided.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean to infer that I am a monomaniac?&#8221;
+asked Rosamund, raising her eyebrows&mdash;but only a little.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;as you mentioned frankness&mdash;what
+else would you call yourself but a monomaniac?
+You only live for one thing&mdash;don&#8217;t you, now?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is the greatest thing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t say it isn&#8217;t,&#8221; Audrey admitted. &#8220;But I&#8217;ve
+been thinking a good deal about all this, and at last I&#8217;ve
+come to the conclusion that one thing-isn&#8217;t enough for
+me, not nearly enough. And I&#8217;m not going to be peculiar
+at any price. Neither a fanatic nor a monomaniac, nor
+anything like that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are in love,&#8221; asserted Rosamund.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what if I am? If you ask me, I think a girl
+who isn&#8217;t in love ought to be somewhat ashamed of herself,
+or at least sorry for herself. And I am sorry for myself,
+because I am not in love. I wish I was. Why shouldn&#8217;t
+I be? It must be lovely to be in love. If I was in love
+I shouldn&#8217;t be <em>only</em> in love. You think you understand
+what girls are nowadays, but you don&#8217;t. I didn&#8217;t myself
+until just lately. But I&#8217;m beginning to. Girls were
+supposed to be only interested in one thing&mdash;in your time.
+Monomaniacs, that&#8217;s what they had to be. You changed
+all that, or you&#8217;re trying to change it, but you only mean
+women to be monomaniacs about something else. It isn&#8217;t
+good enough. I want everything, and I&#8217;m going to get it&mdash;or
+have a good try for it. I&#8217;ll never be a martyr if I can
+help it. And I believe I can help it. I believe I&#8217;ve got
+just enough common sense to save me from being a martyr
+&mdash;either to a husband or a house or family&mdash;or a cause.
+I want to have a husband and a house and a family,
+and a cause too. That&#8217;ll be just about everything, won&#8217;t
+it? And if you imagine I can&#8217;t look after all of them at
+once, all I can say is I don&#8217;t agree with you. Because
+I&#8217;ve got an idea I can. Supposing I had all these things,
+I fancy I could have a tiff with my husband and make
+it up, play with my children, alter a dress, change the
+furniture, tackle the servants, and go out to a meeting
+and perhaps have a difficulty with the police&mdash;all in one
+day. Only if I did get into trouble with the police I
+should pay the fine&mdash;you see. The police aren&#8217;t going to
+have me altogether. Nobody is. Nobody, man or woman,
+is going to be able to boast that he&#8217;s got me altogether.
+You think you&#8217;re independent. But you aren&#8217;t. We girls
+will show you what independence is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re a rather surprising young creature,&#8221; observed
+Rosamund with a casual air, unmoved. &#8220;You&#8217;re quite
+excited.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. I surprise myself. But these things do come
+in bursts. I&#8217;ve noticed that before. They weren&#8217;t clear
+when you began to talk. They&#8217;re clear now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let me tell you this,&#8221; said Rosamund. &#8220;A cause
+must have martyrs.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see it,&#8221; Audrey protested. &#8220;I should have
+thought common sense would be lots more useful than
+martyrs. And monomaniacs never do have common
+sense.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re very young.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is that meant for an insult, or is it just a statement?&#8221;
+Audrey laughed pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>And Rosamund laughed too.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just a statement,&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, here&#8217;s another statement,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;re
+very old. That&#8217;s where I have the advantage of you.
+Still, tell me what I can do in your new campaign, and
+I&#8217;ll do it if I can. But there isn&#8217;t going to be any utterly
+&mdash;that&#8217;s all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think the interval is over,&#8221; said Rosamund with
+finality. &#8220;Perhaps we&#8217;d better adjourn.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The foyer had nearly emptied. The distant sound of
+music could be heard.</p>
+
+<p>As she was re-entering the hall, Audrey met Mr. Cowl,
+who was coming out.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have decided I can&#8217;t stand any more,&#8221; Mr. Cowl
+remarked in a loud whisper. &#8220;I hope you didn&#8217;t mind
+me telling you about the Zacatecas. As I said, I thought
+you might be interested. Good-bye. So pleasant to have
+met you again, dear lady.&#8221; His face had the same
+enigmatic smile which had made him so formidable at
+Moze.</p>
+
+<p>Musa had already begun to play the Spanish Symphony
+of Lalo, without which no genius is permitted to make
+his formal debut on the violin in France.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_43" id="chapter_43" />CHAPTER XLIII</h2>
+
+
+<h3>ENTR&#8217;ACTE</h3>
+
+<p>After the Spanish Symphony not only the conductor but
+the entire orchestra followed Musa from the platform, and
+Audrey understood that the previous interval had not really
+been an interval and that the first genuine interval was
+about to begin. The audience seemed to understand this
+too, for practically the whole of it stood up and moved
+towards the doors. Audrey would have stayed in her
+seat, but Miss Ingate expressed a desire to go out and
+&#8220;see the fun&#8221; in the foyer, and, moreover, she asserted
+that the Foas from their box had been signalling to her
+and Audrey an intention to meet them in the foyer. Miss
+Ingate was in excellent spirits. She said it beat her how
+Musa&#8217;s fingers could get through so many notes in so
+short a time, and also that it made her feel tired even
+to watch the fingers. She was convinced that nobody had
+ever handled the violin so marvellously before. As for
+success, Musa had been recalled, and the applause from
+the gallery, fired by its religious belief, was obstinate and
+extremely vociferous. Audrey, however, was aware of
+terrible sick qualms, for she knew that Musa was not so
+far dominating his public. Much of the applause had
+obviously the worst quality that applause can have&mdash;it was
+good-natured. Yet she could not accept failure for Musa.
+Failure would be too monstrous an injustice, and therefore
+it could not happen.</p>
+
+<p>The emptiness of the Foas&#8217; box indicated that Miss
+Ingate might be correct in her interpretation of signals,
+and Audrey allowed herself to be led away from the now
+forlorn auditorium. As they filed along the gangways she
+had to listen to the indifferent remarks of utterly unprejudiced
+and uninterested persons about the performance
+of genius, and further she had to learn that a fair proportion
+of them were departing with no intention to return.
+In the thronged foyer they saw Mr. Gilman, alone, before
+he saw them. He was carrying a box of chocolates&mdash;doubtless
+one of the little things that Mr. Price had had
+instructions to provide for the evening, Mr. Gilman perhaps
+would not have caught sight of them had it not been
+for the stridency of Miss Ingate&#8217;s voice, which caused him
+to turn round.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey experienced once again the sensation&mdash;which
+latterly was apt to recur in her&mdash;of having too many
+matters on her mind simultaneously; in a phrase, the
+sensation of the exceeding complexity of existence. And
+she resented it. The interview with Rosamund was quite
+enough for one night. It had been a triumph for her; she
+had surprised herself in that interview; it had left her with
+a conviction of freedom; it had uplifted her. She ought
+to have been in a state of exaltation after that interview,
+and she was. Only, while in a state of exaltation, she
+was still in the old state of depression&mdash;about the tendency
+of the concert, of her concert, and about the rumoured
+disappearance of her fortune. Also she was preoccupied
+by the very strange affair of Jane Foley and Aguilar.</p>
+
+<p>And now&mdash;a further intricacy of mood&mdash;came a whole
+new set of emotions due to the mere spectacle of Mr.
+Gilman&#8217;s august back! She was intimidated by Mr. Gilman&#8217;s
+back. She knew horribly that in the afternoon she had
+treated Mr. Gilman as Mr. Gilman ought never to have
+been treated. And, quite apart from intimidation, she had
+another feeling, a feeling which was ghastly and of which
+she was ashamed.... Assuming the disappearance of her
+fortune, would Mr. Gilman&#8217;s attitude towards her be thereby
+changed? ... She admitted that young girls ought not
+to have such suspicions against respectable and mature
+men of established position in the world. Nevertheless,
+she could not blow the suspicion away.</p>
+
+<p>But the instant Mr. Gilman&#8217;s eye met hers the suspicion
+vanished, and not the suspicion only, but all her
+intimidation. The miracle was produced by something in
+the gaze of Mr. Gilman as it rested on her, something
+wistful&mdash;not more definable than that, something which she
+had noticed in Mr. Gilman&#8217;s gaze on other occasions. It
+perfectly restored her. It gave her the positive assurance
+of a fact which marvellously enheartens young girls of
+about Audrey&#8217;s years&mdash;to wit, that they have a mysterious
+power surpassing the power of age, knowledge, wisdom,
+or wealth, that they influence and decide the course of
+history, and are the sole true mistresses of the world.
+Whence the mysterious power sprang she did not exactly
+know, but she surmised&mdash;rightly&mdash;that it was connected
+with her youth, with a dimple, with the incredibly soft
+down on her cheek, with the arch softness of her glance,
+with a gesture of the hand, with a turn of the shoulder,
+with a pleat of the skirt.... Anyhow, she possessed it,
+and to possess it was to wield it. It transformed her
+into a delicious tyrant, but a tyrant; it inspired her with
+exquisite cruelty, but cruelty. Her thoughts might have
+been summed up in eight words:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pooh! He has suffered. Well, he must suffer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Ah! But she meant to be very kind to him. He was
+so reliable, so adorable, and so dependent. She had
+genuine affection for him. And he was at once a rock
+and a cushion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it going splendidly&mdash;splendidly, Mr. Gilman?&#8221;
+exclaimed Miss Ingate in her enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Apparently,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, with comfort in his
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the musical critic with large, dark
+Eastern eyes, whom Audrey had met at the Foas&#8217;, strolled
+nonchalantly by, and, perceiving Miss Ingate, described a
+huge and perfect curve in the air with his glossy silk hat,
+which had been tipped at the back of his head. Mr.
+Gilman had come close to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Foas started down with me,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman
+mildly. &#8220;But they always meet such crowds of acquaintances
+at these affairs that they seldom get anywhere.
+Hortense would not leave the box. She never will.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I&#8217;m so glad I&#8217;ve seen you,&#8221; Audrey began
+excitedly, but with simplicity and compelling sweetness.
+&#8220;You&#8217;ve no idea how sorry I am about this afternoon!
+I&#8217;m frightfully sorry, really! But I was so upset. I
+didn&#8217;t know what to do. You know how anxious everybody
+was about Musa for to-night. He&#8217;s the pet of the
+Quarter, and, of course, I belong to the Quarter. At
+least&mdash;I did. I thought he might be ill, or something.
+However, it was all right in the end. I was looking
+forward tremendously to that drive. Are you going to
+forgive me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Please, please!&#8221; he eagerly entreated, with a faint
+blush. &#8220;Of course, I quite understand. There&#8217;s nothing
+whatever to forgive.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! but there is,&#8221; she insisted. &#8220;Only you&#8217;re so
+good-natured.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was being magnanimous. She was pretending that
+she had no mysterious power. But her motive was quite
+pure. If he was good-natured, so was she. She honestly
+wanted to recompense him, and to recompense him richly.
+And she did. Her demeanour was enchanting in its ingenuous
+flattery. She felt happy despite all her anxieties,
+for he was living up to her ideal of him. She felt happy,
+and her resolve to make him happy to the very limit of
+his dreams was intense. She had a vision of her future
+existence stretching out in front of her, and there was
+not a shadow on it. She thought he was going to offer
+her the box of chocolates, but he did not.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I rather wanted to ask your advice,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish you would,&#8221; he replied.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the Foas arrived, and with them Dauphin,
+the great and fashionable painter and the original discoverer
+of Musa. And as they all began to speak at once
+Audrey heard the Oriental musical critic say slowly to an
+inquiring Miss Ingate:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is not a concert talent that he has.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You hear! You hear!&#8221; exclaimed Monsieur Foa to
+Monsieur Dauphin and Madame Foa, with an impressed
+air. &#8220;You hear what Miquette says. He has not a
+concert talent. He has everything that you like, but not
+a concert talent.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Foa seemed to be exhibiting the majestic Oriental, nicknamed
+Miquette, as the final arbiter, whose word settled
+problems like a sword, and Miquette seemed to be trying
+to bear the high rĂ´le with negligent modesty.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, yes, he has! But, yes, he has!&#8221; Dauphin protested,
+sweeping all Miquettes politely away. And then
+there was an urbane riot of greetings, salutes, bowings,
+smilings, cooings and compliments.</p>
+
+<p>Dauphin was magnificent, playing the part of the
+opulent painter <em>Ă  la mode</em> with the most finished skill,
+the most splendid richness of detail. It was notorious that
+in the evenings he wore the finest silk shirts in Paris,
+and his waistcoat was designed to give scope to these
+shirts. He might have come&mdash;he probably had come&mdash;straight
+from the bower of archduchesses; but he produced
+in Audrey the illusion that archduchesses were a trifle
+compared to herself. He had not seen her for a long
+time. Gazing at her, he breathed relief; all his features
+indicated the sudden, unexpected assuaging of eternal and
+intense desires. He might have been travelling through
+the desert for many days and she might have been the
+oasis&mdash;the pool of living water and the palm.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now&mdash;like that! Just like that!&#8221; he said, holding
+her hand and, as it were, hypnotising her in the pose in
+which she happened to be. He looked hard at her.
+&#8220;It is unique. Madame, where did you find that
+dress?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Callot,&#8221; answered Audrey submissively.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought so. Well, Madame, I can wait no more.
+I will wait no more. It is Dauphin who implores you to
+come to his studio. To come&mdash;it is your duty. Madame
+Foa, you will bring her. I count on you absolutely to
+bring her. Even if it is only to be a sketch&mdash;the merest
+hint. But I must do it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, Madame,&#8221; said Madame Foa with all the
+Italian charm. &#8220;Dauphin must paint you. The contrary
+is unthinkable. My husband and I have often said so.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To-morrow?&#8221; Dauphin suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! To-morrow, my little Dauphin, I cannot,&#8221; said
+Madame Foa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nor I,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The day after to-morrow, then. I will send my auto.
+What address? Half-past eleven. That goes? In any
+case, I insist. Be kind! Be kind!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey blushed. Half the foyer was staring at the
+group. She was flattered. She saw herself remarkable.
+She thought she would look more particularly, with perfect
+detachment, at the mirror that night, in order to decide
+whether her appearance was as striking, as original, as
+distinguished, as Dauphin&#8217;s attitude implied. There must
+surely be something in it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About that advice&mdash;may I call to-morrow?&#8221; It was
+Mr. Gilman&#8217;s voice at her elbow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Advice?&#8221; She had forgotten her announced intention
+of asking his advice. (The subject was to be Zacatecas.)
+&#8220;Oh, yes. How nice of you! Please do call. Come for
+tea.&#8221; She was delightful to him, but at the same time
+there was in her tone a little of the condescending casualness
+proper to the tone of a girl openly admired by the
+confidant and painter of princesses and archduchesses, the
+man who treated all plain women and women past the
+prime with a desolating indifference.</p>
+
+<p>She thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am a rotten little snob.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman gave thanksgivings and departed, explaining
+that he must return to Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>Foa and Dauphin and the Oriental resumed the argument
+about Musa&#8217;s talent and the concert. Miquette would say
+nothing as to the success of the concert. Foa asserted
+that the concert was not and would not be a success.
+Dauphin pooh-poohed and insisted vehemently that the
+success was unmistakable and increasing. Moreover, he
+criticised the hall, the choice of programme, the orchestra,
+the conductor. &#8220;I discovered Musa,&#8221; said he. &#8220;I have
+always said that he is a great concert player, and that
+he is destined for a great world-success, and to-night I
+am more sure of it than ever.&#8221; Whereupon Madame Foa
+said with much sympathy that she hoped it was so, and
+Foa said: &#8220;You create illusions for yourself, on purpose.&#8221;
+Dauphin bore him down with wavy gestures and warm
+cries of &#8220;No! No! No!&#8221; And he appealed to Audrey
+as-a woman incapable of illusions. And Audrey agreed
+with Dauphin. And while she was agreeing she kept
+saying to herself: &#8220;Why do I pretend to agree with him?
+He is not sincere. He knows he is not sincere. We all
+know&mdash;except perhaps Winnie Ingate. The concert is a
+failure. If it were not a failure, Madame Foa would not
+be so sympathetic. She is more subtle even than Madame
+Piriac. I shall never be subtle like that. I wish I could
+be. I wish I was at Moze. I am too Essex for all this.
+And Winnie here is too comic for words.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>An aged and repellent Jew came into sight. He raised
+Madame Foa&#8217;s hand to his odious lips and kissed it, and
+Audrey wondered how Madame Foa could tolerate the
+formality.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Monsieur Xavier?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Xavier shrugged his round shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do not say,&#8221; said he, in a hoarse voice to the company,
+&#8220;do not say that I have not done my best on this occasion.&#8221;
+He lifted his eyes heavenward, and as he did so his passing
+glance embraced Audrey, and she violently hated him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; said she, &#8220;I think we ought to be getting
+back to our seats.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; cried Madame Foa, &#8220;we are going round with
+Dauphin to the artists&#8217; room. You do not come with us,
+Madame Moncreiff?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In your place ...&#8221; muttered Xavier discouragingly,
+with a look at Dauphin, and another shrug of the shoulders.
+&#8220;I have been ...&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; said Dauphin, in a strange new tone. And then
+very brightly to Audrey: &#8220;Now, as to Saturday, dear
+lady&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Xavier engaged in private converse with Foa, and his
+demeanour to Foa was extremely deferential, whereas he
+almost ignored the Oriental critic. And Audrey puzzled her
+head once again to discover why the Foas should exert such
+influence upon the fate of music in Paris. The enigma was
+only one among many.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_44" id="chapter_44" />CHAPTER XLIV</h2>
+
+<h3>END OF THE CONCERT</h3>
+
+
+<p>The first item after the true interval was the Chaconne of
+Bach, which Musa had played upon a memorable occasion
+in Frinton. He stood upon the platform utterly alone,
+against a background of empty chairs, double-basses and
+drums. He seemed to be unfriended and forlorn. It
+appeared to Audrey that he was playing with despair. She
+wished, as she looked from Musa to the deserted places in
+the body of the hall, that the piece was over, and that the
+entire concert was over. How could anyone enjoy such
+an arid maze of sounds? The whole theory of classical
+composition and its vogue was hollow and ridiculous.
+People did not like the classics; they could not and they
+never would. Now a waltz ... after a jolly dinner and
+wine! ... But the Chaconne! But Bach! But culture!
+The audience was visibly and audibly restless. For about
+two hundred years the attempt to force this Chaconne upon
+the public had been continuous, and it was still boring them.
+Of course it was! The thing was unnatural.</p>
+
+<p>And she herself was a fool; she was a ninny. And the
+alleged power of money was an immense fraud. She had
+thought to perform miracles by means of a banking account.
+For a moment she had imagined that the miracles had come
+to pass. But they had not come to pass. The public was
+too old, too tired, and too wary. It could not thus be
+tricked into making a reputation. The forces that made
+reputations were far less amenable than she had fancied.
+The world was too clever and too experienced for her ingenuous
+self. Geniuses were not lying about and waiting
+to be picked up. Musa was not a genius. She had been a
+simpleton, and the sacred Quarter had been a simpleton.
+She was rather angry with Musa for not being a genius.
+And the confidence which he had displayed a few hours
+earlier was just grotesque conceit! And men and women
+who were supposed to be friendly human hearts were not
+so in truth. They were merely indifferent and callous spectators.
+The Foas, for example, were chattering in their
+box, apparently oblivious of the tragedy that was enacting
+under their eyes. But then, it was perhaps not a tragedy;
+it was perhaps a farce.</p>
+
+<p>And what would these self-absorbed spectators of existence
+say and do, if and when it was known that she was
+no longer a young woman of enormous wealth? Would
+Dauphin have sought to compel her to enter his studio had
+he been aware that her fortune had gone tip in smoke?
+She was not in a real world. She was in a world of shams.
+And she was a sham in the world of shams. She wanted
+to be back again in the honest realities of Moze, where in
+the churchyard she could see the tombs of her great-great-grandfathers.
+Only one extraneous interest drew her
+thoughts away from Moze. That interest was Mr. Gilman.
+Mr. Gilman was her conquest and her slave. She adored
+him because he was so wistful and so reliable and so
+adoring. Mr. Gilman sat intent and straight upright in
+Madame Piriac&#8217;s box and behaved just as though Bach
+himself was present. He understood nothing of Bach, but
+he could be trusted to behave with benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>The music suddenly ceased. The Chaconne was finished.
+The gallery of enthusiasts still applauded with vociferation,
+with mystic faith, with sublime obstinacy. It was carrying
+on a sort of religious war against the base apathy of the
+rest of the audience. It was determined to force its belief
+down the throats of the unintelligent mob. It had made
+up its mind that until it had had its way the world should
+stand still. No encore had yet been obtained, and the
+gallery was set on an encore. The clapping fainted, expired,
+and then broke into new life, only to expire again
+and recommence. A few irritated persons hissed. The
+gallery responded with vigour. Musa, having retired, reappeared,
+very white, and bowed. The applause was
+feverish and unconvincing. Musa vanished. But the
+gallery had thick soles and hard hands and stout sticks,
+even serviceable umbrellas. It could not be appeased by
+bows alone. And after about three minutes of tedious
+manoeuvring, Musa had at last to yield an encore that in
+fact nobody wanted. He played a foolish pyrotechnical
+affair of De BĂ©riot, which resembled nothing so much as a
+joke at a funeral. After that the fate of the concert could
+not be disputed even by the gallery. At the finish of the
+evening there was, in the terrible idiom of the theatre,
+&#8220;not a hand.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Whether Musa had played well or ill, Audrey had not
+the least idea. Nor did that point seem to matter. Naught
+but the attitude of the public seemed to matter. This was
+strange, because for a year Audrey had been learning steadily
+in the Quarter that the attitude of the public had no importance
+whatever. She suffered from the delusion that
+the public was staring at her and saying to her: &#8220;You, you
+silly little thing, are responsible for this fiasco. We condescended
+to come&mdash;and this is what you have offered us.
+Go home, and let your hair down and shorten your skirts,
+for you are no better than a schoolgirl, after all.&#8221; She
+was really self-conscious. She despised Musa, or rather
+she threw to him a little condescending pity. And yet at
+the same time she was furious against that group in the
+foyer for being so easily dissuaded from going to see Musa
+in the artists&#8217; room.... Rats deserting a sinking ship!...
+People, even the nicest, would drop a failure like a
+match that was burning out.... Yes, and they would
+drop her.... No, they would not, because of Mr. Gilman.
+Mr. Gilman was calling-to see her to-morrow. He was
+the rock and the cushion. She would send Miss Ingate
+out for the afternoon. As the audience hurried eagerly
+forth she spoke sharply to Miss Ingate. She was indeed
+very rude to Miss Ingate. She was exasperated, and Miss
+Ingate happened to be handy.</p>
+
+<p>In the foyer not a trace of the Foa clan nor of Madame
+Piriac and her husband, nor of Mr. Gilman! But Tommy
+and Nick were there, putting on their cloaks, and with
+them, but not helping them, was Mr. Ziegler. The blond
+Mr. Ziegler greeted Audrey as though the occasion of their
+previous meeting had been a triumph for him. His self-satisfaction,
+if ever it had been damaged, was repaired to
+perfection. The girls were silent; Miss Ingate was silent;
+but Mr. Ziegler was not silent.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He played better than I did anticipate,&#8221; said Mr.
+Ziegler, lighting a cigarette, after he had nonchalantly
+acknowledged the presentation to him of Miss Ingate.
+&#8220;But of what use is this French public? None. Even had
+he succeeded here it would have meant nothing. Nothing.
+In music Paris does not exist. There are six towns in
+Germany where success means vorldt-reputation. Not that
+he would succeed in Germany. He has not studied in Germany.
+And outside Germany there are no schools. However,
+we have the intention to impose our culture upon all
+European nations, including France. In one year our army
+will be here&mdash;in Paris. I should wait for that, but probably
+I shall be called up. In any case, I shall be present.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But whatever do you mean?&#8221; cried Miss Ingate,
+aghast.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do I mean? I mean our army will be here.
+All know it in Germany. They know it in Paris! But what
+can they do? How can they stop us?... Decadent!...&#8221;
+He laughed easily.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, my chocolates!&#8221; exclaimed Miss Thompkins.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve left them in the hall!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, here they are,&#8221; said Nick, handing the box.</p>
+
+<p>To Audrey it seemed to be the identical box that Mr.
+Gilman had been carrying. But of course it might not be.
+Thousands of chocolate boxes resemble each other exactly.</p>
+
+<p>Carefully ignoring Mr. Ziegler, Audrey remarked to
+Tommy with a light-heartedness which she did not feel:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, what did you think of Jane this afternoon?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane Foley. Nick was taking you to see her, wasn&#8217;t
+she?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes!&#8221; said Tommy with a bright smile. &#8220;But I
+didn&#8217;t go. I went for a motor drive with Mr. Gilman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was a short pause. At length Tommy said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So he&#8217;s got the goods on you at last!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who?&#8221; Audrey sharply questioned.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dauphin. I knew he would. Remember my words.
+That portrait will cost you forty thousand francs, not
+counting the frame.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was the end of the concert.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_45" id="chapter_45" />CHAPTER XLV</h2>
+
+<h3>STRANGE RESULT OF A QUARREL</h3>
+
+
+<p>The next afternoon Audrey sat nervous and expectant, but
+highly finished, in her drawing-room at the HĂ´tel du
+Danube. Miss Ingate had gone out, pretending to be
+quite unaware that she had been sent out. The more detailed
+part of Audrey&#8217;s toilette had been accomplished
+subsequent to Miss Ingate&#8217;s departure, for Audrey had
+been at pains to inform Miss Ingate that she, Audrey, was
+even less interested than usual in her appearance that afternoon.
+They were close and mutually reliable friends; but
+every friendship has its reservations. Elise also was out;
+indeed, Miss Ingate had taken her.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had the weight of all the world on her, and so
+long as she was alone she permitted herself to look as
+though she had. She had to be wise, not only for Audrey
+Moze, but for others. She had to be wise for Musa, whose
+failure, though the newspapers all spoke (at about twenty
+francs a line) of his overwhelming success, was admittedly
+lamentable; and she hated Musa; she confessed that she had
+been terribly mistaken in Musa, both as an artist and as a
+man; still, he was on her mind. She had to be wise about
+her share in the new campaign of Rosamund, which, while
+not on her mind, was on her conscience. She had to be
+wise about the presumable loss of her fortune; she had
+telegraphed to Mr. Foulger early that morning for information,
+and an answer was now due. Finally she had to be
+wise for Mr. Gilman, whose happiness depended on a tone
+of her voice, on a single monosyllable breathed through those
+rich lips. She looked forward with interest to being wise
+for Mr. Gilman. She felt capable of that. The other
+necessary wisdoms troubled her brow. She seemed to be
+more full of responsibility and sagacity than any human
+being could have been expected to be. She was, however,
+very calm. Her calmness was prodigious.</p>
+
+<p>Then the bell rang, and she could hear one of the hotel
+attendants open the outer door with his key. Instantly her
+calmness, of which she had been so proud, was dashed to
+pieces and she had scarcely begun in a hurry to pick the
+pieces up and put them together again when the attendant
+entered the drawing-room. She was afraid, but she thought
+she was happy.</p>
+
+<p>Only it was not Mr. Gilman the attendant announced.
+The man said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mademoiselle Nickall.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said to herself that she must get Nick very
+quickly away. She was in no humour to talk even to Nick,
+and, moreover, she did not want Nick to know that Mr.
+Gilman was calling upon her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Nickall was innocent and sweet. Good nature
+radiated from her soft, tired features, and was somehow
+also entangled in her fluffy grey hair. She kissed Audrey
+with affection.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve just come to say good-bye, you dear!&#8221; she said,
+sitting down and putting her check parasol across her knees.
+&#8220;How lovely you look!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good-bye?&#8221; Audrey questioned. &#8220;Do I?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have to cross for England to-night. I&#8217;ve had my
+orders. Rosamund came this morning. What about yours?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I don&#8217;t take orders. But I
+expect I shall join in, one of these days, when I&#8217;ve had
+everything explained to me properly. You see, you and I
+haven&#8217;t got the same tastes, Nick. You aren&#8217;t happy
+without a martyrdom. I am.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Nick smiled gravely and uncertainly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very serious this time,&#8221; said she. &#8220;Hasn&#8217;t
+Rosamund spoken to you yet?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s spoken to me. And I&#8217;ve spoken to her. It was
+deuce, I should say. Or perhaps my &#8217;vantage. Anyhow,
+I&#8217;m not moving just yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then,&#8221; said Nick, &#8220;if you&#8217;re staying in Paris, I
+hope you&#8217;ll keep an eye on Musa. He needs it. Tommy&#8217;s
+going away. At least I fancy she is. We both went to
+see him this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Both of you!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, you see, we&#8217;ve always looked after him. He
+was in a terrible state about last night. That&#8217;s really one
+reason why I called. Not that I&#8217;d have gone without
+kissing you&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She stopped. There was another ring at the bell. The
+attendant came in with great rapidity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m lost!&#8221; thought Audrey, disgusted and perturbed.
+&#8220;Her being here will spoil everything.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But the attendant handed her a card, and the card bore
+the name of Musa. Audrey flushed. Almost instinctively,
+without thinking, she passed the card to Nick.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My land!&#8221; exclaimed Nick. &#8220;If he sees me here he&#8217;ll
+think I&#8217;ve come on purpose to talk about him and pity him,
+and he&#8217;ll be just perfectly furious. Can I get out any other
+way?&#8221; She glanced interrogatively at the half-open door
+of the bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I don&#8217;t want to see him, either!&#8221; Audrey protested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! You must! He&#8217;ll listen to sense from you,
+perhaps. Can I go this way?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Impelled to act in spite of herself, Audrey took Nick
+into the bedroom, and as soon as Musa had been introduced
+into the drawing-room she embraced Nick in silence
+and escorted her on tiptoe through Miss Ingate&#8217;s bedroom
+to the vestibule and waved an adieu. Then she retraced her
+steps and made a grand entry into the drawing-room from
+her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of Musa immediately.
+A meeting between him and Mr. Gilman on her
+hearthrug might involve the most horrible complications.</p>
+
+<p>The young man and the young woman shook hands.
+But it was the handshaking of bruisers when they enter the
+ring, and before the blood starts to flow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t you please sit down?&#8221; said Audrey. He was
+obliged now to obey her, as she had been obliged to obey
+him on the previous afternoon in the Rue Cassette.</p>
+
+<p>If Audrey looked as though the whole world was on her
+shoulders, Musa&#8217;s face seemed to contradict hers and to say
+that the world, far from being on anybody&#8217;s shoulders, had
+come to an end. All the expression of the violinist showed
+that in his honest conviction a great mundane calamity had
+occurred, the calamity of course being that his violin bow
+had not caused catgut to vibrate in such a way as to affect
+the ears of a particular set of people in a particular manner.
+But in addition to this sense of a calamity he was under
+the influence of another emotion&mdash;angry resentment. However,
+he sat down, holding firmly his hat, gloves, and stick.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I saw my agent this morning,&#8221; said he, in a grating
+voice, in French. He was pale.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes?&#8221; said Audrey. She suddenly guessed what was
+coming, and she felt a certain alarm, which nevertheless
+was not entirely disagreeable.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why did you pay for that concert, and the future
+concerts, without telling me, Madame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Paid for the concerts?&#8221; she repeated, rather weakly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Madame. To do so was to make me ridiculous&mdash;not
+to the world, but to myself. For I believed all the
+time that I had succeeded in gaining the genuine interest
+of an agent who was prepared to risk money upon the
+proper exploitation of my talent. I worked in that belief.
+In spite of your attitude to me I did work. Your antipathy
+was bad for me; but I conquered myself, and I worked. I
+had confidence in myself. If last night I did not have a
+triumph, it was not because I did not work, but because I
+had been upset&mdash;and again by you, Madame. Even after
+the misfortune of last night I still had confidence, for I
+knew that the reasons of my failure were accidental and
+temporary. But I now know that I was living in a fool&#8217;s
+paradise, which you had kindly created for me. You have
+money. Apparently you have too much money. And with
+money you possess the arrogance of wealth. You knew that
+I had accepted assistance from good friends. And you
+thought in your arrogance that you might launch me without
+informing me of your intention. You thought it would
+amuse you to make a little fairy-tale in real life. It was a
+negligent gesture on the part of a rich and idle woman. It
+cost you nothing save a few bank-notes, of which you had
+so many that it bored you to count them. How amusing to
+make a reputation! How charitable to help a starving
+player! But you forgot one thing. You forgot my dignity
+and my honour. It was nothing to you that you exposed
+these to the danger of the most grave affront. It was
+nothing to you that I was received just as though I had
+been a child, and that for months I was made, without knowing
+it, to fulfil the rĂ´le of a conceited jackanapes. When
+one is led to have confidence in oneself one is tempted to
+adopt a certain tone and to use certain phrases, which may
+or may not be justified. I yielded to the temptation. I
+was wrong, but I was also victimised. This morning, with
+a moment&#8217;s torture under the impertinent tongue of a
+rascally impresario, I paid for all the spurious confidence
+which I have felt and for all the proud words I have uttered.
+I came to-day in order to lay at your feet my thanks for the
+unique humiliation which I owe to you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His mien was undoubtedly splendid. It ought to have
+cowed and shamed Audrey. But it did not. She absolutely
+refused to acknowledge, even within her own heart, that
+she had committed any wrong. On the contrary, she
+remembered all the secret sympathy which she had lavished
+on Musa, all her very earnest and single-minded desires
+for his apotheosis at the hands of the Parisian public;
+and his ingratitude positively exasperated her. She was
+aroused. But she tried to hide the fact that she was
+roused, speaking in a guarded and sardonic voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And did this agent of yours&mdash;I do not know his name&mdash;tell
+you that I was paying for the concert&mdash;I mean, the
+concerts?&#8221; she demanded with an air of impassivity.
+&#8220;He did not give your name.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s something,&#8221; Audrey put in, her body trembling.
+&#8220;I am much obliged to him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But he clearly indicated that money had been paid&mdash;that
+he had not paid it himself&mdash;that the enterprise was
+not genuine. He permitted himself to sneer until I corrected
+him. He then withdrew what he had said and
+told me that I had misunderstood. But he was not convincing.
+It was too late. And I had not misunderstood.
+Far from that, I had understood. At once the truth
+traversed my mind like a flash of lightning. It was you
+who had paid.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And how did you guess that?&#8221; She laughed carelessly,
+though she could not keep her foot from shaking
+on the carpet.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I knew because I knew!&#8221; cried Musa. &#8220;It explained
+all your conduct, your ways of speaking to me, your
+attitude of a schoolmistress, everything. How ingenuous
+I have been not to perceive it before!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey firmly. &#8220;You are wrong. It is
+absolutely untrue that I have ever paid a penny, or ever
+shall, to any agent on your behalf. Do you hear? Why
+should I, indeed! And now what have you to reply?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was aware of not the slightest remorse for this
+enormous and unqualified lie. Nay, she held it was not
+a lie, because Musa deserved to hear it. Strange logic,
+but her logic! And she was much uplifted and enfevered,
+and grandly careless of all consequences.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are a woman,&#8221; said Musa curtly and obstinately.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That, at any rate, is true.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Therefore I cannot treat you as a man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Please do,&#8221; she said, rising.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. If you were a man I should call you out.&#8221; And
+Musa rose also. &#8220;And I should be right. As you are
+a woman I have told you the truth, and I can do no
+more. I shall not characterise your denial. I have no
+taste for recrimination. Besides, in such a game, no man
+can be the equal of a woman. But I maintain what I
+have said, and I affirm that I know it to be true, and
+that there is no excuse for your conduct. And so I
+respectfully take leave.&#8221; He moved towards the door and
+then stopped. &#8220;There never had been any excuse for
+your conduct to me,&#8221; he added. &#8220;It has always been
+the conduct of a rich and capricious woman who amused
+herself by patronising a poor artist.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You may be interested to know,&#8221; she said fiercely,
+&#8220;that I am no longer rich. Last night I heard that
+my fortune is gone. If I have amused myself, that may
+amuse you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It does amuse me,&#8221; he retorted grimly and more
+loudly. &#8220;I wish that you had never possessed a son.
+For then I might have been spared many mournful hours.
+All would have been different. Yes! From three days
+ago when I saw you walking intimately in the Tuileries
+Gardens with the unspeakable Gilman&mdash;right back to last
+year when you first, from caprice, did your best to make
+me love you&mdash;did it deliberately, so that all the Quarter
+could see!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In a furious temper Audrey rushed past Musa to the
+door, and stood with her back to it, palpitating. She
+vaguely recalled a similar movement of hers long ago, and
+the slightly comic figure of Mr. Foulger flitted through
+her memory.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You shall apologise for that! You shall apologise
+before you leave this room!&#8221; she exploded. Her chin
+was aloft and her mouth remained open. &#8220;I say you
+shall apologise for that monstrous untruth!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He approached her, uttering not a word. She was
+quite ready to kill him. She had no fear of anything
+whatever. Not once since his arrival had she given one
+thought to the imminent advent of Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>She said to herself, watching Musa intently:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, he shall apologise. It is shameful, what he says.
+It&#8217;s worse than horrid. I am as strong as he is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa dropped his hat, stick and gloves. The hat,
+being English and hard, bounced on the carpet. Then he
+put his trembling arms around her waist, and his trembling
+lips came nearer and nearer to hers.</p>
+
+<p>She thought, very puzzled:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is happening? This is all wrong. I am furious
+with him! I will never speak to him again! What is
+he doing? This is all wrong. I must stop it. I&#8217;m saying
+nothing to him about my career, and my independence,
+and how horrid it is to be the wife of a genius, and all
+that.... I must stop it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But she had no volition to stop it.</p>
+
+<p>She thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Am I fainting?&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was upon this scene that Mr. Gilman intruded.
+Mr. Gilman looked from one to the other. Perhaps the
+thought in his mind was that if they added their ages
+together they could not equal his age. Perhaps it was
+not. He continued to look from one to the other, and
+this needed some ocular effort, for they were as far apart
+as two persons in such a situation usually get when they
+are surprised. Then he caught sight of the hat, stick and
+gloves on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been expecting you for a long time,&#8221; said Audrey,
+with that miraculous bland tranquillity of which young
+girls alone have the secret when the conventions are
+imperilled. &#8220;I was just going to order tea.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman hesitated and then replied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How kind of you! But please don&#8217;t order tea for
+me. The&mdash;er&mdash;fact is, I have been unexpectedly called
+away, and I only called to explain that&mdash;er&mdash;I could not
+call.&#8221; After all, he was a man of some experience.</p>
+
+<p>She let him go. His demeanour to Musa, like Musa&#8217;s
+to him, was a marvel of high courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa,&#8221; said Audrey, with an intimidated, defiant, proud
+smile, when the door had shut on Mr. Gilman, &#8220;I am
+still frightfully angry with you. If we stay here I shall
+suffocate. Let us go out for a walk. Besides, other
+people might call.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Simultaneously there was another ring. It was a cable.
+She read:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sold Zacatecas at an average of six and a quarter
+dollars three weeks ago. Wrote you at length to Wimereux.
+Writing again as to new investments.</p>
+
+<p class="letterSignature">&#8220;FOULGER.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This comes of having no fixed address,&#8221; she said,
+throwing the blue cablegram carelessly down in front of
+Musa. &#8220;I&#8217;m not quite ruined, after all. But I might have
+known&mdash;with Mr. Foulger.&#8221; Then she explained.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; he began.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, you don&#8217;t,&#8221; she stopped him. &#8220;So you needn&#8217;t
+start on that line. You are brilliant at figures. At least
+I long since suspected you were. How much is one hundred
+and eighty thousand times six and a quarter?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding his brilliance, it took two pencils, two
+heads, and one piece of paper to solve the problem. They
+were not quite certain, but the answer seemed to be
+£225,000 in English money.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We cannot starve,&#8221; said Audrey, and then paused....
+&#8220;Musa, are we friends? We shall quarrel horribly.
+Do you know, I never knew that proposals of marriage
+were made like that!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have not told you one thing,&#8221; said Musa. &#8220;I am
+going to play in Germany, instead of further concerts in
+Paris. It is arranged.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not in Germany,&#8221; she pleaded, thinking of Ziegler.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, in Germany,&#8221; said Musa masterfully. &#8220;I have
+a reputation to make. It is the agent who has suggested
+it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But the concerts in London?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are English. I wish not to wound you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Audrey stood up again, she had to look at the
+floor in order to make sure that it was there. Once
+she had tasted absinthe. She had had to take the same
+precaution then.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Stop! I entreat thee!&#8221; said Musa suddenly, just
+as, all arrayed in her finery, she was opening the door
+for the walk.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her, and with his lips almost on hers he
+murmured:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thou shalt not go out without avowing. And if thou
+art angry&mdash;well, I adore thy anger. The concerts were ...
+thy enterprise? I guessed well?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You see,&#8221; she replied like a shot, &#8220;you weren&#8217;t sure,
+although you pretended you were.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the Rue de Rivoli, and in the resplendent Champs
+Elysées they passed column after column of entertainment
+posters. But the name of Musa had been mysteriously
+removed from all of them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_46" id="chapter_46" />CHAPTER XLVI</h2>
+
+<h3>AN EPILOGUE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey was walking along Piccadilly when she overtook
+Miss Ingate, who had been arrested by a shop window,
+the window of one of the shops recently included in the
+vast edifice of the Hotel Majestic.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate gave a little squeal of surprise. The two
+kissed very heartily in the street, which was full of spring
+and of the posters of evening papers bearing melodramatic
+tidings of the latest nocturnal development of the terrible
+suffragette campaign.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You said eleven, Audrey. It isn&#8217;t eleven yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;m behind time. I meant to be all spruced
+up and receive you in state at the hotel. But the boat
+was three hours late at Harwich. I jumped into a cab
+at Liverpool Street, but I got out at Piccadilly Circus
+because the streets looked so fine and I felt I really must
+walk a bit.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And where&#8217;s your husband?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s at Liverpool Street trying to look after the
+luggage. He lost some of it at Hamburg. He likes
+looking after luggage, so I just left him at it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate&#8217;s lower lip dropped at the corners.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve had a tiff.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie, we haven&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you go to all his concerts?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All. I heard all his practising, and I sat in the
+stalls at all his concerts. Quite contrary to my principles,
+of course. But, Winnie, it&#8217;s very queer, I <em>wanted</em> to
+do it. So naturally I did it. We&#8217;ve never been apart&mdash;until
+now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And it&#8217;s not exaggerated, what you&#8217;ve written me
+about his success?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not a bit. I&#8217;ve been most careful not to exaggerate.
+In fact, I&#8217;ve tried to be gloomy. No use, however! It
+was a triumph.... And how&#8217;s all this business?&#8221; Audrey
+demanded, in a new key, indicating an orange-tinted newspaper
+bill that was being flaunted in front of her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I believe it&#8217;s dreadful. Of course, you know
+Rosamund&#8217;s in prison. But they&#8217;ll have to let her out
+soon. Jane Foley&mdash;she still calls herself Foley&mdash;hasn&#8217;t
+been caught. And that&#8217;s funny. I doubled my subscription.
+We had to, you see. But that&#8217;s all I&#8217;ve done. They don&#8217;t
+have processions and things now, and barrel organs are
+<em>quite</em> out of fashion. What with that, and my rheumatism!...
+I used to think I should live to vote myself. I feel
+I shan&#8217;t now. So I&#8217;ve gone back into water-colours.
+They&#8217;re very soothing, if you let the paper dry after each
+wash and don&#8217;t take them seriously.... Now, I&#8217;m a
+very common-sense woman, Audrey, as you must have
+noticed, and I&#8217;m not subject to fancies. Will you just
+look at the girl on the left hand in this window here, and
+tell me whether I&#8217;m dreaming or not?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate indicated the shop window which had
+arrested her. The establishment was that of a hair
+specialist, and the window was mainly occupied by two
+girls who sat in arm-chairs with their backs to the glass,
+and all their magnificent hair spread out at length over
+the backs of the chairs for the inspection of the public;
+the implication being that the magnificent hair was due
+to the specific of the hair specialist. Passers-by continually
+stopped to gaze at the spectacle, but they never stopped
+long, because the spectacle was monotonous.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, what about her?&#8221; said Audrey, staring.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it Lady Southminster?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good heavens!&#8221; Audrey&#8217;s mind went back to the
+Channel packet and the rain squall and the scenes on the
+Paris train. &#8220;So it is! Whatever can have happened to
+her? Let&#8217;s go in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And in they went, Audrey leading, and demanding at
+once a bottle of the specific; Audrey had scarcely spoken
+when the left-hand girl in the window, who, of course,
+from her vantage had a full view of the shop, screamed
+lightly and jumped down from the window.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t give me away!&#8221; she whispered appealingly in
+Audrey&#8217;s ear. The next moment, not heeding the excitement
+of the shop manager, she had drawn Audrey and
+Miss Ingate through another door which led into the
+entrance-hall of the Majestic Hotel. The shop was thus
+contrived to catch two publics at once.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If they knew I was Lady Southminster in there,&#8221;
+said Lady Southminster in a feverish murmur&mdash;she seemed
+not averse to the sensation caused by her hair in the
+twilight of the hotel&mdash;&#8220;I expect I should lose my place,
+and I don&#8217;t want to lose it. <em>He&#8217;ll</em> be coming by presently,
+and he&#8217;ll see me, and it&#8217;ll be a lesson to him. We&#8217;re
+always together. Race meetings, dances, golf, restaurants,
+bridge. Twenty-four hours every day. He won&#8217;t lose
+sight of me. He&#8217;s that fond of me, you know. I couldn&#8217;t
+stand it. I&#8217;d as lief be in prison&mdash;only I&#8217;m that fond of
+him, you know. But I was so homesick, and I felt if I
+didn&#8217;t have a change I should burst. This is Constantinopoulos&#8217;s
+old shop, you know, where I used to make
+cigarettes in the window. He&#8217;s dead, Constantinopoulos is.
+I don&#8217;t know what <em>he&#8217;d</em> have said to hair restorers. I
+asked for the place, and I showed &#8217;em my hair, and I
+got it. And me sitting there&mdash;it&#8217;s quite like old times.
+Only before, you know, I used to have my face to the
+street. I don&#8217;t know which I like best. But, anyhow,
+you can see my profile from the side window. And <em>he</em>
+will. He always looks at that sort of thing. He&#8217;ll be
+furious. But it will do him no end of good. Well,
+good-bye. But come back in and buy a bottle, or I shall
+be let in for a shindy. In fact, you might buy two
+bottles.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So that&#8217;s love!&#8221; said Audrey when the transaction
+was over and they were in the entrance-hall again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;That&#8217;s marriage. And don&#8217;t
+you forget it.... Hallo, Tommy!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better not let Mr. Gilman hear me called
+Tommy in this hotel,&#8221; laughed Miss Thompkins, who was
+attired with an unusual richness, as she advanced towards
+Miss Ingate and Audrey. &#8220;And what are you doing
+here?&#8221; she questioned Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m staying here,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;But I&#8217;ve only just
+arrived. I&#8217;m advance agent for my husband. How are
+you? And what are <em>you</em> doing here? I thought you hated
+London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I came the day before yesterday,&#8221; Tommy replied.
+&#8220;And I&#8217;m very fit. You see, Mr. Gilman preferred us
+to be married in London. And I&#8217;d no objection. So
+here I am. The wedding&#8217;s to-morrow. You aren&#8217;t very
+startled, are you? Had you heard?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;not what you&#8217;d call &#8216;heard.&#8217;
+But I&#8217;d a sort of a kind of a&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You come right over here, young woman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I want to get my number.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You come right over here right now,&#8221; Tommy insisted.
+And in another corner of the entrance-hall she
+spoke thus, and there was both seriousness and fun in
+her voice: &#8220;Don&#8217;t you run away with the idea that I&#8217;m
+taking your leavings, young woman. Because I&#8217;m not.
+We all knew you&#8217;d lost your head about Musa, and it
+was quite right of you. But you never had a chance
+with Ernest, though you thought you had, after I&#8217;d met
+him. Admit I&#8217;m much better suited for him than you&#8217;d
+have been. I&#8217;d only one difficulty, and that was the nice
+boy Price, who wanted to drown himself for my beautiful
+freckled face. That&#8217;s all. Now you can go and get your
+number.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The incident might not have ended there had not
+Madame Piriac appeared in the entrance-hall out of the
+interior of the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He exacted my coming,&#8221; said Madame Piriac privately
+to Audrey. &#8220;You know how he is strange. He asks for
+a quiet wedding, but at the same time it must be all that
+is most correct. There are things, he says, which demand
+a woman.... I know four times nothing of the English
+etiquette. I have abandoned my husband. And here I
+am. <em>VoilĂ </em>! Listen. She has great skill with him, <em>cette
+Tommy</em>. Nevertheless, I have the intention to counsel her
+about her complexion. Impossible to keep any man with a
+complexion like hers!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They saw Mr. Gilman himself enter the hotel. He
+was very nervous and very important. As soon as he
+caught sight of Miss Thompkins he said to the door-keeper:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tell my chauffeur to wait.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He was punctiliously attentive to Miss Thompkins, and
+held her hand for two seconds after he had practically
+finished with it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you ready, dear?&#8221; he said. &#8220;You&#8217;ll be sorry
+to hear that my liver is all wrong again. I knew it was
+because I slept so heavily.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>These words were distinctly heard by Audrey herself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think I&#8217;ll slip upstairs now,&#8221; she murmured to
+Madame Piriac. And vanished, before Mr. Gilman had
+observed her presence.</p>
+
+<p>She thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How he has aged!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely ten minutes later, when Audrey was upstairs
+in her sitting-room, waiting idly for the luggage and her
+husband to arrive, and thinking upon the case of Lady
+Southminster, the telephone bell rang out startlingly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Shinner to see you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Shinner? Oh! Mr. Shinner. Send him up,
+please.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This Mr. Shinner was the concert agent with connections
+in Paris whom Audrey had first consulted in the
+enterprise of launching Musa upon the French public. He
+was a large, dark man, black moustached and bearded,
+with heavy limbs and features, and an opaque, pimpled
+skin. In spite of these characteristics, he entered the
+room soft-footed as a fairy, ingratiating as a dog aware
+of his own iniquity, reassuring as applause.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Mr. Shinner. But how did you know we were
+here? As a matter of fact we aren&#8217;t here. My husband
+has not arrived yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madam,&#8221; said Mr. Shinner, &#8220;I happened to hear that
+you had telegraphed for rooms, and as I was in the neighbourhood
+I thought I would venture to call.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But who told you we had telegraphed for rooms?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The manager is a good friend of mine, and as you
+are now famous&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Ah! I have heard all about the German
+tour. I mean I have read about it. I subscribe to the
+German musical papers. One must, in my profession. Also
+I have had direct news from my correspondents in Germany.
+It was a triumph there, was it not?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;After Dusseldorf. My husband
+did not make much money&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That will not trouble you,&#8221; Mr. Shinner smiled easily.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But somebody did&mdash;the agents did.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps not so much as you think, madam, if I may
+say so. Perhaps not so much as you think. And we must
+all live&mdash;unfortunately. Has your husband made any
+arrangements yet for London or for a provincial tour? I
+have reason to think that the season will be particularly
+brilliant. And I can now offer advantages&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, Mr. Shinner, when I last saw you, and it isn&#8217;t
+so very long ago, you told me that my husband was not a
+concert-player, which was exactly what I had heard in
+Paris.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t go quite so far as that, surely, did I?&#8221; Mr.
+Shinner softly insinuated. He might have been pouring
+honey from his mouth. &#8220;Surely I didn&#8217;t say quite that?
+And perhaps I had been too much influenced by Paris.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you said he wasn&#8217;t a concert-player and never
+would be&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t rub it in, madam,&#8221; said Mr. Shinner merrily.
+&#8221;<em>Peccavi</em>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s that?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing, nothing, madam,&#8221; he disclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And you said there were far too many violinists on the
+market, and that it was useless for a French player to offer
+himself to the London musical public. And I don&#8217;t know
+what you didn&#8217;t say.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I didn&#8217;t know then that your husband would have
+such a success in Germany.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What difference does that make?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madam,&#8221; said Mr. Shinner, &#8220;it makes every difference.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But England and Germany hate each other. At least
+they despise each other. And what&#8217;s more, nearly everybody
+in Germany was talking about going to war this
+summer. I was told they are all ready to invade England
+after they have taken Paris and Calais. We heard it
+everywhere.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know anything about any war,&#8221; said Mr.
+Shinner with tranquillity. &#8220;But I do know that the London
+musical public depends absolutely on Germany. The
+only first-class instrumentalist that England has ever produced
+had no success here until he went to Germany and
+Germanised his name and himself and announced that he
+despised England. Then he came back, and he has caused a
+furore ever since. So far as regards London, a success in
+Karlsruhe, Wiesbaden, Leipzig, Dusseldorf, and so on, is
+worth far more than a success in the Queen&#8217;s Hall. Indeed&mdash;can
+you get a success in the Queen&#8217;s Hall without a
+success in these places first? I doubt it. Your husband
+now has London at his feet. Not Paris, though he may
+capture Paris after he has captured London. But London
+certainly. He cannot find a better agent than myself. All
+artists like me, because I <em>understand</em>. You see, my mother
+was harpist to the late Queen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your husband is assuredly a genius, madam!&#8221; Mr.
+Shinner stood up in his enthusiasm, and banged his left fist
+with his right palm.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I know that,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;But you are such
+an expensive luxury.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Shinner pushed away the accusation with both
+hands. &#8220;Madam, madam, I shall take all the risks. I
+should not dream, now, of asking for a cheque on account.
+On the contrary, I should guarantee a percentage of the
+gross receipts. Perhaps I am unwise to take risks&mdash;I dare
+say I am&mdash;but I could not bear to see your husband in the
+hands of another agent. We professional men have our
+feelings.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t cry, Mr. Shinner,&#8221; said Audrey impulsively. It
+was not a proper remark to make, but the sudden impetuous
+entrance of Musa himself, carrying his violin case,
+eased the situation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There is a man which is asking for you outside in the
+corridor,&#8221; said Musa to his wife. &#8220;It is the gardener,
+Aguilar, I think. I have brought all the luggage, not excluding
+that which was lost at Hamburg.&#8221; He had a
+glorious air, and was probably more proud of his still
+improving English and of his ability as a courier than of
+his triumphs on the fiddle. &#8220;Ah!&#8221; Mr. Shinner was
+bowing before him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is Mr. Shinner, the agent, my love,&#8221; said Audrey.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ll leave you to talk to him. He sees money in you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the passage the authentic Aguilar stood with Miss
+Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s Mr. Aguilar,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;I&#8217;m just
+going into No. 37, Madame Piriac&#8217;s room. Don&#8217;t you think
+Mr. Aguilar looks vehy odd in London?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning, Aguilar. You in town on business?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar touched his forehead. It is possible that he
+looked very odd in London, but he was wearing a most
+respectable new suit of clothes, and might well have passed
+for a land agent.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;Mornin&#8217;, ma&#8217;am. I had to come up because I couldn&#8217;t
+get delivery of those wallpapers you chose. Otherwise all
+the repairs and alterations are going on as well as could
+be expected.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And how is your wife, Aguilar?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s nicely, thank ye, ma&#8217;am. I pointed out to the
+foreman that it would be a mistake to make the dining-room
+door open the other way, as the architect suggested.
+But he would do it. However, I&#8217;ve told you, ma&#8217;am. It&#8217;ll
+only have to be altered back. Perhaps I ought to tell you
+that I took the liberty of taking a fortnight&#8217;s holiday,
+ma&#8217;am. It&#8217;s the only holiday I ever did take, except the
+annual day off for the Colchester Rose Show, which is
+perhaps more a matter of business with a head gardener
+than a holiday, as ye might say. My wife wanted me in
+London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s not caught yet?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No&#8217;m. And I don&#8217;t think as she will be, not with me
+about. I never did allow myself to be bossed by police, and
+I always been too much for &#8217;em. And as I&#8217;m on the
+matter, ma&#8217;am, I should like to give you notice as soon
+as it&#8217;s convenient. I wouldn&#8217;t leave on any account till that
+foreman&#8217;s off the place; he&#8217;s no better than a fool. But as
+soon afterwards as you like.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly, Aguilar. I was quite expecting it. Where
+are you going to live?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, ma&#8217;am, I&#8217;ve got hold of a little poultry run
+business in the north of London. It&#8217;ll be handy for Holloway
+in case&mdash;And Jane asked me to give you this letter,
+ma&#8217;am. I see her this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey read the note. Very short, it was signed
+&#8220;Jane&#8221; and &#8220;Nick,&#8221; and dated from a house in Fitzroy
+Street. It caused acute excitement in Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall come at once,&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>Getting rid of Aguilar, she knocked at the door of
+No. 37.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Read that,&#8221; she ordered Miss Ingate and Madame
+Piriac, giving them the note jointly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And are you going?&#8221; said Miss Ingate, nervous and
+impressed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; Audrey answered. &#8220;Don&#8217;t they ask me
+to go at once? I meant to write to my cousins at Woodbridge
+and my uncles in the colonies, and tell them all that
+I was settling down at last. And I meant to look at those
+new flats in Park Lane with Musa. But I shall have to
+leave all that for the present. Also my lunch.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, darling,&#8221; put in Madame Piriac, who had been
+standing before the dressing-table trying on a hat. &#8220;But,
+darling, it is very serious, this matter. What about your
+husband?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;ll keep,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;He&#8217;s had his turn. I
+must have mine now. I haven&#8217;t had a day off from being
+a wife for ever so long. And it&#8217;s a little enervating, you
+know. It spoils you for the fresh air.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I imagined to myself that you two were happy in an
+ideal fashion,&#8221; murmured Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So we are!&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;Though a certain coolness
+did arise over the luggage this morning. But I don&#8217;t
+want to be ideally happy all the time. And I won&#8217;t be. I
+want&mdash;I want all the sensations there are; and I want to
+be everything. And I can be. Musa understands.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If he does,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, &#8220;he&#8217;ll be the first
+husband that ever did.&#8221; Her lips were sardonic.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, of course,&#8221; said Audrey nonchalantly, &#8220;he <em>is</em>.
+Didn&#8217;t you know that?... And didn&#8217;t you tell me not
+to forget Lady Southminster?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did I?&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey heard voices in the corridor. Musa was parting
+from a subservient Shinner. Also the luggage was bumping
+along the carpet. She called her husband into No. 37
+and kissed him rather violently in front of Madame Piriac
+and Miss Ingate, and showed him the note. Then she
+whispered to him, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s that you&#8217;re whispering?&#8221; Miss Ingate archly
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing. I was only asking him to come and help
+me to open my big trunk. I want something out of it.
+Au revoir, you two.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do you think of it all, Madame Piriac?&#8221; Miss
+Ingate inquired when the pair were alone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;All the sensations there are!&#8217; &#8216;Everything!&#8217;&#8221;
+Madame Piriac repeated Audrey&#8217;s phrases. &#8220;One is forced
+to conclude that she has an appetite for life.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, &#8220;she wants the lion&#8217;s share of
+it, that&#8217;s what she wants. No mistake. But of course she&#8217;s
+young.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was never young like that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Neither was I! Neither was I!&#8221; Miss Ingate asseverated.
+&#8220;But something vehy, vehy strange has come over
+the world, if you ask me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14487 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #14487 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14487)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lion's Share, by E. Arnold Bennett
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lion's Share
+
+Author: E. Arnold Bennett
+
+Release Date: December 27, 2004 [EBook #14487]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LION'S SHARE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Nick Kocharhook and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LION'S SHARE
+
+by
+
+Arnold Bennett
+
+First Published 1916.
+
+
+
+_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+NOVELS--
+    A MAN FROM THE NORTH
+    ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+    LEONORA
+    A GREAT MAN
+    SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
+    WHOM GOD HATH JOINED
+    BURIED ALIVE
+    THE OLD WIVES' TALE
+    THE GLIMPSE
+    HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND
+    CLAYHANGER
+    HILDA LESSWAYS
+    THESE TWAIN
+    THE CARD
+    THE REGENT
+    THE PRICE OF LOVE
+
+
+FANTASIAS--
+    THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL
+    THE GATES OF WRATH
+    TERESA OF WATLING STREET
+    THE LOOT OF CITIES
+    HUGO
+    THE GHOST
+    THE CITY OF PLEASURE
+
+
+SHORT STORIES--
+    TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+    THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+    THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+
+
+BELLES-LETTRES--
+    JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN
+    FAME AND FICTION
+    HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR
+    THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR
+    THE REASONABLE LIFE
+    HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY
+    THE HUMAN MACHINE
+    LITERARY TASTE
+    FRIENDSHIP AND HAPPINESS
+    THOSE UNITED STATES
+    MARRIAGE
+    LIBERTY
+
+
+DRAMA--
+    POLITE FARCES
+    CUPID AND COMMONSENSE
+    WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS
+    THE HONEYMOON
+    THE GREAT ADVENTURE
+    MILESTONES (in collaboration with Edward Knoblauch)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+        (In collaboration with Eden Phillpotts)
+    THE SINEWS OF WAR: A Romance
+    THE STATUE: A Romance
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+1. MISS INGATE, AND THE YACHT
+2. THE THIEF'S PLAN WRECKED
+3. THE LEGACY
+4. MR. FOULGER
+5. THE DEAD HAND
+6. THE YOUNG WIDOW
+7. THE CIGARETTE GIRL
+8. EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD
+9. LIFE IN PARIS
+10. FANCY DRESS
+11. A POLITICAL REFUGEE
+12. WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO
+13. THE SWOON
+14. MISS INGATE POINTS OUT THE DOOR
+15. THE RIGHT BANK
+16. ROBES
+17. SOIRÉE
+18. A DECISION
+19. THE BOUDOIR
+20. PAGET GARDENS
+21. JANE
+22. THE DETECTIVE
+23. THE BLUE CITY
+24. THE SPATTS
+25. THE MUTE
+26. NOCTURNE
+27. IN THE GARDEN
+28. ENCOUNTER
+29. FLIGHT
+30. ARIADNE
+31. THE NOSTRUM
+32. BY THE BINNACLE
+33. AGUILAR'S DOUBLE LIFE
+34. THE TANK-ROOM
+35. THE THIRD SORT OF WOMAN
+36. IN THE DINGHY
+37. AFLOAT
+38. IN THE UNIVERSE
+39. THE IMMINENT DRIVE
+40. GENIUS AT BAY
+41. FINANCIAL NEWS
+42. INTERVAL
+43. ENTR'ACTE
+44. END OF THE CONCERT
+45. STRANGE RESULT OF A QUARREL
+46. AN EPILOGUE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MISS INGATE, AND THE YACHT
+
+
+Audrey had just closed the safe in her father's study when she was startled
+by a slight noise. She turned like a defensive animal to face danger. It
+had indeed occurred to her that she was rather like an animal in captivity,
+and she found a bitter pleasure in the idea, though it was not at all
+original.
+
+"And Flank Hall is my Zoo!" she had said. (Not that she had ever seen the
+Zoological Gardens or visited London.)
+
+She was lithe; she moved with charm. Her short, plain blue serge
+walking-frock disclosed the form of her limbs and left them free, and it
+made her look younger even than she was. Its simplicity suited her gestures
+and took grace from them. But she wore the old thing without the least
+interest in it--almost unconsciously. She had none of the preoccupations
+caused by the paraphernalia of existence. She scarcely knew what it was to
+own. She was aware only of her body and her soul. Beyond these her
+possessions were so few, so mean, so unimportant, that she might have
+carried them to the grave and into heaven without protest from the
+authorities earthly or celestial.
+
+The slight noise was due to the door of the study, which great age had
+distorted and bereft of sense, and, in fact, almost unhinged. It unlatched
+itself, paused, and then calmly but firmly swung wide open. When it could
+swing no farther it shook, vibrating into repose.
+
+Audrey condemned the door for a senile lunatic, and herself for a poltroon.
+She became defiant of peril, until the sound of a step on the stair beyond
+the door threw her back into alarm. But when the figure of Miss Ingate
+appeared in the doorway she was definitely reassured, to the point of
+disdain. All her facial expression said: "It's only Miss Ingate."
+
+And yet Miss Ingate was not a negligible woman. Her untidy hair was
+greying; she was stout, she was fifty, she was plain, she had not elegance;
+her accent and turns of speech were noticeably those of Essex. But she had
+a magnificent pale forehead; the eyes beneath it sparkled with energy,
+inquisitiveness, and sagacity; and the mouth beneath the eyes showed by its
+sardonic dropping corners that she had come to a settled, cheerful
+conclusion about human nature, and that the conclusion was not flattering.
+Miss Ingate was a Guardian of the Poor, and the Local Representative of the
+Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association. She had studied intimately
+the needy and the rich and the middling. She was charitable without
+illusions; and, while adhering to every social convention, she did so with
+a toleration pleasantly contemptuous; in her heart she had no mercy for
+snobs of any kind, though, unfortunately, she was at times absurdly
+intimidated by them--at other times she was not.
+
+To the west, within a radius of twelve miles, she knew everybody and
+everybody knew her; to the east her fame was bounded only by the regardless
+sea. She and her ancestors had lived in the village of Moze as long as even
+Mr. Mathew Moze and his ancestors. In the village, and to the village, she
+was Miss Ingate, a natural phenomenon, like the lie of the land and the
+river Moze. Her opinions offended nobody, not Mr. Moze himself--she was
+Miss Ingate. She was laughed at, beloved and respected. Her sagacity had
+one flaw, and the flaw sprang from her sincere conviction that human nature
+in that corner of Essex, which she understood so profoundly, and where she
+was so perfectly at home, was different from, and more fondly foolish than,
+human nature in any other part of the world. She could not believe that
+distant populations could be at once so pathetically and so naughtily human
+as the population in and around Moze.
+
+If Audrey disdained Miss Ingate, it was only because Miss Ingate was
+neither young nor fair nor the proprietress of some man, and because people
+made out that she was peculiar. In some respects Audrey looked upon Miss
+Ingate as a life-belt, as the speck of light at the end of a tunnel, as the
+enigmatic smile which glimmers always in the frown of destiny.
+
+"Well?" cried Miss Ingate in her rather shrill voice, grinning
+sardonically, with the corners of her lips still lower than usual in
+anticipatory sarcasm. It was as if she had said: "You cannot surprise me by
+any narrative of imbecility or turpitude or bathos. All the same, I am
+dying to hear the latest eccentricity of this village."
+
+"Well?" parried Audrey, holding one hand behind her.
+
+They did not shake hands. People who call at ten o'clock in the morning
+cannot expect to have their hands shaken. Miss Ingate certainly expected
+nothing of the sort. She had the freedom of Flank Hall, as of scores of
+other houses, at all times of day. Servants opened front doors for her with
+a careless smile, and having shut front doors they left her loose, like a
+familiar cat, to find what she wanted. They seldom "showed" her into any
+room, nor did they dream of acting before her the unconvincing comedy of
+going to "see" whether masters or mistresses were out or in.
+
+"Where's your mother?" asked Miss Ingate idly, quite sure that interesting
+divulgations would come, and quite content to wait for them. She had been
+out of the village for over a week.
+
+"Mother's taking her acetyl salicylic," Audrey answered, coming to the door
+of the study.
+
+This meant merely that Mrs. Moze had a customary attack of the neuralgia
+for which the district is justly renowned among strangers.
+
+"Oh!" murmured Miss Ingate callously. Mrs. Moze, though she had lived in
+the district for twenty-five years, did not belong to it. If she chose to
+keep on having neuralgia, that was her affair, but in justice to natives
+and to the district she ought not to make too much of it, and she ought to
+admit that it might well be due to her weakness after her operation. Miss
+Ingate considered the climate to be the finest in England; which it was, on
+the condition that you were proof against neuralgia.
+
+"Father's gone to Colchester in the car to see the Bishop," Audrey coldly
+added.
+
+"If I'd known he was going to Colchester I should have asked him for a
+lift," said Miss Ingate, with determination.
+
+"Oh, yes! He'd have taken _you!_" said Audrey, reserved. "I suppose you
+had fine times in London!"
+
+"Oh! It was vehy exciting! It was vehy exciting!" Miss Ingate agreed
+loudly.
+
+"Father wouldn't let me read about it in the paper," said Audrey, still
+reserved. "He never will, you know. But I did!"
+
+"Oh! But you didn't read about me playing the barrel organ all the way down
+Regent Street, because that wasn't in any of the papers."
+
+"You _didn't!_" Audrey protested, with a sudden dark smile.
+
+"Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And vehy tiring it was. Vehy tiring
+indeed. It's quite an art to turn a barrel organ. If you don't keep going
+perfectly even it makes the tune jerky. Oh! I know a bit about barrel
+organs now. They smashed it all to pieces. Oh yes! All to pieces. I spoke
+to the police. I said, 'Aren't you going to protect these ladies'
+property?' But they didn't lift a finger."
+
+"And weren't you arrested?"
+
+"Me!" shrieked Miss Ingate. "Me arrested!" Then more quietly, in an assured
+tone, "Oh no! I wasn't arrested. You see, as soon as the row began I just
+walked away from the organ and became one of the crowd. I'm all _for_ them,
+but I wasn't going to be arrested."
+
+Miss Ingate's sparkling eyes seemed to say: "Sylvia Pankhurst can be
+arrested if she likes, and so can Mrs. Despard and Annie Kenney and Jane
+Foley, or any of them. But the policeman that is clever enough to catch
+Miss Ingate of Moze does not exist. And the gumption of Miss Ingate of Moze
+surpasses the united gumption of all the other feminists in England."
+
+"Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" repeated Miss Ingate with mingled complacency, glee,
+passion, and sardonic tolerance of the whole panorama of worldly existence.
+"The police were awful, shocking. But I was not arrested."
+
+"Well, _I_ was--this morning," said Audrey in a low and poignant voice.
+
+Miss Ingate was startled out of her mood of the detached ironic spectator.
+
+"What?" she frowned.
+
+They heard a servant moving about at the foot of the stairs, and a capped
+head could be seen through the interstices of the white Chinese balustrade.
+The study was the only immediate refuge; Miss Ingate advanced right into
+it, and Audrey pushed the door to.
+
+"Father's given me a month's C.B."
+
+Miss Ingate, gazing at the girl's face, saw in its quiet and yet savage
+desperation the possibility that after all she might indeed be surprised by
+the vagaries of human nature in the village. And her glance became
+sympathetic, even tender, as well as apprehensive.
+
+"'C.B.'? What do you mean--'C.B.'?"
+
+"Don't you know what C.B. means?" exclaimed Audrey with scornful
+superiority over the old spinster. "Confined to barracks. Father says I'm
+not to go beyond the grounds for a month. And to-day's the second of
+April!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Yes, he does. He's given me a week, you know, before. Now it's a month."
+
+Silence fell.
+
+Miss Ingate looked round at the shabby study, with its guns, cigar-boxes,
+prints, books neither old nor new, japanned boxes of documents, and general
+litter scattered over the voluted walnut furniture. Her own house was
+old-fashioned, and she realised it was old-fashioned; but when she came
+into Flank Hall, and particularly into Mr. Moze's study, she felt as if
+she was stepping backwards into history--and this in spite of the fact that
+nothing in the place was really ancient, save the ceilings and the woodwork
+round the windows. It was Mr. Moze's habit of mind that dominated and
+transmogrified the whole interior, giving it the quality of a mausoleum.
+The suffragette procession in which Miss Ingate had musically and
+discreetly taken part seemed to her as she stood in Mr. Moze's changeless
+lair to be a phantasm. Then she looked at the young captive animal and
+perceived that two centuries may coincide on the same carpet and that time
+is merely a convention.
+
+"What you been doing?" she questioned, with delicacy.
+
+"I took a strange man by the hand," said Audrey, choosing her words
+queerly, as she sometimes did, to produce a dramatic effect.
+
+"This morning?"
+
+"Yes. Eight o'clock."
+
+"What? Is there a strange man in the village?"
+
+"You don't mean to say you haven't seen the yacht!"
+
+"Yacht?" Miss Ingate showed some excitement.
+
+"Come and look, Winnie," said Audrey, who occasionally thought fit to
+address Miss Ingate in the manner of the elder generation. She drew Miss
+Ingate to the window.
+
+Between the brown curtains Mozewater, the broad, shallow estuary of the
+Moze, was spread out glittering in the sunshine which could not get into
+the chilly room. The tide was nearly at full, and the estuary looked like a
+mighty harbour for great ships; but in six hours it would be reduced to a
+narrow stream winding through mud flats of marvellous ochres, greens, and
+pinks. In the hazy distance a fitful white flash showed where ocean waves
+were breaking on a sand-bank. And in the foreground, against a disused Hard
+that was a couple of hundred yards lower down than the village Hard, a
+large white yacht was moored, probably the largest yacht that had ever
+threaded that ticklish navigation. She was a shallow-draft barge-yacht,
+rigged like a Thames barge, and her whiteness and the glint of her brass,
+and the flicker of her ensign at the stern were dazzling. Blue figures ran
+busily about on her, and a white-and-blue person in a peaked cap stood
+importantly at the wheel.
+
+"She was on the mud last night," said Audrey eagerly, "opposite the Flank
+buoy, and she came up this morning at half-flood. I think they made fast at
+Lousey Hard, because they couldn't get any farther without waiting. They
+have a motor, and it must be their first trip this season. I was on the
+dyke. I wasn't even looking at them, but they called me, so I had to go.
+They only wanted to know if Lousey Hard was private. Of course I told them
+it wasn't. It was a very middle-aged man spoke to me. He must be the owner.
+As soon as they were tied up he wanted to jump ashore. It was rather
+awkward, and I just held out my hand to help him. Father saw me from here.
+I might have known he would."
+
+"Why! It's going off!" exclaimed Miss Ingate.
+
+The yacht swung slowly round, held by her stern to the Hard. Then the last
+hawser was cast off, and she floated away on the first of the ebb; and as
+she moved, her main-sail, unbrailed, spread itself out and became a vast
+pinion. Like a dream of happiness she lessened and faded, and Lousey Hard
+was as lonely and forlorn as ever.
+
+"But didn't you explain to your father?" Miss Ingate demanded of Audrey.
+
+"Of course I did. But he wouldn't listen. He never does. I might just as
+well have explained to the hall-clock. He raged. I think he enjoys losing
+his temper. He said I oughtn't to have been there at all, and it was just
+like me, and he couldn't understand it in a daughter of his, and it would
+be a great shock to my poor mother, and he'd talked enough--he should now
+proceed to action. All the usual things. He actually asked me who 'the man'
+was."
+
+"And who was it?"
+
+"How can I tell? For goodness' sake don't go imitating father, Winnie! ...
+Rather a dull man, I should say. Rather like father, only not so old. He
+had a beautiful necktie; I think it must have been made out of a strip of
+Joseph's coat."
+
+Miss Ingate giggled at a high pitch, and Audrey responsively smiled.
+
+"Oh dear! Oh dear!" murmured Miss Ingate when her giggling was exhausted.
+"How queer it is that a girl like you can't keep your father in a good
+temper!"
+
+"Father hates me to say funny things. If I say anything funny he turns as
+black as ink--and he takes care to keep gloomy all the rest of the day,
+too. He never laughs. Mother laughs now and then, but I never heard father
+laugh. Oh yes, I did. He laughed when the cat fell out of the bathroom
+window on to the lawn-roller. He went quite red in the face with
+laughing.... I say, Miss Ingate, do you think father's mad?"
+
+"I shouldn't think he's what you call mad," replied Miss Ingate judicially,
+with admirable sang-froid. "I've known so many peculiar people in my time.
+And you must remember, Audrey, this is a peculiar part of the world."
+
+"Well, I believe he's mad, anyway. I believe he's got men on the brain,
+especially young men. He's growing worse. Yesterday he told me I musn't
+have the punt out on Mozewater this season unless he's with me. Fancy
+skiffing about with father! He says I'm too old for that now. So there you
+are. The older I get the less I'm allowed to do. I can't go a walk, unless
+it's an errand. The pedal is off my bike, and father is much too cunning to
+have it repaired. I can't boat. I'm never given any money. He grumbles
+frightfully if I want any clothes, so I never want any. That's my latest
+dodge. I've read every book in the house except the silly liturgical and
+legal things he's always having from the London Library--and I've read even
+some of those. He won't buy any new music. Golf! Ye gods, Winnie, you
+should hear him talk about ladies and golf!"
+
+"I have," said Miss Ingate. "But it doesn't ruffle me, because I don't
+play."
+
+"But he plays with girls, and young girls, too, all the same. He's been
+caught in the act. Ethel told me. He little thinks I know. He'd let me play
+if he could be the only man on the course. He's mad about me and men. He
+never looks at me without thinking of all the boys in the district."
+
+"But he's really very fond of you, Audrey."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Audrey. "He ought to keep me in the china cupboard."
+
+"Well, it's a great problem."
+
+"He's invented a beautiful new trick for keeping me in when he's out. I
+have to copy his beastly Society letters for him."
+
+"I see he's got a new box," observed Miss Ingate, glancing into the open
+cupboard in which stood the safe. On the top of the safe were two japanned
+boxes, each lettered in white: "The National Reformation Society." The
+uppermost box was freshly unpacked and shone with all the intact pride of
+virginity.
+
+"You should read some of the letters. You really should, Winnie," said
+Audrey. "All the bigwigs of the Society love writing to each other. I bet
+you father will get a typewriting machine this year, and make me learn it.
+The chairman has a typewriter, and father means to be the next chairman.
+You'll see.... Oh! What's that? Listen!"
+
+"What's what?"
+
+A faint distant throbbing could be heard.
+
+"It's the motor! He's coming back for something. Fly out of here, Winnie,
+fly!"
+
+Audrey felt sick at the thought that if her father had returned only a few
+minutes earlier he might have trapped her at the safe itself. She still
+kept one hand behind her.
+
+Miss Ingate, who with all her qualities was rather easily flustered, ran
+out of the dangerous room in Audrey's wake. They met Mr. Mathew Moze at
+the half-landing of the stairs.
+
+He was a man of average size, somewhat past sixty years. He had plump
+cheeks, tinged with red; his hair, moustache and short, full beard, were
+quite grey. He wore a thick wide-spreading ulster, and between his coat and
+waistcoat a leather vest, and on his head a grey cap. Put him in the Strand
+in town clothes, and he might have been taken for a clerk, a civil servant,
+a club secretary, a retired military officer, a poet, an undertaker--for
+anything except the last of a long line of immovable squires who could not
+possibly conceive what it was not to be the owner of land. His face was
+preoccupied and overcast, but as soon as he realised that Miss Ingate was
+on the stairs it instantly brightened into a warm and rather wistful smile.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Ingate," he greeted her with deferential cordiality.
+"I'm so glad to see you back."
+
+"Good morning, good morning, Mr. Moze," responded Miss Ingate. "Vehy nice
+of you. Vehy nice of you."
+
+Nobody would have guessed from their demeanour that they differed on every
+subject except their loyalty to that particular corner of Essex, that he
+regarded her and her political associates as deadly microbes in the
+national organism, and that she regarded him as a nincompoop crossed with a
+tyrant. Each of them had a magic glass to see in the other nothing but a
+local Effendi and familiar guardian angel of Moze. Moreover, Mr. Moze's
+public smile and public manner were irresistible--until he lost his temper.
+He might have had friends by the score, had it not been for his deep
+constitutional reserve--due partly to diffidence and partly to an immense
+hidden conceit. Mr. Moze's existence was actuated, though he knew it not,
+by the conviction that the historic traditions of England were committed to
+his keeping. Hence the conceit, which was that of a soul secretly
+self-dedicated.
+
+Audrey, outraged by the hateful hypocrisy of persons over fifty, and
+terribly constrained and alarmed, turned vaguely back up the stairs. Miss
+Ingate, not quite knowing what she did, with an equal vagueness followed
+her.
+
+"Come in. Do come in," urged Mr. Moze at the door of the study.
+
+Audrey, who remained on the landing, heard her elders talk smoothly of
+grave Mozian things, while Mr. Moze unlocked the new tin box above the
+safe.
+
+"I'd forgotten a most important paper," said he, as he relocked the box. "I
+have an appointment with the Bishop of Colchester at ten-forty-five, and I
+fear I may be late. Will you excuse me, Miss Ingate?"
+
+She excused him.
+
+Departing, he put the paper into his pocket with a careful and loving
+gesture that well symbolised his passionate affection for the Society of
+which he was already the vice-chairman. He had been a member of the
+National Reformation Society for eleven years. Despite the promise of its
+name, this wealthy association of idealists had no care for reforms in a
+sadly imperfect England. Its aim was anti-Romanist. The Reformation which
+it had in mind was Luther's, and it wished, by fighting an alleged
+insidious revival of Roman Catholicism, to make sure that so far as England
+was concerned Luther had not preached in vain.
+
+Mr. Moze's connection with the Society had originated in a quarrel between
+himself and a Catholic priest from Ipswich who had instituted a boys'
+summer camp on the banks of Mozewater near the village of Moze. Until that
+quarrel, the exceeding noxiousness of the Papal doctrine had not clearly
+presented itself to Mr. Moze. In such strange ways may an ideal come to
+birth. As Mr. Moze, preoccupied and gloomy once more, steered himself
+rapidly out of Moze towards the episcopal presence, the image of the
+imperturbable and Jesuitical priest took shape in his mind, refreshing his
+determination to be even with Rome at any cost.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE THIEF'S PLAN WRECKED
+
+
+"The fact is," said Audrey, "father has another woman in the house now."
+
+Mr. Moze had left Miss Ingate in the study and Audrey had cautiously
+rejoined her there.
+
+"Another woman in the house!" repeated Miss Ingate, sitting down in happy
+expectation. "What on earth do you mean? Who on earth do you mean?"
+
+"I mean me."
+
+"You aren't a woman, Audrey."
+
+"I'm just as much of a woman as you are. All father's behaviour proves it."
+
+"But your father treats you as a child."
+
+"No, he doesn't. He treats me as a woman. If he thought I was a child he
+wouldn't have anything to worry about. I'm over nineteen."
+
+"You don't look it."
+
+"Of course I don't. But I could if I liked. I simply won't look it because
+I don't care to be made ridiculous. I should start to look my age at once
+if father stopped treating me like a child."
+
+"But you've just said he treats you as a woman!"
+
+"You don't understand, Winnie," said the girl sharply. "Unless you're
+pretending. Now you've never told me anything about yourself, and I've
+always told you lots about myself. You belong to an old-fashioned family.
+How were you treated when you were my age?"
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"You know what way," said Audrey, gazing at her.
+
+"Well, my dear. Things seemed to come very naturally, somehow."
+
+"Were you ever engaged?"
+
+"Me? Oh, no!" answered Miss Ingate with tranquillity. "I'm vehy interested
+in them. Oh, vehy! Oh, vehy! And I like talking to them. But anything more
+than that gets on my nerves. My eldest sister was the one. Oh! She was the
+one. She refused eleven men, and when she was going to be married she made
+me embroider the monograms of all of them on the skirt of her
+wedding-dress. She made me, and I had to do it. I sat up all night the
+night before the wedding to finish them."
+
+"And what did the bridegroom say about it?"
+
+"The bridegroom didn't say anything about it because he didn't know. Nobody
+knew except Arabella and me. She just wanted to feel that the monograms
+were on her dress, that was all."
+
+"How strange!"
+
+"Yes, it was. But this is a vehy strange part of the world."
+
+"And what happened afterwards?"
+
+"Bella died when she had her first baby, and the baby died as well. And the
+father's dead now, too."
+
+"What a horrid story, Winnie!" Audrey murmured. And after a pause: "I like
+your sister."
+
+"She was vehy uncommon. But I liked her too. I don't know why, but I did.
+She could make the best marmalade I ever tasted in my born days."
+
+"I could make the best marmalade you ever tasted in your born days," said
+Audrey, sinking neatly to the floor and crossing her legs, "but they won't
+let me."
+
+"Won't let you! But I thought you did all sorts of things in the house."
+
+"No, Winnie. I only do one thing. I do as I'm told--and not always even
+that. Now, if I wanted to make the best marmalade you ever tasted in your
+born days, first of all there would be a fearful row about the oranges.
+Secondly, father would tell mother she must tell me exactly what I was to
+do. He would also tell cook. Thirdly and lastly, dear friends, he would
+come into the kitchen himself. It wouldn't be my marmalade at all. I should
+only be a marmalade-making machine. They never let me have any
+responsibility--no, not even when mother's operation was on--and I'm never
+officially free. The kitchen-maid has far more responsibility than I have.
+And she has an evening off and an afternoon off. She can write a letter
+without everybody asking her who she's writing to. She's only seventeen.
+She has the morning postman for a young man now, and probably one or two
+others that I don't know of. And she has money and she buys her own
+clothes. She's a very naughty, wicked girl, and I wish I was in her place.
+She scorns me, naturally. Who wouldn't?"
+
+Miss Ingate said not a word. She merely sat with her hands in the lap of
+her spotted pale-blue dress, faintly and sadly smiling.
+
+Audrey burst out:
+
+"Miss Ingate, what can I do? I must do something. What can I do?"
+
+Miss Ingate shook her head, and put her lips tightly together, while
+mechanically smoothing the sides of her grey coat.
+
+"I don't know," she said. "It beats me."
+
+"Then _I'll_ tell you what I can do!" answered Audrey firmly, wriggling
+somewhat nearer to her along the floor. "And what I shall do."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Will you promise to keep it a secret?"
+
+Miss Ingate nodded, smiling and showing her teeth. Her broad polished
+forehead positively shone with kindly eagerness.
+
+"Will you swear?"
+
+Miss Ingate hesitated, and then nodded again.
+
+"Then put your hand on my head and say, 'I swear.'"
+
+Miss Ingate obeyed.
+
+"I shall leave this house," said Audrey in a low voice.
+
+"You won't, Audrey!"
+
+"I'll eat my hand off if I've not left this house by to-morrow, anyway."
+
+"To-morrow!" Miss Ingate nearly screamed. "Now, Audrey, do reflect. Think
+what you are!"
+
+Audrey bounded to her feet.
+
+"That's what father's always saying," she exploded angrily. "He's always
+telling me to examine myself. The fact is, I know too much about myself. I
+know exactly the kind of girl it is who's going to leave this house.
+Exactly!"
+
+"Audrey, you frighten me. Where are you going to?"
+
+"London."
+
+"Oh! That's all right then. I am relieved. I thought perhaps you waited to
+come to _my_ house. You won't get to London, because you haven't any
+money."
+
+"Oh, yes, I have. I've got a hundred pounds."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Remember, you've sworn.... Here!" she cried suddenly, and drawing her hand
+from behind her back she most sensationally displayed a crushed roll of
+bank-notes.
+
+"And who did you get those from?"
+
+"I didn't get them from anybody. I got them out of father's safe. They're
+his reserve. He keeps them right at the back of the left-hand drawer, and
+he's so sure they're there that he never looks for them. He thinks he's a
+perfect model, but really he's careless. There's a duplicate key to the
+safe, you know, and he leaves it with a lot of other keys loose in his
+desk. I expect he thought nobody would ever dream of guessing it was a key
+of the safe. I know he never looked at this roll, because I've been opening
+the safe every day for weeks past, and the roll was always the same. In
+fact, it was dusty. Then to-day I decided to take it, and here you are! He
+finished himself off yesterday, so far as I'm concerned, with the business
+about the punt."
+
+"But do you know you're a thief, Audrey?" breathed Miss Ingate, extremely
+embarrassed, and for once somewhat staggered by the vagaries of human
+nature.
+
+"You seem to forget, Miss Ingate," said Audrey solemnly, "that Cousin
+Caroline left me a legacy of two hundred pounds last year, and that I've
+never seen a penny of it. Father absolutely declined to let me have the
+tiniest bit of it. Well, I've taken half. He can keep the other half for
+his trouble."
+
+Miss Ingate's mouth stood open, and her eyes seemed startled.
+
+"But you can't go to London alone. You wouldn't know what to do."
+
+"Yes, I should. I've arranged everything. I shall wear my best clothes.
+When I arrive at Liverpool Street I shall take a taxi. I've got three
+addresses of boarding-houses out of the _Daily Telegraph_, and they're all
+in Bloomsbury, W.C. I shall have lessons in shorthand and typewriting at
+Pitman's School, and then I shall get a situation. My name will be
+Vavasour."
+
+"But you'll be caught."
+
+"I shan't. I shall book to Ipswich first and begin again from there. Girls
+like me aren't so easy to catch as all that."
+
+"You're vehy cunning."
+
+"I get that from mother. She's most frightfully cunning with father."
+
+"Audrey," said Miss Ingate with a strange grin, "I don't know how I can sit
+here and listen to you. You'll ruin me with your father, because if you go
+I'm sure I shall never be able to keep from him that I knew all about it."
+
+"Then you shouldn't have sworn," retorted Audrey. "But I'm glad you did
+swear, because I had to tell somebody, and there was nobody but you."
+
+Miss Ingate might possibly have contrived to employ some of that sagacity
+in which she took a secret pride upon a very critical and urgent situation,
+had not Mrs. Moze, with a white handkerchief wrapped round her forehead,
+at that moment come into the room. Immediately the study was full of
+neuralgia and eau-de-Cologne.
+
+When Mrs. Moze and Miss Ingate at length recovered from the tenderness of
+meeting each other after a separation of ten days or more, Audrey had
+vanished like an illusion. She was not afraid of her mother; and she could
+trust Miss Ingate, though Miss Ingate and Mrs. Moze were dangerously
+intimate; but she was too self-conscious to remain in the presence of her
+fellow-creatures; and in spite of her faith in Miss Ingate she thought of
+the spinster as of a vase filled now with a fatal liquor which by any
+accident might spill and spread ruin--so that she could scarcely bear to
+look upon Miss Ingate.
+
+At the back of the house a young Pomeranian dog, which had recently solaced
+Miss Ingate in the loss of a Pekingese done to death by a spinster's
+too-nourishing love, was prancing on his four springs round the chained
+yard-dog, his friend and patron. In a series of marvellous short bounds, he
+followed Audrey with yapping eagerness down the slope of the garden; and
+the yard-dog, aware that none but the omnipotent deity, Mr. Moze, sole
+source of good and evil, had the right to loose him, turned round once and
+laid himself flat and long on the ground, sighing.
+
+The garden, after developing into an orchard and deteriorating into a
+scraggy plantation, ended in a low wall that was at about the level of the
+sea-wall and separated from it by a water-course and a strip of very green
+meadow. Audrey glanced instinctively back at the house to see if anybody
+was watching her.
+
+Flank Hall, which for a hundred years had been called "the new hall," was a
+seemly Georgian residence, warm in colour, with some quaint woodwork; and
+like most such buildings in Essex, it made a very happy marriage with the
+landscape. Its dormers and fine chimneys glowed amid the dark bare trees,
+and they alone would have captivated a Londoner possessing those precious
+attributes, fortunately ever spreading among the enlightened
+middle-classes, a motor-car, a cultured taste in architecture, and a desire
+to enter the squirearchy. Audrey loathed the house. For her it was the last
+depth of sordidness and the commonplace. She could imagine positively
+nothing less romantic. She thought of the ground floor on chill March
+mornings with no fires anywhere save a red gleam in the dining-room, and
+herself wandering about in it idle, at a loss for a diversion, an ambition,
+an effort, a real task; and she thought of the upper floor, a mainly
+unoccupied wilderness of iron bedsteads and yellow chests of drawers and
+chipped earthenware and islands of carpets, and her mother plaintively and
+weariedly arguing with some servant over a slop-pail in a corner. The
+images of the interior, indelibly printed in her soul, desolated her.
+
+Mozewater she loved, and every souvenir of it was exquisite--red barges
+beating miraculously up the shallow puddles to Moze Quay, equinoctial
+spring-tides when the estuary was a tremendous ocean covered with foam and
+the sea-wall felt the light lash of spray, thunderstorms in autumn
+gathering over the yellow melancholy of deathlike sunsets, wild birds
+crying across miles of uncovered mud at early morning and duck-hunters
+crouching in punts behind a waving screen of delicate grasses to wing them,
+and the mysterious shapes of steamers and warships in the offing beyond the
+Sand.... The sail of the receding yacht gleamed now against the Sand, and
+its flashing broke her heart; for it was the flashing of freedom. She
+thought of the yachtsman; he was very courteous and deferential; a mild
+creature; he had behaved to her as to a woman.... Oh! To be the petted and
+capricious wife of such a man, to nod commands, to enslave with a smile, to
+want a thing and instantly to have it, to be consulted and to decide, to
+spend with large gestures, to be charitable, to be adored by those whom you
+had saved from disaster, to increase happiness wherever you went ... and to
+be free!....
+
+The little dog jumped up at her because he was tired of being ignored, and
+she caught him and kissed him again and again passionately, and he wriggled
+with ecstasy and licked her ears with all the love in him. And in kissing
+him she kissed grave and affectionate husbands, she kissed the lovely
+scenery of the Sound, and she kissed the magnificent ideal of emancipation.
+But the dog had soon had enough of her arms; he broke free, sprang,
+alighted, and rolled over, and arose sniffing, with earth on his black
+muzzle....
+
+He looked up at her inquiringly.... Strange, short-frocked blue figure
+looking down at him! She had a bulging forehead; her brown eyes were
+tunnelled underneath it. But what living eyes, what ardent eyes, that
+blazed up and sank like a fire! What delicate and exact mirrors of the
+secret traffic between her soul and the soul of the world!  She had full
+cheeks, and a large mouth ripe red, inviting and provocative. In the midst,
+an absurd small unprominent nose that meant nothing! Her complexion was
+divine, surpassing all similes. To caress that smooth downy cheek (if you
+looked close you could see the infinitesimal down against the light like an
+aura on the edge of the silhouette), even to let the gaze dwell on it, what
+an enchantment!... She considered herself piquant and comely, and she was
+not deceived. She had long hands.
+
+The wind from afar on her cheek reminded her poignantly that she was a
+prisoner. She could not go to the clustered village on the left, nor into
+the saltings on the right, nor even on to the sea-wall where the new rushes
+and grasses were showing. All the estuary was barred, and the winding road
+that mounted the slope towards Colchester. Her revolt against injustice
+was savage. Hatred of her father surged up in her like glittering lava. She
+had long since ceased to try to comprehend him. She despised herself
+because she was unreasonably afraid of him, ridiculously mute before him.
+She could not understand how anybody could be friendly with him--for was he
+not notorious? Yet everywhere he was greeted with respect and smiles, and
+he would chat at length with all manner of people on a note of mild and
+smooth cordiality. He and Miss Ingate would enjoy together the most
+enormous talks. She was, however, aware that Miss Ingate's opinion of him
+was not very different from her own. Each time she saw her father and Miss
+Ingate in communion she would say in her heart to Miss Ingate: "You are
+disloyal to me." ...
+
+Was it possible that she had confided to Miss Ingate her fearful secret?
+The conversation appeared to her unreal now. She went over her plan. In the
+afternoon her father was always out, and to-morrow afternoon her mother
+would be out too. She would have a few things in a light bag that she could
+carry--her mother's bag! She would put on her best clothes and a veil from
+her mother's wardrobe. She would take the 4.5 p.m. train. The stationmaster
+would be at his tea then. Only the booking-clerk and the porter would see
+her, and neither would dare to make an observation. She would ask for a
+return ticket to Ipswich; that would allay suspicion, and at Ipswich she
+would book again. She had cut out the addresses of the boarding-houses.
+She would have to buy things in London. She knew of two shops--Harrod's and
+Shoolbred's; she had seen their catalogues. And the very next morning after
+arrival she would go to Pitman's School. She would change the first of the
+£5 notes at the station and ask for plenty of silver. She glanced at the
+unlimited wealth still crushed in her hand, and then she carefully dropped
+the fortune down the neck of her frock.... Stealing? She repulsed the idea
+with violent disdain. What she had accomplished against her father was not
+a crime, but a vengeance.... She would never be found in London. It was
+impossible. Her plan seemed to her to be perfect in each detail, except
+one. She was not the right sort of girl to execute it. She was very shy.
+She suspected that no other girl could really be as shy as she was. She
+recalled dreadful rare moments with her mother in strange drawing-rooms.
+Still, she would execute the plan even if she died of fright. A force
+within her would compel her to execute it. This force did not make for
+happiness; on the contrary, it uncomfortably scared her; but it was
+irresistible.
+
+Something on the brow of the road from Colchester attracted her attention.
+It was a handcart, pushed by a labourer and by Police Inspector Keeble,
+whom she liked. Following the handcart over the brow came a loose
+procession of villagers, which included no children, because the children
+were in school. Except on a Sunday Audrey had never before seen a
+procession of villagers, and these villagers must have been collected out
+of the fields, for the procession was going in the direction of, and not
+away from, the village. The handcart was covered with a tarpaulin.... She
+knew what had happened; she knew infallibly. Skirting the boundary of the
+grounds, she reached the main entrance to Flank Hall thirty seconds before
+the handcart. The little dog, delighted in a new adventure, yapped
+ecstatically at her heels, and then bounded onwards to meet the Inspector
+and the handcart.
+
+"Run and tell yer mother, Miss Moze," Inspector Keeble called out in a
+carrying whisper. "There's been an accident. He ditched the car near
+Ardleigh cross-roads, trying to avoid some fowls."
+
+Mr. Moze, hurrying too fast to meet the Bishop of Colchester, had met a
+greater than the Bishop.
+
+Audrey glanced an instant with a sick qualm at the outlines of the shape
+beneath the tarpaulin, and ran.
+
+In the dining-room, over the speck of fire, Mrs. Moze and Miss Ingate were
+locked in a deep intimate gossip.
+
+"Mother!" cried Audrey, and then sank like a sack.
+
+"Why! The little thing's fainted!" Miss Ingate exclaimed in a voice
+suddenly hoarse.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LEGACY
+
+
+Audrey and Miss Ingate were in the late Mathew Moze's study, fascinated--as
+much unconsciously as consciously--by the thing which since its owner's
+death had grown every hour more mysterious and more formidable--the safe.
+It was a fine afternoon. The secondary but still grandiose enigma of the
+affair, Mr. Cowl, could be heard walking methodically on the gravel in the
+garden. Mr. Cowl was the secretary of the National Reformation Society.
+
+Suddenly the irregular sound of crunching receded.
+
+"He's gone somewhere else," said Audrey.
+
+"I'm so relieved," said Miss Ingate. "I hope he's gone a long way off."
+
+"Are you?" murmured Audrey, with an air of surprised superiority.
+
+But in secret Audrey felt just as relieved as Miss Ingate, despite the fact
+that, her mother being prostrate, she was the mistress of the situation,
+and could have ordered Mr. Cowl to leave, with the certainty of being
+obeyed. She was astonished at her illogical sensations, and she had been
+frequently so astonished in the previous four days.
+
+For example, she was free; she knew that she could impose herself on her
+mother; never again would she be the slave of an unreasoning tyrant; yet
+she was gloomy and without hope. She had hated the unreasoning tyrant; yet
+she felt very sorry for him because he was dead. And though she felt very
+sorry for him, she detested hearing the panegyrics upon him of the village,
+and particularly of those persons with whom he had quarrelled; she actually
+stopped Miss Ingate in the midst of an enumeration of his good
+qualities--his charm, his smile, his courtesy, his integrity, et cetera;
+she could not bear it. She thought that no child had ever had such a
+strange attitude to a deceased parent as hers to Mr. Moze. She had
+anticipated the inquest with an awful dread; it proved to be a trifle, and
+a ridiculous trifle. In the long weekly letter which she wrote to her
+adored school-friend Ethel at Manningtree she had actually likened the
+coroner to a pecking fowl! Was it possible that a daughter could write in
+such a strain about the inquest on her father's body?
+
+The funeral had seemed a function by itself, with some guidance from the
+undertaker and still more from Mr. Cowl. Villagers and district
+acquaintances had been many at the ceremony, but relatives rare. Mr. Moze's
+four younger brothers were all in the Colonies; Mrs. Moze had apparently no
+connections. Madame Piriac, daughter of Mr. Moze's first wife by that
+lady's first husband, had telegraphed sympathies from Paris. A cousin or so
+had come in person from Woodbridge for the day.
+
+It was from the demeanour of these cousins, grave men twice her age or
+more, that Audrey had first divined her new importance in the world. Their
+deference indicated that in their opinion the future mistress of Flank Hall
+was not Mrs. Moze, but Audrey. Audrey admitted that they were right.  Yet
+she took no pleasure in issuing commands. She spoke firmly, but she said to
+herself: "There is no backbone to this firmness, and I am a fraud." She had
+always yearned for responsibility, yet now that it was in her hand she
+trembled, and she would have dropped it and run away from it as from a
+bomb, had she not been too cowardly to show her cowardice.
+
+The instance of Aguilar, the head-gardener and mechanic, well illustrated
+her pusillanimity. She loathed Aguilar; her mother loathed him; the
+servants loathed him. He had said at the inquest that the car was in
+perfect order, but that Mr. Moze was too excitable to be a good driver.
+His evidence was true, but the jury did not care for his manner. Nor did
+the village. He had only two good qualities--honesty and efficiency; and
+these by their rarity excited jealousy rather than admiration. Audrey
+strongly desired to throw the gardener-mechanic upon the world; it
+nauseated her to see his disobliging face about the garden. But he remained
+scathless, to refuse demanded vegetables, to annoy the kitchen, to
+pronounce the motor-car utterly valueless, and to complain of his own
+liver. Audrey had legs; she had a tongue; she could articulate. Neither
+wish nor power was lacking in her to give Aguilar the supreme experience of
+his career. And yet she did not walk up to him and say: "Aguilar, please
+take a week's notice." Why? The question puzzled her and lowered her
+opinion of herself.
+
+She was similarly absurd in the paramount matter of the safe. The safe
+could not be opened. The village, having been thrilled by four stirring
+days of the most precious and rare fever, had suffered much after the
+funeral from a severe reaction of dullness. It would have suffered much
+more had the fact not escaped that the safe could not be opened. In the
+deep depression of the day following the funeral the village could still
+say to itself: "Romance and excitement are not yet over, for the key of the
+Moze safe is lost, and the will is in the safe!"
+
+The village did not know that there were two keys to the safe and that they
+were both lost. Nobody knew that except Audrey and Miss Ingate and Mr.
+Cowl. The official key was lost because Mr. Moze's key-ring was lost. The
+theory was that it had been jerked out of his pocket in the accident.
+Persistent search for it had been unsuccessful. As for the unofficial or
+duplicate key, Audrey could not remember where she had put it after her
+burglary, the conclusion of which had been disturbed by Miss Ingate. At one
+moment she was quite sure that she had left the key in the safe, but at
+another moment she was equally sure that she was holding the key in her
+right hand (the bank-notes being in her left) when Miss Ingate entered the
+room; at still another moment she was almost convinced that before Miss
+Ingate's arrival she had run to the desk and slipped the key back into its
+drawer. In any case the second key was irretrievable. She discussed the
+dilemma very fully with Miss Ingate, who had obligingly come to stay in the
+house. They examined every aspect of the affair, except Audrey's guiltiness
+of theft, which both of them tacitly ignored. In the end they decided that
+it might be wiser not to conceal Audrey's knowledge of the existence of a
+second key; and they told Mr. Cowl, because he happened to be at hand. In
+so doing they were ill-advised, because Mr. Cowl at once acted in a
+characteristic and inconvenient fashion which they ought to have foreseen.
+
+On the day before the funeral Mr. Cowl had telegraphed from some place in
+Devonshire that he should represent the National Reformation Society at the
+funeral, and asked for a bed, on the pretext that he could not get from
+Devonshire to Moze in time for the funeral if he postponed his departure
+until the next morning. The telegram was quite costly. He arrived for
+dinner, a fat man about thirty-eight, with chestnut hair, a low, alluring
+voice, and a small handbag for luggage. Miss Ingate thought him very
+interesting, and he was. He said little about the National Reformation
+Society, but a great deal about the late Mr. Moze, of whom he appeared to
+be an intimate friend; presumably the friendship had developed at meetings
+of the Society. After dinner he strolled nonchalantly to the sideboard and
+opened a box of the deceased's cigars, and suggested that, as he was well
+acquainted with the brand, having often enjoyed the hospitality of Mr.
+Moze's cigar-case, he should smoke a cigar now to the memory of the
+departed. Miss Ingate then began to feel alarmed. He smoked four cigars to
+the memory of the departed, and on retiring ventured to take four more for
+consumption during the night, as he seldom slept.
+
+In the morning he went into the bathroom at eight o'clock and remained
+there till noon, reading and smoking in continually renewed hot water. He
+descended blandly, begged Miss Moze not to trouble about his breakfast, and
+gently assumed a certain control of the funeral. After the funeral he
+announced that he should leave on the morrow; but the mystery of the safe
+held him to the house. When he heard of the existence of the second key he
+organised and took command of a complete search of the study, and in the
+course of the search he inspected every document in the study. He said he
+knew that the deceased had left a legacy to the Society, and he should not
+feel justified in quitting Moze until the will was found.
+
+Now in these circumstances Audrey ought certainly to have telegraphed to
+her father's solicitor at Chelmsford at once. In the alternative she ought
+to have hired a safe-opening expert or a burglar from Colchester. She had
+accomplished neither of these downright things. With absolute power, she
+had done nothing but postpone. She wondered at herself, for up to her
+father's death she had been a great critic of absolute power.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The heavy policemanish step of Mr. Cowl was heard on the landing.
+
+"He's coming down on us!" exclaimed Miss Ingate, partly afraid, and partly
+ironic at her own fear. "I'm sure he's coming down on us. Audrey, I liked
+that man at first, but now I tremble before him. And I'm sure his moustache
+is dyed. Can't you ask him to leave?"
+
+"Is his moustache dyed, Winnie? Oh, what fun!"
+
+Miss Ingate's apprehension was justified. There was a knock at the study
+door, discreet, insistent, menacing, and it was Mr. Cowl's knock. He
+entered, smiling gravely and yet, as it were, teasingly. His easy bigness,
+florid and sinister, made a disturbing contrast with the artless and pure
+simplicity of Audrey in her new black robe, and even with Miss Ingate's
+pallid maturity, which, after all, was passably innocent and ingenuous. Mr.
+Cowl resembled a great beast good-humouredly lolloping into the cage in
+which two rabbits had been placed for his diversion and hunger.
+
+Pulling a key from the pocket of his vast waistcoat, he said in his quiet
+voice, so seductive and ominous:
+
+"Is this the key of the safe?"
+
+He offered it delicately to Audrey.
+
+It was the key of the safe.
+
+"Did they find it in the ditch?" Audrey demanded, blushing, for she knew
+that the key had not been found in the ditch; she knew by a certain
+indentation on it that it was the duplicate key which she herself had
+mislaid.
+
+"No," said Mr. Cowl. "I found it myself, and not in the ditch. I remembered
+you had said that you had changed at the dressmaker's in the village and
+had left there an old frock."
+
+"Did I?" murmured Audrey, with a deeper blush.
+
+Mr. Cowl nodded.
+
+"I had the happy idea that you might have had the key and left it in the
+pocket of the frock. So I trotted down to the dressmaker's and asked for
+the frock, in your name, and lo! the result!"
+
+He pointed to the key lying in Audrey's long hand.
+
+"But how should I have had the key, Mr. Cowl? Why should I have had the
+key?" Audrey burst out like a simpleton.
+
+"That, Miss Moze," said he, with a peculiar grin and in an equally peculiar
+tone, "is a matter about which obviously you are better informed than I am.
+Shall we try the key?"
+
+With a smooth undeniable gesture he took the key again from Audrey, and
+bent his huge form to open the safe. As he did so Miss Ingate made a
+sarcastic and yet affrighted face at Audrey, and Audrey tried to send a
+signal in reply, but failed, owing to imperfect self-control. However, she
+managed to say to Mr. Cowl's curved back:
+
+"You couldn't have found the key in the pocket of my old frock, Mr. Cowl."
+
+"And why?" he inquired benevolently, raising and turning his chestnut head.
+Even in that exciting instant Audrey could debate within herself whether or
+not his superb moustache was dyed.
+
+"Because it has no pocket."
+
+"So I discovered," said Mr. Cowl, after a little pause. "I merely stated
+that I had the happy idea--for it proved to be a happy idea--that you might
+have left the key in the pocket. I discovered it, as a fact, in a slit of
+the lining of the belt.... Conceivably you had slipped it in there--in a
+hurry." He put strange implications into the last three words. "Yes, it is
+the authentic key," he concluded, as the door of the safe swung heavily and
+silently open.
+
+Audrey, for the first time, felt rather like a thief as she beheld the
+familiar interior of the safe which a few days earlier she had so
+successfully rifled. "Is it possible," she thought, "that I really took
+bank-notes out of that safe, and that they are at this very moment in my
+bedroom between the leaves of 'Pictures of Palestine'?"
+
+Mr. Cowl was cautiously fumbling among the serried row of documents which,
+their edges towards the front, filled the steel shelf above the drawers.
+Audrey had never experienced any curiosity concerning the documents. Lucre
+alone had interested the base creature. No documents would have helped her
+to freedom. But now she thought apprehensively: "My fate may be among those
+documents." She was quite prepared to learn that her father had done
+something silly in his will.
+
+"This resembles a testament," said Mr. Cowl, smiling to himself, and
+pulling out a foolscap scrip, folded and endorsed. "Yes. Dated last year."
+
+He unfolded the document; a letter slipped from the interior of it; he
+placed the letter on the small occasional table next to the desk, and
+offered the will to Audrey with precisely the same gesture as he had
+offered the key.
+
+Audrey tried to decipher the will, and completely failed.
+
+"Will you read it, Miss Ingate?" she muttered.
+
+"I can't! I can't!" answered Miss Ingate in excitement. "I'm sure I can't.
+I never could read wills. They're so funny, somehow. And I haven't got my
+spectacles." She flushed slightly.
+
+"May _I_ venture to tell you what it contains?" Mr. Cowl suggested. "There
+can be no indiscretion on my part, as all wills after probate are public
+property and can be inspected by any Tom, Dick or Harry for a fee of one
+shilling."
+
+He took the document and gazed at it intently, turning over a page and
+turning back, for an extraordinarily long time.
+
+Audrey said to herself again and again, with exasperated impatience: "He
+knows now, and I don't know. He knows now, and I don't know. He knows now,
+and I don't know."
+
+At length Mr. Cowl spoke:
+
+"It is a perfectly simple will. The testator leaves the whole of his
+property to Mrs. Moze for life, and afterwards to you, Miss Moze. There are
+only two legacies. Ten pounds to James Aguilar, gardener. And the
+testator's shares in the Zacatecas Oil Development Corporation to the
+National Reformation Society. I may say that the testator had expressed to
+me his intention of leaving these shares to the Society. We should have
+preferred money, free of legacy duty, but the late Mr. Moze had a reason
+for everything he did. I must now bid you good-bye, ladies," he went on
+strangely, with no pause. "Miss Moze, will you convey my sympathetic
+respects to your mother and my thanks for her most kind hospitality? My
+grateful sympathies to yourself. Good-bye, Miss Ingate.... Er, Miss
+Ingate, why do you look at me in that peculiar way?"
+
+"Well, Mr. Cowl, you're a very peculiar man. May I ask whether you were
+born in this part of the country?"
+
+"At Clacton, Miss Ingate," answered Mr. Cowl imperturbably.
+
+"I knew it," said Miss Ingate, and the corners of her lips went
+sardonically down.
+
+"Please don't trouble to come downstairs," said Mr. Cowl. "My bag is
+packed. I have tipped the parlourmaid, and there is just time to catch the
+train."
+
+He departed, leaving the two women speechless.
+
+After a moment, Miss Ingate said dryly:
+
+"He was so very peculiar I knew he must belong to these parts."
+
+"How did he know I left my blue frock at Miss Pannell's?" cried Audrey. "I
+never told him."
+
+"He must have been eavesdropping!" cried Miss Ingate. "He never found the
+key in your frock. He must have found it here somewhere; I feel sure it
+must have dropped by the safe, and I lay anything he had opened the safe
+before and read the will before. I could tell from the way he looked."
+
+"And why should he suppose that I'd the key?" Audrey put in.
+
+"Eavesdropping! I'm convinced that man knows too much." Audrey reddened
+once more. "I believe he thought you'd be capable of burning the will.
+That's why he made you handle it in his presence and mine."
+
+"Well, Winnie," said Audrey, "I think you might have told him all that
+while he was here, instead of letting him go off so triumphant."
+
+"I did begin to," said Miss Ingate with a snigger. "But you wouldn't back
+me up, you little coward."
+
+"I shall never be a coward again!" Audrey said violently.
+
+They read the will together. They had no difficulty at all in comprehending
+it now that they were alone.
+
+"I do think it's a horrid shame Aguilar should have that ten pounds," said
+Audrey. "But otherwise I don't care. You can't guess how relieved I am,
+Winnie. I imagined the most dreadful things. I don't know what I imagined.
+But now we shall have all the property and everything, just as much as ever
+there was, and only me and mother to spend it." Audrey danced an embryonic
+jig. "Won't I keep mother in order! Winnie, I shall make her go with me to
+Paris. I've always wanted to know that Madame Piriac--she does write such
+funny English in her letters."
+
+"What's that you're saying?" murmured Miss Ingate, who had picked up the
+letter which Mr. Cowl had laid on the small table.
+
+"I say I shall make mother go to Paris with me."
+
+"You won't," said Miss Ingate. "Because she won't go. I know your mother
+better than you do.... Oh!  Audrey!"
+
+Audrey saw Miss Ingate's face turn scarlet from the roots of her hair to
+her chin.
+
+Miss Ingate had dropped the letter. Audrey snatched it.
+
+"My dear Moze," the letter ran. "I send you herewith a report of the
+meeting of the Great Mexican Oil Company at New York. You will see that
+they duly authorised the contract by which the Zacatecas Oil Corporation
+transfers our property to them in exchange for shares at the rate of four
+Great Mexican shares for one Zacatecas share. As each of the Development
+Syndicate shares represents ten of the Corporation shares, and as on my
+recommendation you put £4,500 into the Syndicate, you will therefore own
+180,000 Great Mexican shares. They are at present above par. Mark my
+words, they will be worth from seven to ten dollars apiece in a year's
+time. I think you now owe me a good turn, eh?"
+
+The letter was signed with a name unknown to either of them, and it was
+dated from Coleman Street, E.C.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MR. FOULGER
+
+
+Half an hour later the woman and the girl, still in the study and severely
+damaged by the culminating events of Mr. Cowl's visit, were almost
+prostrated by the entirely unexpected announcement of the arrival of Mr.
+Foulger. Mr. Foulger was the late Mr. Moze's solicitor from Chelmsford.
+Audrey's first thought was: "Has heaven telegraphed to him on my behalf?"
+But her next was that all the solicitors in the world would now be useless
+in the horrible calamity that had befallen.
+
+It is to be noted that Audrey was no worse off than before the discovery of
+the astounding value of the Zacatecas shares. The Moze property, inherited
+through generations and consisting mainly in farms and tithe-rents, was not
+in the slightest degree impaired. On the contrary, the steady progress of
+agriculture in Essex indicated that its yield must improve with years.
+Nevertheless Audrey felt as though she and her mother were ruined, and as
+though the National Reformation Society had been guilty of a fearful crime
+against a widow and an orphan. The lovely vision of immeasurable wealth had
+flashed and scintillated for a month in front of her dazzled eyes--and then
+blackness, nothingness, the dark void! She knew that she would never be
+happy again.
+
+And she thought, scornfully, "How could father have been so preoccupied and
+so gloomy, with all those riches?" She could not conceive anybody as rich
+as her father secretly was not being day and night in a condition of pure
+delight at the whole spectacle of existence. Her opinion of Mathew Moze
+fell lower than ever, and fell finally.
+
+The parlourmaid, in a negligence of attire indicating that no man was left
+alive in the house, waited at the door of the study to learn whether or not
+Miss Moze was in.
+
+"You'll _have_ to see him," said Miss Ingate firmly. "It'll be all right.
+I've known him all my life. He's a very nice man."
+
+After the parlourmaid had gone, and while Audrey was upbraiding her for not
+confessing earlier her acquaintance with Mr. Foulger, Miss Ingate added:
+
+"Only his wife has a wooden leg."
+
+Then Mr. Foulger entered. He was a shortish man of about fifty, with a
+paunch, but not otherwise fat; dressed like a sportsman. He trod very
+lightly. The expression on his ruddy face was amiable but extremely alert,
+hardening at intervals into decision or caution. He saw before him a
+nervous, frowning girl in inelegant black, and Miss Ingate with a curious
+look in her eyes and a sardonic and timid twitching of her lips. For an
+instant he was discountenanced; but he at once recovered, accomplishing a
+bright salute.
+
+"Here you are at last, Mr. Foulger!" Miss Ingate responded. "But you're too
+late."
+
+These mysterious words, and the speechlessness of Audrey, upset him again.
+
+"I was away in Somersetshire for a little fishing," he said, after he had
+deplored the death of Mr. Moze, the illness of Mrs. Moze, and the
+bereavement of Miss Moze, and had congratulated Miss Moze on the protective
+friendship of his old friend, Miss Ingate. "I was away for a little
+fishing, and I only heard the sad news when I got back home at noon to-day.
+I came over at once." He cleared his throat and looked first at Audrey and
+then at Miss Ingate. He felt that he ought to be addressing Audrey, but
+somehow he could not help addressing Miss Ingate instead. His grey legs
+were spread abroad as he sat very erect on a chair, and between them his
+dependent paunch found a comfortable space for itself.
+
+"You must have been getting anxious about the will. I have brought it with
+me," he said. He drew a white document from the breast-pocket of his
+cutaway coat, and he perched a pair of eyeglasses carelessly on his nose.
+"It was executed before your birth, Miss Moze. But a will keeps like wine.
+The whole of the property of every description is left to Mrs. Moze, and
+she is sole executrix. If she should predecease the testator, then
+everything is left to his child or children. Not perhaps a very
+businesslike will--a will likely to lead to unforeseen complications, but
+the sort of will that a man in the first flush of marriage often does make,
+and there is no stopping him. Your father had almost every quality, but he
+was not businesslike--if I may say so with respect. However, I confess that
+for the present I see no difficulties. Of course the death duties will have
+to be paid, but your father always kept a considerable amount of money at
+call. When I say 'considerable,' I mean several thousands. That was a point
+on which he and I had many discussions."
+
+Mr. Foulger glanced around with satisfaction. Already the prospect of legal
+business and costs had brought about a change in his official demeanour of
+an adviser truly bereaved by the death of a client. He saw the young girl,
+gazing fiercely at the carpet, suddenly begin to weep. This phenomenon, to
+which he was not unaccustomed, did not by itself disturb him; but the face
+of Miss Ingate gave him strange apprehensions, which reached a climax when
+Miss Ingate, obviously not at all at ease, muttered:
+
+"There is a later will, Mr. Foulger. It was made last year."
+
+"I see," he breathed, scarcely above a whisper.
+
+He thought he did see. He thought he understood why he had been kept
+waiting, why Mrs. Moze pretended to be ill, why the girl had frowned, why
+the naively calm Miss Ingate was in such a state of nerves. The explanation
+was that he was not wanted. The explanation was that Mr. Moze had changed
+his solicitor. His face hardened, for he and his uncle between them had
+"acted" for the Moze family for over seventy years.
+
+He rose from the chair.
+
+"Then I need not trouble you any longer," he said in a firm tone, and
+turned with real dignity to leave.
+
+He was exceedingly astonished when with one swift movement Audrey rose, and
+flashed like a missile to the door, and stood with her back to it. The fact
+was that Audrey had just remembered her vow never again to be afraid of
+anybody. When Miss Ingate with extraordinary agility also jumped up and
+approached him, he apprehended, recalling rumours of Miss Ingate's advanced
+feminism, that the fate of an anti-suffragette Cabinet Minister might be
+awaiting him, and he prepared his defence.
+
+"You mustn't go," said Miss Ingate.
+
+"You are my solicitor, whatever mother may say, and you mustn't go," added
+Audrey in a soft voice.
+
+The man was entranced. It occurred to him that he would have a tale to tell
+and to re-tell at his club for years, about "a certain fair client who
+shall be nameless."
+
+The next minute he had heard a somewhat romantic, if not hysterical,
+version of the facts of the case, and he was perusing the original
+documents. By chance he read first the letter about the Zacatecas shares.
+That Mathew Moze had made a will without his aid was a shock; that Mathew
+Moze had invested money without his advice was another shock quite as
+severe. But he knew the status of the Great Mexican Oil Company, and his
+countenance lighted as he realised the rich immensity of the business of
+proving the will and devolving the estate; his costs would run to the most
+agreeable figures. As soon as he glanced at the testament which Mr. Cowl
+had found, he muttered, with satisfaction and disdain:
+
+"H'm! He made this himself."
+
+And he gazed at it compassionately, as a cabinetmaker might gaze at a piece
+of amateur fretwork.
+
+Standing, he read it slowly and with extreme care. And when he had finished
+he casually remarked, in the classic legal phrase:
+
+"It isn't worth the paper it's written on."
+
+Then he sat down again, and his neat paunch resumed its niche between his
+legs. He knew that he had made a tremendous effect.
+
+"But--but----" Miss Ingate began.
+
+"Not worth the paper it's written on," he repeated. "There is only one
+witness, and there ought to be two, and even the one witness is a bad
+one--Aguilar, because he profits under the will. He would have to give up
+his legacy before his attestation could count, and even then it would be no
+good alone. Mr. Moze has not even expressly revoked the old will. If there
+hadn't been a previous will, and if Aguilar was a thoroughly reliable man,
+and if the family had wished to uphold the new will, I dare say the Court
+_might_ have pronounced for it. But under the circumstances it hasn't the
+ghost of a chance."
+
+"But won't the National Reformation Society make trouble?" demanded Miss
+Ingate faintly.
+
+"Let 'em try!" said Mr. Foulger, who wished that the National Reformation
+Society would indeed try.
+
+Even as he articulated the words, he was aware of Audrey coming towards him
+from the direction of the door; he was aware of her black frock and of her
+white face, with its bulging forehead and its deliciously insignificant
+nose. She held out her hand.
+
+"You are a dear!" she whispered.
+
+Her lips seemed to aim uncertainly for his face. Did they just touch, with
+exquisite contact, his bristly chin, or was it a divine illusion? ... She
+blushed in a very marked manner. He blinked, and his happy blinking seemed
+to say: "Only wills drawn by me are genuine.... Didn't I tell you Mr. Moze
+was not a man of business?"
+
+Audrey ran to Miss Ingate.
+
+Mr. Foulger, suddenly ashamed, and determined to be a lawyer, said sharply:
+
+"Has Mrs. Moze made a will?"
+
+"Mother made a will? Oh no!"
+
+"Then she should make one at once, in your favour, of course. No time
+should be lost."
+
+"But Mrs. Moze is ill in bed," protested Miss Ingate.
+
+"All the more reason why she should make a will. It may save endless
+trouble. And it is her duty. I shall suggest that I be the executor and
+trustee, of course with the usual power to charge costs." His face was hard
+again. "You will thank me later on, Miss Moze," he added.
+
+"Do you mean _now?_" shrilled Miss Ingate.
+
+"I do," said he. "If you will give me some paper, we might go to her at
+once. You can be one of the witnesses. I could be a witness, but as I am
+to act under the will for a consideration somebody else would be
+preferable."
+
+"I should suggest Aguilar," answered Miss Ingate, the corners of her lips
+dropping.
+
+Miss Ingate went first, to prepare Mrs. Moze.
+
+When Audrey was alone in the study--she had not even offered to accompany
+her elders to the bedroom--she made a long sound: "Ooo!" Then she gave a
+leap and stood still, staring out of the window at the estuary. She tried
+to force her mood to the colour of her dress, but the sense of propriety
+was insufficient for the task. The magnificence of all the world was
+unfolding itself to her soul. Events had hitherto so dizzyingly beaten down
+upon her head that she had scarcely been conscious of feeling. Now she
+luxuriously felt. "I am at last born," she thought. "Miracles have
+happened.... It's incredible.... I can do what I like with mother.... But
+if I don't take care I shall die of relief this very moment!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE DEAD HAND
+
+
+Audrey was wakened up that night, just after she had gone to sleep, by a
+touch on the cheek. Her mother, palely indistinct in the darkness, was
+standing by the bedside. She wore a white wrap over her night attire, and
+the customary white bandage from which emanated a faint odour of
+eau-de-Cologne, was around her forehead.
+
+"Audrey, darling, I must speak to you."
+
+Instantly Audrey became the wise directress of her poor foolish mother's
+existence.
+
+"Mother," she said, with firm kindness, "please do go back to bed at once.
+This sort of thing is simply frightful for your neuralgia. I'll come to you
+in one moment."
+
+And Mrs. Moze meekly obeyed; she had gone even before Audrey had had time
+to light her candle. Audrey was very content in thus being able to control
+her mother and order everything for the best. She guessed that the old lady
+had got some idea into her head about the property, or about her own will,
+or about the solicitor, or about a tombstone, and that it was worrying her.
+She and Miss Ingate (who had now returned home) had had a very extensive
+palaver, in low voices that never ceased, after the triumphant departure of
+Mr. Foulger. Audrey had cautiously protested; she was afraid her mother
+would be fatigued, and she saw no reason why her mother should be
+acquainted with all the details of a complex matter; but the gossiping
+habit of a quarter of a century was too powerful for Audrey.
+
+In the large parental bedroom the only light was Audrey's candle. Mrs. Moze
+was lying on the right half of the great bed, where she had always lain.
+She might have lain luxuriously in the middle, with vast spaces at either
+hand, but again habit was too powerful.
+
+The girl, all in white, held the candle higher, and the shadows everywhere
+shrunk in unison. Mrs. Moze blinked.
+
+"Put the candle on the night-table," said Mrs. Moze curtly.
+
+Audrey did so. The bedroom, for her, was full of the souvenirs of parental
+authority. Her first recollections were those of awe in regard to the
+bedroom. And when she thought that on that bed she had been born, she had a
+very queer sensation.
+
+"I've decided," said Mrs. Moze, lying on her back, and looking up at the
+ceiling, "I've decided that your father's wishes must be obeyed."
+
+"What about, mother?"
+
+"About those shares going to the National Reformation Society. He meant
+them to go, and they must go to the Society. I've thought it well over and
+I've quite decided. I didn't tell Miss Ingate, as it doesn't concern her.
+But I felt I must tell you at once."
+
+"Mother!" cried Audrey. "Have you taken leave of your senses?" She
+shivered; the room was very cold, and as she shivered her image in the
+mirror of the wardrobe shivered, and also her shadow that climbed up the
+wall and bent at right-angles at the cornice till it reached the middle of
+the ceiling.
+
+Mrs. Moze replied obstinately:
+
+"I've not taken leave of my senses, and I'll thank you to remember that I'm
+your mother. I have always carried out your father's wishes, and at my time
+of life I can't alter. Your father was a very wise man. We shall be as well
+off as we always were. Better, because I can save, and I shall save. We
+have no complaint to make; I should have no excuse for disobeying your
+father. Everything is mine to do as I wish with it, and I shall give the
+shares to the Society. What the shares are worth can't affect my duty.
+Besides, perhaps they aren't worth anything. I always understood that
+things like that were always jumping up and down, and generally worthless
+in the end.... That's all I wanted to tell you."
+
+Why did Audrey seize the candle and walk straight out of the bedroom,
+leaving darkness behind her? Was it because the acuteness of her feelings
+drove her out, or was it because she knew instinctively that her mother's
+decision would prove to be immovable? Perhaps both.
+
+She dropped back into her own bed with a soundless sigh of exhaustion. She
+did not blow out the candle, but lay staring at it. Her dream was
+annihilated. She foresaw an interminable, weary and futile future in and
+about Moze, and her mother always indisposed, always fretful, and curiously
+obstinate in weakness. But Audrey, despite her tragic disillusion, was less
+desolated than made solemn. In the most disturbing way she knew herself to
+be the daughter of her father and her mother; and she comprehended that her
+destiny could not be broken off suddenly from theirs. She was touched
+because her mother deemed her father a very wise man, whereas she, Audrey,
+knew that he was nothing of the sort. She felt sorry for both of them. She
+pitied her father, and she was a mother to her mother. Their relations
+together, and the mystic posthumous spell of her father over her mother,
+impressed her profoundly.... And she was proud of herself for having
+demonstrated her courage by preventing the solicitor from running away, and
+extraordinarily ashamed of her sentimental and brazen behaviour to the
+solicitor afterwards. These various thoughts mitigated her despair as she
+gazed at the sinking candle. Nevertheless her dream was annihilated.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE YOUNG WIDOW
+
+
+It was early October. Audrey stood at the garden door of Flank Hall.
+
+The estuary, in all the colours of unsettled, mild, bright weather, lay at
+her feet beneath a high arch of changing blue and white. The capricious
+wind moved in her hair, moved in the rich grasses of the sea-wall, bent at
+a curtseying angle the red-sailed barges, put caps on the waves in the
+middle distance, and drew out into long horizontal scarves the smoke of
+faint steamers in the offing.
+
+Audrey was dressed in black, but her raiment had obviously not been
+fashioned in the village, nor even at Colchester, nor yet at Ipswich, that
+great and stylish city. She looked older; she certainly had acquired
+something of an air of knowledge, assurance, domination, sauciness and
+challenge, which qualities were all partly illustrated in her large,
+audacious hat. The spirit which the late Mr. Moze had so successfully
+suppressed was at length coming to the surface for all beholders to see,
+and the process of evolution begun at the moment when Audrey had bounced up
+and prevented an authoritative solicitor from leaving the study was already
+advanced. Nevertheless, at frequent intervals Audrey's eyes changed, and
+she seemed for an instant to be a very naive, very ingenuous and wistful
+little thing--and this though she had reached the age of twenty. Perhaps
+she was feeling sorry for the girl she used to be.
+
+And no doubt she was also thinking of her mother, who had died within eight
+hours of their nocturnal interview. The death of Mrs. Moze surprised
+everyone, except possibly Mrs. Moze. As an unsuspected result of the
+operation upon her, an embolism had been wandering in her veins; it reached
+the brain, and she expired, to the great loss of the National Reformation
+Society. Such was the brief and simple history. When Audrey stood by the
+body, she had felt that if it could have saved her mother she would have
+enriched the National Reformation Society with all she possessed.
+
+Gradually the sense of freedom had grown paramount in her, and she had
+undertaken the enterprise of completely subduing Mr. Foulger to her own
+ends.
+
+The back hall was carpetless and pictureless, and the furniture in it was
+draped in grey-white. Every room in the abode was in the same state, and,
+since all the windows were shuttered, every room lay moribund in a ghostly
+twilight. Only the clocks remained alive, probably thinking themselves
+immortal. The breakfast things were washed up and stored away. The last two
+servants had already gone. Behind Audrey, forming a hilly background, were
+trunks and boxes, a large bunch of flowers encased in paper, and a case of
+umbrellas and parasols; the whole strikingly new, and every single item
+except the flowers labelled "Paris via Charing Cross and Calais."
+
+Audrey opened her black Russian satchel, and the purse within it. Therein
+were a little compartment full of English gold, another full of French
+gold, another full of multicoloured French bank-notes; and loose in the
+satchel was a blue book of credit-notes, each for five hundred francs, or
+twenty pounds--a thick book! And she would not have minded much if she had
+lost the whole satchel--it would be so easy to replace the satchel with
+all its contents.
+
+Then a small brougham came very deliberately up the drive. It was the
+vehicle in which Miss Ingate went her ways; in accordance with Miss
+Ingate's immemorial command, it travelled at a walking pace up all the
+hills to save the horse, and at a walking pace down all hills lest the
+horse should stumble and Miss Ingate be destroyed. It was now followed by
+a luggage-cart on which was a large trunk.
+
+At the same moment Aguilar, the gardener, appeared from somewhere--he who
+had been robbed of a legacy of ten pounds, but who by his ruthless and
+incontestable integrity had secured the job of caretaker of Flank Hall.
+
+The drivers touched their hats to Audrey and jumped down, and Miss Ingate,
+with a blue veil tied like a handkerchief round her bonnet and chin--sign
+that she was a traveller--emerged from the brougham, sardonically smiling
+at her own and everybody's expense, and too excited to be able to give
+greetings. The three men started to move the trunks, and the two women
+whispered together in the back-hall.
+
+"Audrey," demanded Miss Ingate, with a start, "what are those rings on your
+finger?"
+
+Audrey replied:
+
+"One's a wedding ring and the other's a mourning ring. I bought them
+yesterday at Colchester.... Hsh!" She stilled further exclamations from
+Miss Ingate until the men were out of the hall.
+
+"Look here! Quick!" she whispered, hastily unlocking a large hat-case that
+was left. And Miss Ingate looked and saw a block toque, entirely unsuitable
+for a young girl, and a widow's veil.
+
+"I look bewitching in them," said Audrey, relocking the case.
+
+"But, my child, what does it mean?"
+
+"It means that I'm not silly enough to go to Paris as a girl. I've had more
+than enough of being a girl. I'm determined to arrive in Paris as a young
+widow. It will be much better in every way, and far easier for you. In
+fact, you'll have no chaperoning to do at all. I shall be the chaperon. Now
+don't say you won't go, because you will."
+
+"You ought to have told me before."
+
+"No, I oughtn't. Nothing could have been more foolish."
+
+"But who are you the widow of?"
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Audrey. "You are a sport, Winnie!  I'll tell you all the
+interesting details in the train."
+
+In another minute Aguilar, gloomy and unbending, had received the keys of
+Flank Hall, and the procession crunched down the drive on its way to the
+station.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE CIGARETTE GIRL
+
+
+Audrey did not deem that she had begun truly to live until the next
+morning, when they left London, after having passed a night in the Charing
+Cross Hotel. During several visits to London in the course of the summer
+Audrey had learnt something about the valuelessness of money in a
+metropolis chiefly inhabited by people who were positively embarrassed by
+their riches. She knew, for example, that money being very plentiful and
+stylish hats very rare, large quantities of money had to be given for
+infinitesimal quantities of hats. The big and glittering shops were full of
+people whose pockets bulged with money which they were obviously anxious to
+part with in order to obtain goods, while the proud shop-assistants, secure
+in the knowledge that money was naught and goods were everything, did their
+utmost, by hauteur and steely negatives, to render any transaction
+possible. It was the result of a mysterious "Law of Exchange." She was
+aware of this. She had lost her childhood's naive illusions about the
+sovereignty of money.
+
+Nevertheless she received one or two shocks on the journey, which was
+planned upon the most luxurious scale that the imagination of Messrs.
+Thomas Cook & Son could conceive. There was four pounds and ninepence to
+pay for excess luggage at Charing Cross. Half a year earlier four pounds
+would have bought all the luggage she could have got together. She very
+nearly said to the clerk at the window: "Don't you mean shillings?" But in
+spite of nervousness, blushings, and all manner of sensitive reactions to
+new experiences, her natural sang-froid and instinctive knowledge of the
+world saved her from such a terrible lapse, and she put down a bank-note
+without the slightest hint that she was wondering whether it would not be
+more advantageous to throw the luggage away.
+
+The boat was crowded, and the sea and wind full of menace. Fighting their
+way along the deck after laden porters, Audrey and Miss Ingate
+simultaneously espied the private cabin list hung in a conspicuous spot.
+They perused it as eagerly as if it had been the account of a _cause
+célèbre._ Among the list were two English lords, an Honourable Mrs., a
+baroness with a Hungarian name, several Teutonic names, and Mrs. Moncreiff.
+
+Audrey blushed deeply at the sign of Mrs. Moncreiff, for she was Mrs.
+Moncreiff. Behind the veil, and with the touch of white in her toque, she
+might have been any age up to twenty-eight or so. It would have been
+impossible to say that she was a young girl, that she was not versed in the
+world, that she had not the whole catechism of men at her finger-ends. All
+who glanced at her glanced again--with sympathy and curiosity; and the
+second glance pricked Audrey's conscience, making her feel like a thief.
+But her moods were capricious. At one moment she was a thief, a clumsy
+fraud, an ignorant ninny, and a suitable prey for the secret police; and at
+the next she was very clever, self-confident, equal to the situation, and
+enjoying the situation more than she had ever enjoyed anything, and
+determined to prolong the situation indefinitely.
+
+The cabin was very spacious, yet not more so than was proper, considering
+that the rent of it came to about sixpence a minute. There was room, even
+after all the packages were stowed, for both of them to lie down. But
+instead of lying down they eagerly inspected the little abode. They found a
+lavatory basin with hot and cold water taps, but no hot water and no cold
+water, no soap and no towels. And they found a crystal water-bottle, but it
+was empty. Then a steward came and asked them if they wanted anything, and
+because they were miserable poltroons they smiled and said "No." They were
+secretly convinced that all the other private cabins, inhabited by titled
+persons and by financiers, were superior to their cabin, and that the
+captain of the steamer had fobbed them off with an imitation of a real
+cabin.
+
+Then it was that Miss Ingate, who since Charing Cross had been a little
+excited by a glimpsed newspaper contents-bill indicating suffragette riots
+that morning, perceived, through the open door of the cabin, a most
+beautiful and most elegant girl, attired impeccably in that ritualistic
+garb of travel which the truly cosmopolitan wear on combined rail-and-ocean
+journeys and on no other occasions. It was at once apparent that the
+celestial creature had put on that special hat, that special veil, that
+special cloak, and those special gloves because she was deeply aware of
+what was correct, and that she would not put them on again until destiny
+took her again across the sea, and that if destiny never did take her again
+across the sea never again would she show herself in the vestments, whose
+correctness was only equalled by their expensiveness.
+
+The young woman, however, took no thought of her impressive clothes. She
+was existing upon quite another plane. Miss Ingate, preoccupied by the
+wrongs and perils of her sex, and momentarily softened out of her sardonic
+irony, suspected that they might be in the presence of a victim of
+oppression or neglect. The victim lay Half-prone upon the hard wooden seat
+against the ship's rail. Her dark eyes opened piteously at times, and her
+exquisite profile, surmounted by the priceless hat all askew, made a
+silhouette now against the sea and now against the distant white cliffs of
+Albion, according to the fearful heaving of the ship. Spray occasionally
+dashed over her. She heeded it not. A few feet farther off she would have
+been sheltered by a weather-awning, but, clinging fiercely to the rail, she
+would not move.
+
+Then a sharp squall of rain broke, but she entirely ignored the rain.
+
+The next moment Miss Ingate and Audrey, rushing forth, had gently seized
+her and drawn her into their cabin. They might have succoured other martyrs
+to the modern passion for moving about, for there were many; but they chose
+this particular martyr because she was so wondrously dressed, and also
+perhaps a little because she was so young. As she lay on the cabin sofa she
+looked still younger; she looked a child. Yet when Miss Ingate removed her
+gloves in order to rub those chill, fragile, and miraculously manicured
+hands, a wedding ring was revealed. The wedding ring rendered her intensely
+romantic in the eyes of Audrey and Miss Ingate, who both thought, in
+private:
+
+"She must be the wife of one of those lords!"
+
+Every detail of her raiment, as she was put at her ease, showed her to be
+clothed in precisely the manner which Audrey and Miss Ingate thought
+peeresses always were clothed. Hence, being English, they mingled respect
+with their solacing pity. Nevertheless, their respect was tempered by a
+peculiar pride, for both of them, in taking lemonade on the Pullman, had
+taken therewith a certain preventive or remedy which made them loftily
+indifferent to the heaving of ships and the eccentricities of the sea. The
+specific had done all that was claimed for it--which was a great deal--so
+much so that they felt themselves superwomen among a cargo of flaccid and
+feeble sub-females. And they grew charmingly conceited.
+
+"Am I in my cabin?" murmured the martyr, about a quarter of an hour after
+Miss Ingate, having obtained soda water, had administered to her a dose of
+the miraculous specific.
+
+Her delicious cheeks were now a delicate crimson. But they had been of a
+delicate crimson throughout.
+
+"No," said Audrey. "You're in ours. Which is yours?"
+
+"It's on the other side of the ship, then. I came out for a little air. But
+I couldn't get back. I'd just as lief have died as shift from that seat out
+there by the railings."
+
+Something in the accent, something in those fine English words "lief" and
+"shift," destroyed in the minds of Audrey and Miss Ingate the agreeable
+notion that they had a peeress on their hands.
+
+"Is your husband on board?" asked Audrey.
+
+"He just is," was the answer. "He's in our cabin."
+
+"Shall I fetch him?" Miss Ingate suggested. The corners of her lips had
+begun to fall once more.
+
+"Will you?" said the young woman. "It's Lord Southminster. I'm Lady
+Southminster."
+
+The two saviours were thrilled. Each felt that she had misinterpreted the
+accent, and that probably peeresses did habitually use such words as "lief"
+and "shift." The corners of Miss Ingate's lips rose to their proper
+position.
+
+"I'll look for the number on the cabin list," said she hastily, and went
+forth with trembling to summon the peer.
+
+As Audrey, alone in the cabin with Lady Southminster, bent curiously over
+the prostrate form, Lady Southminster exclaimed with an air of childlike
+admiration:
+
+"You're real ladies, you are!"
+
+And Audrey felt old and experienced. She decided that Lady Southminster
+could not be more than seventeen, and it seemed to be about half a century
+since Audrey was seventeen.
+
+"He can't come," announced Miss Ingate breathlessly, returning to the
+cabin, and supporting herself against the door as the solid teak sank under
+her feet. "Oh yes! He's there all right. It was Number 12. I've seen him. I
+told him, but I don't think he heard me--to understand, that is. If you ask
+me, he couldn't come if forty wives sent for him."
+
+"Oh, couldn't he!" observed Lady Southminster, sitting up. "Couldn't he!"
+
+When the boat was within ten minutes of France, the remedy had had such an
+effect upon her that she could walk about. Accompanied by Audrey she
+managed to work her way round the cabin-deck to No. 12. It was empty, save
+for hand-luggage! The two girls searched, as well as they could, the whole
+crowded ship for Lord Southminster, and found him not. Lady Southminster
+neither fainted nor wept. She merely said:
+
+"Oh! All right! If that's it....!"
+
+Hand-luggage was being collected. But Lady Southminster would not collect
+hers, nor allow it to be collected. She agreed with Miss Ingate and Audrey
+that her husband must ultimately reappear either on the quay or in the
+train. While they were all standing huddled together in the throng waiting
+for the gangway to put ashore, she said in a low casual tone, ˆ propos of
+nothing:
+
+"I only married him the day before yesterday. I don't know whether you
+know, but I used to make cigarettes in Constantinopoulos's window in
+Piccadilly. I don't see why I should be ashamed of it, d'you?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Miss Ingate. "But it _is_ rather romantic, isn't it,
+Audrey?"
+
+Despite the terrific interest of the adventure of the cigarette girl,
+disappointment began immediately after landing. This France, of which
+Audrey had heard so much and dreamed so much, was a very ramshackle and
+untidy and one-horse affair. The custom-house was rather like a battlefield
+without any rules of warfare; the scene in the refreshment-room was rather
+like a sack after a battle; the station was a desert with odd files of
+people here and there; the platforms were ridiculous, and you wanted a pair
+of steps to get up into the train. Whatever romance there might be in
+France had been brought by Audrey in her secret heart and by Lady
+Southminster.
+
+Audrey had come to France, and she was going to Paris, solely because of a
+vision which had been created in her by the letters and by the photographs
+of Madame Piriac. Although Madame Piriac and she had absolutely no tie of
+blood, Madame Piriac being the daughter by a first husband of the French
+widow who became the first Mrs. Moze--and speedily died, Audrey persisted
+privately in regarding Madame Piriac as a kind of elder sister. She felt a
+very considerable esteem for Madame Piriac, upon whom she had never set
+eyes, and Madame Piriac had certainly given her the impression that France
+was to England what paradise is to purgatory. Further, Audrey had fallen in
+love with Madame Piriac's portraits, whose elegance was superb. And yet,
+too, Audrey was jealous of Madame Piriac, and especially so since the
+attainment of freedom and wealth. Madame Piriac had most warmly invited
+her, after the death of Mrs. Moze, to pay a long visit to Paris as a guest
+in her home. Audrey had declined--from jealousy. She would not go to Madame
+Piriac's as a raw girl, overdone with money, who could only speak one
+language and who knew nothing at all of this our planet. She would go, if
+she went, as a young woman of the world who could hold her own in any
+drawing-room, be it Madame Piriac's or another. Hence Miss Ingate had
+obtained the address of a Paris boarding-house, and one or two preliminary
+introductions from political friends in London.
+
+Well, France was not equal to its reputation; and Miss Ingate's sardonic
+smile seemed to be saying: "So this is your France!"
+
+However, the excitement of escorting the youngest English peeress to Paris
+sufficed for Audrey, even if it did not suffice for Miss Ingate with her
+middle-aged apprehensions. They knew that Lady Southminster was the
+youngest English peeress because she had told them so. At the very moment
+when they were dispatching a telegram for her to an address in London, she
+had popped out the remark: "Do you know I'm the youngest peeress in
+England?" And truth shone in her candid and simple smile. They had not
+found the peer, neither on the ship, nor on the quay, nor in the station.
+And the peeress would not wait. She was indeed obviously frightened at the
+idea of remaining in Calais alone, even till the next express. She said
+that her husband's "man" would meet the train in Paris. She ate plenteously
+with Audrey and Miss Ingate in the refreshment-room, and she would not
+leave them nor allow them to leave her. The easiest course was to let her
+have her way, and she had it.
+
+By dint of Miss Ingate's unscrupulous tricks with small baggage they
+contrived to keep a whole compartment to themselves. As soon as the train
+started the peeress began to cry. Then, wiping her heavenly silly eyes, and
+upbraiding herself, she related to her protectresses the glory of a new
+manicure set. Unfortunately she could not show them the set, as it had been
+left in the cabin. She was actually in possession of nothing portable
+except her clothes, some English magazines bought at Calais, and a handbag
+which contained much money and many bonbons.
+
+"He's done it on purpose," she said to Audrey as soon as Miss Ingate went
+off to take tea in the tea-car. "I'm sure he's done it on purpose. He's
+hidden himself, and he'll turn up when he thinks he's beaten me. D'you know
+why I wouldn't bring that luggage away out of the cabin?  Because we had a
+quarrel about it, at the station, and he said things to me. In fact we
+weren't speaking. And we weren't speaking last night either. The radiator
+of his--our--car leaked, and we had to come home from the Coliseum in a
+motor-bus. He couldn't get a taxi. It wasn't his fault, but a friend of
+mine told me the day before I was married that a lady always ought to be
+angry when her husband can't get a taxi after the theatre--she says it does
+'em good. So first I told him he mustn't leave me to look for one.  Then I
+said I'd wait where I was, and then I said we'd walk on, and then I said we
+must take a motor-bus. It was that that finished him. He said: 'Did I
+expect him to invent a taxi when there wasn't one?' And he swore. So of
+course I sulked. You must, you know. And my shoes were too thin and I felt
+chilly. But only a fortnight before I was making cigarettes in the window
+of Constantinopoulos's. Funny, isn't it? Otherwise he's behaved splendid.
+Still, what I do say is a man's no right to be ill when he's taking you to
+Paris on your honeymoon. I knew he was going to be ill when I left him in
+the cabin, but he stuck me out he wasn't. A man that's so bad he can't come
+to his wife when _she's_ bad isn't a man--that's what I say. Don't you
+think so? You know all about that sort of thing, I lay."
+
+Audrey said briefly that she did think so, glad that the peeress's intense
+and excusable interest in herself kept her from being curious about others.
+
+"Marriage ain't all chocolate-creams," said the peeress after a pause.
+"Have one?" And she opened her bag very hospitably.
+
+Then she turned to her magazines. And no sooner had she glanced at the
+cover of the second one than she gave a squeal, and, fetching deep breaths,
+passed the periodical to Audrey. At the top of the cover was printed in
+large letters the title of a story by a famous author of short tales. It
+ran:
+
+"MAN OVERBOARD."
+
+Henceforward a suspicion that had lain concealed in the undergrowth of the
+hearts of the two girls stalked boldly about in full daylight.
+
+"He's done it, and he's done it to spite me!" murmured Lady Southminster
+tearfully.
+
+"Oh no!" Audrey protested. "Even if he had fallen overboard he'd have been
+seen and the captain would have stopped the boat."
+
+"Where do you come from?" Lady Southminster retorted with disdain. "That's
+an _omen_, that is"--pointing to the words on the cover of the magazine.
+"What else could it be? I ask you."
+
+When Miss Ingate returned the child was fast asleep. Miss Ingate was paler
+than usual. Having convinced herself that the sleeper did genuinely sleep,
+she breathed to Audrey:
+
+"He's in the next compartment! ... He must have hidden himself till nearly
+the last minute on the boat and then got into the train while we were
+sending off that telegram."
+
+Audrey blenched.
+
+"Shall you wake her?"
+
+"Wake her, and have a scene--with us here? No, I shan't. He's a fool."
+
+"How d'you know?" asked Audrey.
+
+"Well, he must have been a fool to marry her."
+
+"Well," whispered Audrey. "If I'd been a man I'd have married that face
+like a shot."
+
+"It might be all right if he'd only married the face. But he's married what
+she calls her mind."
+
+"Is he young?"
+
+"Yes. And as good-looking in his own way as she is."
+
+"Well--"
+
+But the Countess of Southminster stirred, and the slight movement stopped
+conversation.
+
+The journey was endless, but it was no longer than the sleep of the
+Countess. At length dusk and mist began to gather in the hollows of the
+land; stations succeeded one another more frequently. The reflections of
+the electric lights in the compartment could be seen beyond the glass of
+the windows. The train still ruthlessly clattered and shook and swayed and
+thundered; and weary lords, ladies and financiers had read all the
+illustrated magazines and six-penny novels in existence, and they lolled
+exhausted and bored amid the debris of literature and light refreshments.
+Then the speed of the convoy slackened, and Audrey, looking forth, saw a
+pale cathedral dome resting aloft amid dark clouds. It was a magical
+glimpse, and it was the first glimpse of Paris. "Oh!" cried Audrey, far
+more like a girl than a widow. The train rattled through defiles of high
+twinkling houses, roared under bridges, screeched, threaded forests of cold
+blue lamps, and at last came to rest under a black echoing vault.
+
+Paris!
+
+And, mysteriously, all Audrey's illusions concerning France had been born
+again. She was convinced that Paris could not fail to be paradisiacal.
+
+Lady Southminster awoke.
+
+Almost simultaneously a young man very well dressed passed along the
+corridor. Lady Southminster, with an awful start, seized her bag and sprang
+after him, but was impeded by other passengers. She caught him only after
+he had descended to the platform, which was at the bottom of a precipice
+below the windows. He had just been saluted by, and given orders to, a
+waiting valet. She caught him sharply by the arm. He shook free and walked
+quickly away up the platform, guided by a wise instinct for avoiding a
+scene in front of fellow-travellers. She followed close after him, talking
+with rapidity. They receded. Audrey and Miss Ingate leaned out of the
+windows to watch, and still farther and farther out. Just as the
+honeymooning pair disappeared altogether their two forms came into contact,
+and Audrey's eyes could see the arm of Lord Southminster take the arm of
+Lady Southminster. They vanished from view like one flesh. And Audrey and
+Miss Ingate, deserted, forgotten utterly, unthanked, buffeted by passengers
+and by the valet who had climbed up into the carriage to take away the
+impedimenta of his master, gazed at each other and then burst out laughing.
+
+"So that's marriage!" said Audrey.
+
+"No," said Miss Ingate. "That's love. I've seen a deal of love in my time,
+ever since my sister Arabella's first engagement, but I never saw any that
+wasn't vehy, vehy queer."
+
+"I do hope they'll be happy," said Audrey.
+
+"Do you?" said Miss Ingate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD
+
+
+The carriage had emptied, and the two adventurers stood alone among empty
+compartments. The platform was also empty. Not a porter in sight. One after
+the other, the young widow and the elderly spinster, their purses bulging
+with money, got their packages by great efforts down on to the platform.
+
+An employee strolled past.
+
+"_Porteur?_" murmured Audrey timidly.
+
+The man sniggered, shrugged his shoulders, and vanished.
+
+Audrey felt that she had gone back to her school days. She was helpless,
+and Miss Ingate was the same. She wished ardently that she was in Moze
+again. She could not imagine how she had been such a fool as to undertake
+this absurd expedition which could only end in ridicule and disaster. She
+was ready to cry. Then another employee appeared, hesitated, and picked up
+a bag, scowling and inimical. Gradually the man, very tousled and dirty,
+clustered all the bags and parcels around his person, and walked off.
+Audrey and Miss Ingate meekly following. The great roof of the station
+resounded to whistles and the escape of steam and the clashing of wagons.
+
+Beyond the platforms there were droves of people, of whom nearly every
+individual was preoccupied and hurried. And what people! Audrey had in her
+heart expected a sort of glittering white terminus full of dandiacal men
+and elegant Parisiennes who had stepped straight out of fashion-plates, and
+who had no cares--for was not this Paris? Whereas, in fact, the multitude
+was the dingiest she had ever seen. Not a gleam of elegance! No hint of
+dazzling colour! No smiling and satiric beauty! They were just persons.
+
+At last, after formalities, Audrey and Miss Ingate reached the foul and
+chilly custom-house appointed for the examination of luggage.
+Unrecognisable peers and other highnesses stood waiting at long counters,
+forming bays, on which was nothing at all. Then, far behind, a truck hugely
+piled with trunks rolled in through a back door and men pitched the trunks
+like toys here and there on the counters, and officials came into view, and
+knots of travellers gathered round trunks, and locks were turned and lids
+were lifted, and the flash of linen showed in spots on the drabness of the
+scene. Miss Ingate observed with horror the complete undoing of a lady's
+large trunk, and the exposure to the world's harsh gaze of the most
+intimate possessions of that lady. Soon the counters were like a fair. But
+no trunk belonging to Audrey or to Miss Ingate was visible. They knew then,
+what they had both privately suspected ever since Charing Cross, that their
+trunks would be lost on the journey.
+
+"Oh! My trunk!" cried Miss Ingate.
+
+Beneath a pile of other trunks on an incoming truck she had espied her
+property. Audrey saw it, too. The vision was magical. The trunk seemed like
+a piece of home, a bit of Moze and of England. It drew affection from them
+as though it had been an animal. They sped towards it, forgetting their
+small baggage. Their _porteur_ leaped over the counter from behind and made
+signs for a key. All Audrey's trunks in turn joined Miss Ingate's; none was
+missing. And finally an official, small and fierce, responded to the
+invocations of the _porteur_ and established himself at the counter in
+front of them. He put his hand on Miss Ingate's trunk.
+
+"Op-en," he said in English.
+
+Miss Ingate opened her purse, and indicated to the official by signs that
+she had no key for the trunk, and she also cried loudly, so that he should
+comprehend:
+
+"No key! ... Lost!"
+
+Then she looked awkwardly at Audrey.
+
+"I've been told they only want to open one trunk when there's a lot. Let
+him choose another one," she murmured archly.
+
+But the official merely walked away, to deal with the trunks of somebody
+else close by.
+
+Audrey was cross.
+
+"Miss Ingate," she said formally, "you had the key when we started, because
+you showed it to me. You can't possibly have lost it."
+
+"No," answered Winnie calmly and knowingly. "I haven't lost it. But I'm not
+going to have the things in my trunk thrown about for all these foreigners
+to see. It's simply disgraceful. They ought to have women officials and
+private rooms at these places. And they would have, if women had the vote.
+Let him open one of your trunks. All your things are new."
+
+The _porteur_ had meanwhile been discharging French into Audrey's other
+ear.
+
+"Of course you must open it, Winnie," said she. "Don't be so absurd!"
+There was a persuasive lightness in her voice, but there was also command.
+For a moment she was the perfect widow.
+
+"I'd rather not."
+
+"The _porteur_ says we shall be here all night," Audrey persisted.
+
+"Do you know French?"
+
+"I learnt French at school, Winnie," said the perfect widow. "I can't
+understand every word, but I can make out the drift." And Audrey went on
+translating the porter according to her own wisdom. "He says there have
+been dreadful scenes here before, when people have refused to open their
+trunks, and the police have had to be called in. He says the man won't
+upset the things in your trunk at all."
+
+Miss Ingate gazed into the distance, and privately smiled. Audrey had
+never guessed that in Miss Ingate were such depths of obstinate stupidity.
+She felt quite distinctly that her understanding of human nature was
+increasing.
+
+"Oh! Look!" said Miss Ingate casually. "I'm sure those must be real
+Parisians!" Her offhandedness, her inability to realise the situation, were
+exasperating to the young widow. Audrey glanced where Miss Ingate had
+pointed, and saw in the doorway of the custom-house two women and a lad,
+all cloaked but all obviously in radiant fancy dress, laughing together.
+
+"Don't they look French!" said Miss Ingate.
+
+Audrey tapped her foot on the asphalt floor, while people whose luggage had
+been examined bumped strenuously against her in the effort to depart. She
+was extremely pessimistic; she knew she could do nothing with Miss Ingate;
+and the thought of the vast, flaring, rumbling city beyond the station
+intimidated her. The _porteur_, who had gone away to collect their
+neglected small baggage, now returned, and nudged her, pointing to the
+official who had resumed his place behind the trunks. He was certainly a
+fierce man, but he was a little man, and there was an agreeable peculiarity
+in his eye.
+
+Audrey, suddenly inspired and emboldened, faced him; she shrugged her
+shoulders Gallically at Miss Ingate's trunk, and gave a sad, sweet, wistful
+smile, and then put her hand with an exquisite inviting gesture on the
+smallest of her own trunks. The act was a deliberate exploitation of
+widowhood. The official fiercely shrugged his shoulders and threw up his
+arms, and told the _porteur_ to open the small trunk.
+
+"I told you they would," said Miss Ingate negligently.
+
+Audrey would have turned upon her and slain her had she not been busy with
+the tremendous realisation of the fact that by a glance and a gesture she
+had conquered the customs official--a foreigner and a stranger. She wanted
+to be alone and to think.
+
+Just as the trunk was being relocked, Audrey heard an American girlish
+voice behind her:
+
+"Now, you must be Miss Ingate!"
+
+"I am," Miss Ingate almost ecstatically admitted.
+
+The trio in cloaked fancy dress were surrounding Miss Ingate like a
+bodyguard.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LIFE IN PARIS
+
+
+Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall were a charm to dissipate all the
+affrighting menace of the city beyond the station. Miss Thompkins had
+fluffy red hair, with the freckles which too often accompany red hair, and
+was addressed as Tommy. Miss Nickall had fluffy grey hair, with warm,
+loving eyes, and was addressed as Nick. The age of either might have been
+anything from twenty-four to forty. The one came from Wyoming, the other
+from Arizona; and it was instantly clear that they were close friends. They
+had driven up to the terminus before going to a fancy-dress ball to be
+given that night in the studio of Monsieur Dauphin, a famous French painter
+and a delightful man. They had met Monsieur Dauphin on the previous evening
+on the terrace of the Café de Versailles, and Monsieur had said, in
+response to their suggestion, that he would be enchanted and too much
+honoured if they would bring their English friends to his little
+"leaping"--that was, hop.
+
+Also they had thought that it would be nice for the travellers to be met at
+the terminus, especially as Miss Ingate had been very particularly
+recommended to Miss Thompkins by a whole group of people in London. It was
+Miss Thompkins who had supplied the address of reliable furnished rooms,
+and she and Nick would personally introduce the ladies to their landlady,
+who was a sweet creature.
+
+Tommy and Nick and Miss Ingate were at once on terms of cordial
+informality; but the Americans seemed to be a little diffident before the
+companion. Their voices, at the introduction, had reinforced the surprise
+of their first glances. "Oh! _Mrs._ Moncreiff!" The slightest insistence,
+no more, on the "Mrs."! Nothing said, but evidently they had expected
+somebody else!
+
+Then there was the boy, whom they called Musa. He was dark, slim, with
+timorous great eyes, and attired in red as a devil beneath his student's
+cloak. He apologised slowly in English for not being able to speak English.
+He said he was very French, and Tommy and Nick smiled, and he smiled back
+at them rather wistfully. When Tommy and Nick had spoken with the
+chauffeurs in French he interpreted their remarks. There were two
+motor-taxis, one for the luggage.
+
+Miss Thompkins accompanied the luggage; she insisted on doing so. She could
+tell sinister tales of Paris cabmen, and she even delayed the departure in
+order to explain that once in the suburbs and in the pre-taxi days a cabman
+had threatened to drive her and himself into the Seine unless she would be
+his bride, and she saved herself by promising to be his bride and telling
+him that she lived in the Avenue de l'Opéra; as soon as the cab reached a
+populous thoroughfare she opened the cab door and squealed and was rescued;
+she had let the driver go free because of his good taste.
+
+As the procession whizzed through nocturnal streets, some thunderous with
+traffic, others very quiet, but all lined with lofty regular buildings,
+Audrey was penetrated by the romance of this city where cabmen passionately
+and to the point of suicide and murder adored their fares. And she thought
+that perhaps, after all, Madame Piriac's impression of Paris might not be
+entirely misleading. Miss Ingate and Nick talked easily, very charmed with
+one another, both excited. Audrey said little, and the dark youth said
+nothing. But once the dark youth murmured shyly to Audrey in English:
+
+"Do you play at ten-nis, Madame?"
+
+They crossed a thoroughfare that twinkled and glittered from end to end
+with moving sky-signs. Serpents pursued burning serpents on the heights of
+that thoroughfare, invisible hands wrote mystic words of warning and
+invitation, and blazing kittens played with balls of incandescent wool.
+Throngs of promenaders moved under theatrical trees that waved their pale
+emerald against the velvet sky, and the ground floor of every edifice was a
+glowing café, whose tables, full of idle sippers and loungers, bulged out
+on to the broad pavements.... The momentary vision was shut off instantly
+as the taxis shot down the mouth of a dark narrow street; but it had been
+long enough to make Audrey's heart throb.
+
+"What is that?" she asked.
+
+"That?" exclaimed Nick kindly. "Oh! That's only the _grand boulevard_."
+
+Then they crossed the sombre, lamp-reflecting Seine, and soon afterwards
+the two taxis stopped at a vast black door in a very wide street of serried
+palatial façades that were continually shaken by the rushing tumult of
+electric cars. Tommy jumped out and pushed a button, and the door
+automatically split in two, disclosing a vast and dim tunnel. Tommy ran
+within, and came out again with a coatless man in a black-and-yellow
+striped waistcoat and a short white apron. This man, Musa, and the two
+chauffeurs entered swiftly into a complex altercation, which endured until
+Audrey had paid the chauffeurs and all the trunks had been transported
+behind the immense door and the door bangingly shut.
+
+"Vehy amusing, isn't it?" whispered Miss Ingate caustically to Audrey.
+"Aren't they dears?"
+
+"Madame Dubois's establishment is on the third and fourth floors," said
+Nick.
+
+They climbed a broad, curving, carpeted staircase.
+
+"We're here," said Audrey to Miss Ingate after scores of stairs.
+
+Miss Ingate, breathless, could only smile.
+
+And Audrey profoundly felt that she was in Paris. The mere shape of the
+doorknob by the side of a brass plate lettered "Madame Dubois" told her
+that she was in an exotic land.
+
+And in the interior of Madame Dubois's establishment Tommy and Nick
+together drew apart the curtains, opened the windows, and opened the
+shutters of a pleasantly stuffy sitting-room. Everybody leaned out, and
+they saw the superb thoroughfare, straight and interminable, and the moving
+roofs of the tram-cars, and dwarfs on the pavements. The night was mild
+and languorous.
+
+"You see that!" Nick pointed to a blaze of electricity to the left on the
+opposite side of the road. "That's where we shall take you to dine, after
+you've spruced yourselves up. You needn't bother about fancy dress.
+Monsieur Dauphin always has stacks of kimonos--for his models, you know."
+
+While the travellers spruced themselves up in different bedrooms, Tommy
+chattered through one pair of double doors ajar, and Nick through the
+other, and Musa strummed with many mistakes on an antique Pleyel piano. And
+as Audrey listened to the talk of these acquaintances, Tommy and Nick, who
+in half an hour had put on the hue of her lifelong friends, and as she
+heard the piano, and felt the vibration of cars far beneath, she decided
+that she was still growing happier and happier, and that life and the world
+were marvellous.
+
+A little later they passed into the café-restaurant through a throng of
+seated sippers who were spread around its portals like a defence. The
+interior, low, and stretching backwards, apparently endless, into the
+bowels of the building, was swimming in the brightest light. At a raised
+semicircular counter in the centre two women were enthroned, plump, sedate,
+darkly dressed, and of middle age. To these priestesses came a constant
+succession of waiters, in the classic garb of waiters, bearing trays which
+they offered to the gaze of the women, and afterwards throwing down coins
+that rang on the marble of the counter. One of the women wrote swiftly in a
+great tome. Both of them, while performing their duties, glanced
+continually into every part of the establishment, watching especially each
+departure and each arrival.
+
+At scores of tables were the most heterogeneous collection of people that
+Audrey had ever seen; men and women, girls and old men, even a few children
+with their mothers. Liquids were of every colour, ices chromatic, and the
+scarlet of lobster made a luscious contrast with the shaded tints of
+salads. In the extreme background men were playing billiards at three
+tables. Though nearly everybody was talking, no one talked loudly, so that
+the resulting monotone of conversation was a gentle drone, out of which
+shot up at intervals the crash of crockery or a hoarse command. And this
+drone combined itself with the glittering light, and with the mild warmth
+that floated in waves through the open windows, and with the red plush of
+the seats, and with the rosiness of painted nymphs on the blue walls, and
+with the complexions of women's faces, and their hats and frocks, and with
+the hues of the liquids--to produce a totality of impression that made
+Audrey dizzy with ecstasy. This was not the Paris set forth by Madame
+Piriac, but it was a wondrous Paris, and in Audrey's esteem not far removed
+from heaven.
+
+Miss Ingate, magnificently pale, followed Tommy and Nick with ironic
+delight up the long passage between the tables. Her eyes seemed to be
+saying: "I am overpowered, and yet there is something in me that is not
+overpowered, and by virtue of my kind-hearted derision I, from Essex, am
+superior to you all!" Audrey, with glance downcast, followed Miss Ingate,
+and Musa came last, sinuously. Nobody looked up at them more than casually,
+but at intervals during the passage Tommy and Nick nodded and smiled: "How
+d'ye do? How d'ye do?" "_Bon soir,_" and answers were given in American or
+French voices.
+
+They came to rest near the billiard tables, and near an aperture with a
+shelf where all the waiters congregated to shout their orders. A
+grey-haired waiter, with the rapidity and dexterity of a conjurer, laid a
+cloth over the marble round which they sat, Audrey and Miss Ingate on the
+plush bench, and Tommy and Nick, with Musa between them, on chairs
+opposite. The waiter then discussed with them for five minutes what they
+should eat, and he argued the problem seriously, wisely, helpfully, as
+befitted. It was Audrey, in full view of a buffet laden with shell-fish and
+fruit, who first suggested lobster, and lobster was chosen, nothing but
+lobster. Miss Ingate said that she was not a bit tired, and that lobster
+was her dream. The sentiment was universal at the table. When asked what
+she would drink, Audrey was on the point of answering "lemonade." But a
+doubt about the propriety of everlasting lemonade for a widow with much
+knowledge of the world, stopped her.
+
+"I vote we all have grenadines," said Nick.
+
+Grenadine was agreeable to Audrey's ear, and everyone concurred.
+
+The ordering was always summarised and explained by Musa in a few phrases
+which, to Audrey, sounded very different from the French of Tommy and Nick.
+And she took oath that she would instantly begin to learn to speak French,
+not like Tommy and Nick, whose accent she cruelly despised, but like Musa.
+
+Then Tommy and Nick removed their cloaks, and sat displayed as a geisha and
+a contadina, respectively. Musa had already unmasked his devilry. The café
+was not in the least disturbed by these gorgeous and strange apparitions.
+An orchestra began to play. Lobster arrived, and high glasses full of
+glinting green. Audrey ate and drank with gusto, with innocence, with the
+intensest love of life. And she was the most beautiful and touching sight
+in the café-restaurant. Miss Ingate, grinning, caught her eye with joyous
+mockery. "We are going it, aren't we, Audrey?" shrieked Miss Ingate.
+
+Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall began slowly to differentiate themselves in
+Audrey's mind. At first they were merely two American girls--the first
+Audrey had met. They were of about the same age--whatever that age might
+be--and if they were not exactly of the same age, then Tommy with red hair
+was older than Nick with grey hair. Indeed, Nick took the earliest
+opportunity to remark that her hair had turned grey at nineteen. They both
+had dreamy eyes that looked through instead of looking at; they were both
+hazy concerning matters of fact; they were both attached like a couple of
+aunts to Musa, who nestled between them like a cat between two cushions;
+they were both extraordinarily friendly and hospitable; they both painted
+and both had studios--in the same house; they both showed quite a
+remarkable admiration and esteem for all their acquaintances; and they both
+lacked interest in their complexions and their hair.
+
+The resemblance did not go very much farther. Tommy, for all her praising
+of friends, was of a critical, curious, and analytical disposition, and her
+greenish eyes were always at work qualifying in a very subtle manner what
+her tongue said, when her tongue was benevolent, as it often was. Feminism
+and suffragism being the tie between the new acquaintances, these subjects
+were the first material of conversation, and an empress of militancy known
+to the world as "Rosamund" having been mentioned, Miss Ingate said with
+enthusiasm:
+
+"She lives only for one thing."
+
+"Yes," replied Tommy. "And if she got it, I guess no one would be more
+disgusted than she herself."
+
+There was an instant's silence.
+
+"Oh, Tommy!" Nick lovingly protested.
+
+Said Miss Ingate with a comprehending satiric grin:
+
+"I see what you mean. I quite see. I quite see. You're right, Miss
+Thompkins. I'm sure you're right."
+
+Audrey decided she would have to be very clever in order to be equal to
+Tommy's subtlety. Nick, on the other hand, was not a bit subtle, except
+when she tried to imitate Tommy. Nick was kindness, and sympathy, and
+vagueness. You could see these admirable qualities in every curve of her
+face and gleam of her eyes. She was very sympathetic, but somewhat shocked
+when Audrey blurted out that she had not come to Paris in order to paint.
+
+"There are at least fifty painters in this café this very minute," said
+Tommy. And somehow it was just as if she had said: "If you haven't come to
+Paris to paint, what have you come for?"
+
+"Does Mr. Musa paint, too?" asked Audrey.
+
+"Oh _no_!" Both his protectresses answered together, pained. Tommy added:
+"Musa plays the violin--of course."
+
+And Musa blushed. Later, he murmured to Audrey across the table, while
+Tommy was ordering a salad, that there were tennis courts in the Luxembourg
+gardens.
+
+"I used to paint," Miss Ingate broke out. "And I'm beginning to think I
+should like to paint again."
+
+Said Nick, enraptured:
+
+"I'll let you use my studio, if you will. I'd just love you to, now! Where
+did you study?"
+
+"Well, it was like this," said Miss Ingate with satisfaction. "It was a
+long time ago. I finished painting a dog-kennel because the house-painter's
+wife died and he had to go to her funeral, and the dog didn't like being
+kept waiting. That gave me the idea. I went into water-colours, but
+afterwards I went back to oils. Oils seemed more real. Then I started on
+portraits, and I did a portrait of my Aunt Sarah from memory. After she saw
+it she tore up her will, and before I could get her into a good temper
+again she married her third husband and she had to make a new will in
+favour of him. So I found painting very expensive. Not that it would have
+made any difference, I suppose, would it? After that I went into
+miniatures. The same dog that I painted the kennel for ate up the best
+miniature I ever did. It killed him. I put a cross over his grave in the
+garden. All that made me see what a fool I'd been, and I exchanged my
+painting things for a lawn-mower, but it never turned out to be any good."
+
+"You dear! You precious! You priceless!" cooed Nick. "I shall fix up my
+second best easel for you to-morrow."
+
+"Isn't she just too lovely!" Tommy murmured aside to Audrey.
+
+"I not much understand," said Musa.
+
+Tommy translated to him, haltingly, and Audrey was moved to say, with
+energy:
+
+"What I want most is to learn French, and I'm going to begin to-morrow
+morning."
+
+Nick was kindly confusing and shaming Miss Ingate with a short history and
+catechism of modern art, including such names as Vuillard, Bonnard,
+Picasso, Signac, and Matisse--all very eagerly poured out and all very
+unnerving for Miss Ingate, whose directory of painting was practically
+limited to the names of Raphael, Sir Joshua, Rembrandt, Rubens,
+Gainsborough, Turner, Leighton, Millais, Gustave Doré and Frank Dicksee.
+When, however, Nick referred to Monsieur Dauphin, Miss Ingate was as it
+were washed safely ashore and said with assurance: "Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh
+yes!"
+
+Tommy listened for a few moments, and then, leaning across the table and
+lighting a cigarette, she said in an intimate undertone to Audrey: "I hope
+you don't _mind_ coming to the ball to-night. We really didn't know------"
+She stopped. Her eyes, ferreting in Audrey's black, completed the
+communication.
+
+Unnerved for the tenth of a second, Audrey recovered and answered:
+
+"Oh, no! I shall like it very much."
+
+"You've been up against life!" murmured Tommy in a melting voice, gazing at
+her. "But how wonderful all experience is, isn't it. I once had a husband.
+We separated--at least, he separated. But I know the feel of being a wife."
+
+Audrey blushed deeply. She wanted to push away all that sympathy, and she
+was exceedingly alarmed by the revelation that Tommy was an initiate. The
+widow was the merest schoolgirl once more. But her blush had saved her from
+a chat in which she could not conceivably have held her own.
+
+"Excuse me being so clumsy," said Tommy contritely. "Another time." And
+she waved her cigarette to the waiter in demand for the bill.
+
+It was after the orchestra had finished a tango, and while Tommy was
+examining the bill, that the first violin and leader, in a magenta coat,
+approached the table, and with a bow offered his violin deferentially to
+Musa. Many heads turned to watch what would happen. But Musa only shrugged
+his shoulders and with an exquisite gesture of refusal signified that he
+had to leave. Whereupon the magenta coat gracefully retired, starting a
+Hungarian dance as he went.
+
+"Musa is supposed to be the greatest violinist in Paris--perhaps in the
+world," Tommy whispered casually to Audrey. "He used to play here, till
+Dauphin discovered him."
+
+Audrey, overcome by this prodigious blow, trembled at the contemplation of
+her blind stupidity.
+
+Beyond question, Musa now looked extremely important, vivid, masterful. She
+had been mistaking him for a nice, ornamental, useless boy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+FANCY DRESS
+
+
+Just as the café-restaurant had been an intensification of ordinary life,
+so was the ball in Dauphin's studio an intensification of the
+café-restaurant. It had more colour, more noise, more music, more heat,
+more varied kinds of people, and, of course, far more riotous movement than
+the café-restaurant. The only quality in which the café-restaurant stood
+first was that of sustenance. Monsieur Dauphin had not attempted to rival
+the café-restaurant in the matter of food and drink. And that there was no
+general hope of his doing so could be deduced from the fact that many of
+the more experienced guests arrived with bottles, fruit, sausages, and
+sandwiches of their own.
+
+When Audrey and her friends entered the precincts of the vast new white
+building in the Boulevard Raspail, upon whose topmost floor Monsieur
+Dauphin painted the portraits of the women of the French, British, and
+American plutocracies and aristocracies, a lift full of gay-coloured
+figures was just shooting upwards past the wrought-iron balustrades of the
+gigantic staircase. Tommy and Nick stopped to speak to a columbine who
+hovered between the pavement and the threshold of the house.
+
+"I don't know whether it's the grenadine or the lobster, or whether it's
+Paris," said Miss Ingate confidentially in the interval; "but I can
+scarcely tell whether I'm standing on my head or my heels."
+
+Before the Americans rejoined them, the lift had returned and ascended with
+another covey of fancy costumes, including a man with a nose a foot long
+and a girl with bright green hair, dressed as an acrobat. On its next
+journey the lift held Tommy and Nick's party, and it held no more.
+
+When the party emerged from it, they were greeted with a cheer, hoarse and
+half human, by a band of light amateur mountebanks of both sexes who were
+huddled in a doorway. Within a quarter of an hour Audrey and Miss Ingate,
+after astounding struggles in a dressing-room in which Nick alone saved
+their lives and reputations, appeared in Japanese disguise according to
+promise, and nobody could tell whether Audrey was maid, wife, or widow. She
+might have been a creature created on the spot, for the celestial purpose
+of a fancy-dress ball in Monsieur Dauphin's studio.
+
+The studio was very large and rather lofty. Its walls had been painted by
+gifted pupils of Monsieur Dauphin and by fellow-artists, with scenes of
+life according to Catullus, Theocritus, Propertius, Martial, Petronius, and
+other classical writers. It is not too much to say that the walls of the
+studio constituted a complete novelty for Audrey and Miss Ingate. Miss
+Ingate opened her mouth to say something, but, saying nothing, forgot for a
+long time to shut it again.
+
+Chinese lanterns, electrically illuminated, were strung across the studio
+at a convenient height so that athletic dancers could prodigiously leap up
+and make them swing. Beneath this incoherent but exciting radiance the
+guests swayed and glided, in a joyous din, under the influence of an
+orchestra of men snouted like pigs and raised on a dais. In a corner was a
+spiral staircase leading to the flat roof of the studio and a view of all
+Paris. Up and down this corkscrew contending parties fought amiably for the
+right of way.
+
+Tommy and Nick began instantly to perform introductions between Audrey and
+Miss Ingate and the other guests. In a few moments Audrey had failed to
+catch the names of a score and a half of people--many Americans, some
+French, some Argentine, one or two English. They were all very talented
+people, and, according to Miss Ingate, the most characteristically French
+were invariably either Americans or Argentines.
+
+A telephone bell rang in the distance, and presently a toreador stood on a
+chair and pierced the music with a message of yells in French, and the room
+hugely guffawed and cheered.
+
+"Where is the host?" Audrey asked.
+
+"That's what the telephoning was about," said Tommy, speaking loudly
+against the hubbub. "He hasn't come yet. He had to rush off this afternoon
+to do pastel portraits of two Russian princesses at St. Germain, and he
+hasn't got back yet. The telephone was to say that he's started."
+
+Then one of the introduced--it was a girl wearing a mask--took Audrey by
+the waist and whirled her strongly away and she was lost in the maze.
+Audrey's first impulse was to protest, but she said to herself: "Why
+protest? This is what we're here for." And she gave herself up to the
+dance. Her partner held her very firmly, somewhat bending over her.
+Neither spoke. Gyrating in long curves, with the other dancers swishing
+mysteriously about them like the dancers of a dream, and the music as far
+off as another world, they clung together in the rhythm and in the
+enchantment, until the music ceased.... The strong girl threw Audrey
+carelessly off, and walked away, breathing hard. And there was something in
+the strong girl's nonchalant and curt departure which woke a chord in
+Audrey's soul that had never been wakened before. Audrey could scarcely
+credit that she was on the same planet as Essex. She had many dances with
+men whom she hoped and believed she had been introduced to by Tommy, and no
+less than seventeen persons of either sex told her in unusual English that
+they had heard she wanted to learn French and that they would like to teach
+her; and then she met Musa, the devil.
+
+Musa, with an indolent and wistful smile, suggested the roof. Audrey was
+now just one of the throng, and quite unconscious of herself; she fought
+archly and gaily on the spiral staircase exactly as she had seen others do,
+and at last they were on the roof, and the silhouettes of other fantastic
+figures and of cowled chimney pots stood out dark against the vague yellow
+glow of the city beneath. While Musa was pointing out the historic
+landmarks to her, she was thinking how she could never again be the girl
+who had left Moze on the previous morning. And yet Musa was so natural and
+so direct that it was impossible to take him for anything but a boy, and
+hence Audrey sank back into early girlhood, talking spasmodically to Musa
+as she used in school days to talk to the brother of her school friend.
+
+"I will teach you French," said Musa, unaware that he had numerous
+predecessors in the offer. "But will you play tennis with me in the gardens
+of the Luxembourg?"
+
+Audrey said she would, and that she would buy a racket.
+
+"Tell me about all those artists Miss Nickall spoke of," she said. "I must
+know about all the artists, and all the musicians, and all the authors. I
+must know all about them at once. I shan't sleep until I know all their
+names and I can talk French. I shan't _sleep_."
+
+Musa began the catalogue. When a girl came and chucked him under the chin,
+he angrily slapped her face. Then, to avoid complications, they descended.
+
+In the middle of the studio, wearing a silk hat, a morning coat, striped
+trousers, yellow gloves, and boots with spats, stood a smiling figure.
+
+"_Voilà_ Dauphin!" said Musa.
+
+"Musa!" called Monsieur Dauphin, espying the youth on the staircase. Then
+he made a gesture to the orchestra: "Give him a violin!"
+
+Audrey stood by Musa while he played a dance that nobody danced to, and
+when he had finished she was rather ashamed, under the curtain of wild
+cheering, because with her Essex incredulity she had not sufficiently
+believed in Musa's greatness.
+
+"Permit your host to introduce himself," said a voice behind her, not in
+the correct English of a linguistic Frenchman, but in utterly English
+English. She had now descended to the floor of the studio.
+
+Emile Dauphin raised his glossy hat, and then asked to be allowed to put it
+on again, as the company had decided that it was part of his costume. He
+had a delicious smile, at once respectful and intimate. Audrey had read
+somewhere that really great men were always simple and unaffected--indeed
+that it was often impossible to guess from their demeanour that, etc.,
+etc.--and this experience of the first celebrity with whom she had ever
+spoken (except Musa, who was somehow only Musa) confirmed the statement,
+and confirmed also her young instinctive belief that what is printed must
+be true. She was beginning to feel the stealthy on-comings of fatigue, and
+certainly she was very nervous, but Monsieur Dauphin's quite particularly
+sympathetic manner, and her own sudden determination not to be a little
+blushing fool gave her new power.
+
+"I can't express to you," he said, moving towards the dais and mesmerising
+her to keep by his side. "I can't express to you how sorry I was to be so
+late." He made the apology with lightness, but with sincerity. Audrey knew
+how polite the French were. "But truly circumstances were too much for me.
+Those two Russian princesses--they came to me through a mutual friend, a
+dear old friend of mine, very closely attached also to them. They leave
+to-morrow morning by the St. Petersburg express, on which they have engaged
+a special coach. What was I to do? I tried to tear myself away earlier, but
+of course there were the portrait sketches to finish, and no doubt you know
+the usage of the best society in Russia."
+
+"Yes," murmured Audrey.
+
+"Come up on the dais, will you?" he suggested. "And let us survey the scene
+together."
+
+They surveyed the scene together. The snouted band was having supper on the
+floor in a corner, and many of the guests also were seated on the floor.
+Miss Ingate, intoxicated by the rapture of existence, and Miss Thompkins
+were carefully examining the frescoes on the walls. A young woman covered
+from head to foot with gold tinsel was throwing chocolates into Musa's
+mouth, or as near to it as she could.
+
+"What a splendid player Mr. Musa is!" Audrey inaugurated her career as a
+woman of the world. "I doubt if I have ever heard such violin playing."
+
+"I'm so glad you think so," replied Monsieur Dauphin. "Of course you know
+I'm very conceited about my painting. Anybody will tell you so. But beneath
+all that I'm not so sure. I often have the gravest doubts about my work.
+But I never had any doubt that when I took Musa out of the orchestra in the
+Café de Versailles I was giving a genius to the world. And perhaps that's
+how I shall be remembered by posterity. And if it is I shall be content."
+
+Never before had Audrey heard anybody connect himself with posterity, and
+she was very much impressed. Monsieur Dauphin was resigned and yet brave.
+By no means convinced that posterity would do the right thing, he
+nevertheless had no grudge against posterity.
+
+Just then there was a sharp scream at the top of the spiral staircase. With
+a smile that condoned the scream and excused his flight, Monsieur Dauphin
+ran to the staircase, and up it, and disappeared on to the roof. Nobody
+seemed to be perturbed. Audrey was left alone and conspicuous on the dais.
+
+"Charming, isn't he?" said Miss Thompkins, arriving with Miss Ingate in
+front of the flower-screened platform.
+
+"Oh! he is!" answered Audrey with sincerity, leaning downwards.
+
+"Has he told you all about the Russian princesses?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Audrey, pleased.
+
+"I thought he would," said Miss Thompkins, with a peculiar intonation.
+
+Audrey knew then that Miss Thompkins, having first maliciously made sure
+that she was a ninny, was now telling her to her face that she was a ninny.
+
+Tommy continued:
+
+"Then I guess he told you he'd given Musa to the world."
+
+Audrey nodded.
+
+"Ah! I knew he would. Well, when he comes back he'll tell you that you must
+come to one of his _real_ entertainments here, and that this one is
+nothing. Then he'll tell you about all the nobs he knows in London. And at
+last he'll say that you have a strangely expressive face, and he'd like to
+paint it and show the picture in the Salon. But he won't tell you it'll
+cost you forty thousand francs. So I'll tell you that, because perhaps
+later on, if you don't know, you might find yourself making a noise like a
+tenderfoot. You see, Miss Ingate hasn't concealed that you're a lady
+millionaire."
+
+"No, I haven't," said Miss Ingate, glowing and yet sarcastic. "I couldn't
+bring myself to, because I was so anxious to see if human nature in Paris
+is anything like what it is in Essex."
+
+"And why should you hide it, Winnie?" Audrey stoutly demanded.
+
+"Well, au revoir," Tommy murmured delicately, with a very original gesture.
+"He's coming back."
+
+As Monsieur Dauphin, having apparently established peace on the roof,
+approached again, Audrey discreetly examined his face and his demeanour, to
+see if she could perceive in him any of the sinister things that Tommy had
+implied. She was unable to make up her mind whether she could or not. But
+in the end she decided that she was as shrewd as anybody in the place.
+
+"Have you been to my roof-garden, Mrs. Moncreiff?" he asked in a persuasive
+voice, raising his eyebrows.
+
+She said she had, and that she thought the roof was heavenly.
+
+Then from the corner of her eye she saw Miss Ingate and Tommy sidling
+mischievously away, like conspirators who have lighted a time fuse. She
+considered that Tommy, with her red hair and freckles, and strange glances
+and strange tones full of a naughty and malicious sweetness, was even more
+peculiar than Miss Ingate. But she was not intimidated by them nor by the
+illustrious Monsieur Dauphin, so perfectly master of his faculties. Rather
+she was exultant in the contagion of their malice. Once more she felt as if
+she had ceased to be a girl a very long time ago. And she was aware of
+agreeable and exciting temptations.
+
+"Are you taking a house in Paris?" inquired Monsieur Dauphin.
+
+Audrey answered primly:
+
+"I haven't decided. Should you advise me to do so?"
+
+He waved a hand.
+
+"Ah! It depends on the life you wish to lead. Who knows--with a young woman
+who has all experience behind her and all life before her! But I do hope I
+may see you again. And I trust I may persuade you to come to my studio
+again." Audrey felt the thrill of drama as he proceeded. "This is scarcely
+a night for you. I ought to tell you that I give three entertainments
+during the autumn. To-night is the first. It is for students and those
+English and Americans who think they are seeing Paris here. Then I give
+another for the political and dramatic worlds. Each is secretly proud to
+meet the other. The third I reserve to my friends. Some of my many friends
+in London are good enough to come over specially for it. It is on
+Christmas Eve. I do wish you would come to that one."
+
+"I suppose," she said, catching the diabolic glances of Miss Ingate and
+Tommy, "I suppose you know almost more people in London than in Paris?"
+
+He answered:
+
+"Well, I count among my friends more than two-thirds of the subscribers to
+Covent Garden Opera.... By the way, do you happen to be connected with the
+Moncreiffs of Suddon Wester? They have a charming house in Hyde Park
+Terrace. But probably you know it?"
+
+Audrey burst out laughing. She laughed loud and violently till the tears
+stood in her eyes.
+
+"Well," he said, at a loss, deprecatingly. "Perhaps these Moncreiffs _are_
+rather weird."
+
+"I was only laughing," she said in gasps, but with a complete secret
+composure. "Because we had such an awful quarrel with them last year. I
+couldn't tell you the details. They're too shocking."
+
+He gave a dubious smile.
+
+"D'you know, dear young lady," he recommenced after a brief pause, "I
+should adore to paint a portrait of you laughing. It would be very well
+hung in the Salon. Your face is so strangely expressive. It is utterly
+different, in expression, from any other face I ever saw--and I have
+studied faces."
+
+Heedless of the general interest which she was arousing, Audrey leaned on
+the rail of the screen of flowers, and gave herself up afresh to laughter.
+Monsieur Dauphin was decidedly puzzled. The affair might have ended in
+hysteria and confusion had not Miss Ingate, with Nick and Tommy, come
+hurrying up to the dais.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A POLITICAL REFUGEE
+
+
+"Rosamund has come to my studio and wants to see me at once. _She has sent
+for me._ Miss Ingate says she shall go, too."
+
+It was these words in a highly emotionalised voice from Miss Nickall that,
+like a vague murmured message of vast events, drew the entire quartet away
+from the bright inebriated scene created by Monsieur Dauphin.
+
+The single word "Rosamund" sufficed to break one mood and induce another in
+all bosoms save that of Audrey, who was in a state of permanent joyous
+exultation that she scarcely even attempted to control. The great militant
+had a surname, but it was rarely used save by police magistrates. Her
+Christian name alone was more impressive than the myriad cognomens of
+queens and princesses. Miss Nickall ran away home at once. Miss Thompkins
+was left to deliver Miss Ingate and Audrey at Nick's studio, which, being
+in the Rue Delambre, was not far away. And not the shedding of the kimono
+and the re-assumption of European attire could affect Audrey's spirits. Had
+she been capable of regret in that hour, she would have regretted the
+abandonment of the ball, where the refined, spiritual, strange faces of the
+men, and the enigmatic quality of the women, and the exceeding novelty of
+the social code had begun to arouse in her sentiments of approval and
+admiration. But she quitted the staggering frolic without a sigh; for she
+carried within her a frolic surpassing anything exterior or physical.
+
+The immense flickering boulevard with its double roadway stretched away to
+the horizon on either hand, empty.
+
+"What time is it?" asked Miss Ingate.
+
+Tommy looked at her wrist-watch.
+
+"Don't tell me! Don't tell me!" cried Audrey.
+
+"We might get a taxi in the Rue de Babylone," Tommy suggested. "Or shall we
+walk?"
+
+"We _must_ walk," cried Audrey.
+
+She knew the name of the street. In the distance she could recognise the
+dying lights of the café-restaurant where they had eaten. She felt already
+like an inhabitant of the dreamed-of city. It was almost inconceivable to
+her that she had been within it for only a few hours, and that England lay
+less than a day behind her in the past, and Moze less than two days. And
+Aguilar the morose, and the shuttered rooms of Flank Hall, shot for an
+instant into her mind and out again.
+
+The other two women walked rather quickly, mesmerised possibly by the magic
+of the illustrious Christian name, and Audrey gave occasional schoolgirlish
+leaps by their side. A little policeman appeared inquisitive from a
+by-street, and Audrey tossed her head as if saying: "Pooh! I belong here.
+All the mystery of this city is mine, and I am as at home as in Moze
+Street."
+
+And as they surged through the echoing solitude of the boulevard, and as
+they crossed the equally tremendous boulevard that cut through it east and
+west, Tommy told the story of Nick's previous relations with Rosamund. Nick
+had met Rosamund once before through her English chum, Betty Burke, an art
+student who had ultimately sacrificed art to the welfare of her sex, but
+who with Mrs. Burke had shared rooms and studio with Nick for many months.
+Tommy's narrative was spotted with hardly perceptible sarcasms concerning
+art, women, Betty Burke, Mrs. Burke, and Nick; but she put no barb into
+Rosamund. And when Miss Ingate, who had never met Rosamund, asked what
+Rosamund amounted to in the esteem of Tommy, Tommy evaded the question.
+Miss Ingate remembered, however, what she had said in the café-restaurant.
+
+Then they turned into the Rue Delambre, and Tommy halted them in the deep
+obscurity in front of another of those huge black doors which throughout
+Paris seemed to guard the secrets of individual life. An automobile was
+waiting close by. A little door in the huge one clicked and yielded, and
+they climbed over a step into black darkness.
+
+"Thompkins!" called Miss Thompkins loudly to the black darkness, to
+reassure the drowsy concierge in his hidden den, shutting the door with a
+bang behind them; and, groping for the hands of the others, she dragged
+them forward stumbling.
+
+"I never have a match," she said.
+
+They blundered up tenebrous stairs.
+
+"We're just passing my door," said Tommy. "Nick's is higher up."
+
+Then a perpendicular slit of light showed itself--and a portal slightly
+open could be distinguished.
+
+"I shall quit here," said Tommy. "You go right in."
+
+"You aren't leaving us?" exclaimed Miss Ingate in alarm.
+
+"I won't go in," Tommy persisted in a quiet satiric tone. "I'll leave my
+door open below, and see you when you come down."
+
+She could be heard descending.
+
+"Why, I guess they're here," said a voice, Nick's, within, and the door was
+pulled wide open.
+
+"My legs are all of a tremble!" muttered Miss Ingate.
+
+Nick's studio seemed larger than reality because of its inadequate
+illumination. On a small paint-stained table in the centre was an oil-lamp
+beneath a round shade that had been decorated by some artist's hand with a
+series of reclining women in many colours. This lamp made a moon in the
+midnight of the studio, but it was a moon almost without rays; the shade
+seemed to imprison the light, save that which escaped from its superior
+orifice. Against the table stood a tall thin woman in black. Her face was
+lit by the rays escaping upward; a pale, firm, bland face, with rather
+prominent cheeks, loose grey hair above, surmounted by a toque. The dress
+was dark, and the only noticeable feature of it was that the sleeves were
+finished in white linen; from these the hands emerged calm and veined under
+the lampshade; in one of them a pair of gloves were clasped. On the table
+lay a thin mantle.
+
+At the back of the studio there sat another woman, so engloomed that no
+detail of her could be distinguished.
+
+"As I was saying," the tall upright woman resumed as soon as Miss Ingate
+and Audrey had been introduced. "Betty Burke is in prison. She got six
+weeks this morning. She may never come out again. Almost her last words
+from the dock were that you, Miss Nickall, should be asked to go to London
+to look after Mrs. Burke, and perhaps to take Betty's place in other ways.
+She said that her mother preferred you to anybody else, and that she was
+sure you would come. Shall you?"
+
+The accents were very clear, the face was delicately smiling, the little
+gestures had a quite tranquil quality. Rosamund did not seem to care
+whether Miss Nickall obeyed the summons or not. She did not seem to care
+about anything whatever except her own manner of existing. She was the
+centre of Paris, and Paris was naught but a circumference for her. All
+phenomena beyond the individuality of the woman were reduced to the
+irrelevant and the negligible. It would have been absurd to mention to her
+costume balls. The frost of her indifference would have wilted them into
+nothingness.
+
+"Yes, of course, I shall go," Nick answered.
+
+"When?" was the implacable question.
+
+"Oh! By the first train," said Nick eagerly. As she approached the lamp,
+the gleam of the devotee could be seen in her gaze. In one moment she had
+sacrificed Paris and art and Tommy and herself, and had risen to the sacred
+ardour of a vocation. Rosamund was well accustomed to watching the process,
+and she gave not the least sign of satisfaction or approval.
+
+"I ought to tell you," she went on, "that I came over from London suddenly
+by the afternoon service in order to escape arrest. I am now a political
+refugee. Things have come to this pass. You will do well to leave by the
+first train. That is why I decided to call here before going to bed."
+
+"Where's Tommy?" asked Nick, appealing wildly to Miss Ingate and Audrey.
+Upon being answered she said, still more wildly: "I must see her. Can
+you--No, I'll run down myself." In the doorway she turned round: "Mrs.
+Moncreiff, would you and Miss Ingate like to have my studio while I'm away?
+I should just love you to. There's a very nice bed over there behind the
+screen, and a fair sort of couch over here. Do say you will! _Do_!"
+
+"Oh! We will!" Miss Ingate replied at once, reassuringly, as though in
+haste to grant the supreme request of some condemned victim. And indeed
+Miss Nickall appeared ready to burst into tears if she should be thwarted.
+
+As soon as Nick had gone, Miss Ingate's smiling face, nervous, intimidated,
+audacious, sardonic, and good humoured, moved out of the gloom nearer to
+Rosamund.
+
+"You knew I played the barrel organ all down Regent Street?" she ventured,
+blushing.
+
+"Ah!" murmured Rosamund, unmoved. "It was you who played the barrel-organ?
+So it was."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Ingate. "But I'm like you. I don't care passionately for
+prison. Eh! Eh! I'm not so vehy, vehy fond of it. I don't know Miss Burke,
+but what a pity she has got six weeks, isn't it? Still, I was vehy much
+struck by what someone said to me to-day--that you'd be vehy sorry if women
+_did_ get the vote. I think I should be sorry, too--you know what I mean."
+
+"Perfectly," ejaculated Rosamund, with a pleasant smile.
+
+"I hope I'm not skidding," said Miss Ingate still more timidly, but also
+with a sardonic giggle, looking round into the gloom. "I do skid sometimes,
+you know, and we've just come away from a----"
+
+She could not finish.
+
+"And Mrs. Moncreiff, if I've got the name right, is she with us, too?"
+asked Rosamund, miraculously urbane. And added: "I hear she has wealth and
+is the mistress of it."
+
+Audrey jumped up, smiling, and lifting her veil. She could not help
+smiling. The studio, the lamp, Rosamund with her miraculous
+self-complacency, Nick with her soft, mad eyes and wistful voice, the
+blundering ruthless Miss Ingate, all seemed intensely absurd to her.
+Everything seemed absurd except dancing and revelry and coloured lights and
+strange disguises and sensuous contacts. She had the most careless
+contempt, stiffened by a slight loathing, for political movements and every
+melancholy effort to reform the world. The world did not need reforming and
+did not want to be reformed.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know my story," Audrey began, not realising how she
+would continue. "I am a widow. I made an unhappy marriage. My husband on
+the day after our wedding-day began to eat peas with his knife. In a week I
+was forced to leave him. And a fortnight later I heard that he was dead of
+blood-poisoning. He had cut his mouth."
+
+And she thought:
+
+"What is the matter with me? I have ruined myself." All her exultation had
+collapsed.
+
+But Rosamund remarked gravely:
+
+"It is a common story."
+
+Suddenly there was a movement in the obscure corner where sat the unnamed
+and unintroduced lady. This lady rose and came towards the table. She was
+very elegant in dress and manner, and she looked maturely young.
+
+"Madame Piriac," announced Rosamund.
+
+Audrey recoiled.... Gazing hard at the face, she saw in it a vague but
+undeniable resemblance to certain admired photographs which had arrived at
+Moze from France.
+
+"Pardon me!" said Madame Piriac in English with a strong French accent. "I
+shall like very much to hear the details of this story of _petits pois_."
+The tone of Madame Piriac's question was unexceptionable; it took account
+of Audrey's mourning attire, and of her youthfulness; but Audrey could
+formulate no answer to it. Instead of speaking she gave a touch to her
+veil, and it dropped before her piquant, troubled, inscrutable face like a
+screen.
+
+Miss Ingate said with noticeable calm, but also with the air of a
+conspirator who sees danger to a most secret machination:
+
+"I'm afraid Mrs. Moncreiff won't care to go into details."
+
+It was neatly done. Madame Piriac brought the episode to a close with a
+sympathetic smile and an apposite gesture. And Audrey, safe behind her
+veil, glanced gratefully and admiringly at Miss Ingate, who, taken quite
+unawares, had been so surprisingly able thus to get her out of a scrape.
+She felt very young and callow among these three women, and the mere
+presence of Madame Piriac, of whom years ago she had created for herself a
+wondrous image, put her into a considerable flutter. On the whole she was
+ready to believe that the actual Madame Piriac was quite equal to the image
+of her founded on photographs and letters. She set her teeth, and decided
+that Madame Piriac should not learn her identity--yet! There was little
+risk of her discovering it for herself, for no photograph of Audrey had
+gone to Paris for a dozen years, and Miss Ingate's loyalty was absolute.
+
+As Audrey sat down again, the illustrious Rosamund took a chair near her,
+and it could not be doubted that the woman had the mien and the carriage of
+a leader.
+
+"You are very rich, are you not?" asked Rosamund, in a tone at once
+deferential and intimate, and she smiled very attractively in the gloom.
+Impossible not to reckon with that smile, as startling as it was seductive!
+
+Evidently Nick had been communicative.
+
+"I suppose I am," murmured Audrey, like a child, and feeling like a child.
+Yet at the same time she was asking herself with fierce curiosity: "What
+has Madame Piriac got to do with this woman?"
+
+"I hear you have eight or ten thousand a year and can do what you like with
+it. And you cannot be more than twenty-three.... What a responsibility it
+must be for you!  You are a friend of Miss Ingate's and therefore on our
+side. Indeed, if a woman such as you were not on our side, I wonder whom
+we _could_ count on. Miss Ingate is, of course, a subscriber to the
+Union--"
+
+"Only a very little one," cried Miss Ingate.
+
+Audrey had never felt so abashed since an ex-parlourmaid at Flank Hall, who
+had left everything to join the Salvation Army, had asked her once in the
+streets of Colchester whether she had found salvation. She knew that she,
+if any one, ought to subscribe to the Suffragette Union, and to subscribe
+largely. For she was a convinced suffragette by faith, because Miss Ingate
+was a convinced suffragette. If Miss Ingate had been a Mormon, Audrey also
+would have been a Mormon. And, although she hated to subscribe, she knew
+also that if Rosamund demanded from her any subscription, however
+large--even a thousand pounds--she would not know how to refuse. She felt
+before Rosamund as hundreds of women, and not a few men, had felt.
+
+"I may be leaving for Germany to-morrow," Rosamund proceeded. "I may not
+see you again--at any rate for many weeks. May I write to London that you
+mean to support us?"
+
+Audrey was giving herself up for lost, and not without reason. She
+foreshadowed a future of steely self-sacrifice, propaganda, hammers, riots,
+and prison; with no self-indulgence in it, no fine clothes, no art, and no
+young men save earnest young men. She saw herself in the iron clutch of her
+own conscience and sense of duty. And she was frightened. But at that
+moment Nick rushed into the room, and the spell was broken. Nick considered
+that she had the right to monopolise Rosamund, and she monopolised her.
+
+Miss Ingate prudently gathered Audrey to her side, and was off with her.
+Nick ran to kiss them, and told them that Tommy was waiting for them in the
+other studio. They groped downstairs, guided by a wisp of light from
+Tommy's studio.
+
+"Why didn't you come up?" asked Miss Ingate of Tommy in Tommy's
+antechamber. "Have you and _she_ quarrelled?"
+
+"Oh no!" said Tommy. "But I'm afraid of her. She'd grab me if she had the
+least chance, and I don't want to be grabbed."
+
+Tommy was arranging to escort them home, and had already got out on the
+landing, when Rosamund and Madame Piriac, followed by Nick holding a candle
+aloft, came down the stairs. A few words of explanation, a little innocent
+blundering on the part of Nick, a polite suggestion by Madame Piriac, and
+an imperious affirmative by Rosamund--and the two strangers to Paris found
+themselves in Madame Piriac's waiting automobile on the way to their rooms!
+
+In the darkness of the car the four women could not distinguish each
+other's faces. But Rosamund's voice was audible in a monologue, and Miss
+Ingate trembled for Audrey and for the future.
+
+"This is the most important political movement in the history of the
+world," Rosamund was saying, not at all in a speechifying manner, but quite
+intimately and naturally. "Everybody admits that, and that's what makes it
+so extraordinarily interesting, and that is why we have had such
+magnificent help from women in the very highest positions who wouldn't
+dream of touching ordinary politics. It's a marvellous thing to be in the
+movement, if we can only realise it. Don't you think so, Mrs. Moncreiff?"
+
+Audrey made no response. The other two sat silent. Miss Ingate thought:
+
+"What's the girl going to do next? Surely she could mumble something."
+
+The car curved and stopped.
+
+"Here we are," said Miss Ingate, delighted. "And thank you so much. I
+suppose all we have to do is just to push the bell and the door opens. Now
+Audrey, dear."
+
+Audrey did not stir.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" murmured Madame Piriac, "What has she, little one?"
+
+Rosamund said stiffly and curtly:
+
+"She is asleep.... It is very late. Four o'clock."
+
+Excellent as was Audrey's excuse for her lapse, Rosamund was not at all
+pleased. That slumber was one of Rosamund's rare defeats.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO
+
+
+Audrey was in a white piqué coat and short skirt, with pale blue blouse and
+pale blue hat--and at the extremity blue stockings and white tennis shoes.
+She picked up a tennis racket in its press, and prepared to leave the
+studio. She had bought the coat, the skirt, the blouse, the hat, the
+tennis shoes, the racket, the press, and practically all she wore, visible
+and invisible, at that very convenient and immense shop, the Bon Marché,
+whose only drawback was that it was always full. Everybody in the Quarter,
+except a few dolls not in earnest, bought everything at the Bon Marché,
+because the Bon Marché was so comprehensive and so reliable. If you desired
+a toothbrush, the Bon Marché not only supplied it, but delivered it in a
+30-h.p. motor-van manned by two officials in uniform. And if you desired a
+bedroom suite, a pair of corsets, a box of pastels, an anthracite stove, or
+a new wallpaper, the Bon Marché would never shake its head.
+
+And Audrey was now of the Quarter. Many simple sojourners in the Quarter
+tried to imply the Latin Quarter when they said the Quarter. But the
+Quarter was only the Montparnasse Quarter. Nevertheless, it sufficed. It
+had its own boulevards, restaurants, cafés, concerts, theatres, palaces,
+shops, gardens, museums, and churches. There was no need to leave it, and
+if you were a proper amateur of the Quarter, you never did leave it save to
+scoff at other Quarters. Sometimes you fringed the Latin Quarter in the big
+cafés of the Boulevard St. Michel, and sometimes you strolled northwards as
+far as the Seine, and occasionally even crossed the Seine in order to enter
+the Louvre, which lined the other bank, but you did not go any farther. Why
+should you?
+
+Audrey had become so acclimatised to the Quarter that Miss Nickall's studio
+seemed her natural home. It was very typically a woman's studio of the
+Quarter. About thirty feet each way and fourteen feet high, with certain
+irregularities of shape, it was divided into corners. There were the two
+bed-corners, which were lounge-corners during the day; the afternoon-tea
+corner, with a piece or two of antique furniture and some old silk
+hangings, where on high afternoons tea was given to droves of visitors; and
+there was the culinary corner, with spirit-lamps, gas-rings, kettles, and a
+bowl or two over which you might spend a couple of arduous hours in
+ineffectually whipping up a mayonnaise for an impromptu lunch. Artistic
+operations were carried out in the middle of the studio, not too far from
+the stove, which never went out from November to May. A large mirror hung
+paramount on one wall. The remaining spaces of the studio were filled with
+old easels, canvases, old frames, old costumes and multifarious other
+properties for pictures, trunks, lamps, boards, tables, and bric-à-brac
+bought at the Ham-and-Old-Iron Fair. There were a million objects in the
+studio, and their situations had to be, and were, learnt off by heart. The
+scene of the toilette was a small attached chamber.
+
+The housekeeping combined the simplicity of the early Christians with the
+efficient organising of the twentieth century. It began at about half-past
+seven, when unseen but heard beings left fresh rolls and the _New York
+Herald_ or the _Daily Mail_ at the studio door. You made your own bed, just
+as you cleaned your own boots or washed your own face. The larder
+consisted of tins of coffee, tea, sugar, and cakes, with an intermittent
+supply of butter and lemons. The infusing of tea and coffee was practised
+in perfection. It mattered not in the least whether toilette or breakfast
+came first, but it was exceedingly important that the care of the stove
+should precede both. Between ten and eleven the concierge's wife arrived
+with tools and utensils; she swept and dusted under a considerable
+percentage of the million objects--and the responsibilities of housekeeping
+were finished until the next day, for afternoon tea, if it occurred, was a
+diversion and not a toil.
+
+A great expanse of twelve to fifteen hours lay in front of you. It was not
+uncomfortably and unchangeably cut into fixed portions by the incidence of
+lunch and dinner. You ate when you felt inclined to eat, and nearly always
+at restaurants where you met your acquaintances. Meals were the least
+important happenings of the day. You had no reliable watch, and you needed
+none, for you had no fixed programme. You worked till you had had enough of
+work. You went forth into the world exactly when the idea took you. If you
+were bored, you found a friend and went to sit in a café. You were ready
+for anything. The word "rule" had been omitted from your dictionary. You
+retired to bed when the still small voice within murmured that there was
+naught else to do. You woke up in the morning amid cups and saucers,
+lingerie, masterpieces, and boots. And the next day was the same. All the
+days were the same. Weeks passed with inexpressible rapidity, and all
+things beyond the Quarter had the quality of vague murmurings and noises
+behind the scenes.
+
+May had come. Audrey and Miss Ingate had lived in the studio for six months
+before they realised that they had settled down there and that habits had
+been formed. Still, they had accomplished something. Miss Ingate had gone
+back into oils and was attending life classes, and Audrey, by terrible
+application and by sitting daily at the feet of an oldish lady in black,
+and by refusing to speak English between breakfast and dinner, had acquired
+a good accent and much fluency in the French tongue. Now, when she spoke
+French, she thought in French, and she was extremely proud of the
+achievement. Also she was acquainted with the names and styles of all known
+modern painters from pointillistes to cubistes, and, indeed, with the
+latest eccentricities in all the arts. She could tell who was immortal, and
+she was fully aware that there was no real painting in England. In brief,
+she was perhaps more Parisian even than she had hoped. She had absorbed
+Paris into her system. It was still not the Paris of her early fancy; in
+particular, it lacked elegance; but it richly satisfied her.
+
+She had on this afternoon of young May an appointment with a young man. And
+the appointment seemed quite natural, causing no inward disturbance. Less
+than ever could she understand her father's ukases against young men and
+against every form of self-indulgence. Now, when she had the idea of doing
+a thing, she merely did it. Her instincts were her only guide, and, though
+her instincts were often highly complex, they seldom puzzled her. The old
+instinct that the desire to do a thing was a sufficient reason against
+doing it, had expired. For many weeks she had lived with a secret fear that
+such unbridled conduct must lead to terrible catastrophes, but as nothing
+happened this fear also expired. She was constantly with young men, and
+often with men not young; she liked it, but just as much she liked being
+with women. She never had any difficulties with men. Miss Thompkins
+insinuated at intervals that she flirted, but she had the sharpest contempt
+for flirtation, and as a practice put it on a level with embezzlement or
+arson. Miss Thompkins, however, kept on insinuating. Audrey regarded
+herself as decidedly wiser than Miss Thompkins. Her opinions on vital
+matters changed almost weekly, but she was always absolutely sure that the
+new opinion was final and incontrovertible. Her scorn of the old English
+Audrey, though concealed, was terrific.
+
+And it is to be remembered that she was a widow. She was never half a
+second late, now, in replying when addressed as "Mrs. Moncreiff."
+Frequently she thought that she in fact was a widow. Widowhood was a very
+advantageous state. It had a free pass to all affairs of interest. It
+opened wide the door of the world. It recked nothing of girlish codes. It
+abolished discussions concerning conventional propriety. Its chief defect,
+for Audrey, was that if she met another widow, or even a married woman, she
+had to take heed lest she stumbled. Fortunately, neither widows nor wives
+were very prevalent in the Quarter. And Audrey had attained skill in the
+use of the state of widowhood. She told no more infantile perilous tales
+about husbands who ate peas with a knife. In her thankfulness that the
+tyrannic Rosamund had gone to Germany, and that Madame Piriac had vanished
+back into unknown Paris, Audrey was at pains to take to heart the lesson of
+a semi-hysterical blunder.
+
+She descended the dark, dusty oak stairs utterly content. And at the door
+of the gloomy den of the concierge the concierge's wife was standing. She
+was a new wife, the young mate of a middle-aged husband, and she had only
+been illuminating the den (which was kitchen, parlour, and bedroom in a
+space of ten feet by eight) for about a month. She was plump and pretty,
+and also she was fair, which was unusual for a Frenchwoman. She wore a
+striped frock and a little black apron, and her yellow hair was waved with
+art. Audrey offered her the key of the studio with a smile, and, as Audrey
+expected, the concierge's wife began to chatter. The concierge's wife loved
+to chatter with Anglo-Saxon tenants, and she specially enjoyed chattering
+with Audrey, because of the superior quality of Audrey's French and of her
+tips. Audrey listened, proud because she could understand so well and
+answer so fluently.
+
+The sun, which in May shone on the courtyard for about forty minutes in the
+afternoon on clear days, caught these two creatures in the same beam. They
+made a delicious sight--Audrey dark, with her large forehead and negligible
+nose, and the concierge's wife rather doll-like in the regularity of her
+features. They were delicious not only because of their varied charm, but
+because they were so absurdly wise and omniscient, and because they had
+come to settled conclusions about every kind of worldly problem. Youth and
+vitality equalised their ranks, and the fact that Audrey possessed many
+ascertained ancestors, and a part of the earth's surface, and much money,
+and that the concierge's wife possessed nothing but herself and a few bits
+of furniture, was not of the slightest importance.
+
+The concierge's wife, after curiosity concerning tennis, grew confidential
+about herself, and more confidential. And at last she lowered her tones,
+and with sparkling eyes communicated information to Audrey in a voice that
+was little more than a whisper.
+
+"Oh! truly? I must go," hastily said Audrey, blushing, and off she ran,
+reduced in an instant to the schoolgirl. Her departure was a retreat.
+These occasional discomfitures made a faint blot on the excellence of being
+a widow.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SWOON
+
+
+In the north-east corner of the Luxembourg Gardens, where the lawn-tennis
+courts were permitted by a public authority which was strangely impartial
+and cosmopolitan in the matter of games, Miss Ingate sat sketching a group
+of statuary with the Rue de Vaugirard behind it. She was sketching in the
+orthodox way, on the orthodox stool, with the orthodox combined paint-box
+and easel, and the orthodox police permit in the cover of the box.
+
+The bright and warm weather was tonic; it accounted for the whole
+temperament of Parisians. Under such a sky, with such a delicate pricking
+vitalisation in the air, it was impossible not to be Parisian. The trees,
+all arranged in beautiful perspectives, were coming into leaf, and through
+their screens could be seen everywhere children shouting as they played at
+ball and top, and both kinds of nurses, and scores of perambulators and
+mothers, and a few couples dallying with their sensations, and old men
+reading papers, and old women knitting and relating anecdotes or entire
+histories. And nobody was curious beyond his own group. The people were
+perfectly at home in this grandiose setting of gardens and fountains and
+grey palaces, with theatres, boulevards and the odour and roar of
+motor-buses just beyond the palisades. And Miss Ingate in the exciting
+sunshine gazed around with her subdued Essex grin, as if saying: "It's the
+most topsy-turvy planet that I was ever on, and why am I, of all people,
+trying to make this canvas look like a piece of sculpture and a street?"
+
+"Now, Miss Ingate," said tall red-haired Tommy, who was standing over her.
+"Before you go any farther, do look at the line of roofs and see how
+interesting it is; it's really full of interest. And you've simply not got
+on speaking terms with it yet."
+
+"No more I have! No more I have!" cried Miss Ingate, glancing round at
+Audrey, who was swinging her racket. "Thank you, Tommy. I ought to have
+thought of it for my own sake, because roofs are so much easier than
+statues, and I must get an effect somewhere, mustn't I?"
+
+Tommy winked at Audrey. But Tommy's wink was as naught to the great
+invisible wink of Miss Ingate, the everlasting wink that derided the
+universe and the sun himself.
+
+Then Musa appeared, with paraphernalia, at the end of a path. Accompanying
+him was a specimen of the creature known on tennis lawns as "a fourth." He
+was almost nameless, tall, very young, with the seedlings of a moustache
+and a space of nude calf between his knickerbockers and his socks. He was
+very ceremonious, shy, ungainly and blushful. He played a fair-to-middling
+game; and nothing more need be said of him.
+
+Musa by contrast was an accomplished man of the world, and the fact that
+the fourth obviously regarded him as a hero helped Musa to behave in a
+manner satisfactory to himself in front of these English and American
+women, so strange, so exotic, so kind, and so disconcerting. Musa looked
+upon Britain as a romantic isle where people died for love. And as for
+America, in his mind it was as sinister, as wondrous, and as fatal as the
+Indies might seem to a bank clerk in Bradford. He had need of every moral
+assistance in this or any other social ordeal. For, though he was still the
+greatest violinist in Paris, and perhaps in the world, he could not yet
+prove this profound truth by the only demonstration which the world
+accepts.
+
+If he played in studios he was idolised. If he played at small concerts in
+unknown halls he was received with rapture. But he was never lionised. The
+great concert halls never saw him on their platforms; his name was never in
+the newspapers; and hospitable personages never fought together for his
+presence at their tables, even if occasionally they invited him to perform
+for charity in return for a glass of claret and a sandwich. Monsieur
+Dauphin had attempted to force the invisible barriers for him, but without
+success. All his admirers in the Quarter stuck to it that he was in the
+rank of Kreisler and Ysaye; at the same time they were annoyed with him
+inasmuch as he did not force the world to acknowledge the prophetic good
+taste of the Quarter. And Musa made mistakes. He ought to have arrived at
+studios in a magnificent automobile, and to have given superb and
+uproarious repasts, and to have rendered innumerable women exquisitely
+unhappy. Whereas he arrived by tube or bus, never offered hospitality of
+any sort, and was like a cat with women. Hence the attitude of the Quarter
+was patronising, as if the Quarter had said: "Yes, he is the greatest
+violinist in Paris and perhaps in the world; but that's all, and it isn't
+enough."
+
+The young man and the boy made ready for the game as for a gladiatorial
+display. Their frowning seriousness proved that they had comprehended the
+true British idea of sport. Musa came round the net to Audrey's side, but
+Audrey said in French:
+
+"Miss Thompkins and I will play together. See, we are going to beat you and
+Gustave."
+
+Musa retired. A few indifferent spectators had collected. Gustave, the
+fourth, had to serve.
+
+"Play!" he muttered, in a thick and threatening voice, whose depth was the
+measure of his nervousness.
+
+He served a double fault to Tommy, and then a fault to Audrey. The fourth
+ball he got over. Audrey played it. The two males rushed with appalling
+force together on the centre line in pursuit, and a terrible collision
+occurred. Musa fell away from Gustave as from a wall. When he arose out of
+the pebbly dust his right arm hung very limp from the shoulder. No sooner
+had he risen than he sank again, and the blood began to leave his face, and
+his eyes closed. The fourth, having recovered from the collision, knelt
+down by his side, and gazed earnestly at him. Tommy and Audrey hurried
+towards the statuesque group, and Audrey was thinking: "Why did I refuse to
+let him play with me? If he had played with me there would have been no
+accident." She reproached herself because she well knew that only out of
+the most absurd contrariness had she repulsed Musa. Or was it that she had
+repulsed him from fear of something that Tommy might say or look?
+
+In a few seconds, strongly drawn by this marvellous piece of luck,
+promenaders were darting with joyous rapidity from north, south, east and
+west to witness the tragedy. There were nurses with coloured streamers six
+feet long, lusty children, errand boys, lads, and sundry nondescript men,
+some of whom carefully folded up their newspapers as they hurried to the
+cynosure. They beheld the body as though it were a corpse, and the corpse
+of an enemy; they formulated and discussed theories of the event; they
+examined minutely the rackets which had been thrown on the ground. They
+were exercising the immemorial rights of unmoved curiosity; they held
+themselves as indifferent as gods, and the murmur of their impartial voices
+floated soothingly over Musa, and the shadow of their active profiles
+covered him from the sparkling sunshine. Somebody mentioned policemen, in
+the plural, but none came. All remarked in turn that the ladies were
+English, as though that were a sufficient explanation of the whole affair.
+
+No one said:
+
+"It is Musa, the greatest violinist in Paris and perhaps in Europe."
+
+Desperately Audrey stooped and seized Musa beneath the armpits to lift him
+to a sitting position.
+
+"You'd better leave him alone," said Tommy, with a kind of ironic warning
+and innuendo.
+
+But Audrey still struggled with the mass, convinced that she was showing
+initiative and firmness of character. The fourth with fierce vigour began
+to aid her, and another youth from the crowd was joining the enterprise
+when Miss Ingate arrived from her stool.
+
+"Drop him, you silly little thing!" adjured Miss Ingate. "Instead of
+lifting his head you ought to lift his feet."
+
+Audrey stared uncertain for a moment, and then let the mass subside.
+Whereupon Miss Ingate with all her strength lifted both legs to the height
+of her waist, giving Musa the appearance of a wheelless barrow.
+
+"You want to let the blood run _into_ his head," said Miss Ingate with a
+self-conscious grin at the increasing crowd. "People only faint because the
+blood leaves their heads--that's why they go pale."
+
+Musa's cheeks showed a tinge of red. You could almost see the precious
+blood being decanted by Miss Ingate out of the man's feet into his head. In
+a minute he opened his eyes. Miss Ingate lowered the legs.
+
+"It was only the pain that made him feel queer," she said.
+
+The episode was over, and the crowd very gradually and reluctantly
+scattered, disappointed at the lack of a fatal conclusion. Musa stood up,
+smiling apologetically, and Audrey supported him by the left arm, for the
+right could not be touched.
+
+"Hadn't you better take him home, Mrs. Moncreiff?" Tommy suggested. "You
+can get a taxi here in the Rue de Vaugirard." She did not smile, but her
+green eyes glinted.
+
+"Yes, I will," said Audrey curtly.
+
+And Tommy's eyes glinted still more.
+
+"And I shall get a doctor," said Audrey. "His arm may be broken."
+
+"I should," Tommy concurred with gravity.
+
+"Well, if it is, _I_ can't set it," said Miss Ingate quizzically. "I was
+getting on so well with the high lights on that statue. I'll come along
+back to the studio in about half an hour."
+
+The fourth, who had been hovering near like a criminal magnetised by his
+crime, bounded off furiously at the suggestion that he should stop a taxi
+at the entrance to the gardens.
+
+"I hope he has broken his arm and he can never play any more," thought
+Audrey, astoundingly, as she and the fourth helped pale Musa into the open
+taxi. "It will just serve those two right." She meant Miss Ingate and
+Tommy.
+
+No sooner did the taxi start than Musa began to cry. He did not seem to
+care that he was in the midst of a busy street, with a piquant widow by his
+side.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MISS INGATE POINTS OUT THE DOOR
+
+
+"Why did you cry this afternoon, Musa?"
+
+Musa made no reply.
+
+Audrey was lighting the big lamp in the Moncreiff-Ingate studio. It made
+exactly the same moon as it had made on the night in the previous autumn
+when Audrey had first seen it. She had brought Musa to the studio because
+she did not care to take him to his own lodgings.  (As a fact, nobody that
+she knew, except Musa, had ever seen Musa's lodgings.) This was almost the
+first moment they had had to themselves since the visit of the little
+American doctor from the Rue Servandoni. The rumour of Musa's misfortune
+had spread through the Quarter like the smell of a fire, and various
+persons of both sexes had called to inspect, to sympathise, and to take
+tea, which Audrey was continually making throughout the late afternoon.
+Musa had had an egg for his tea, and more than one girl had helped to
+spread the yolk and the white on pieces of bread-and-butter, for the victim
+of destiny had his right arm in a sling. Audrey had let them do it, as a
+mother patronisingly lets her friends amuse her baby.
+
+In the end they had all gone; Tommy had enigmatically looked in and gone,
+and Miss Ingate had gone to dine at the favourite restaurant of the hour in
+the Rue Léopold Robert. Audrey had refused to go, asserting that which was
+not true; namely, that she had had an enormous tea, including far too many
+_petits fours_. Miss Ingate in departing had given a glance at her sketch
+(fixed on the easel), and another at Audrey, and another at Musa, all
+equally ironic and kindly.
+
+Musa also had declined dinner, but he had done nothing to indicate that he
+meant to leave. He sat mournful and passive in a basket chair, his sling
+making a patch of white in the gloom. The truth was that he suffered from a
+disability not uncommon among certain natures: he did not know how to go.
+He could arrive with ease, but he was no expert at vanishing. Audrey was
+troubled. As suited her age and condition, she was apt to feel the
+responsibility of the whole universe. She knew that she was responsible for
+Musa's accident, and now she was beginning to be aware that she was
+responsible for his future as well. She was sure that he needed
+encouragement and guidance. She pictured him with his fiddle under his
+chin, masterful, confident, miraculous, throwing a spell over everyone
+within earshot. But actually she saw him listless and vanquished in the
+basket chair, and she perceived that only a strongly influential and
+determined woman, such as herself, could save him from disaster. No man
+could do it. His tears had shaken her. She was willing to make allowances
+for a foreigner, but she had never seen a man cry before, and the spectacle
+was very disturbing. It inspired her with a fear that even she could not be
+the salvation of Musa.
+
+"I demanded something of you," she said, after lowering the wick of the
+lamp to exactly the right point, and staring at it for a greater length of
+time than was necessary or even seemly. She spoke French, and as she
+listened to her French accent she heard that it was good.
+
+"I am done for!" came the mournful voice of Musa out of the obscurity
+behind the lamp.
+
+"What! You are done for? But you know what the doctor said. He said no bone
+was broken. Only a little strain, and the pain from your----" Admirable
+though her French accent was, she could not think of the French word for
+"funny-bone." Indeed she had never learnt it. So she said it in English.
+Musa knew not what she meant, and thus a slight chasm was opened between
+them which neither could bridge. She finished: "In one week you are going
+to be able to play again."
+
+Musa shook his head.
+
+Relieved as she was to discover that Musa had cried because he was done
+for, and not because he was hurt, she was still worried by his want of
+elasticity, of resiliency. Nevertheless she was agreeably worried. The
+doctor had disappointed her by his light optimism, but he could not smile
+away Musa's moral indisposition. The large vagueness of the studio, the
+very faint twilight still showing through the great window, the silence and
+intimacy, the sounds of the French language, the gleam of the white sling,
+all combined to permeate her with delicious melancholy. And not for
+everlasting bliss would she have had Musa strong, obstinate, and certain of
+success.
+
+"A week!" he murmured. "It is for ever. A week of practice lost is
+eternally lost. And on Wednesday one had invited me to play at Foa's. And I
+cannot."
+
+"Foa? Who is Foa?"
+
+"What! You do not know Foa? In order to succeed it is necessary, it is
+essential, to play at Foa's. That alone gives the _cachet_. Dauphin told me
+last week. He arranged it. After having played at Foa's all is possible.
+Dauphin was about to abandon me when he met Foa. Now I am ruined. This
+afternoon after the tennis I was going to Durand's to get the new Caprice
+of Roussel--he is an intimate friend of Foa. I should have studied it in
+five days. They would have been ravished by the attention .... But why talk
+I thus? No, I could not have played Caprice to please them. I am cursed. I
+will never again touch the violin, I swear it. What am I?  Do I not live on
+the money _lent_ to me regularly by Mademoiselle Thompkins and Mademoiselle
+Nickall?"
+
+"You don't, Musa?" Audrey burst out in English.
+
+"Yes, yes!" said Musa violently. "But last month, from Mademoiselle
+Nickall--nothing! She is in London; she forgets. It is better like that.
+Soon I shall be playing in the Opéra orchestra, fourth desk, one hundred
+francs a month. That will be the end. There can be no other."
+
+Instead of admiring the secret charity of Tommy and Nick, which she had
+never suspected, Audrey was very annoyed by it. She detested it and
+resented it. And especially the charity of Miss Thompkins. She considered
+that from a woman with eyes and innuendoes like Tommy's charity amounted to
+a sneer.
+
+"It is extremely unsatisfactory," she said, dropping on to Miss Ingate's
+sofa.
+
+Not another word was spoken. Audrey tapped her foot. Musa creaked in the
+basket chair. He avoided her eyes, but occasionally she glared at him like
+a schoolmistress. Then her gaze softened--he looked so ill, so helpless,
+so hopeless. She wanted to light a cigarette for him, but she was somehow
+bound to the sofa. She wanted him to go--she hated the prospect of his
+going. He could not possibly go, alone, to his solitary room. Who would
+tend him, soothe him, put him to bed? He was an infant....
+
+Then, after a long while, Miss Ingate entered sharply. Audrey coughed and
+sprang up.
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Miss Ingate.
+
+"I--I think I shall just change my boots," said Audrey, smoothing out the
+short white skirt. And she disappeared into the dressing-room that gave on
+to the studio.
+
+As soon as she was gone, Miss Ingate went close up to Musa's chair. He had
+not moved.
+
+She said, smiling, with the corners of her mouth well down:
+
+"Do you see that door, young man?"
+
+And she indicated the door.
+
+When Audrey came back into the studio.
+
+"Audrey," cried Miss Ingate shrilly. "What you been doing to Musa? As soon
+as you went out he up vehy quickly and ran away."
+
+At this information Audrey was more obviously troubled and dashed than Miss
+Ingate had ever seen her, in Paris. She made no answer at all.
+Fortunately, lying on the table in front of the mirror was a letter for
+Miss Ingate which had arrived by the evening post. Audrey went for it,
+pretending to search, and then handed it over with a casual gesture.
+
+"It looks as if it was from Nick," she murmured.
+
+Miss Ingate, as she was putting on her spectacles, remarked:
+
+"I hope you weren't hurt--me not coming with you and Musa in the taxi from
+the gardens this afternoon, dear."
+
+"Me? Oh no!"
+
+"It wasn't that I was so vehy interested in my sketch. But to my mind
+there's nothing more ridiculous than several women all looking after one
+man. Miss Thompkins thought so, too."
+
+"Oh! Did she?... What does Nick say?"
+
+Miss Ingate had put the letter flat on the table in the full glare of the
+lamp, and was leaning over it, her grey hair brilliantly illuminated.
+Audrey kept in the shadow and in the distance. Miss Ingate had a habit of
+reading to herself under her breath. She read slowly, and turned pages over
+with a deliberate movement.
+
+"Well," said Miss Ingate twisting her head sideways so as to see Audrey
+standing like a ghost afar off. "Well, she _has_ been going it! She's
+broken a window in Oxford Street with a hammer; she had one night in the
+cells for that. And she'd have had to go to prison altogether only some
+unknown body paid the fine for her. She says: 'There are some mean persons
+in the world, and he was one. I feel sure it was a man, and an American,
+too. The owners of the shops are going to bring a law action against me
+for the value of the plate-glass. It is such fun. And our leaders are
+splendid and so in earnest. They say we are doing a great historical work,
+and we are. The London correspondent of the _New York Times_ interviewed me
+because I am American. I did not want to be interviewed, but our
+instructions are--never to avoid publicity. There is to be no more window
+breaking for the present. Something new is being arranged. The hammer is
+so heavy, and sometimes the first blow does not break the window. The
+situation is _very_ serious, and the Government is at its wits' end. This
+we _know_. We have our agents everywhere. All the most thoughtful people
+are strongly in favour of votes for women; but of course some of them are
+afraid of our methods. This only shows that they have not learnt the
+lessons of history. I wonder that you and dear Mrs. Moncreiff do not come
+and help. Many women ask after you, and everybody at Kingsway is very
+curious to know Mrs. Moncreiff. Since Mrs. Burke's death, Betty has taken
+rooms in this house, but perhaps Tommy has told you this already. If so,
+excuse. Betty's health is very bad since they let her out last. With regard
+to the rent, will you pay the next quarter direct to the concierge
+yourselves? It will save so much trouble. I must tell you----'"
+
+Slowly Audrey moved up to the table and leaned over the letter by Miss
+Ingate's side.
+
+"So you see!" said Miss Ingate. "Well, we must show it to Tommy in the
+morning. 'Not learnt the lessons of history,' eh? I know who's been talking
+to Nick. _I_ know as well as if I could hear them speaking."
+
+"Do you think we ought to go to London?" Audrey demanded bluntly.
+
+"Well," Miss Ingate answered, with impartial irony on her long upper lip.
+"I don't know. Of course I played the organ all the way down Regent Street.
+I feel very strongly about votes for women, and once when I was helping in
+the night and day vigil at the House of Commons and some Ministers came out
+smoking their _cigahs_ and asked us how we liked it, I was vehy, vehy
+angry. However, the next morning I had a cigarette myself and felt better.
+But I'm not a professional reformer, like a lot of them are at Kingsway.
+It isn't my meat and drink. And I don't think it matters much whether we
+get the vote next year or in ten years. I'm Winifred Ingate before I'm
+anything else. And so long as I'm pretty comfortable no one's going to make
+me believe that the world's coming to an end. I know one thing--if we did
+get the vote it would take me all my time to keep most of the women I know
+from, voting for something silly."
+
+"Winnie," said Audrey. "You're very sensible sometimes."
+
+"I'm always very sensible," Winnie retorted, "until I get nervous. Then I'm
+apt to skid."
+
+Without more words they transformed the studio, by a few magical strokes,
+from a drawing-room into a bedroom. Audrey, the last to retire,
+extinguished the lamp, and tripped to her bed behind her screen. Only a few
+slight movements disturbed the silence.
+
+"Winnie," said Audrey suddenly. "I do believe you're one of those awful
+people who compromise. You're always right in the middle of the raft."
+
+But Miss Ingate, being fast asleep, offered no answer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE RIGHT BANK
+
+
+The next day, after a studio lunch which contained too much starch and was
+deficient in nitrogen, Miss Ingate, putting on her hat and jacket, said
+with a caustic gesture:
+
+"Well, I must be off to my life class. And much good may it do me!"
+
+The astonishing creature had apparently begun existence again, and begun it
+on the plane of art, but this did not prevent the observer within her from
+taking the same attitude towards her second career as she had taken towards
+her first. Nothing seemed more meet for Miss Ingate's ironic contemplation
+than the daily struggle for style and beauty in the academies of the
+Quarter.
+
+Audrey made no reply. The morning had been unusually silent, giving
+considerable scope for Miss Ingate's faculty for leaving well alone.
+
+"I suppose you aren't coming out?" added Miss Ingate.
+
+"No. I went out a bit this morning. You know I have my French lesson in
+twenty minutes."
+
+"Of course."
+
+Miss Ingate seized her apparatus and departed. The instant she was alone
+Audrey began in haste to change into all her best clothes, which were
+black, and which the Quarter seldom saw. Fashionably arrayed, she sat down
+and wrote a note to Madame Schmitt, her French instructress, to say that
+she had been suddenly called away on urgent business, and asking her
+nevertheless to count the time as a lesson given. This done, she put her
+credit notes and her cheque-book into her handbag, and, leaving the note
+with the concierge's wife, who bristled with interesting suspicions, she
+vanished into Paris.
+
+The weather was even more superb than on the previous day. Paris glittered
+around her as she drove, slowly, in a horse-taxi, to the Place de l'Opéra
+on the right bank, where the _grand boulevard_ meets the Avenue de l'Opéra
+and the Rue de la Paix. Here was the very centre of the fashionable and
+pleasure-ridden district which the Quarter held in noble scorn. She had
+seen it before, because she had started a banking account (under advice
+from Mr. Foulger), and the establishment of her bankers was situate at the
+corner of the Avenue de l'Opéra and the Rue de la Paix. But she knew
+little of the district, and such trifling information as she had acquired
+was tinged by the natural hostility of a young woman who for over six
+months, with no compulsion to do so, had toiled regularly and fiercely in
+the pursuit of knowledge. She paid off the cab, and went to test the
+soundness of her bankers. The place was full of tourists, and in one
+department of it young men in cages, who knew not the Quarter, were
+counting, and ladling, and pinning together, and engorging, and dealing
+forth, the currency and notes of all the great nations of the earth. The
+spectacle was inspiring.
+
+In half a year the restive but finally obedient Mr. Foulger had sent three
+thousand pounds to Paris in the unpoetic form of small oblong pieces of
+paper signed with his own dull signature. Audrey desired to experience the
+thrill of authentic money. She waited some time in front of a cage, with
+her cheque-book open on the counter, until a young man glanced at her
+interrogatively through the bars.
+
+"How much money have I got here, please?" she asked. She ought to have
+said: "What is my balance, please?" But nobody had taught her the sacred
+formula.
+
+"What name?" said the clerk.
+
+"Moze--Audrey Moze," she answered, for she had not dared to acquaint Mr.
+Foulger with her widowhood, and his cheques were made out to herself.
+
+The clerk vanished, and in a moment reappeared, silently wrote something on
+a little form, and pushed it to her under the grille. She read:
+
+                            "73,065 frs. 50c."
+
+The fact was that in six months she had spent little more than the amount
+which she had brought with her from London. Having begun in simplicity, in
+simplicity she had continued, partly because she had been too industrious
+and too earnest for luxurious caprices, partly because she had never been
+accustomed to anything else but simplicity, and partly from wilfulness. It
+had pleased her to think that she was piling tens of thousands upon tens of
+thousands--in francs.
+
+But in the night she had decided that the moment had arrived for a change
+in the great campaign of seeing life and tasting it.
+
+She timorously drew a cheque for eleven thousand francs, and asked for ten
+thousand in notes and a thousand in gold. The clerk showed no trace of
+either astonishment or alarm; but he insisted on her endorsing the cheque.
+When she saw the gold, she changed half of it for ten notes of fifty francs
+each.
+
+Emerging with false but fairly plausible nonchalance from the crowded
+establishment, where other clerks were selling tickets to Palestine,
+Timbuctoo, Bagdad, Berlin, and all the abodes of happiness in the world,
+she saw at the newspaper kiosk opposite the little blue poster of an
+English daily. It said: "More Suffragette Riots." She had a qualm, for her
+conscience was apt to be tyrannic, and its empire over her had been
+strengthened by the long, steady course of hard work which she had
+accomplished. Miss Ingate's arguments had not placated that conscience.
+It had said to her in the night: "If ever there was a girl who ought to
+assist heartily in the emancipation of women, that girl is you, Audrey
+Moze."
+
+"Pooh!" she replied to her conscience, for she could always confute it with
+a sharp word--for a time.
+
+And she crossed to the _grand boulevard_, and turned westward along the
+splendid, humming, roaring thoroughfare gay with flags and gleaming with
+such plate-glass as Nick the militant would have loved to shatter.
+Certainly there was nothing like this street in the Quarter. The Quarter
+could equal it neither in shops, nor in cafés, nor in vehicles, nor in
+crowds. It was an exultant thoroughfare, and Audrey caught its buoyancy,
+which could be distinctly seen in the feather on her hat. At the end of it
+she passed into the cool shade of a music-shop with the name "Durand" on
+its façade. She had found the address, and another one, in the telephone
+book at the Café de Versailles that morning. It was an immense shop
+containing millions of pieces of music for all instruments and all tastes.
+Yet when she modestly asked for the Caprice for violin of Roussel, the
+_morceau_ was brought to her without the slightest hesitation, together
+with the pianoforte accompaniment. The price was twelve francs.
+
+Her gloved hand closed round the slim roll with the delicate firmness which
+was actuating all her proceedings on that magnificent afternoon. She was
+determined to save Musa not merely from himself, but from Miss Thompkins
+and everybody. It was not that she was specially interested in Musa. No!
+She was interested in a clean, neat job--that was all. She had begun to
+take charge of Musa, and she intended to carry the affair through. He had
+the ability to succeed, and he should succeed. It would be ridiculous for
+him not to succeed. From certain hints, and from a deeply sagacious
+instinct, she had divined that money and management were the only
+ingredients lacking to Musa's triumph. She could supply both these
+elements; and she would. And her reward would be the pride of the workman
+in his job.
+
+Now her firmness hesitated. She retraced the boulevard to the Place de
+l'Opéra, and then took the Rue de la Paix. In the first shop on the
+left-hand side, next to her bankers, she saw amid a dazzling collection of
+jewelled articles for travellers and letter-writers and diary-keepers, a
+sublime gold handbag, or, as the French say, hand-sack. Its clasp was set
+with a sapphire. Impulse sent her gliding right into the shop, with the
+words already on her lips: "How much is that gold hand-sack in the window?"
+But when she reached the hushed and shadowed interior, which was furnished
+like a drawing-room with soft carpets and tapestried chairs, she beheld
+dozens of gold hand-sacks glinting like secret treasure in a cave; and she
+was embarrassed by the number and variety of them. A well-dressed and
+affable lady and gentleman, with a quite remarkable similarity of prominent
+noses, welcomed her in general terms, and seemed surprised, and even a
+little pained, when she talked about buying and selling. She came out of
+the shop with a gold hand-sack which had cost twelve hundred francs, and
+all her money was in it.
+
+Fortified by the impressive bauble, she walked along the street to the
+Place Vendôme, where she descried in the distance the glittering signs and
+arms of the Hôtel du Danube. Then she walked up the opposite pavement of
+the Rue de la Paix, and down again and up again until she had grasped its
+significance.
+
+It was a street of jewellery, perfumes, antiques, gloves, hats, frocks, and
+furs. It was a street wherein the lily was painted and gold was gilded.
+Every window was a miracle of taste, refinement, and costliness. Every
+article in every window was so dear that no article was ticketed with its
+price, save a few wafer-like watches and jewelled rings that bore tiny
+figures, such as 12,500 francs, 40,000 francs. Despite her wealth, Audrey
+felt poor. The upper windows of nearly all the great buildings were arrayed
+with plants in full bloom. The roadway was covered with superb automobiles,
+some of them nearly as long as trains. About half of them stood in repose
+at the kerb, and Audrey as she strolled could see through their panes of
+bevelled glass the complex luxury within of toy dogs, clocks, writing-pads,
+mirrors, powder boxes, parasols, and the lounging arrogance of uniformed
+menials. At close intervals women passed rapidly across the pavements to or
+from these automobiles. If they were leaving a shop, the automobile sprang
+into life, dogs, menials, and all, the door was opened, the woman slipped
+in like a mechanical toy, the door banged, the menial jumped, and with
+trumpet tones the entire machine curved and swept away. The aspect of these
+women made Audrey feel glad that she was wearing her best clothes, and
+simultaneously made her feel that her best clothes were worse than useless.
+
+She saw an automobile shop with a card at the door: "Town and touring cars
+for hire by day, week, or month." A gorgeous Mercédès, too spick, too span,
+altogether too celestial for earthly use, occupied most of the shop.
+
+"Good afternoon, Madame," said a man in bad English. For Audrey had
+misguided herself into the emporium. She did not care to be addressed in
+her own tongue; she even objected to the instant discovery of her
+nationality, of which at the moment she was ashamed. And so it was with
+frigidity that she inquired whether cars were to be hired.
+
+The shopman hesitated. Audrey knew that she had committed an indiscretion.
+It was impossible that cars should be handed out thus unceremoniously to
+anybody who had the fancy to enter the shop! Cars were naturally the
+subject of negotiations and references.... And then the shopman, espying
+the gold bag, and being by it and by the English frigidity humbled to his
+proper station, fawned and replied that he had cars for hire, and the best
+cars. Did the lady want a large car or a small car? She wanted a large car.
+Did she want a town or a touring car? She wanted a town car, and by the
+week. When did she want it? She wanted it at once--in half an hour.
+
+"I can hire you a car in half an hour, with liveried chauffeur," said the
+shopman, after telephoning. "But he cannot speak English."
+
+"_Ça m'est égal_," answered Audrey with grim satisfaction. "What kind of a
+car will it be?"
+
+"Mercédès, Madame."
+
+The price was eight hundred francs a week, inclusive. As Audrey was paying
+for the first week the man murmured:
+
+"What address, Madame?"
+
+"Hôtel du Danube," she answered like lightning--indeed far quicker than
+thought. "But I shall call here for the car. It must be waiting outside."
+
+The dispenser of cars bowed.
+
+"Can you get a taxi for me?" Audrey suggested. "I will leave this roll here
+and this bag," producing her old handbag which she had concealed under her
+coat. And she thought: "All this is really very simple."
+
+At the other address which she had found in the telephone book--a house in
+the Rue d'Aumale--she said to an aged concierge:
+
+"Monsieur Foa--which floor?"
+
+A very dark, rather short and negligently dressed man of nearly middle-age
+who was descending the staircase, raised his hat with grave ceremony:
+
+"Pardon, Madame. Foa--it is I."
+
+Audrey was not prepared for this encounter. She had intended to compose her
+face and her speech while mounting the staircase. She blushed.
+
+"I come from Musa--the violinist," she began hesitatingly. "You invited
+him to play at your flat on Friday night, Monsieur."
+
+Monsieur Foa gave a sudden enchanting smile:
+
+"Yes, Madame. I hear much good of him from my friend Dauphin, much good.
+And we long to hear him play. It appears he is a great artist."
+
+"He has had an accident," said Audrey. Monsier Foa's face grew serious. "It
+is nothing--a few days. The elbow--a trifle. He cannot play next Friday.
+But he will be desolated if he may not play to you later. He has so few
+friends.... I came.... I...."
+
+"Madame, every Friday we are at home, every Friday. My wife will be
+ravished. I shall be ravished. Believe me. Let him be reassured."
+
+"Monsieur, you are too amiable. I shall tell Musa."
+
+"Musa, he may have few friends--it is possible, Madame--but he is
+nevertheless fortunate. Madame is English, is it not so? My wife and I
+adore England and the English. For us there is only England. If Madame
+would do us the honour of coming when Musa plays.... My wife will send an
+invitation, to the end of remaining within the rules. You, Madame, and any
+of your friends."
+
+"Monsieur is too amiable, truly."
+
+In the end they were standing together on the pavement by the waiting taxi.
+She gave him her card, and breathed the words "Hôtel du Danube." He was
+enchanted. She offered her hand. He took it, raised it, and kissed the
+back of it. Then he stood with his hat off until she had passed from his
+sight.
+
+Audrey was burning with excitement. She said to herself:
+
+"I have discovered Paris."
+
+When the taxi turned again into the Rue de la Paix, she thought:
+
+"The car will not be waiting. It would be too lovely if it were."
+
+But there the car was, huge, glistening, unreal, incredible. And a
+chauffeur gloved and liveried in brown, to match the car, stood by its
+side, and the shopman was at the door, holding the Caprice of Roussel and
+the old handbag ready in his hand.
+
+"Here is Madame," said he.
+
+The chauffeur saluted.
+
+The car was closed.
+
+"Will Madame have the carriage open or closed?"
+
+"Closed."
+
+Having paid the taxi-driver, Audrey entered the car, and as she did so, she
+threw over her shoulder:
+
+"Hôtel du Danube."
+
+While the chauffeur started the engine, the shopman with brilliant smiles
+delivered the music and the bag. The door clicked. Audrey noticed the
+clock, the rug, the powder-box, the speaking-tube, and the mirror. She
+gazed, and saw a face triumphant and delicious in the mirror. The car began
+to glide forward. She leaned back against the pale grey upholstery, but in
+her soul she was standing and crying with a wild wave of the hand, to the
+whole street:
+
+"It is a miracle!"
+
+In a moment the gigantic car stopped in front of the Hôtel du Danube. Two
+attendants rushed out in uniforms of delicate blue. They did not touch
+their hats--they raised them. Audrey descended and penetrated into the
+portico, where a tall dandy saluted and inquired her will. She wanted
+rooms; she wanted a flat? Certainly. They had nothing but flats. A large
+flat on the ground-floor was at her disposal absolutely. Two bedrooms,
+sitting-room, bathroom. It had its own private entrance in the courtyard.
+She inspected it. The suite was furnished in the Empire style. Herself and
+maid? No. A friend! Well, the maids could sleep upstairs. It could arrange
+itself. She had no maid? Her friend had no maid? Ah! So much the better.
+Sixty francs a day.
+
+"Where is the dining-room?" demanded Audrey.
+
+"Madame," said the dandy, shocked. "We have no dining-room. All meals are
+specially cooked to order and served in the private rooms. We have the
+reputation...." He opened his arms and bowed.
+
+Good! Good! She would return with her friend in one hour or so.
+
+"106 Rue Delambre," she bade the chauffeur, after being followed to the
+pavement by the dandy and a suite.
+
+"Rue de Londres?" said the chauffeur.
+
+"No. Rue Delambre."
+
+It had to be looked out on the map, but the chauffeur, trained to the hour,
+did not blench. However, when he found the Rue Delambre, the success with
+which he repudiated it was complete.
+
+"Winnie!" began Audrey in the studio, with assumed indifference. Miss
+Ingate was at tea.
+
+"Oh! You are a swell. Where you been?"
+
+"Winnie! What do you say to going and living on the right bank for a bit?"
+
+"Well, well!" said Miss Ingate. "So that's it, is it?  I've been ready to
+go for a long time. Of course you want to go first thing to-morrow morning.
+I know you."
+
+"No, I don't," said Audrey. "I want to go to-night. Now! Pack the trunks
+quick. I've got the finest auto you ever saw waiting at the door."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ROBES
+
+
+On the second following Friday evening, Audrey's suite of rooms at the
+Hôtel du Danube glowed in every corner with pink-shaded electricity.
+According to what Audrey had everywhere observed to be the French custom,
+there was in this flat the minimum of corridor and the maximum of doors.
+Each room communicated directly with all the other rooms. The doors were
+open, and three women continually in a feverish elation passed to and fro.
+Empire chairs and sofas were covered with rich garments of every colour and
+form and material, from the transparent blue silk _matinée_ to the dark
+heavy cloak of velvet ornamented with fur. The place was in fact very like
+the showrooms of a cosmopolitan dressmaker after a vast trying-on. Sundry
+cosmopolitan dressmakers had contributed to the rich confusion. None had
+hesitated for an instant to execute Audrey's commands. They had all been
+waiting, apparently since the beginning of time, to serve her. All that
+district of Paris had been thus waiting. The flat had been waiting, the
+automobile had been waiting, the chauffeur had been waiting, and purveyors
+of every sort. A word from her seemed to have released them from an
+enchantment. For the most part they were strange people, these magical
+attendants, never mentioning money, but rather deprecating the sound of it,
+and content to supply nothing but the finest productions of their
+unquestionable genius. Still, Audrey reckoned that she owed about
+twenty-five thousand francs to Paris.
+
+The third woman was the maid, Elise. The hotel had invented and delivered
+Elise, and thereafter seemed easier in its mind. Elise was thirty years of
+age and not repellent of aspect. On a black dress she wore the smallest
+white muslin apron that either Audrey or Miss Ingate had ever seen. She
+kept pins in her mouth, but in other respects showed few eccentricities
+beyond an extreme excitability. When at eight o'clock Mademoiselle's new
+gown, promised for seven, had not arrived, Elise begged permission to use
+Madame's salts. When the bell rang at eight-thirty, and a lackey brought in
+an oval-shaped box with a long loop to it of leathern strap, she only just
+managed not to kiss the lackey. The rapid movement of Mademoiselle and
+Elise with the contents of the box from the drawing-room into
+Mademoiselle's bedroom was the last rushing and swishing that preceded a
+considerable peace.
+
+Madame was absolutely ready, in her bedroom. In the large mirror of the
+dark wardrobe she surveyed her victoriously young face, the magnificent
+grey dress, the coiffure, the jewels, the spangled shoes, the fan; and the
+ensemble satisfied her. She was intensely and calmly happy. No thought of
+the past nor of the future, nor of what was going on in other parts of the
+earth's surface could in the slightest degree impair her happiness. She had
+done nothing herself, she had neither earned money nor created any of the
+objects which adorned her; nor was she capable of doing the one or the
+other. Yet she felt proud as well as happy, because she was young and
+superbly healthy, and not unattractive. These were her high virtues. And
+her attitude was so right that nobody would have disagreed with her.
+
+Her left ear was listening for the sound, through the unlatched window, of
+the arrival of the automobile with Musa and his fiddle inside it.
+
+Then the door leading from Mademoiselle's bedroom opened sharply, and
+Mademoiselle appeared, with her grey hair, her pale shining forehead, her
+sardonic grin, and the new dress of those Empire colours, magenta and
+green. Elise stood behind, trembling with satisfaction.
+
+"Well----" Audrey began. But she heard the automobile, and told Elise to
+run and be ready to open the front door of the flat.
+
+"Rather showy, isn't it? Rather daring?" said Miss Ingate, advancing
+self-consciously and self-deprecating.
+
+"Winnie," answered Audrey. "It's a nice question between you and the Queen
+of Sheba."
+
+Suddenly Miss Ingate beheld in the mirror the masterpiece of an illustrious
+male dressmaker-a masterpiece in which no touch of the last fashion was
+abated-and little Essex Winnie grinning from within it.
+
+She screamed. And forthwith putting her hands behind her neck she began to
+unhook the corsage.
+
+"What are you doing, Winnie?"
+
+"I'm taking it off."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I'm not going to wear it."
+
+"But you've nothing else to wear."
+
+"I can't help that."
+
+"But you can't come. What on earth shall you do?"
+
+"I dare say I shall go to bed. Or I might shoot myself. But if you think
+that I'm going outside this room in this dress, you're a perfect simpleton,
+Audrey. I don't mind being a fool, but I won't look one."
+
+Audrey heard Musa enter the drawing-room.
+
+She pulled the door to, keeping her hand on the knob.
+
+"Very well, Winnie," she said coldly, and swept into the drawing-room.
+
+As she and Musa left the pink rose-shaded flat, she heard a burst of tears
+from Elise in the bedroom.
+
+"21 Rue d'Aumale," she curtly ordered the chauffeur, who sat like a god
+obscurely in front of the illuminated interior of the carriage. Musa's
+violin case lay amid the cushions therein.
+
+The chauffeur approvingly touched his hat. The Rue d'Aumale was a good
+street.
+
+"I wonder what his surname is?" Audrey thought curiously. "And whether he's
+in love or married, and has children." She knew nothing of him save that
+his Christian name was Michel.
+
+She was taciturn and severe with Musa.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+SOIRÉE
+
+
+"Monsieur Foa--which floor?" Audrey asked once again of the aged concierge
+in the Rue d'Aumale. This time she got an answer. It was the fifth or top
+floor. Musa said nothing, permitting himself to be taken about like a
+parcel, though with a more graceful passivity. There was no lift, but at
+each floor a cushioned seat for travellers to use and a palm in a coloured
+pot in a niche for travellers to gaze upon as they rested. The quality of
+the palms, however, deteriorated floor by floor, and on the fourth and
+fifth floors the niches were empty. A broad embroidered bell-pull,
+twitched, gave rise to one clanging sound within the abode of the Foas, and
+the clanging sound reacted upon a small dog which yapped loudly and
+continued to yap until the visitors had entered and the door been closed
+again. Monsieur came out of a room into the small entrance-hall,
+accompanied by a considerable noise of conversation. He beamed his
+ravishment; he kissed hands; he helped with the dark blue cloak.
+
+"I brought Monsieur Musa in my car," said Audrey. "The weather----"
+
+Monsieur Foa bowed low to Monsieur Musa, and Monsieur Musa bowed low to
+Monsieur Foa.
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+"Monsieur, your accident I hope...."
+
+And so on.
+
+Cloak, overcoat, hat, stick--everything except the violin case--were thrown
+pell-mell on to a piece of furniture in the entrance-hall. Monsieur Foa,
+instead of being in evening dress, was in exactly the same clothes as he
+had worn at his first meeting with Audrey.
+
+Madame Foa appeared in the doorway. She was a slim blonde Italian of pure
+descent, whereas only the paternal grandfather of Monsieur Foa had been
+Italian. Madame Foa, who had called on Audrey at the Danube, exhibited the
+same symptoms of pleasure as her husband.
+
+"But your friend? But your friend?" cried she.
+
+Audrey, being led gradually into the drawing-room, explained that Miss
+Ingate had been prevented at the last moment, etc., etc.
+
+The distinction of Madame Foa's simple dress had reassured Audrey to a
+certain extent, but the size of the drawing-room disconcerted her again.
+She had understood that the house of the Foas was the real esoteric centre
+of musical Paris, and she had prepared herself for vast and luxurious
+salons, footmen, fountains of wine, rare flowers, dandies, and the divine
+shoulders of operatic sopranos who combined wit with the most seductive
+charm. The drawing-room of the Foas was not as large as her own
+drawing-room at the Danube. Still it was full, and double doors leading to
+an unseen dining-room at right angles to its length produced an illusion of
+space. Some of the men and some of the women were elegant, and even very
+elegant; others were not. Audrey instantly with her expert eye saw that the
+pictures on the walls were of the last correctness, and a few by
+illustrious painters. Here and there she could see scrawled on them "à mon
+ami, André Foa." Such phenomena were balm. Everybody in the room was
+presented to her, and with the greatest particularity, and the host and
+hostess gazed on her as on an idol, a jewel, an exquisite and startling
+discovery. Musa found two men he knew. The conversation was resumed with
+energy.
+
+"And now," said Madame Foa in English, sitting down intimately beside
+Audrey, with a loving gesture, "We will have a little talk, you and I. I
+find our friend Madame Piriac met you last year."
+
+"Ah! Yes," murmured Audrey, fatally struck, but admirably dissembling, for
+she was determined to achieve the evening successfully. "Madame Piriac,
+will she come to-night?"
+
+"I fear not," replied Madame Foa. "She would if she could."
+
+"I should so like to have seen her again," said Audrey eagerly. She was so
+relieved at Madame Piriac's not coming that she felt she could afford to be
+eager.
+
+And Monsieur Foa, a little distance off, threw a sign into the duologue,
+and called:
+
+"You permit me? Your dress ... _Exquise! Exquise!_ And these pigs of French
+persist in saying that the English lack taste!" He clapped his hand to his
+forehead in despair of the French.
+
+Then the clanging sound supervened, and the little fox-terrier yapped, and
+Monsieur Foa went out, ejaculating "Ah!" and Madame Foa went into the
+doorway. Audrey glanced round for Musa, but he was out of sight in the
+dining-room. Several people turned at once and spoke to her, including two
+composers who had probably composed more impossibilities for amateur
+pianists than any other two men who ever lived, and a musical critic with
+large dark eyes and an Eastern air, who had come from the Opera very
+sarcastic about the Opera. One of the composers asked the critic whether he
+had not heard Musa play.
+
+"Yes," said the critic. "I heard him in the Ternes Quarter--somewhere. He
+plays very agreeably. Madame," he addressed Audrey. "I was discussing with
+these gentlemen whether it be not possible to define the principle of
+beauty in music. Once it is defined, my trade will be much simplified, you
+see. What say you?"
+
+How could she discourse on the principle of beauty in music when she had
+the whole weight of the evening on her shoulders? Musa was the whole weight
+of the evening. Would he succeed? She was his mother, his manager, his
+creator. He was her handiwork. If he failed she would have failed. That was
+her sole interest in him, but it was an overwhelming interest. When would
+he be asked to play? Useless for them to flatter her about her dress, to
+treat her like a rarity, if they offered callous, careless, off-hand
+remarks, such as "He plays very agreeably."
+
+She stammered:
+
+"I--I only know what I like."
+
+One of the composers jumped up excitedly:
+
+"_Voilà_ Madame has said the final word. You hear me, the final word, the
+most profound. Argue as you will, perfect the art of criticism to no matter
+what point, and you will never get beyond the final word of Madame."
+
+The critic shrugged his shoulders, and with a smile bowed to the ravishing
+utterer of last words on the most baffling of subjects. This fluttered
+person soon perceived that she had been mistaken in supposing that the room
+was full. The clanging sound kept recurring, the dog kept barking, and new
+guests continually poured into the room, thereby proving that it was not
+full. All comers were introduced to Audrey, whose head was a dizzy riot of
+strange names. Then at last a girl sang, and was applauded. Madame Foa
+played for her. "Now," thought Audrey, "they will ask Musa." Then one of
+the composers played the piano, his themes punctuated by the clanging sound
+and by the dog. The room was asphyxiating, but no one except Audrey seemed
+to be inconvenienced. Then several guests rang in quick succession.
+
+"Madame!" the suave and ardent voice of Foa could be heard in the
+entrance-hall. "And thou, Roussel ... Ippolita, Ippolita!" he called to
+his wife. "It is Roussel."
+
+Audrey did not turn her head. She could not. But presently Roussel, in a
+blue suit with a wonderful flowing bow of a black necktie in _crêpe de
+Chine_, was led before her. And Musa was led before Roussel. Audrey, from
+nervousness, was moved to relate the history of Musa's accident to Roussel.
+
+The moment had arrived. Roussel sat down to the piano. Musa tuned his
+fiddle.
+
+"From what appears," murmured Monsieur Foa to nobody in particular, with an
+ecstatic expectant smile on his face, "this Musa is all that is most
+amazing."
+
+Then, in the silence, the clanging sound was renewed, and the fox-terrier
+reacted.
+
+"André, my friend," cried Madame Foa, skipping into the hall. "Will you do
+me the pleasure of exterminating this dog?"
+
+Delicate osculatory explosions and pretty exclamations in the hall! The
+hostess was encountering an old friend. There was also a man's deep
+English voice. Then a hush. The man's voice produced a very strange effect
+upon Audrey. Roussel began to play. Musa held his bow aloft. Creeping
+steps in the doorway made Audrey look round. A lady smiled and bowed to
+her. It was Madame Piriac, resplendent and serene.
+
+Musa played the Caprice. Audrey did not hear him, partly because the vision
+of Madame Piriac, and the man's deep voice, had extremely perturbed her,
+and partly because she was so desperately anxious for Musa's triumph. She
+had decided that she could make his triumph here the prelude to tremendous
+things. When he had finished she held her breath....
+
+The applause, after an instant, was sudden and extremely cordial. Monsieur
+Foa loudly clapped, smiling at Audrey. Roussel patted Musa on the back and
+chattered to him fondly. On each side of her Audrey could catch murmured
+exclamations of delight. Musa himself was certainly pleased and happy....
+He had played at Foa's, where it was absolutely essential to play if one
+intended to conquer Paris and to prove one's pretensions; and he had found
+favour with this satiated and fastidious audience.
+
+"_Ouf!"_ sighed the musical critic Orientally lounging on a chair. "André,
+has it occurred to you that we are expiring for want of air?"
+
+A window was opened, and a shiver went through the assembly.
+
+The clanging sounded again, but no dog, for the dog had been exterminated.
+
+"Dauphin, my old pig!" Foa's greeting from the entrance floated into the
+drawing-room, and then a very impressed: "Mademoiselle" from Madame Foa.
+
+"What?" cried Dauphin. "Musa has played? He played well? So much the
+better. What did I tell you?"
+
+And he entered the drawing-room with the satisfied air of having fed Musa
+from infancy and also of having taught him all he knew about the violin.
+
+Madame Foa followed him, and with her was Miss Ingate, gorgeous and
+blushing. The whole company was now on its feet and moving about. Miss
+Ingate scuttered to Audrey.
+
+"Well," she whispered. "Here I am. I came partly to satisfy that hysterical
+Elise, and Monsieur Dauphin met me on the stairs. But really I came because
+I've had another letter from Miss Nickall. She's been and got her arm
+broken in a street row. I knew those policemen would do it one day. I
+always said they would."
+
+But Audrey seemed not to be listening. With a side-long gaze she saw Madame
+Piriac talking with a middle-aged Englishman, whose back alone was visible
+to her. Madame Piriac laughed and vanished out of sight into the
+dining-room. The Englishman turned and met Audrey's glance.
+
+Abruptly leaving Miss Ingate, Audrey walked straight up to the Englishman.
+
+"Good evening," she said in a low voice. "What is your name?"
+
+"Gilman," he answered, with a laugh. "I only this instant recognised you."
+
+"Well, Mr. Gilman," said Audrey, "will you oblige me very much by not
+recognising me? I want us to be introduced. I am most particularly anxious
+that no one should know I'm the same girl who helped you to jump off your
+yacht at Lousey Hard last year."
+
+And she moved quickly away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A DECISION
+
+
+The entire company was sitting or standing round the table in the
+dining-room. It was a table at which eight might have sat down to dinner
+with a fair amount of comfort; and perhaps thirty-eight now were
+successfully claiming an interest in it. Not at the end, but about a third
+of the way down one side, Madame Foa brewed tea in a copper receptacle over
+a spirit lamp. At the other extremity was a battalion of glasses, some
+syphons and some lofty bottles. Except for a border of teacups and glasses
+the rest of the white expanse was empty, save that two silver biscuit boxes
+and a silver cigarette box wandered up and down it according to the needs
+of the community. Audrey was sitting next to the Oriental musical critic,
+on her left, and on her right she had a beautiful stout woman who could
+speak nothing but Polish, but who expressed herself very clearly in the
+language of smiles, nods, and shrugs; to Audrey she seemed to be extremely
+romantic; the musical critic could converse somewhat in Polish, and
+occasionally he talked across Audrey to the Pole. Several other languages
+were flying about. The subject of discussion was feminism, chiefly as
+practised in England. It was Miss Ingate who had begun it; her striking and
+peculiar appearance, and in particular her frock, had given importance to
+her lightest word. People who comprehended naught of English listened to
+her entranced. The host, who was among these, stood behind her in a state
+of ecstasy. Her pale forehead reddened; her sardonic grin became
+deliciously self-conscious. "I know I'm skidding," she cried. "I know I'm
+skidding."
+
+"What does she say? Skeed--skeed?" demanded the host.
+
+Audrey interpreted. Shouts of laughter!
+
+"Oh! These English! These Englishwomen!" said the host. "I adore them. I
+adore them all. They alone exist."
+
+"It's vehy serious!" protested Miss Ingate. "It's vehy serious!"
+
+"We shall go to London to-morrow, shan't we, Winnie?" said Audrey across
+the table to her.
+
+"Yes," agreed Miss Ingate. "I think we ought. We're as free as birds. When
+the police have broken our arms we can come back to Paris to recover. I
+shan't feel comfortable until I've been and had my arm broken--it's vehy
+serious."
+
+"What does she say? What is it that she says?" from the host.
+
+More interpretation. More laughter, but this time an impressed laughter.
+And Audrey perceived that just as she was regarding the Polish woman as
+romantic, so the whole company was regarding herself and Miss Ingate as
+romantic. She could feel the polite, curious eyes of twenty men upon her;
+and her mind seemed to stiffen into a formidable resolve. She grew
+conscious of the lifting of all depression, all anxiety. Her conscience was
+at rest. She had been thinking for more than a week past: "I ought to go to
+London." How often had she not said to herself: "If any woman should be in
+this movement, I should be in this movement. I am a coward as long as I
+stay here, dallying my time away." Now the decision was made, absolutely.
+
+The Oriental musical critic turned to glance upward behind his chair. Then
+he vacated it. The next instant Madame Piriac was sitting in his place.
+
+She said:
+
+"Are you really going to London to-morrow, Madame?"
+
+"Yes, Madame, really!" answered Audrey firmly, without the least
+hesitation.
+
+"How I regret it! For this reason. I wished so much to make your
+acquaintance. I mean--to know you a little. You go perhaps in the
+afternoon? Could you not do me the great pleasure of coming to lunch with
+me? I inhabit the Quai Voltaire. It is all that is most convenient."
+
+Audrey was startled and suspicious, but she could not deny the
+persuasiveness of the invitation.
+
+"Ah! Madame!" she said. "I know not at what hour we go. But even if it
+should be in the afternoon there is the packing--you know--in a word...."
+
+"Listen," Madame Piriac proceeded, bending even more intimately towards
+her. "Be very, very kind. Come to see me to-night. Come in my car. I will
+see that you reach the Rue Delambre afterwards."
+
+"But Madame, we are at the Hôtel du Danube. I have my own car. You are very
+amiable."
+
+Madame Piriac was a little taken aback.
+
+"So much the better," she said, in a new tone. "The Hôtel du Danube is
+nearer still. But come in my car. Mademoiselle Ingate can return in yours.
+Do not desolate me."
+
+"Does she know who I am?" thought Audrey, and then: "What do I care if she
+does?"
+
+And she said aloud:
+
+"Madame, it is I who would be desolated to deprive myself of this
+pleasure."
+
+A considerable period elapsed before they could leave, because of the
+complex discussion concerning feminism which was delicately raging round
+the edge of the table. The animation was acute, but it was purely
+intellectual. The guests discussed the psychology of English suffragettes,
+sympathetically, admiringly; they were even wonderstruck; yet they might
+have been discussing the psychology of the ancient Babylonians, so perfect
+was their detachment, so completely unclouded by any prejudice was their
+desire to reach the truth. Many of the things which they imperturbably and
+politely said made Audrey feel glad that she was a widow. Had she not been
+a widow, possibly they would not have been uttered.
+
+And when Madame Piriac and Audrey did rise to go, both host and hostess
+began to upbraid. The host, indeed, barred the doorway with his urbane
+figure. They were not kind, they were not true friends, to leave so soon.
+The morrow had no sort of importance. The hour was scarcely one o'clock.
+Other guests were expected.... Madame Piriac alone knew how to handle the
+situation; she appealed privately to Madame Foa. Having appealed to Madame
+Foa, she disappeared with Madame Foa, and could not be found when Audrey
+and Miss Ingate were ready to leave. While these two waited in the
+antechamber, Monsieur Foa said suddenly in a confidential tone to Audrey:
+
+"He is charming, Musa, quite charming."
+
+"Did you like his playing?" Audrey demanded boldly.
+
+She could not understand why it should be necessary for a violinist to play
+and to succeed at this house before he could capture Paris. She was
+delighted excessively with the home, but positively it bore no resemblance
+to what she had anticipated; nor did it seem to her to possess any of the
+attributes of influence; for one of her basic ideas about the world was
+that influential people must be dull and formal, moving about with
+deliberation in sombrely magnificent interiors.
+
+"Yes," said Monsieur Foa. "I like it. He plays admirably." And he spoke
+sincerely. Audrey, however, was a little disappointed because Monsieur Foa
+did not assert that Musa was the most marvellous genius he had ever
+listened to.
+
+"I am very, very content to have heard him," said Monsieur Foa.
+
+"Do you think he will succeed in Paris?"
+
+"Ah! Madame! There is the Press. There are the snobs.... In fine...."
+
+"I suppose if he had money?" Audrey murmured.
+
+"Ah! Madame! In Paris, if one has money, one has everything. Paris--it is
+not London, where to succeed one must be truly successful. But he is a
+player very highly accomplished. It is miraculous that he should have
+played so long in a café--Dauphin told me the history."
+
+Musa appeared, and after him Madame Piriac. More appeals, more reproaches,
+more asseverations that friends who left so early as one o'clock in the
+morning were not friends--and the host at length consented to open the
+door. At that very instant the bell clanged. Another guest had arrived.
+
+When, after the long descent of the stairs (which, however, unlike the
+stairs of the Rue Delambre, were lighted), Audrey saw seven automobiles in
+the street, she veered again towards the possibility that the Foas might
+after all be influential. Musa and Mr. Gilman, the yachtsman, had left with
+the women. Audrey told Miss Ingate to drive Musa home. She said not a word
+to him about her departure the next afternoon, and he made no reference to
+it. As the most imposing automobile moved splendidly away, Mr. Gilman held
+open the door of Madame Piriac's vehicle.
+
+Mr. Gilman sat down opposite to the women. In the enclosed space the rumour
+of his heavy breathing was noticeable. Madame Piriac began to speak in
+English--her own English--with a unique accent that Audrey at once loved.
+
+"You commence soon the yachting, my oncle?" said she, and turning to
+Audrey: "Mistair Gilman is no oncle to me. But he is a great friend of my
+husband. I call always him oncle. Do not I, oncle? Mistair Gilman lives
+only for the yachting. Every year in May we lose him, till September."
+
+"Really!" said Audrey.
+
+Her heart was apprehensively beating. She even suspected for an instant
+that both of them knew who she was, and that Mr. Gilman, before she had
+addressed him in the drawing-room, had already related to Madame Piriac the
+episode of Mozewater. Then she said to herself that the idea was absurd;
+and lastly, repeating within her breast that she didn't care, she became
+desperately bold.
+
+"I should love to buy a yacht," she said, after a pause. "We used to live
+far inland and I know nothing of the sea; in fact I scarcely saw it till I
+crossed the Channel, but I have always dreamed about it."
+
+"You must come and have a look at my new yacht, Mrs. Moncreiff," said Mr.
+Gilman in his solemn, thick voice. "I always say that no yacht is herself
+without ladies on board, a yacht being feminine, you see." He gave a little
+laugh.
+
+"Ah! My oncle!" Madame Piriac broke in. "I see in that no reason. If a
+yacht was masculine then I could see the reason in it."
+
+"Perhaps not one of my happiest efforts," said Mr. Gilman with
+resignation. "I am a dull man."
+
+"No, no!" Madame Piriac protested. "You are a dear. But why have you said
+nothing to-night at the Foas in the great discussion about feminism? Not
+one word have you said!"
+
+"I really don't understand it," said Mr. Gilman. "Either everybody is mad,
+or I am mad. I dare say I am mad."
+
+"Well," said Madame Piriac. "I said not much myself, but I enjoyed it. It
+was better than the music, music, which they talk always there. People talk
+too much shops in these days. It is out-to-place and done over."
+
+"Do you mean overdone?" asked Mr. Gilman mildly.
+
+"Well, overdone, if you like better that."
+
+"Do you mean shop, Hortense?" asked Mr. Gilman further.
+
+"Shop, shop! The English is impossible!"
+
+The automobile crossed the Seine and arrived in the deserted Quai Voltaire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE BOUDOIR
+
+
+In the setting of her own boudoir Madame Piriac equalled, and in some ways
+surpassed, the finest pictures which Audrey had imagined of her. Her
+evening dress made Audrey doubt whether after all her own was the genuine
+triumph which she had supposed; in Madame Piriac's boudoir, and close by
+Madame Piriac, it had disconcertingly the air of being an ingenious but
+unconvincing imitation of the real thing.
+
+But Madame Piriac's dress had the advantage of being worn with the highest
+skill and assurance; Madame Piriac knew what the least fold of her dress
+was doing, in the way of effect, on the floor behind her back. And Madame
+Piriac was mistress, not only of her dress, but of herself and all her
+faculties. A handsome woman, rather more than slim, but not plump, she had
+an expression of confidence, of knowing exactly what she was about, of
+foreseeing all her effects, which Audrey envied more than she had ever
+envied anything.
+
+As soon as Audrey came into the room she had said to herself: "I will have
+a boudoir like this." It was an interior in which every piece of furniture
+was loaded with objects personal to its owner. So many signed photographs,
+so much remarkable bric-à-brac, so many intimate contrivances of ornamental
+comfort, Audrey had never before seen within four walls. The chandelier,
+comprising ten thousand crystals, sparkled down upon a complex aggregate of
+richness overwhelming to everybody except Madame Piriac, who subdued it,
+understood it, and had the key to it. Audrey wondered how many servants
+took how many hours to dust the room. She was sure, however, that whatever
+the number of servants required, Madame Piriac managed them all to
+perfection. She longed violently to be as old as Madame Piriac, whom she
+assessed at twenty-nine and a half, and to be French, and to know all about
+everything in life as Madame Piriac did. Yet at the same time she was
+extremely determined to be Audrey, and not to be intimidated by Madame
+Piriac or by anyone.
+
+Just as they were beginning to suck iced lemonade up straws--a delightful
+caprice of Madame Piriac's, well suited to catch Audrey's taste--the door
+opened softly, and a tall, very dark, bearded man, appreciably older than
+Madame Piriac, entered with a kind of soft energy, and Mr. Gilman followed
+him.
+
+"Ah! My friend!" murmured Madame Piriac. "You give me pleasure. This is
+Madame Moncreiff, of whom I have spoken to you. Madame--my husband. We have
+just come from the Foas."
+
+Monsieur Piriac bent over Audrey's hand, and smiled with vivacity, and they
+talked a little of the evening, carelessly, as though time existed not. And
+then Monsieur Piriac said to his wife:
+
+"Dear friend. I have to work with this old Gilman. We shall therefore ask
+you to excuse us. Till to-morrow, then. Good night."
+
+"Good night, my friend. Do not do harm to yourself. Good night, my oncle."
+
+Monsieur Piriac saluted with formality but with sincerity.
+
+"Oh!" thought Audrey, as the men went away. "I should want to marry exactly
+him if I did want to marry. He doesn't interfere; he isn't curious; he
+doesn't want to know. He leaves her alone. She leaves him alone. How clever
+they are!"
+
+"My husband is now chief of the Cabinet of the Foreign Minister," said
+Madame Piriac with modest pride. "They kill themselves, you know, in that
+office--especially in these times. But I watch. And I tell Monsieur Gilman
+to watch.... How nice you are when you sit in a chair like that!  Only
+Englishwomen know how to use an easy chair.... To say nothing of the
+frock."
+
+"Madame Piriac," Audrey brusquely demanded with an expression of ingenuous
+curiosity. "Why did you bring me here?" It was the cry of an animal at once
+rash and rather desperate, determined to unmask all the secret dangers that
+might be threatening.
+
+"I much desired to see you," Madame Piriac answered very smoothly, "in
+order to apologise to you for my indiscreet question on the night when we
+first met. Your fairy tale about your late husband was a very proper reply
+to the attitude of Madame Rosamund--as you all call her. It was very
+clever--so clever that I myself did not appreciate it until after I had
+spoken. Ever since that moment I have wanted to explain, to know you more.
+Also your pretence of going to sleep in the automobile showed what in a
+woman I call distinguished talent."
+
+"But, Madame, I assure you that I really was asleep."
+
+"So much the better. The fact proves that your instinct for the right thing
+is quite exceptional. It is not that I would criticise Madame Rosamund, who
+has genius. Nevertheless her genius causes her to commit errors of which
+others would be incapable.... So she has captured you, too."
+
+"Captured me!" Audrey protested--and she was made stronger by the
+flattering reference to her distinguished talent. "I've never seen her from
+that day to this!"
+
+"No. But she has captured you. You are going."
+
+"Going where?"
+
+"To London, to take part in these riots."
+
+"I shan't have anything to do with riots."
+
+"Within a month you will have been in a riot, Madame ... and I shall
+regret it."
+
+"And even if I am, Madame! You are a friend of Rosamund's. You must be in
+sympathy."
+
+"In sympathy with what?"
+
+"With--with all this suffragism, feminism. I am anyway!" Audrey sat up
+straight. "It's horrible that women don't have the Vote. And it's horrible
+the things they have to suffer in order to get it. But they _will_ get it!"
+
+"Why do you say 'they'?"
+
+"I mean 'we.'"
+
+"Supposing you meant 'they,' after all? And you did, Madame. Let me tell
+you. You ask me if I sympathise with suffragism. You might as well ask me
+if I sympathise with a storm or with an earthquake, or with a river running
+to the sea. Perhaps I do. But perhaps I do not. That has no importance.
+Feminism is a natural phenomenon; it was unavoidable. You Englishwomen will
+get your vote. Even we in France will get it one day. It cannot be
+denied.... Sympathy is not required. But let us suppose that all women
+joined the struggle. What would happen to women?  What would happen to the
+world? Just as nunneries were a necessity of other ages, so even in this
+age women must meditate. Far more than men they need to understand
+themselves. Until they understand themselves how can they understand men?
+The function of women is to understand. Their function is also to
+preserve. All the beautiful and luxurious things in the world are in the
+custody of women. Men would never of themselves keep a tradition. If there
+is anything on earth worth keeping, women must keep it. And the tradition
+will be lost if every woman listens to Madame Rosamund. That is what she
+cannot see. Her genius blinds her. You say I am a friend of Madame
+Rosamund. I am. Madame Rosamund was educated in Paris, at the same school
+as my aunt and myself. But I have never helped her in her mission. And I
+never will. My vocation is elsewhere. When she fled over here from the
+English police, she came to me. I received her. She asked me to drive her
+to certain addresses. I did so. She was my guest. I surrounded her with all
+that she had abandoned, all that her genius had forced her to abandon. But
+I never spoke to her of her work, nor she to me of it. Still, I dare to
+think that I was of some value to the woman in Madame Rosamund."
+
+Audrey felt very young and awkward and defiant. She felt defiant because
+Madame Piriac had impressed her, and she was determined not to be
+impressed.
+
+"So you wanted to tell me all this," said she, putting down her glass, with
+the straws in it, on a small round table laden with tiny figures in silver.
+"Why did you want to tell me, Madame?"
+
+"I wanted to tell you because I want you to do nothing that you will
+regret. You greatly interested me the moment I saw you. And when I saw you
+in that studio, in that Quarter, I feared for you."
+
+"Feared what?"
+
+"I feared that you might mistake your vocation--that vocation which is so
+clearly written on your face. I saw a woman young and free and rich, and I
+was afraid that she might waste everything."
+
+"But do you know anything about me?"
+
+Madame Piriac paused before replying.
+
+"Nothing but what I see. But I see that you are in a high degree what all
+women are to a greater extent than men--an individualist. You know the
+feeling that comes over a woman in hours of complete intimacy with a man?
+You know what I mean?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" Audrey agreed, blushing.
+
+"In those moments we perceive that only the individual counts with us. And
+with you, above all, the individual should count. Unless you use your youth
+and your freedom and your money for some individual, you will never be
+content; you will eternally regret. All that is in your face."
+
+Audrey blushed more, thinking of certain plans formed in that head of hers.
+She said nothing. She was both very pleased and very exasperated.
+
+"I have a relative in England, a young girl," Madame Piriac proceeded, "in
+some unpronounceable county. We write to each other. She is excessively
+English."
+
+Audrey was scarlet. Several times during the sojourn in Paris she had sent
+letters (to Madame Piriac) to be posted in Essex by Mr. Foulger. These
+letters were full of quaint inventions about winter life in Essex, and
+other matters.
+
+Madame Piriac, looking reflectively at the red embers of wood in the grate,
+went on:
+
+"She says she may come to Paris soon. I have often asked her to come, but
+she has refused. Perhaps next month I shall go to England to fetch her. I
+should like her to know you--very much. She is younger than you are, but
+only a little, I think."
+
+"I shall be delighted, if I am here," Audrey stammered, and she rose. "You
+are a very kind woman. Very, very amiable. You do not know how much I
+admire you. I wish I was like you. But I am not. You have seen only one
+side of me. You should see the inside. It is very strange. I must go to
+London. I am forced to go to London. I should be a coward if I did not go
+to London. Tell me, is my dress really good? Or is it a deception?"
+
+Madame Piriac smiled, and kissed her on both cheeks.
+
+"It is good," said Madame Piriac. "But your maid is not all that she ought
+to be. However, it is good."
+
+"If you had simply praised it, and only that, I should not have been
+content," said Audrey, and kissed Madame Piriac in the English way, the
+youthful and direct way.
+
+Not another word about the male sex, the female sex, tradition or
+individualism, passed between them.
+
+Mr. Gilman was summoned to take Audrey across the river to the right bank.
+They went in a taxi. He was protective and very silent. But just as the cab
+was turning out of the Rue de Rivoli into the Rue Castiglione he said:
+
+"I shall obey you absolutely, Mrs. Moncreiff. It is a great pleasure for an
+old, lonely man to keep a secret for a young and charming woman. A greater
+pleasure than you can possibly imagine. You may count on me. I am not a
+talker, but you have put me under an obligation, and I am very grateful."
+
+She took care that her thanks should reward him.
+
+"Winnie," she burst out in the rose-coloured secrecy of the bedroom, "has
+Elise gone to bed? ... All right. Well, I'm lost. Madame Piniac is going
+to England to fetch me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+PAGET GARDENS
+
+
+"Has anything happened in this town?" asked Audrey of Miss Ingate.
+
+It was the afternoon of the day following their arrival in London from
+Paris, and it was a fine afternoon. They were walking from the Charing
+Cross Hotel, where they had slept, to Paget Gardens.
+
+"Anything happened?" repeated Miss Ingate. "What you mean? I don't see
+anything vehy particular on the posters."
+
+"Everybody looks so sad and worried, compared with people in Paris."
+
+"So they do! So they do!" cried Miss Ingate. "Oh, yes! So they do! I
+wondered what it was seemed so queer. That's it. Well, of course you
+mustn't forget we're in England. I always did say it was a vehy peculiar
+place."
+
+"Do _we_ look like that?" Audrey suggested.
+
+"I expect we do."
+
+"I'm quite sure that I don't, Winnie, anyway. I'm really very cheerful. I'm
+surprisingly cheerful."
+
+It was true. Also she both looked and felt more girlish than ever in Paris.
+Impossible to divine, watching her in her light clothes, and with her airy
+step, that she was the relict of a man who had so tragically died of
+blood-poisoning caused by bad table manners.
+
+"I've a good mind to ask a policeman," said she.
+
+"You'd better not," Miss Ingate warned her.
+
+Audrey instantly turned into the roadway, treating the creosoted wood as
+though it had been rose-strewn velvet, and reached a refuge where a
+policeman was standing. The policeman bent with benevolence and politeness
+to listen to her tale.
+
+"Excuse me," she said, smiling innocently up at him, "but is anything the
+matter?"
+
+"_What_ street, miss?" he questioned, bending lower.
+
+"Is anything the matter? All the people round here are so gloomy."
+
+The policeman glanced at her.
+
+"There will be something the matter," he remarked calmly. "There will be
+something the matter pretty soon if I have much more of that suffragette
+sauce. I thought you was one of them the moment I saw you, but I wasn't
+sure."
+
+This was the first time Audrey had ever spoken to a policeman, save
+Inspector Keeble, at Moze, who was a friendly human being. And she had a
+little pang of fear. The policeman was like a high wall of blue cloth,
+with a marvellous imitation of a human face at the top, and above the face
+a cupola.
+
+"Thank you," she murmured reproachfully, and hastened back to Miss Ingate,
+who heard the tale with a grinning awe that was, nevertheless, sardonic.
+They pressed onwards to Piccadilly Circus, where the only normal and
+cheerful living creatures were the van horses and the flower-women; and up
+Regent Street, through crowds of rapt and mystical women and romantical men
+who had apparently wandered out of a play by Henrik Ibsen.
+
+They then took a motor-bus, which was full of the same enigmatic,
+far-gazing heroines and heroes. When they got off, the conductor pointed
+dreamily in a certain direction and murmured the words: "Paget Square."
+Their desire was Paget Gardens, and, after finding Paget Square, Paget
+Mansions, Paget Houses, Paget Street, Paget Mews, and Upper Paget Street,
+they found Paget Gardens. It was a terrace of huge and fashionable houses
+fronting on an immense, blank brick wall. The houses were very lofty; so
+lofty that the architect, presumably afraid of hitting heaven with his
+patent chimney cowls, had sunk the lowest storey deep into the earth.
+Looking over the high palisades which protected the pavement from the
+precipice thus made, one could plainly see the lowest storey and all that
+was therein.
+
+"Whoever can she be staying with?" exclaimed Miss Ingate. "It's a
+marchioness at least. There's no doubt the very best people are now in the
+movement."
+
+Audrey went first up massive steps, and, choosing with marked presence of
+mind the right bell, rang it, expecting to see either a butler or a
+footman.
+
+A young woman, however, answered the ring. She wore a rather shabby serge
+frock, but no apron, and she did not resemble any kind of servant. Her
+ruddy, heavy, and slightly resentful face fronted the visitors with a
+steady, challenging stare.
+
+"Does Miss Nickall live here?" asked Audrey.
+
+"Aye! She does!" came the answer, with a northern accent.
+
+"We've come to see how she is."
+
+"Happen ye'd better step inside, then," said the young woman.
+
+They stepped inside to an enormous and obscure interior; the guardian
+banged the door, and negligently led them forward.
+
+"It is a large house," Miss Ingate ventured, against the silent
+intimidation of the place.
+
+"One o' them rich uns," said the guardian. "She lends it to the Cause when
+she doesn't want it herself, to show her sympathy. Saves her a
+caretaker--they all know I'm one to look right well after a house."
+
+Having passed two very spacious rooms and a wide staircase, she opened the
+door of a smaller but still a considerable room.
+
+"Here y'are," she muttered.
+
+This room, like the others, was thoroughly sheeted, and thus presented a
+misty and spectral appearance. All the chairs, the chandelier, and all the
+pictures, were masked in close-fitting pale yellow. The curtains were down,
+the carpet was up, and a dust sheet was spread under the table in the
+middle of the floor.
+
+"Here's some friends of yours," said the guardian, throwing her words
+across the room.
+
+In an easy chair near the fireplace sat Miss Nickall, her arm in splints
+and in a sling. She was very thin and very pallid, and her eyes brightly
+glittered. The customary kind expression of her face was modified, though
+not impaired, by a look of vague apprehension.
+
+"Mind how ye handle her," the guardian gave warning, when Nick yielded
+herself to be embraced.
+
+"You're just a bit of my Paris come to see me," said Nick, with her
+American accent. Then through her tears: "How's Tommy, and how's Musa, and
+how's--how's my studio? Oh! This is Miss Susan Foley, sister of Jane Foley.
+Jane will be here for tea. Susan--Miss Ingate and Mrs. Moncreiff."
+
+Susan gave a grim bob.
+
+"Is Jane Foley coming? Does she live here?" asked Miss Ingate, properly
+impressed by the name of her who was the St. George of Suffragism, and
+perhaps the most efficient of all militants. "Audrey, we are in luck!"
+
+When Nick had gathered items of information about Paris, she burst out:
+
+"I can't believe I've only met you once before. You're just like old
+friends."
+
+"So we are old friends," said Audrey. "Your letters to Winnie have made us
+old friends."
+
+"And when did you come over?"
+
+"Last night," Miss Ingate replied. "We should have called this morning to
+see you, but Mrs. Moncreiff had so much business to do and people to see. I
+don't know what it all was. She's very mysterious."
+
+As a fact, Audrey had had an interview with Mr. Foulger, who, with
+laudable obedience, had come up to town from Chelmsford in response to a
+telegram. Miss Ingate was aware of this, but she was not aware of other and
+more recondite interviews which Audrey had accomplished.
+
+"And how did this happen?" eagerly inquired Miss Ingate, at last, pointing
+to the bandaged arm.
+
+Nick's face showed discomfort.
+
+"Please don't let us talk about that," said Nick. "It was a policeman. I
+don't think he meant it. I had chained myself to the railings of St.
+Margaret's Church."
+
+Susan Foley put in laconically:
+
+"She's not to be worried. I hope ye'll stay for tea. We shall have tea at
+five sharp. Janey'll be in."
+
+"Can't they sleep here, Susan?" Nick whimpered.
+
+"Of course they can, and welcome," said Susan. "There's more empty beds in
+this barracks than they could sleep in if they slept all day and all
+night."
+
+"But we're staying at an hotel. We can't possibly put you to all this
+trouble," Audrey protested.
+
+"No trouble. It's my business. It's what I'm here for," said Susan Foley.
+"I'd sooner have it than mill work any day o' the week."
+
+"You're just going to be very mean if you don't stay here," Nick faltered.
+Tears stood in her eyes again. "You don't know how I feel." She murmured
+something about Betty Burke's doings.
+
+"We will stay! We will stay!" Miss Ingate agreed hastily. And, unperceived
+by Nick, she gave Audrey a glance in which irony and tenderness were
+mingled. It was as if she had whispered, "The nerves of this angel have all
+gone to pieces. We must humour the little sentimental simpleton."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+JANE
+
+
+"We've begun, ye see," said Susan Foley.
+
+It was two minutes past five, and Miss Ingate and Audrey, followed by Nick
+with her slung arm, entered the sheeted living-room. Tremendous feats had
+been performed. All the Moncreiff and Ingate luggage, less than two hours
+earlier lying at the Charing Cross Hotel, was now in two adjoining rooms on
+the third floor of the great house in Paget Gardens. Drivers and loiterers
+had assisted, under the strict and taciturn control of Susan Foley. Also
+Nick, Miss Ingate, and Audrey had had a most intimate conversation, and the
+two latter had changed their attire to suit the station of campers in a
+palace.
+
+"It's lovely to be quite free and independent," Audrey had said, and the
+statement had been acclaimed.
+
+Jane Foley was seated opposite her sister at the small table plainly set
+for five. She rose vivaciously, and came forward with outstretched hand.
+She wore a blue skirt and a white blouse and brown boots. She was
+twenty-eight, but her rather small proportions and her plentiful golden,
+fluffy hair made her seem about twenty. Her face was less homely than
+Susan's, and more mobile. She smiled somewhat shyly, with an extraordinary
+radiant cheerfulness. It was impossible for her to conceal the fact that
+she was very good-natured and very happy. Finally, she limped.
+
+"Susan _will_ have the meals prompt," she said, as they all sat down. "And
+as Susan left home on purpose to look after me, of course she's the
+mistress. As far as that goes, she always was."
+
+Susan was spreading jam on a slice of bread-and-butter for the one-armed
+Nick.
+
+"I dare say you don't remember me playing the barrel organ all down Regent
+Street that day, do you?" said Miss Ingate.
+
+"Oh, yes; quite well. You were magnificent!" answered Jane, with blue eyes
+sparkling.
+
+"Well, though I only just saw you--I was so busy--I should remember you
+anywhere, Miss Foley," said Miss Ingate.
+
+"Do you notice any difference in her?" questioned Susan Foley harshly.
+
+"N-o," said Miss Ingate. "Except, perhaps, she looks even younger."
+
+"Didn't you notice she's lame?"
+
+"Oh, well--yes, I did. But you didn't expect me to mention that, did you? I
+thought your sister had just sprained her ankle, or something."
+
+"No," said Susan. "It's for life. Tell them about it, Jenny. They don't
+know."
+
+Jane Foley laughed lightly.
+
+"It was all in the day's work," she said. "It was at my last visit to
+Holloway."
+
+Audrey, gazing at her entranced, like a child, murmured with awe:
+
+"Have you been to prison, then?"
+
+"Three times," said Jane pleasantly. "And I shall be going again soon. I'm
+only out while they're trying to think of some new way of dealing with me,
+poor things!  I'm generally watched. It must cost them a fearful lot of
+money. But what are they to do?"
+
+"But how were you lamed? I can't eat any tea if you don't tell me--really I
+can't!"
+
+"Oh, all right!" Jane laughed. "It was after that Liberal mass meeting in
+Peel Park, at Bradford. I'd begun to ask questions, as usual, you
+know--questions they can't answer--and then some Liberal stewards, with
+lovely rosettes in their buttonholes, came round me and started cutting my
+coat with their penknives. They cut it all to pieces. You see that was the
+best argument they could think of in the excitement of the moment. I
+believe they'd have cut up every stitch I had, only perhaps it began to
+dawn on them that it might be awkward for them. Then two of them lifted me
+up, one by the feet and the other by the shoulders, and carried me off.
+They wouldn't let me walk. I told them they'd hurt my leg, but they were
+too busy to listen. As soon as they came across a policeman they said they
+had done it all to save me from being thrown into the lake by a brutal and
+infuriated mob. I just had enough breath left to thank them. Of course, the
+police weren't going to stand that, so I was taken that night to London.
+Everything was thought of except my tea. But I expect they forgot that on
+purpose so that I should be properly hungry when I got to Holloway.
+However, I said to myself, 'If I can't eat and drink when _I_ want, I won't
+eat and drink when _they_ want!' And I didn't.
+
+"After I'd paid my respects at Bow Street, and was back at Holloway, I just
+stamped on everything they offered me, and wrote a petition to the Governor
+asking to be treated as a political prisoner. Instead of granting the
+petition he kept sending me more and more beautiful food, and I kept
+stamping on it. Then three magistrates arrived and sat on my case, and
+sentenced me to the punishment cells. They ran off as soon as they'd
+sentenced me. I said I wouldn't go to their punishment cells. I told
+everybody again how lame I was. So five wardresses carried me there, but
+they dropped me twice on the way. It was a very interesting cell, the
+punishment cell was. If it had been in the Tower, everybody would go to
+look at it because of its quaintness. There were two pools of water near to
+the bed. I was three days in the cell, and those pools of water were always
+there; I could see them because from where I lay on the bed the light
+glinted on them. Just one gleam from the tiny cobwebby window high up. I
+hadn't anything to read, of course, but even if I'd had something I
+couldn't see to read. The bed was two planks, just raised an inch or two
+above the water, and the pillow was wooden. Never any trouble about making
+beds like that! The entire furniture of this cosy drawing-room was--you'll
+never guess--a tree-stump, meant for a chair, I think. And on this
+tree-stump was an india-rubber cup. I could just see it across the cell.
+
+"At night the wardresses were struck with pity, or perhaps it was the
+Governor. Anyhow, they brought me a mattress and a rug. They told me to get
+up off the bed, and I told them I couldn't get up, couldn't even turn over.
+So they said, 'Very well, then; you can do without these things,' and they
+took them away. The funny thing was that I really couldn't get up. If I
+tried to move, my leg made me want to shriek.
+
+"After three days they decided to take me to the prison hospital. I
+shrieked all the way--couldn't help it. They laughed. So then I laughed. In
+the hospital, the doctor decided that my left ankle was sprained and my
+right thigh broken. So I had the best of them, after all. They had to admit
+they were wrong. It was most awkward for them. Then I thought I might as
+well begin to eat. But they had to be very careful what they gave me. I
+hadn't had anything for nearly six days, you see. They were in a fearful
+stew. Doctor was there day and night. And it wasn't his fault. I told him
+he had all my sympathies. He said he was very sorry I should be lame for
+life, but it couldn't be helped, as the thigh had been left too long. I
+said, 'Please don't mention it.'"
+
+"But did they keep you after that?"
+
+"Keep me! They implored my friends to take me away. No man was ever more
+relieved that the poor dear Governor of Holloway Prison, and the Home
+Secretary himself, too, when I left in a motor ambulance. The Governor
+raised his hat to two of my friends. He would have eaten out of my hand if
+I'd had a few more days to tame him."
+
+Audrey's childlike and intense gaze had become extremely noticeable. Jane
+Foley felt it upon herself, and grew a little self-conscious. Susan Foley
+noticed it with eager and grim pride, and she made a sharp movement instead
+of saying: "Yes, you do well to stare. You've got something worth staring
+at."
+
+Nick noticed it, with moisture in her glittering, hysteric eyes. Miss
+Ingate noticed it ironically. "You, pretending to be a widow, and so
+knowing and so superior! Why, you're a schoolgirl!" said the expressive
+curve of Miss Ingate's shut lips.
+
+And, in fact, Audrey was now younger than she had ever been in Paris. She
+was the girl of six or seven years earlier, who, at night at school, used
+to insist upon hearing stories of real people, either from a sympathetic
+teacher or from the other member of the celebrated secret society. But she
+had never heard any tale to compare with Jane Foley's. It was incredible
+that this straightforward, simple girl at the table should be the
+world-renowned Jane Foley. What most impressed Audrey in Jane was Jane's
+happiness. Jane was happy, as Audrey had not imagined that anyone could be
+happy. She had within her a supply of happiness that was constantly
+bubbling up. The ridiculousness and the total futility of such matters as
+motor-cars, fine raiment, beautiful boudoirs and correctness smote Audrey
+severely. She saw that there was only one thing worth having, and that was
+the mysterious thing that Jane Foley had. This mysterious thing rendered
+innocuous cruelty, stupidity and injustice, and reduced them to rather
+pathetic trifles.
+
+"But I never saw all this in the papers!" Audrey exclaimed.
+
+"No paper--I mean no respectable paper--would print it. Of course, we
+printed it in our own weekly paper."
+
+"Why wouldn't any respectable paper print it?"
+
+"Because it's not nice. Don't you see that I ought to have been at home
+mending stockings instead of gallivanting round with Liberal stewards and
+policemen and prison governors?"
+
+"And why aren't you mending stockings?" asked Audrey, with a delicious
+quizzical smile that crept gradually through the wonder and admiration in
+her face.
+
+"You pal!" cried Jane Foley impulsively. "I must hug you!" And she did.
+"I'll tell you why I'm not mending' stockings, and why Susan has had to
+leave off mending stockings in order to look after me. Susan and I worked
+in a mill when she was ten and I was eleven. We were 'tenters.' We used to
+get up at four or five in the morning and help with the housework, and then
+put on our clogs and shawls and be at the mill at six. We worked till
+twelve, and then in the afternoon we went to school. The next day we went
+to school in the morning and to the mill in the afternoon. When we were
+thirteen we left school altogether, and worked twelve hours a day in the
+mill. In the evenings we had to do housework. In fact, all our housework
+was done before half-past five in the morning and after half-past six in
+the evening. We had to work just as hard as the men and boys in the mill.
+We got a great deal less money and a great deal less decent treatment; but
+to make up we had to slave in the early morning and late at night, while
+the men either snored or smoked. I was all right. But Susan wasn't. And a
+lot of women weren't, especially young mothers with babies. So I learnt
+typewriting on the quiet, and left it all to try and find out whether
+something couldn't be done. I soon found out--after I'd heard Rosamund
+speak. That's the reason I'm not mending stockings. I'm not blaming
+anybody. It's no one's fault, really. It certainly isn't men's fault. Only
+something has to be altered, and most people detest alterations. Still,
+they do get done somehow in the end. And so there you are!"
+
+"I should love to help," said Audrey. "I expect I'm not much good, but I
+should love to."
+
+She dared not refer to her wealth, of which, in fact, she was rather
+ashamed.
+
+"Well, you can help, all right," said Jane Foley, rising. "Are you a
+member?"
+
+"No. But I will be to-morrow."
+
+"They'll give you something to do," said Jane Foley.
+
+"Oh yes!" remarked Miss Ingate. "They'll keep you busy enough--_and_ charge
+you for it."
+
+Susan Foley began to clear the table.
+
+"Supper at nine," said she curtly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE DETECTIVE
+
+
+Audrey and Miss Ingate were writing letters to Paris. Jane Foley had gone
+forth again to a committee meeting, which was understood to be closely
+connected with a great Liberal demonstration shortly to be held in a
+Midland fortress of Liberalism. Miss Nickall, in accordance with medical
+instructions, had been put to bed. Susan Foley was in the basement, either
+clearing up tea or preparing supper.
+
+Miss Ingate, putting her pen between her teeth and looking up from a
+blotting-pad, said to Audrey across the table:
+
+"Are you writing to Musa?"
+
+"Certainly not!" said Audrey, with fire. "Why should I write to Musa?" She
+added: "But you can write to him, if you like."
+
+"Oh! Can I?" observed Miss Ingate, grinning.
+
+Audrey knew of no reason why she should blush before Miss Ingate, yet she
+began to blush. She resolved not to blush; she put all her individual force
+into the enterprise of resisting the tide of blood to her cheeks, but the
+tide absolutely ignored her, as the tide of ocean might have ignored her.
+
+She rose from the table, and, going into a corner, fidgeted with the
+electric switches, turning certain additional lights off and on.
+
+"All right," said Miss Ingate; "I'll write to him. I'm sure he'll expect
+something. Have you finished your letters?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, what's this one on the table, then?"
+
+"I shan't go on with that one."
+
+"Any message for Musa?"
+
+"You might tell him," said Audrey, carefully examining the drawn curtains
+of the window, "that I happened to meet a French concert agent this morning
+who was very interested in him."
+
+"Did you?" cried Miss Ingate. "Where?"
+
+"It was when I was out with Mr. Foulger. The agent asked me whether I'd
+heard a man named Musa play in Paris. Of course I said I had. He told me he
+meant to take him up and arrange a tour for him. So you might tell Musa he
+ought to be prepared for anything."
+
+"Wonders will never cease!" said Miss Ingate. "Have I got enough stamps?"
+
+"I don't see anything wonderful in it," Audrey sharply replied. "Lots of
+people in Paris know he's a great player, and those Jew concert agents are
+always awfully keen--at least, so I'm told. Well, perhaps, after all, you'd
+better not tell him. It might make him conceited.... Now, look here,
+Winnie, do hurry up, and let's go out and post those letters. I can't stand
+this huge house. I keep on imagining all the empty rooms in it. Hurry up
+and come along."
+
+Shortly afterwards Miss Ingate shouted downstairs into the earth:
+
+"Miss Foley, we're both just going out to post some letters."
+
+The faint reply came:
+
+"Supper at nine."
+
+At the farther corner of Paget Square they discovered a pillar-box standing
+solitary in the chill night among the vast and threatening architecture.
+
+"Do let's go to a café," suggested Audrey.
+
+"A café?"
+
+"Yes. I want to be jolly. I must break loose somewhere to-night. I can't
+wait till to-morrow. I was feeling splendid till Jane Foley went. Then the
+house began to get on my nerves, not to mention Susan Foley, with her
+supper at nine. Do all people in London fix their meals hours and hours
+beforehand? I suppose they do. We used to at Moze. But I'd forgotten. Come
+_along_, Winnie."
+
+"But there are no cafés in London."
+
+"There must be some cafés somewhere."
+
+"Only public-houses and restaurants. Of course, we could go to a teashop,
+but they're all shut up now."
+
+"Well, then, what do people do in London when they want to be jolly? I
+always thought London was a terrific town."
+
+"They never want to be jolly," said Miss Ingate. "If they feel as if they
+couldn't help being jolly, then they hire a private room somewhere and draw
+the blinds down."
+
+With no more words, Audrey seized Miss Ingate by the arm and they walked
+off, out of the square and into empty and silent streets where highly
+disciplined gas-lamps kept strict watch over the deportment of colossal
+houses. In their rapid stroll they seemed to cover miles, but they could
+not escape from the labyrinth of tremendous and correct houses, which in
+squares and in terraces and in crescents displayed the everlasting
+characteristics of comfort, propriety and self-satisfaction. Now and then a
+wayfarer passed them. Now and then a taxicab sped through the avenues of
+darkness like a criminal pursued by the impalpable. Now and then a red
+light flickered in a porch instead of a white one. But there was no
+surcease from the sinister spell until suddenly they emerged into a long,
+wide, illumined thoroughfare of shut shops that stretched to infinity on
+either hand. And a vermilion motor-bus meandered by, and this motor-bus was
+so sad, so inexpressibly wistful, in the solemn wilderness of the empty
+artery, that the two women fled from the strange scene and penetrated once
+more into the gigantic and fearful maze from which they had for an instant
+stood free. Soon they were quite lost. Till that day and night Audrey had
+had a notion that Miss Ingate, though bizarre, did indeed know every street
+in London. The delusion was destroyed.
+
+"Never mind," said Miss Ingate. "If we keep on we're bound to come to a
+cabstand, and then we can take a taxi and go wherever we like--Regent
+Street, Piccadilly, anywhere. That's the convenience of London. As soon as
+you come to a cabstand you're all right."
+
+And then, in the distance, Audrey saw a man apparently tampering with a
+gate that led to an area.
+
+"Why," she said excitedly, "that's the house we're staying in!"
+
+"Of course it isn't!" said Miss Ingate. "This isn't Paget Gardens, because
+there are houses on both sides of it and there's a big wall on one side of
+Paget Gardens. I'm sure we're at least two miles off our beds."
+
+"Well, then, how is it Nick's hairbrushes are on the window-sill there,
+where she put them when she went to bed? I can see them quite plain. This
+is the side street--what's-its-name?  There's the wall over there at the
+end. Don't you remember--it's a corner house. This is the side of it."
+
+"I believe you're right," admitted Miss Ingate. "What can that man be doing
+there?"
+
+They plainly saw him open the gate and disappear down the area steps.
+
+"It's a burglar," said Audrey. "This part must be a regular paradise for
+burglars."
+
+"More likely a detective," Miss Ingate suggested.
+
+Audrey was thrilled.
+
+"I do hope it is!" she murmured. "How heavenly!  Miss Foley said she was
+being watched, didn't she?"
+
+"What had we better do?" Miss Ingate faltered.
+
+"Do, Winnie?" Audrey whispered, tugging at her arm. "We must run in at the
+front door and tell Supper-at-nine-o'clock."
+
+They kept cautiously on the far side of the street until the end of it,
+when they crossed over, nipped into the dark porch of the house and rang
+the bell.
+
+Susan Foley opened for them. There was no light in the hall.
+
+"Oh, is there?" said Susan Foley, very calmly, when she heard the news. "I
+think I know who it is. I've seen him hanging round my scullery door
+before. How did he climb over those railings?"
+
+"He didn't. He opened the gate."
+
+"Well, I locked the gate myself this afternoon. So he's got a key. I shall
+manage him all right. We'll get the fire-extinguishers. There's about a
+dozen of 'em, I should think, in this house. They're rather heavy, but we
+can do it."
+
+Turning on the light in the hall, she immediately lifted from its hook a
+red-coloured metal cone about twenty inches long and eight inches in
+diameter at the base. "In case of fire drive in knob by hard blow against
+floor, and let liquid play on flames," she read the instructions on the
+side. "I know them things," she said. "It spurts out like a fountain, and
+it's a rather nasty chemistry sort of a fluid. I shall take one downstairs
+to the scullery, and the others we'll have upstairs in the room over Miss
+Nickall's. We can put 'em in the housemaid's lift.... I shall open the
+scullery door and leave it a bit open like, and when he comes in I'll be
+ready for him behind the door with this. If he thinks he can come spying
+after our Janey like this----"
+
+"But----" Miss Ingate began.
+
+"You aren't feeling very well, are ye, miss?" Susan Foley demanded, as she
+put two extinguishers into the housemaid's lift. "Better go and sit down in
+the parlour. You won't be wanted. Mrs. Moncreiff and me can manage."
+
+"Yes, we can!" agreed Audrey enthusiastically. "Run along, Winnie."
+
+After about two minutes of hard labour Susan ran away and brought a key to
+Audrey.
+
+"You sneak out," she said, "and lock the gate on him. I lay he'll want a
+new suit of clothes when I done with him!"
+
+Ecstatically, joyfully, Audrey took the key and departed. Miss Ingate was
+sitting in the hall, staring about her like an undecided bird. Audrey crept
+round into the side street. Nobody was in sight. She could not see over
+the railings, but she could see between them into the abyss of the area.
+The man was there. She could distinguish his dark form against the inner
+wall. With every conspiratorial precaution, she pulled the gate to,
+inserted the key, and locked it.
+
+A light went up in the scullery window, of which the blind was drawn. The
+man peeped at the sides of the blind. Then the scullery door was opened.
+The man started. A piece of wood was thrown out on to the floor of the
+area, and the door swung outwards. Then the light in the scullery was
+extinguished. The man waited a few moments. He had noticed that the door
+was not quite closed, and the interstice irresistibly fascinated him. He
+approached and put his hand against the door. It yielded. He entered. The
+next instant there was a bang and a cry, and a strong spray of white liquid
+appeared, in the middle of which was the man's head. The door slammed and a
+bolt was shot. The man, spluttering, coughing, and swearing, rubbed his
+eyes and wiped water from his face with his hands. His hat was on the
+ground. At first he could not see at all, but presently he felt his way
+towards the steps and began to climb them. Audrey ran off towards the
+corner. She could see and hear him shaking the gate and then trying to get
+a key into it. But as Audrey had left her key in the other side of the
+lock, he failed in the attempt.
+
+The next thing was that a window opened in the high wall-face of the house
+and an immense stream of liquid descended full on the man's head. Susan
+Foley was at the window, but only the nozzle of the extinguisher could be
+seen. The man tried to climb over the railings; he did not succeed; they
+had been especially designed to prevent such feats. He ran down the steps.
+The shower faithfully followed him. In no corner of his hiding did the
+bountiful spray neglect him. As soon as one supply of liquid slackened
+another commenced. Sometimes there were two at once. The man ran up the
+steps again and made another effort to reach the safety of the street.
+Audrey could restrain herself no more. She came, palpitating with joyous
+vitality, towards the area gate with the innocent mien of a passer-by.
+
+"Whatever is the matter?" she exclaimed, stopping as if thunderstruck. But
+in the gloom her eyes were dancing fires. She was elated as she had never
+been.
+
+The man only coughed.
+
+"You oughtn't to take shower-baths like this in the street," she said,
+veiling the laughter in her voice. "It's not allowed. But I suppose you're
+doing it for a bet or something."
+
+The downpour ceased.
+
+"Here, miss," said he, between coughs, "unlock this gate for me. Here's the
+key."
+
+"I shall do no such thing," Audrey replied. "I believe you're a burglar. I
+shall fetch a policeman."
+
+And she turned back.
+
+In the house, Miss Ingate was coming slowly down the stairs, a
+fire-extinguisher in her arms, like a red baby. She had a sardonic smile,
+but there was diffidence in it, which showed, perhaps, that it was directed
+within.
+
+"I've saved one," she said, pointing to an extinguisher, "in case there
+should be a fire in the night."
+
+A little later Susan Foley appeared at the door of the living-room.
+
+"Nine o'clock," she announced calmly. "Supper's ready. We shan't wait for
+Jane."
+
+When Jane Foley arrived, a reconnaissance proved that the martyrised
+detective had contrived to get away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE BLUE CITY
+
+
+In the following month, on a Saturday afternoon, Audrey, Miss Ingate, and
+Jane Foley were seated at an open-air café in the Blue City.
+
+The Blue City, now no more, was, as may be remembered, Birmingham's reply
+to the White City of London, and the imitative White City of Manchester.
+Birmingham, in that year, was not imitative, and, with its chemical
+knowledge, it had discovered that certain shades of blue would resist the
+effects of smoke far more successfully than any shade of white. And
+experience even showed that these shades of blue were improved, made more
+delicate and romantic, by smoke. The total impression of the show--which it
+need hardly be said was situated in the polite Edgbaston district--was
+ethereal, especially when its minarets and towers, all in accordance with
+the taste of the period, were beheld from a distance. Nor was the
+exhibition entirely devoted to pleasure. It had a moral object, and that
+object was to demonstrate the progress of civilisation in our islands. Its
+official title, indeed, was "The National Progress Exhibition," but the
+citizens of Birmingham and the vicinity never called it anything but the
+Blue City.
+
+On that Saturday afternoon a Cabinet Minister historically hostile to the
+idols of Birmingham was about to address a mass meeting in the Imperial
+Hall of the Exhibition, which held seven thousand people, in order to prove
+to Birmingham that the Government of which he was a member had done far
+more for national progress than any other Government had done for national
+progress in the same length of time. The presence of the Cabinet Minister
+accounted for the presence of Jane Foley; the presence of Jane Foley
+accounted for the presence of Audrey; and the presence of Audrey accounted
+for the presence of Miss Ingate.
+
+Although she was one of the chief organisers of victory, and perhaps--next
+to Rosamund and the family trio whose Christian names were three sweet
+symphonies--the principal asset of the Suffragette Union, Jane Foley had
+not taken an active part in the Union's arrangements for suitably welcoming
+the Cabinet Minister; partly because of her lameness, partly because she
+was writing a book, and partly for secret reasons which it would be unfair
+to divulge. Nearly at the last moment, however, in consequence of news
+that all was not well in the Midlands, she had been sent to Birmingham,
+and, after evading the watch of the police, she had arrived on the previous
+day in Audrey's motor-car, which at that moment was waiting in the
+automobile park outside the principal gates of the Blue City.
+
+The motor-car had been chosen as a means of transit for the reason that the
+railway stations were being watched for notorious suffragettes by members
+of a police force whose reputations were at stake. Audrey owed her
+possession of a motor-car to the fact that the Union officials had seemed
+both startled and grieved when, in response to questions, she admitted that
+she had no car. It was communicated to her that members of the Union as
+rich as she reputedly was were expected to own cars for the general good.
+Audrey thereupon took measures to own a car. Having seen in many
+newspapers an advertisement in which a firm of middlemen implored the
+public thus: "Let us run your car for you. Let us take all the worry and
+responsibility," she interviewed the firm, and by writing out a cheque
+disembarrassed herself at a stroke of every anxiety incident to defective
+magnetos, bad petrol, bad rubber, punctures, driving licences, bursts,
+collisions, damages, and human chauffeurs. She had all the satisfactions of
+owning a car without any of the cares. One of the evidences of progress in
+the Blue City was an exhibit of this very firm of middlemen.
+
+From the pale blue tripod table at which sat the three women could be
+plainly seen the vast Imperial Hall, flanked on one side by the great
+American Dragon Slide, a side-show loudly demonstrating progress, and on
+the other by the unique Joy Wheel side-show. At the doorway of the latter a
+man was bawling proofs of progress through a megaphone.
+
+Immense crowds had been gathering in the Imperial Hall, and the lines of
+political enthusiasts bound thither were now thinning. The Blue City was
+full of rumours, as that the Cabinet Minister was too afraid to come, as
+that he had been smuggled to the hall inside a tea-chest, and as that he
+had walked openly and unchallenged through the whole Exhibition. It was no
+rumour, but a sure fact, that two women had been caught hiding on the roof
+of the Imperial Hall, under natural shelters formed by the beams and
+boarding supporting the pediment of the eastern façade, and that they were
+ammunitioned with flags and leaflets and a silk ladder, and had made a hole
+in the roof exactly over the platform. These two women had been seen in
+charge of policemen at the Exhibition police-station. It was understood by
+many that they were the last hope of militancy that afternoon; many others,
+on the contrary, were convinced that they had been simply a feint.
+
+"Well," said Miss Ingate suddenly, glancing up at the Imperial clock, "I
+think I shall move outside and sit in the car. I think that'll be the best
+place for me. I said that night in Paris that I'd get my arm broken, but
+I've changed my mind about that." She rose.
+
+"Winnie," protested Audrey, "aren't you going to see it out?"
+
+"No," said Miss Ingate.
+
+"Are you afraid?"
+
+"I don't know that I'm afraid. I played the barrel organ all the way down
+Regent Street, and it was smashed to pieces. But I don't want to go to
+prison. Really, I don't _want_ to. If me going to prison would bring the
+Vote a single year nearer, I should say: 'Let it wait a year.' If me not
+going to prison meant no Vote for ever and ever, I should say: 'Well,
+struggle on without the Vote.' I've no objection to other people going to
+prison, if it suits them, but it wouldn't suit me. I know it wouldn't. So I
+shall go outside and sit in the car. If you don't come, I shall know what's
+happened, and you needn't worry about me."
+
+The dame duly departed, her lips and eyes equally ironic about her own
+prudence and about the rashness of others.
+
+"Let's have some more lemonade--shall we?" said Jane Foley.
+
+"Oh, let's!" agreed Audrey, with rapture. "And more sponge-cake, too! You
+do look lovely like that!"
+
+"Do I?"
+
+Jane Foley had her profuse hair tightly bound round her head and powdered
+grey. It was very advisable for her to be disguised, and her bright hair
+was usually the chief symptom of her in those disturbances which so
+harassed the police. She now had the appearance of a neat old lady kept
+miraculously young by a pure and cheerful nature. Audrey, with a plain
+blue frock and hat which had cost more than Jane Foley would spend on
+clothes in twelve months, had a face dazzling by its ingenuous excitement
+and expectation. Her little nose was extraordinarily pert; her forehead
+superb; and all her gestures had the same vivacious charm as was in her
+eyes. The white-aproned, streamered girl who took the order for lemonade
+and sponge-cakes to a covered bar ornamented by advertisements of whisky,
+determined to adopt a composite of the styles of both the customers on her
+next ceremonious Sunday. And a large proportion of the other sippers and
+nibblers and of the endless promenading crowds regarded the pair with
+pleasure and curiosity, never suspecting that one of them was the most
+dangerous woman in England.
+
+The new refreshments, which had been delayed by reason of an altercation
+between the waitress and three extreme youths at a neighbouring table, at
+last arrived, and were plopped smartly down between Audrey and Miss Foley.
+Having received half a sovereign from Audrey, the girl returned to the bar
+for change. "None o' your sauce!" she threw out, as she passed the youths,
+who had apparently discovered new arguments in support of their case.
+Audrey was fired by the vigorous independence of the girl against three
+males.
+
+"I don't care if we are caught!" she murmured low, looking for the future
+through the pellucid tumbler. She added, however: "But if we are, I shall
+pay my own fine. You know I promised that to Miss Ingate."
+
+"That's all right, so long as you don't pay mine, my dear," said Jane Foley
+with an affectionate smile.
+
+"Jenny!" Audrey protested, full of heroine-worship. "How could you think I
+would ever do such a mean thing!"
+
+There came a dull, vague, voluminous sound from the direction of the
+Imperial Hall. It lasted for quite a number of seconds.
+
+"He's beginning," said Jane Foley. "I do feel sorry for him."
+
+"Are we to start now?" Audrey asked deferentially.
+
+"Oh, no!" Jane laughed. "The great thing is to let them think everything's
+all right. And then, when they're getting careless, let go at them full
+bang with a beautiful surprise. There'll be a chance of getting away like
+that. I believe there are a hundred and fifty stewards in the meeting, and
+they'll every one be quite useless."
+
+At intervals a muffled roar issued from the Imperial Hall, despite the fact
+that the windows were closely shut.
+
+In due time Jane Foley quietly rose from the table, and Audrey did
+likewise. All around them stretched the imposing blue architecture of the
+Exhibition, forming vistas that ended dimly either in the smoke of
+Birmingham or the rustic haze of Worcestershire. And, although the Imperial
+Hall was crammed, every vista was thickly powdered with pleasure-seekers
+and probably pleasure-finders. Bands played. Flags waved. Brass glinted.
+Even the sun feebly shone at intervals through the eternal canopy of soot.
+It was a great day in the annals of the Blue City and of Liberalism.
+
+And Jane Foley and Audrey turned their backs upon all that, and--Jane
+concealing her limp as much as possible--sauntered with affected
+nonchalance towards the precincts of the Joy Wheel enclosure. Audrey was
+inexpressibly uplifted. She felt as if she had stepped straight into
+romance. And she was right--she had stepped into the most vivid romance of
+the modern age, into a world of disguises, flights, pursuits, chicane,
+inconceivable adventures, ideals, martyrs and conquerors, which only the
+Renaissance or the twenty-first century could appreciate.
+
+"Lend me that, will you?" said Jane persuasively to the man with the
+megaphone at the entrance to the enclosure.
+
+He was, quite properly, a very loud man, with a loud thick voice, a loud
+purple face, and a loud grey suit. To Audrey's astonishment, he smiled and
+winked, and gave up the megaphone at once.
+
+Audrey paid sixpence at the turnstile, admittance for two persons, and they
+were within the temple, which had a roof like an umbrella over the central,
+revolving portion of it, but which was somewhat open to the skies around
+the rim. There were two concentric enclosing walls, the inner one was
+unscalable, and the outer one about five feet six inches high. A second
+loud man was calling out: "Couples please. Ladies _and_ gentlemen. Couples
+if _you_ please." Obediently, numbers of the crowd disposed themselves in
+pairs in the attitudes of close affection on the circling floor which had
+just come to rest, while the remainder of the numerous gathering gazed upon
+them with sarcastic ecstasy. Then the wheel began slowly to turn, and girls
+to shriek in the plenitude of happiness. And progress was proved
+geometrically.
+
+Jane, bearing the megaphone, slipped by an aperture into the space between
+the two walls, and Audrey followed. Nobody gave attention to them except
+the second loud man, who winked the wink of knowledge. The fact was that
+both the loud men, being unalterable Tories, had been very willing to
+connive at Jane Foley's scheme for the affliction of a Radical Minister.
+
+The two girls over the wall had an excellent and appetising view of the
+upper part of the side of the Imperial Hall, and of its high windows, the
+nearest of which was scarcely thirty feet away.
+
+"Hold this, will you?" said Jane, handing the megaphone to Audrey.
+
+Jane drew from its concealment in her dress a small piece of iron to which
+was attached a coloured streamer bearing certain words. She threw, with a
+strong movement of the left arm, because she was left-handed. She had
+practised throwing; throwing was one of her several specialties. The bit of
+iron, trailing its motto like a comet its tail, flew across space and
+plumped into the window with a pleasing crash and disappeared, having
+triumphed over uncounted police on the outskirts and a hundred and fifty
+stewards within. A roar from the interior of the hall supervened, and
+varied cries.
+
+"Give me the meg," said Jane gently.
+
+The next instant she was shouting through the megaphone, an instrument
+which she had seriously studied:
+
+"Votes for women. Why do you torture women?  Votes for women. Why do you
+torture women?"
+
+The uproar increased and subsided. A masterful voice resounded within the
+interior. Many people rushed out of the hall. And there was a great scurry
+of important and puzzled feet within a radius of a score of yards.
+
+"I think I'll try the next window," said Jane, handing over the megaphone.
+"You shout while I throw."
+
+Audrey's heart was violently beating. She took the megaphone and put it to
+her lips, but no sound would come. Then, as though it were breaking
+through an obstacle, the sound shot forth, and to Audrey it was a gigantic
+voice that functioned quite independently of her will. Tremendously excited
+by the noise, she bawled louder and still louder.
+
+"I've missed," said Jane calmly in her ear. "That's enough, I think. Come
+along."
+
+"But they can't possibly see us," said Audrey, breathless, lowering the
+instrument.
+
+"Come along, dear," Jane Foley insisted.
+
+People with open mouths were crowding at the aperture of the inner wall,
+but, Jane going first, both girls pushed safely through the throng. The
+wheel had stopped. The entire congregation was staring agog, and in two
+seconds everybody divined, or had been nudged to the effect, that Jane and
+Audrey were the authoresses of the pother.
+
+Jane still leading, they made for the exit. But the first loud man rushed
+chivalrously in.
+
+"Perlice!" he cried. "Two bobbies a-coming."
+
+"Here!" said the second loud man. "Here, misses. Get on the wheel. They'll
+never get ye if ye sit in the middle back to back." He jumped on to the
+wheel himself, and indicated the mathematical centre. Jane took the
+suggestion in a flash; Audrey was obedient. They fixed themselves under
+directions, dropping the megaphone. The wheel started, and the megaphone
+rattled across its smooth surface till it was shot off. A policeman ran in,
+and hesitated; another man, in plain clothes, and wearing a rosette, ran
+in.
+
+"That's them," said the rosette. "I saw her with the grey hair from the
+gallery."
+
+The policeman sprang on to the wheel, and after terrific efforts fell
+sprawling and was thrown off. The rosette met the same destiny. A second
+policeman appeared, and with the fearless courage of his cloth, undeterred
+by the spectacle of prostrate forms, made a magnificent dash, and was
+equally floored.
+
+As Audrey sat very upright, pressing her back against the back of Jane
+Foley and clutching at Jane Foley's skirts with her hands behind her--the
+locked pair were obliged thus to hold themselves exactly over the axis of
+the wheel, for the slightest change of position would have resulted in
+their being flung to the circumference and into the blue grip of the
+law--she had visions of all her life just as though she had been drowning.
+She admitted all her follies and wondered what madness could have prompted
+her remarkable escapades both in Paris and out of it. She remembered Madame
+Piriac's prophecy. She was ready to wish the past year annihilated and
+herself back once more in parental captivity at Moze, the slave of an
+unalterable routine imposed by her father, without responsibility, without
+initiative and without joy. And she lived again through the scenes in which
+she had smiled at the customs official, fibbed to Rosamund, taken the
+wounded Musa home in the taxi, spoken privily with the ageing yacht-owner,
+and laughed at the drowned detective in the area of the palace in Paget
+Gardens.
+
+Everything happened in her mind while the wheel went round once, showing
+her in turn to the various portions of the audience, and bringing her at
+length to a second view of the sprawling policemen. Whereupon she thought
+queerly: "What do I care about the vote, really?" And finally she thought
+with anger and resentment: "What a shame it is that women haven't got the
+vote!" And then she heard a gay, quiet sound. It was Jane Foley laughing
+gently behind her.
+
+"Can you see the big one now, darling?" asked Jane roguishly. "Has he
+picked himself up again?"
+
+Audrey laughed.
+
+And at last the audience laughed also. It laughed because the big
+policeman, unconquerable, had made another intrepid dash for the centre of
+the wheel and fallen upon his stomach as upon a huge india-rubber ball. The
+audience did more than laugh--it shrieked, yelled, and guffawed. The
+performance to be witnessed was worth ten times the price of entry. Indeed
+no such performance had ever before been seen in the whole history of
+popular amusement. And in describing the affair the next morning as
+"unique" the _Birmingham Daily Post_ for once used that adjective with
+absolute correctness. The policemen tried again and yet again. They got
+within feet, within inches, of their prey, only to be dragged away by the
+mysterious protector of militant maidens--centrifugal force. Probably never
+before in the annals of the struggle for political freedom had maidens
+found such a protection, invisible, sinister and complete. Had the
+education of policemen in England included a course of mechanics, these
+particular two policemen would have known that they were seeking the
+impossible and fighting against that which was stronger than ten thousand
+policemen. But they would not give up. At each fresh attempt they hoped by
+guile to overcome their unseen enemy, as the gambler hopes at each fresh
+throw to outwit chance. The jeers of the audience pricked them to
+desperation, for in encounters with females like Jane Foley and Audrey they
+had been accustomed to the active sympathy of the public. But centrifugal
+force had rendered them ridiculous, and the public never sympathises with
+those whom ridicule has covered. The strange and side-splitting effects of
+centrifugal force had transformed about a hundred indifferent young men and
+women into ardent and convinced supporters of feminism in its most advanced
+form.
+
+In the course of her slow revolution Audrey saw the rosetted steward
+arguing with the second loud man, no doubt to persuade him to stop the
+wheel. Then out of the tail of her eye she saw the steward run violently
+from the tent. And then while her back was towards the entrance she was
+deafened by a prodigious roar of delight from the mob. The two policemen
+had fled also--probably for reinforcements and appliances against
+centrifugal force. In their pardonable excitement they had, however,
+committed the imprudence of departing together. An elementary knowledge of
+strategy should have warned them against such a mistake. The wheel stopped
+immediately. The second loud man beckoned with laughter to Jane Foley and
+Audrey, who rose and hopefully skipped towards him. Audrey at any rate was
+as self-conscious as though she had been on the stage.
+
+"Here's th' back way," said the second loud man, pointing to a coarse
+curtain in the obscurity of the nether parts of the enclosure.
+
+They ran, Jane Foley first, and vanished from the regions of the Joy Wheel
+amid terrific acclamations given in a strong Midland accent.
+
+The next moment they found themselves in a part of the Blue City which
+nobody had taken the trouble to paint blue. The one blue object was a small
+patch of sky, amid clouds, overhead. On all sides were wooden flying
+buttresses, supporting the boundaries of the Joy Wheel enclosure to the
+south-east, of the Parade Restaurant and Bar to the south-west, and of a
+third establishment of good cheer to the north. Upon the ground were
+brick-ends, cinders, bits of wood, bits of corrugated iron, and all the
+litter and refuse cast out of sight of the eyes of visitors to the
+Exhibition of Progress.
+
+With the fear of the police behind them they stumbled forward a few yards,
+and then saw a small ramshackle door swinging slightly to and fro on one
+hinge. Jane Foley pulled it open. They both went into a narrow passage. On
+the mildewed wall of the passage was pinned up a notice in red ink: "Any
+waitress taking away any apron or cap from the Parade Restaurant and Bar
+will be fined one shilling." Farther on was another door, also ajar. Jane
+Foley pushed against it, and a tiny room of irregular shape was disclosed.
+In this room a stout woman in grey was counting a pile of newly laundered
+caps and aprons, and putting them out of one hamper into another. Audrey
+remembered seeing the woman at the counter of the restaurant and bar.
+
+"The police are after us. They'll be here in a minute," said Jane Foley
+simply.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the woman in grey, with the carelessness of fatigue. "Are
+you them stone-throwing lot?  They've just been in to tell me about it.
+What d'ye do it for?"
+
+"We do it for you--amongst others," Jane Foley smiled.
+
+"Nay! That ye don't!" said the woman positively. "I've got a vote for the
+city council, and I want no more."
+
+"Well, you don't want us to get caught, do you?"
+
+"No, I don't know as I do. Ye look a couple o' bonny wenches."
+
+"Let's have two caps and aprons, then," said Jane Foley smoothly. "We'll
+pay the shilling fine." She laughed lightly. "And a bit more. If the police
+get in here we shall have to struggle, you know, and they'll break the
+place up."
+
+Audrey produced another half-sovereign.
+
+"But what shall ye do with yer hats and coats?" the woman demanded.
+
+"Give them to you, of course."
+
+The woman regarded the hats and coats.
+
+"I couldn't get near them coats," she said. "And if I put on one o' them
+there hats my old man 'ud rise from the grave--that he would. Still, I
+don't wish ye any harm."
+
+She shut and locked the door.
+
+In about a minute two waitresses in aprons and streamered caps of
+immaculate purity emerged from the secret places of the Parade Restaurant
+and Bar, slipped round the end of the counter, and started with easy
+indifference to saunter away into the grounds after the manner of
+restaurant girls who have been gifted with half an hour off. The tabled
+expanse in front of the Parade erection was busy with people, some sitting
+at the tables and supporting the establishment, but many more merely taking
+advantage of the pitch to observe all possible exciting developments of the
+suffragette shindy.
+
+And as the criminals were modestly getting clear, a loud and imperious
+voice called:
+
+"Hey!"
+
+Audrey, lacking experience, hesitated.
+
+"Hey there!"
+
+They both turned, for the voice would not be denied. It belonged to a man
+sitting with another man at a table on the outskirts of the group of
+tables. It was the voice of the rosetted steward, who beckoned in a not
+unfriendly style.
+
+"Bring us two liqueur brandies, miss," he cried. "And look slippy, if ye
+please."
+
+The sharp tone, so sure of obedience, gave Audrey a queer sensation of
+being in reality a waitress doomed to tolerate the rough bullying of
+gentlemen urgently desiring alcohol. And the fierce thought that
+women--especially restaurant waitresses--must and should possess the Vote
+surged through her mind more powerfully than ever.
+
+"I'll never have the chance again," she muttered to herself. And marched
+to the counter.
+
+"Two liqueur brandies, please," she said to the woman in grey, who had left
+her apron calculations. "That's all right," she murmured, as the woman
+stared a question at her. Then the woman smiled to herself, and poured out
+the liqueur brandies from a labelled bottle with startling adroitness, and
+dashed the full glasses on to a brass tray.
+
+As Audrey walked across the gravel carefully balancing the tray, she
+speculated whether the public eye would notice the shape of her small
+handbag, which was attached by a safety pin to her dress beneath the apron,
+and whether her streamers were streaming out far behind her head.
+
+Before she could put the tray down on the table, the rosetted steward, who
+looked pale, snatched one of the glasses and gulped down its entire
+contents.
+
+"I wanted it!" said he, smacking his lips. "I wanted it bad. They'll catch
+'em all right. I should know the young 'un again anywhere. I'll swear to
+identify her in any court. And I will. Tasty little piece o' goods, too!...
+But not so good-looking as you," he added, gazing suddenly at Audrey.
+
+"None o' your sauce," snapped Audrey, and walked off, leaving the tray
+behind.
+
+The two men exploded into coarse but amiable laughter, and called to her to
+return, but she would not. "You can pay the other young lady," she said
+over her shoulder, pointing vaguely to the counter where there was now a
+bevy of other young ladies.
+
+Five minutes later Miss Ingate, and the chauffeur also, received a very
+appreciable shock. Half an hour later the car, having called at the
+telegraph office, and also at the aghast lodgings of the waitresses to
+enable them to reattire and to pack, had quitted Birmingham.
+
+That night they reached Northampton. At the post office there Jane Foley
+got a telegram. And when the three were seated in a corner of the curtained
+and stuffy dining-room of the small hotel, Jane said, addressing herself
+specially to Audrey:
+
+"It won't be safe for us to return to Paget Gardens to-morrow. And perhaps
+not to any of our places in London."
+
+"That won't matter," said Audrey, who was now becoming accustomed to the
+world of conspiracy and chicane in which Jane Foley carried on her
+existence with such a deceiving air of the matter-of-fact. "We'll go
+anywhere, won't we, Winnie?"
+
+And Miss Ingate assented.
+
+"Well," said Jane Foley. "I've just had a telegram arranging for us to go
+to Frinton."
+
+"You don't mean Frinton-on-Sea?" exclaimed Miss Ingate, suddenly excited.
+
+"It _is_ on the sea," said Jane. "We have to go through Colchester. Do you
+know it?"
+
+"Do I know it!" repeated Miss Ingate. "I know everybody in Frinton, except
+the Germans. When I'm at home I buy my bacon at Frinton. Are you going to
+an hotel there?"
+
+"No," said Jane. "To some people named Spatt."
+
+"There's nobody that is anybody named Spatt living at Frinton," said Miss
+Ingate.
+
+"They haven't been there long."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Miss Ingate. "Of course if that's it...! I can't guarantee
+what's happened since I began my pilgrimages. But I think I shall wriggle
+off home quietly as soon as we get to Colchester. This afternoon's business
+has been too feverish for me. When the policeman held up his hand as we
+came through Ellsworth I thought you were caught. I shall just go home."
+
+"I don't care much about going to Frinton, Jenny," said Audrey.
+
+Indeed, Moze lay within not many miles of Frinton-on-Sea.
+
+Then Audrey and Miss Ingate observed a phenomenon that was both novel and
+extremely disturbing. Tears came into the eyes of Jane Foley.
+
+"Don't say it, Audrey, don't say it!" she appealed in a wet voice. "I shall
+have to go myself. And you simply can't imagine how I hate going all alone
+into these houses that we're invited to. I'd much sooner be in lodgings, as
+we were last night. But these homes in quiet places here and there are very
+useful sometimes. They all belong to members of the Union, you know; and we
+have to use them. But I wish we hadn't. I've met Mrs. Spatt once. I didn't
+think you'd throw me over just at the worst part. The Spatts will take all
+of us and be glad."
+
+("They won't take me," said Miss Ingate under her breath.)
+
+"I shall come with you," said Audrey, caressing the recreant who, while
+equal to trifles such as policemen, magistrates, and prisons, was miserably
+afraid of a strange home. In fact Audrey now liked Jane much more than
+ever, liked her completely--and perhaps admired her rather less, though her
+admiration was still intense. And the thought in Audrey's mind was: "Never
+will I desert this girl! I'm a militant, too, now, and I shall stick by
+her." And she was full of a happiness which she could not understand and
+which she did not want to understand.
+
+The next morning all the newspaper posters in Northhampton bore the words:
+"Policemen and suffragettes on Joy Wheel," or some variation of these
+words. And they bore nothing else. And in all the towns and many of the
+villages through which they passed on the way to Colchester, the same
+legend greeted their flying eyes. Audrey and Miss Ingate, in the motor-car,
+read with great care all the papers. Audrey blushed at the descriptions of
+herself, which were flattering. It seemed that the Cabinet Minister's
+political meeting had been seriously damaged by the episode, for the reason
+that rumours of the performance on the Joy Wheel had impaired the spell of
+eloquence and partially emptied the hall. And this was the more
+disappointing in that the police had been sure that nothing untoward would
+occur. It seemed also that the police were on the track of the criminals.
+
+"Are they!" exclaimed Jane Foley with a beautiful smile.
+
+Then the car approached a city of towers on a hill, and as it passed by the
+station, which was in the valley, Miss Ingate demanded a halt. She got out
+in the station yard and transferred her belongings to a cab.
+
+"I shall drive home from here," she said. "I've often done it before. After
+all, I did play the barrel organ all the way down Regent Street. Surely I
+can rest on the barrel organ, can't I, Miss Foley--at my age? ... What a
+business I shall have when I _do_ get home, and nobody expecting me!"
+
+And when certain minor arrangements had been made, the car mounted the hill
+into Colchester and took the Frinton road, leaving Miss Ingate's fly far
+behind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE SPATTS
+
+
+The house of the Spatts was large, imposing and variegated. It had
+turrets, balconies, and architectural nooks in such quantity that the
+unaided individual eye could not embrace it all at once. It overlooked,
+from a height, the grounds of the Frinton Sports Club, and a new member of
+this club, upon first beholding the residence, had made the immortal
+remark: "It wants at least fourteen people to look at it." The house stood
+in the middle of an unfinished garden, which promised ultimately to be as
+heterogeneous as itself, but which at present was merely an expanse of
+sorely wounded earth.
+
+The time was early summer, and therefore the summer dining-room of the
+Spatts was in use. This dining-room consisted of one white, windowed wall,
+a tiled floor, and a roof of wood. The windows gave into the winter
+dining-room, which was a white apartment, sparsely curtained and cushioned
+with chintz, and containing very few pieces of furniture or pictures. The
+Spatts considered, rightly, that furniture and pictures were unhygienic and
+the secret lairs of noxious germs. Had the Spatts flourished twenty-five
+years earlier their dining-room would have been covered with brown paper
+upon which would have hung permanent photographs of European masterpieces
+of graphic art, and there would have been a multiplicity of draperies and
+specimens of battered antique furniture, with a warming-pan or so suspended
+here and there in place of sporting trophies. But the Spatts had not begun
+to flourish twenty-five years ago. They flourished very few years ago and
+they still flourish.
+
+As the summer dining-room had only one wall, it follows that it was open to
+the powers of the air. This result had been foreseen by the Spatts--had
+indeed been expressly arranged, for they believed strongly in the powers of
+the air, as being beneficent powers. It is true that they generally had
+sniffling colds, but their argument was that these maladies had no
+connection whatever with the powers of the air, which, according to their
+theory, saved them from much worse.
+
+They and their guests were now seated at dinner. Twilight was almost lost
+in night. The table was illuminated by four candles at the corners, and
+flames of these candles flickered in the healthful evening breeze, dropping
+pink wax on the candlesticks. They were surrounded by the mortal remains of
+tiny moths, but other tiny moths would not heed the warning and continually
+shot themselves into the flames. On the outskirts of the table moved with
+silent stealth the forms of two middle-aged and ugly servants.
+
+Mrs. Spatt was very tall and very thin, and the simplicity of her pale
+green dress--sole reminder of the brown-paper past--was calculated to draw
+attention to these attributes. She had an important reddish nose, and a
+mysterious look of secret confidence, which never left her even in the most
+trying crises. Mr. Spatt also was very tall and very thin. His head was
+several sizes too small, and part of his insignificant face, which one was
+apt to miss altogether in contemplating his body, was hidden under a short
+grey beard. Siegfried Spatt, the sole child of the union, though but
+seventeen, was as tall and as thin as his father and his mother; he had a
+pale face and red hands.
+
+The guests were Audrey, Jane Foley, and a young rubicund gentleman,
+beautifully clothed, and with fair curly locks, named Ziegler. Mr. Ziegler
+was far more perfectly at ease than anybody else at the table, which indeed
+as a whole was rendered haggard and nervous by the precarious state of the
+conversation, expecting its total decease at any moment. At intervals
+someone lifted the limp dying body--it sank back--was lifted
+again--struggled feebly--relapsed. Young Siegfried was excessively
+tongue-tied and self-conscious, and his demeanour frankly admitted it. Jane
+Foley, acknowledged heroine in certain fields, sat like a schoolgirl at her
+first dinner-party. Audrey maintained her widowhood, but scarcely with
+credit. Mr. and Mrs. Spatt were as usual too deeply concerned about the
+awful condition of the universe to display that elasticity of mood which
+continuous chatter about nothing in particular demands. And they were too
+worshipful of the best London conventions not to regard silence at table as
+appalling. In the part of the country from which Jane Foley sprang, hosts
+will sit mute through a meal and think naught of it. But Mr. and Mrs. Spatt
+were of different stuff. All these five appeared to be in serious need of
+conversation pills. Only Mr. Ziegler beheld his companions with a satisfied
+equanimity that was insensible to spiritual suffering. Happily at the most
+acute moments the gentle night wind, meandering slowly from the east across
+leagues of North Sea, would induce in one or another a sneeze which gave
+some semblance of vitality and vigour to the scene.
+
+After one of these sneezes it was that Jane Foley, conscience-stricken,
+tried to stimulate the exchanges by an effort of her own.
+
+"And what are the folks like in Frinton?" she demanded, blushing, and
+looking up. As she looked up young Siegfried looked down, lest he might
+encounter her glance and be utterly discountenanced.
+
+Jane Foley's question was unfortunate.
+
+"We know nothing of them," said Mrs. Spatt, pained. "Of course I have
+received and paid a few purely formal calls. But as regards friends and
+acquaintances, we prefer to import them from London. As for the
+holiday-makers, one sees them, naturally. They appear to lead an
+exclusively physical existence."
+
+"My dear," put in Mr. Spatt stiffly. "The residents are no better. The
+women play golf all day on that appalling golf course, and then after tea
+they go into the town to change their library books. But I do not believe
+that they ever read their library books. The mentality of the town is truly
+remarkable. However, I am informed that there are many towns like it."
+
+"You bet!" murmured Siegfried Spatt, and then tried, vainly, to suck back
+the awful remark whence it had come.
+
+Mr. Ziegler, speaking without passion or sorrow, added his views about
+Frinton. He asserted that it was the worst example of stupid waste of
+opportunities he had ever encountered, even in England. He pointed out that
+there was no band, no pier, no casino, no shelters--and not even a tree;
+and that there were no rules to govern the place. He finished by remarking
+that no German state would tolerate such a pleasure resort. In this
+judgment he employed an excellent English accent, with a scarcely
+perceptible thickening of the t's and thinning of the d's.
+
+Mr. Ziegler left nothing to be said.
+
+Then the conversation sighed and really did expire. It might have survived
+had not the Spatts had a rule, explained previously to those whom it
+concerned, against talking shop. Their attachment to this rule was heroic.
+In the present instance shop was suffragism. The Spatts had developed into
+supporters of militancy in a very curious way. Mrs. Spatt's sister, a
+widow, had been mixed up with the Union for years. One day she was fined
+forty shillings or a week's imprisonment for a political peccadillo
+involving a hatpin and a policeman. It was useless for her to remind the
+magistrate that she, like Mrs. Spatt, was the daughter of the celebrated
+statesman B----, who in the fifties had done so much for Britain. (Lo!  The
+source of that mysterious confidence that always supported Mrs. Spatt!) The
+magistrate had no historic sense. She went to prison. At least she was on
+the way thither when Mr. Spatt paid the fine in spite of her. The same
+night Mr. Spatt wrote to his favourite evening paper to point out the
+despicable ingratitude of a country which would have imprisoned a daughter
+of the celebrated B----, and announced that henceforward he would be an
+active supporter of suffragism, which hitherto had interested him only
+academically. He was a wealthy man, and his money and his house and his pen
+were at the service of the Union--but always with discretion.
+
+Audrey and Jane Foley had learnt all this privately from Mrs. Spatt on
+their arrival, after they had told such part of their tale as Jane Foley
+had deemed suitable, and they had further learnt that suffragism would not
+be a welcome topic at their table, partly on account of the servants and
+partly on account of Mr. Ziegler, whose opinions were quite clearly opposed
+to the movement, but whom they admired for true and rare culture. He was a
+cousin of German residents in First Avenue and, visiting them often, had
+been discovered by Mr. Spatt in the afternoon-tea train.
+
+And just as the ices came to compete with the night wind, the postman
+arrived like a deliverer. The postman had to pass the dining-room _en
+route_ by the circuitous drive to the front door, and when dinner was afoot
+he would hand the letters to the parlourmaid, who would divide them into
+two portions, and, putting both on a salver, offer the salver first to Mrs.
+and then to Mr. Spatt, while Mr. or Mrs. Spatt begged guests, if there were
+any, to excuse the quaint and indeed unusual custom, pardonable only on the
+plea that any tidings from London ought to be savoured instantly in such a
+place as Frinton.
+
+After leaving his little pile untouched for some time, Mr. Spatt took
+advantage of the diversion caused by the brushing of the cloth and the
+distribution of finger-bowls to glance at the topmost letter, which was
+addressed in a woman's hand.
+
+"She's coming!" he exclaimed, forgetting to apologise in the sudden
+excitement of news, "Good heavens!" He looked at his watch. "She's here. I
+heard the train several minutes ago! She must be here! The letter's been
+delayed."
+
+"Who, Alroy?" demanded Mrs. Spatt earnestly. "Not that Miss Nickall you
+mentioned?"
+
+"Yes, my dove." And then in a grave tone to the parlourmaid: "Give this
+letter to your mistress."
+
+Mr. Spatt, cheered by the new opportunity for conversation, and in his
+eagerness abrogating all rules, explained how he had been in London on the
+previous day for a performance of Strauss's _Elektra_, and according to his
+custom had called at the offices of the Suffragette Union to see whether he
+could in any manner aid the cause. He had been told that a house in Paget
+Gardens lent to the Union had been basely withdrawn from service by its
+owner on account of some embroilment with the supreme police authorities at
+Scotland Yard, and that one of the inmates, a Miss Nickall, the poor young
+lady who had had her arm broken and was scarcely convalescent, had need of
+quietude and sea air. Mr. Spatt had instantly offered the hospitality of
+his home to Miss Nickall, whom he had seen in a cab and who was very sweet.
+Miss Nickall had said that she must consult her companion. It now appeared
+that the companion was gone to the Midlands. This episode had occurred
+immediately before the receipt of the telegram from head-quarters asking
+for shelter for Miss Jane Foley and Mrs. Moncreiff.
+
+Mr. Spatt's excitement had now communicated itself to everybody except Mr.
+Ziegler and Siegfried Spatt. Jane Foley almost recovered her presence of
+mind, and Mrs. Spatt was extraordinarily interested to learn that Miss
+Nickall was an American painter who had lived long in Paris, and that
+Audrey had first made her acquaintance in Paris, and knew Paris well.
+Audrey's motor-car had produced a considerable impression on Aurora Spatt,
+and this impression was deepened by the touch about Paris. After breathing
+mysterious orders into the ear of the parlourmaid Mrs. Spatt began to talk
+at large about music in Paris, and Mr. Spatt made comparisons between the
+principal opera houses in Europe. He proclaimed for the Scala at Milan; but
+Mr. Ziegler, who had methodically according to a fixed plan lived in all
+European capitals except Paris--whither he was soon going, said that Mr.
+Spatt was quite wrong, and that Milan could not hold a candle to Munich.
+Mrs. Spatt inquired whether Audrey had heard Strauss's _Elektra_ at the
+Paris Opera House. Audrey replied that Strauss's _Elektra_ had not been
+given at the Paris Opera House.
+
+"Oh!" said Mrs. Spatt. "This prejudice against the greatest modern
+masterpieces because they are German is a very sad sign in Paris. I have
+noticed it for a long time."
+
+Audrey, who most irrationally had begun to be annoyed by the blandness of
+Mr. Ziegler's smile, answered with a rival blandness:
+
+"In Paris they do not reproach Strauss because he is German, but because he
+is vulgar."
+
+Mrs. Spatt had a martyrised expression. In her heart she felt a sick
+trembling of her religious belief that _Elektra_ was the greatest opera
+ever composed. For Audrey had the prestige of Paris and of the automobile.
+Mrs. Spatt, however, said not a word. Mr. Ziegler, on the other hand, after
+shuffling some seconds for utterance, ejaculated with sublime anger:
+
+"Vulgar!"
+
+His rubicundity had increased and his blandness was dissolved. A terrible
+sequel might have occurred, had not the crunch of wheels on the drive been
+heard at that very instant. The huge, dim form of a coach drawn by a
+ghostly horse passed along towards the front door, just below the diners.
+Almost simultaneously the electric light above the front door was turned
+on, casting a glare across a section of the inchoate garden, where no
+flower grew save the dandelion. Everybody sprang up. Host and hostess,
+urged by hospitality, spun first into the drive, and came level with the
+vehicle precisely as the vehicle opened its invisible interior. Jane Foley
+and Audrey saw Miss Nickall emerge from it rather slowly and cautiously,
+with her white kind face and her arm all swathed in white.
+
+"Well, Mr. Spatt," came the American benevolent voice of Nick. "How glad I
+am to see you. And this is Mrs. Spatt? Mrs. Spatt! Delighted. Your husband
+is the kindest, sweetest man, Mrs. Spatt, that I've met in years. It is
+perfectly sweet of you to have me. I shouldn't have inflicted myself on
+you--no, I shouldn't--only you know we have to obey orders. I was told to
+come here, and here I've come, with a glad heart."
+
+Audrey was touched by the sight and voice of grey-haired Nick, with her
+trick of seeing nothing but the best in everybody, transforming everybody
+into saints, angels, and geniuses. Her smiles and her tones were
+irresistible. They were like the wand of some magical princess come to
+break a sinister thrall. They nearly humanised the gaunt parlourmaid, who
+stood grimly and primly waiting until these tedious sentimental
+preliminaries should cease from interfering with her duties in regard to
+the luggage.
+
+"We have friends of yours here, Miss Nickall," simpered Mrs. Spatt, after
+she had given a welcome. She had seen Jane Foley and Audrey standing
+expectant just behind Mr. Spatt, and outside the field of the electric
+beam.
+
+Nick glanced round, hesitated, and then with a sudden change of all her
+features rushed at the girls regardless of her arm. Her joy was enchanting.
+
+"I was afraid--I was afraid----" she murmured as she kissed them. Her eyes
+softly glistened.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, after a moment. "And I _have_ got a surprise for you!
+I have just! You may say it's some surprise." She turned towards the cab.
+"Musa, now do come out of that wagon."
+
+And from the blackness of the cab's interior gingerly stepped Musa, holding
+a violin case in his hand.
+
+"Mrs. Spatt," said Nick. "Let me introduce Mr. Musa. Mr. Musa is perhaps
+the greatest violinist in Paris--or in Europe. Very old friend of ours. He
+came over to London unexpectedly just as I was starting for Liverpool
+Street station this afternoon. So I did the only thing I could do. I
+couldn't leave him there--I brought him along, and we want Mr. Spatt to
+recommend us an hotel in Frinton for him." And while Musa was shyly in his
+imperfect English greeting Mr. and Mrs. Spatt, she whispered to Audrey:
+"You don't know. You'd never guess. A big concert agent in Paris has taken
+him up at last. He's going to play at a lot of concerts, and they actually
+paid him two thousand five hundred francs in advance. Isn't it a perfect
+dream?"
+
+Audrey, who had seen Musa's trustful glance at Nick as he descended from
+the cab, was suddenly aware of a fierce pang of hate for the benignant
+Nick, and a wave of fury against Musa. The thing was very disconcerting.
+
+After self-conscious greetings, Musa almost dragged Audrey away from the
+others.
+
+"It's you I came to London to see," he muttered in an unusual voice.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MUTE
+
+
+It was upon this evening that Audrey began alarmingly to develop the
+quality of being incomprehensible--even to herself. Like most young women
+and men, she had been convinced from an early age that she was mysteriously
+unlike all other created beings, and--again like most young men and
+women--she could find, in the secrecy of her own heart, plenty of proof of
+a unique strangeness. But now her unreason became formidable. There she sat
+with her striking forehead and her quite unimportant nose, in the large
+austere drawing-room of the Spatts, which was so pervaded by artistic
+chintz that the slightest movement in it produced a crackle--and wondered
+why she was so much queerer than other girls could possibly be.
+
+Neither the crackling of chintz nor the aspect of the faces in the
+drawing-room was conducive to clear psychological analysis. Mr. Ziegler,
+with a glass of Pilsener by his side on a small table and a cigar in his
+richly jewelled hand, reposed with crossed legs in an easy chair. He had
+utterly recovered from the momentary irritation caused by Audrey's attack
+on Strauss, and his perfect beaming satisfaction with himself made a
+spectacle which would have distracted an Indian saint from the
+contemplation of eternity and nothingness. Mr. and Mrs. Spatt, seated as
+far as was convenient from one another on a long sofa, their emaciated
+bodies very upright and alert, gazed with intense expectation at Musa. Musa
+stood in the middle of the room, tuning his violin with little twangs and
+listening to the twangs as to a secret message.
+
+Miss Nickall, being an invalid, had excusably gone to bed, and Jane Foley,
+sharer of her bedroom, had followed. The happy relief on Jane's face as
+she said good night to her hosts had testified to the severity of the
+ordeal of hospitality through which she had so heroically passed. She
+might have been going out of prison instead of going out of the most
+intellectual drawing-room in Frinton.
+
+Audrey, too, would have liked to retire, for automobiles and sensations had
+exhausted her; but just at this point her unreason had begun to operate.
+She would not leave Musa alone, because Miss Nickall was leaving him alone.
+Yet she did not feel at all benevolent towards Musa. She was angry with him
+for having quitted Paris. She was angry with him for having said to her, in
+such a peculiar tone: "It's you I came to London to see." She was angry
+with him for not having found an opportunity, during the picnic meal
+provided for the two new-comers after the regular dinner, to explain why he
+had come to London to see her. She was angry with him for that dark
+hostility which he had at once displayed towards Mr. Ziegler, though she
+herself hated the innocent Mr. Ziegler with the ferocity of a woman of the
+Revolution. And further, she was glad, ridiculously glad, that Musa had
+come to London to see her. Lastly she was aware of a most irrational
+objection to the manner in which Miss Nickall and Musa said good night to
+one another, and the obvious fact that Musa in less than an hour had
+reached terms of familiarity with Jane Foley.
+
+She thought:
+
+"I haven't the faintest idea why he has given up his practising in Paris to
+come to see me. But if it is what I feel sure it is, there will be
+trouble.... Why do I stay in this ghastly drawing-room? I am dying to go to
+sleep, and I simply detest everybody in the room. I detest Musa more than
+all, because as usual he has been acting like a child.... Why can't you
+smile at him, Audrey Moze? Why frown and pretend you're cross when you know
+you aren't, Audrey Moze? ... I am cross, and he shall suffer. Was this a
+time to leave his practising--and the concerts soon coming on? I positively
+prefer this Ziegler man to him. Yes, I do." So ran her reflections, and
+they annoyed her.
+
+"What would you wish me to play?" asked Musa, when he had definitely
+finished twanging. Audrey noticed that his English accent was getting a
+little less French. She had to admit that, though his appearance was
+extravagantly un-British, it was distinguished. The immensity of his black
+silk cravat made the black cravat of Mr. Spatt seem like a bootlace round
+his thin neck.
+
+"Whatever you like, Mr. Musa," replied Aurora Spatt. "_Please!_"
+
+And as a fact the excellent woman, majestic now in spite of her red nose
+and her excessive thinness, did not care what Musa played. He had merely to
+play. She had decided for herself, from the conversation, that he was a
+very celebrated performer, and she had ascertained, by direct questioning,
+that he had never performed in England. She was determined to be able to
+say to all comers till death took her that "Musa--the great Musa, you
+know--first played in England in my own humble drawing-room." The thing
+itself was actually about to occur; nothing could stop it from occurring;
+and the thought of the immediate realisation of her desire and ambition
+gave Mrs. Spatt greater and more real pleasure than she had had for years;
+it even fortified her against the possible resentment of her cherished Mr.
+Ziegler.
+
+"French music--would you wish?" Musa suggested.
+
+"Is there any French music? That is to say, of artistic importance?" asked
+Mr. Ziegler calmly. "I have never heard of it."
+
+He was not consciously being rude. Nor was he trying to be funny. His
+question implied an honest belief. His assertion was sincere. He glanced,
+blinking slightly, round the room, with a self-confidence that was either
+terrible or pathetic, according to the degree of your own self-confidence.
+
+Audrey said to herself.
+
+"I'm glad this isn't my drawing-room." And she was almost frightened by the
+thought that that skull opposite to her was absolutely impenetrable, and
+that it would go down to the grave unpierced with all its collection of
+ideas intact and braggart.
+
+As for Mr. and Mrs. Spatt they were both in the state of not knowing where
+to look. Immediately their gaze met another gaze it leapt away as from
+something dangerous or obscene.
+
+"I will play Debussy's Toccata for violin solo," Musa announced tersely. He
+had blushed; his great eyes were sparkling. And he began to play.
+
+And as soon as he had played a few bars, Audrey gave a start, fortunately
+not a physical start, and she blushed also. Musa sternly winked at her.
+Frenchmen do not make a practice of winking, but he had learnt the
+accomplishment for fun from Miss Thompkins in Paris. The wink caused
+Audrey surreptitiously to observe Mr. and Mrs. Spatt. It was no relief to
+her to perceive that these two were listening to Debussy's Toccata for solo
+violin with the trained and appreciative attention of people who had heard
+it often before in the various capitals of Europe, who knew it by heart,
+and who knew at just what passages to raise the head, to give a nod of
+recognition or a gesture of ecstasy. The bare room was filled with the
+sound of Musa's fiddle and with the high musical culture of Mr. and Mrs.
+Spatt. When the piece was over they clapped discreetly, and looked with
+soft intensity at Audrey, as if murmuring: "You, too, are a cultured
+cosmopolitan. You share our emotion." And across the face of Mrs. Spatt
+spread a glow triumphant, for Musa now positively had played for the first
+time in England in her drawing-room, and she foresaw hundreds of occasions
+on which she could refer to the matter with a fitting air of casualness.
+The glow triumphant, however, paled somewhat as she felt upon herself the
+eye of Mr. Ziegler.
+
+"Where is Siegfried, Alroy?" she demanded, after having thanked Musa. "I
+wouldn't have had him miss that Debussy for anything, but I hadn't noticed
+that he was gone. He adores Debussy."
+
+"I think it is like bad Bach," Mr. Ziegler put in suddenly. Then he raised
+his glass and imbibed a good portion of the beer specially obtained and
+provided for him by his hostess and admirer, Mrs. Spatt.
+
+"Do you _really_?" murmured Mrs. Spatt, with deprecation.
+
+"There's something in the comparison," Mr. Spatt admitted thoughtfully.
+
+"Why not like good Bach?" Musa asked, glaring in a very strange manner at
+Mr. Ziegler.
+
+"Bosh!" ejaculated Mr. Ziegler with a most notable imperturbability. "Only
+Bach himself could com-pose good Bach."
+
+Musa's breathing could be heard across the drawing-room.
+
+"_Eh bien!_" said Musa. "Now I will play for you Debussy's Toccata. I was
+not playing it before. I was playing the Chaconne of Bach, the most famous
+composition for the violin in the world."
+
+He did not embroider the statement. He left it in its nakedness. Nor did he
+permit anybody else to embroider it. Before a word of any kind could be
+uttered he had begun to play again. Probably in all the annals of artistic
+snobbery, no cultured cosmopolitan had ever been made to suffer a more
+exquisite moral torture of humiliation than Musa had contrived to inflict
+upon Mr. and Mrs. Spatt in return for their hospitality. Their sneaped
+squirmings upon the sofa were terrible to witness. But Mr. Ziegler's
+sensibility was apparently quite unaffected. He continued to smile, to
+drink, and to smoke. He seemed to be saying to himself: "What does it
+matter to me that this miserable Frenchman has caught me in a mistake?  I
+could eat him, and one day I shall eat him."
+
+After a little while Musa snatched out of his right-hand lower waistcoat
+pocket the tiny wooden "mute" which all violinists carry without fail upon
+all occasions in all their waistcoats; and, sticking it with marvellous
+rapidity upon the bridge of the violin, he entered upon a pianissimo, but
+still lively, episode of the Toccata. And simultaneously another melody
+faint and clear could be heard in the room. It was Mr. Ziegler humming "The
+Watch on the Rhine" against the Toccata of Debussy. Thus did it occur to
+Mr. Ziegler to take revenge on Musa for having attempted to humiliate him.
+Not unsurprisingly, Musa detected at once the competitive air. He continued
+to play, gazing hard at his violin and apparently entranced, but edging
+little by little towards Mr. Ziegler. Audrey desired either to give a cry
+or to run out of the room. She did neither, being held to inaction by the
+spell of Mr. Ziegler's perfect unconcern as, with the beer glass lifted
+towards his mouth, he proceeded steadily to work through "The Watch on the
+Rhine," while Musa lilted out the delicate, gay phrases of Debussy. The
+enchantment upon the whole room was sinister and painful. Musa got closer
+to Mr. Ziegler, who did not blench nor cease from his humming. Then
+suddenly Musa, lowering his fiddle and interrupting the scene, snatched the
+mute from the bridge of the violin.
+
+"I have put it on the wrong instrument," he said thickly, with a very
+French intonation, and simultaneously he shoved the mute with violence into
+the mouth of Mr. Ziegler. In doing so, he jerked up Mr. Ziegler's elbow,
+and the remains of the beer flew up and baptised Mr. Ziegler's face and
+vesture. Then he jammed the violin into its case, and ran out of the room.
+
+"_Barbare! Imbécile! Sauvage!_" he muttered ferociously on the threshold.
+
+The enchantment was broken. Everybody rose, and not the least precipitately
+the streaming Mr. Ziegler, who, ejecting the mute with much spluttering,
+and pitching away his empty glass, sprang towards the door, with
+justifiable homicide in every movement.
+
+"Mr. Ziegler!" Audrey appealed to him, snatching at his dress-coat and
+sticking to it.
+
+He turned, furious, his face still dripping the finest Pilsener beer.
+
+"If your dress-coat is not wiped instantly, it will be ruined," said
+Audrey.
+
+"_Ach! Meiner Frack!_" exclaimed Mr. Ziegler, forgetting his deep knowledge
+of English. His economic instincts had been swiftly aroused, and they
+dominated all the other instincts. "_Meiner Frack!_ Vill you vipe it?" His
+glance was imploring.
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Spatt will attend to it," said Audrey with solemnity, and walked
+out of the room into the hall. There was not a sign of Musa; the
+disappearance of the violinist was disquieting; and yet it made her
+glad--so much so that she laughed aloud. A few moments later Mr. Ziegler
+stalked forth from the house which he was never to enter again, and his
+silent scorn and the grandeur of his displeasure were terrific. He entirely
+ignored Audrey, who had nevertheless been the means of saving his _Frack_
+for him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+NOCTURNE
+
+
+Soon afterwards Audrey, who had put on a hat, went out with Mr. Spatt to
+look for Musa. Not until shortly before the musical performance had the
+Spatts succeeded in persuading Musa to "accept their hospitality for the
+night." (The phrase was their own. They were incapable of saying "Let us
+put you up.") Meanwhile his bag had been left in the hall. This bag had now
+vanished. The parlourmaid, questioned, said frigidly that she had not
+touched it because she had received no orders to touch it. Musa himself
+must therefore have removed it. With bag in one hand and fiddle case in the
+other, he must have fled, relinquishing nothing but the mute in his flight.
+He knew naught of England, naught of Frinton, and he was the least
+practical creature alive. Hence Audrey, who was in essence his mother, and
+who knew Frinton as some people know London, had said that she would go and
+look for him. Mr. Spatt, ever chivalrous, had impulsively offered to
+accompany her. He could indeed do no less. Mrs. Spatt, overwhelmed by the
+tragic sequel to her innocent triumphant, had retired to the first floor.
+
+The wind blew, and it was very dark, as Audrey and her squire passed along
+Third Avenue to the front. They did not converse--they were both too shy,
+too impressed by the peculiarity of the predicament. They simply peered.
+They peered everywhere for the truant form of Musa balanced on one side by
+a bag and on the other by a fiddle case. From the trim houses, each without
+exception new, twinkled discreet lights, with glimpses of surpassingly
+correct domesticity, and the wind rustled loudly through the foliage of the
+prim gardens, ruffling them as it might have ruffled the unwilling hair of
+the daughters of an arch-deacon. Nobody was abroad. Absurd thoughts ran
+through Audrey's head. A letter from Mr. Foulger had followed her to
+Birmingham, and in the letter Mr. Foulger had acquainted her with the fact
+that Great Mexican Oil shares had just risen to £2 3s. apiece. She knew
+that she had 180,000 of them, and now under the thin protection of Mr.
+Spatt she tried to reckon 180,000 times £2 3s. She could not do the sum. At
+any rate she could not be sure that she did it correctly. However, she was
+fairly well convinced beneath the dark, impenetrable sky that the answer
+totalled nearly £400,000, that was, ten million francs. And the
+ridiculousness of an heiress who owned over ten million francs wandering
+about a place like Frinton with a man like Mr. Spatt, searching for another
+man like Musa, struck her as exceeding the bounds of the permissible. She
+considered that she ought to have been in a magnificent drawing-room of her
+own in Park Lane or the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, welcoming counts,
+princes, duchesses, diplomats and self-possessed geniuses of finished
+manners, with witty phrase that displayed familiarity with all that was
+profoundest and most brilliant in European civilisation. Life seemed to be
+disappointing her, and assuredly money was not the thing that she had
+imagined it to be.
+
+She thought:
+
+"If this walking lamp-post does not say something soon I shall scream."
+
+Mr. Spatt said:
+
+"It seems to be blowing up for rain."
+
+She screamed in the silent solitude of Frinton.
+
+"I'm so sorry," she apologised quickly. "I thought I saw something move."
+
+"One does," faltered Mr. Spatt.
+
+They were now in the shopping street, where in the mornings the elect
+encounter each other on expeditions to purchase bridge-markers, chocolate,
+bathing costumes and tennis balls. It was a black and empty canyon through
+which the wind raced.
+
+"He may be down--down on the shore," Mr. Spatt timidly suggested. He seemed
+to be suggesting suicide.
+
+They turned and descended across the Greensward to the shore, which was
+lined with hundreds of bathing huts, each christened with a name, and each
+deserted, for the by-laws of the Frinton Urban District Council judiciously
+forbade that the huts should be used as sleeping-chambers. The tide was
+very low. They walked over the wide flat sands, and came at length to the
+sea's roar, the white tumbling of foamy breakers, and the full force of the
+south-east wind. Across the invisible expanse of water could be discerned
+the beam of a lightship. And Audrey was aware of mysterious sensations such
+as she had not had since she inhabited Flank Hall and used to steal out at
+nights to watch the estuary. And she thought solemnly: "Musa is somewhere
+near, existing." And then she thought: "What a silly thought! Of course he
+is!"
+
+"I see somebody coming!" Mr. Spatt burst out in a dramatic whisper. But the
+precaution of whispering was useless, because the next instant, in spite of
+himself, he loudly sneezed.
+
+And about two hundred yards off on the sands Audrey made out a moving
+figure, which at that distance did in fact seem to have vague appendages
+that might have resembled a bag and a fiddle case. But the atmosphere of
+the night was deceptive, and the figure as it approached resolved itself
+into three figures--a black one in the middle of two white ones. A girl's
+coarse laugh came down the wind. It could not conceivably have been the
+laugh of any girl who went into the shopping street to buy bridge-markers,
+chocolate, bathing costumes or tennis balls. But it might have been--it not
+improbably was--the laugh of some girl whose mission was to sell such
+things. The trio meandered past, heedless. Mr. Spatt said no word, but he
+appreciably winced. The black figure in the midst of the two white ones was
+that of his son Siegfried, reputedly so fond of Debussy. As the group
+receded and faded, a fragment of a music-hall song floated away from it
+into the firmament.
+
+"I'm afraid it's not much use looking any longer," said Mr. Spatt weakly.
+"He--he may have gone back to the house. Let us hope so."
+
+At the chief garden gate of the Spatt residence they came upon Miss
+Nickall, trying to open it. The sling round her arm made her unmistakable.
+And Miss Nickall having allowed them to recover from a pardonable
+astonishment at the sight of her who was supposed to be exhausted and in
+bed, said cheerfully:
+
+"I've found him, and I've put him up at the Excelsior Hotel."
+
+Mrs. Spatt had related the terrible episode to her guest, who had wilfully
+risen at once. Miss Nickall had had luck, but Audrey had to admit that
+these American girls were stupendously equal to an emergency. And she hated
+the angelic Nick for having found Musa.
+
+"We tried first to find a café," said Nick. "But there aren't any in this
+city. What do you call them in England--public-houses, isn't it?"
+
+"No," agreed Mr. Spatt in a shaking voice. "Public-houses are not permitted
+in Frinton, I am glad to say." And he began to form an intention, subject
+to Aurora's approval, to withdraw altogether from the suffrage movement,
+which appeared to him to be getting out of hand.
+
+As they were all separating for the night Audrey and Nick hesitated for a
+moment in front of each other, and then they kissed with a quite unusual
+effusiveness.
+
+"I don't think I've ever really liked her," said Audrey to herself.
+
+What Nick said to herself is lost to history.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+IN THE GARDEN
+
+
+The next morning, after a night spent chiefly in thought, Audrey issued
+forth rather early. Indeed she was probably the first person afoot in the
+house of the Spatts, the parlour-maid entering the hall just as Audrey had
+managed to open the front door. As the parlour-maid was obviously not yet
+in that fullness and spruceness of attire which parlour-maids affect when
+performing their mission in life, Audrey decided to offer no remark,
+explanatory or otherwise, and passed into the garden with nonchalance as
+though her invariable habit when staying in strange houses was to get up
+before anybody else and spy out the whole property while the helpless hosts
+were yet in bed and asleep.
+
+Now it was a magnificent morning: no wind, no cloud, and the sun rising
+over the sea; not a trace of the previous evening's weather. Audrey had not
+been in the leafy street more than a moment when she forgot that she was
+tired and short of sleep, and also very worried by affairs both private and
+public. Her body responded to the sun, and her mind also. She felt almost
+magically healthy, strong and mettlesome, and, further, she began to feel
+happy; she rather blamed herself for this tendency to feel happy, calling
+herself heedless and indifferent. She did not understand what it is to be
+young. She had risen partly because of the futility of bed, but more
+because of a desire to inspect again her own part of the world after the
+unprecedented absence from it.
+
+Frinton was within the borders of her own part of the world, and, though
+she now regarded it with the condescending eyes of a Parisian and Londoner,
+she found pleasure in looking upon it and in recognising old landmarks and
+recent innovations. She saw, on the Greensward separating the promenade
+from the beach, that a rustic seat had been elaborately built by the
+Council round the great trunk of the only tree in Frinton; and she decided
+that there had been questionable changes since her time. And in this way
+she went on. However, the splendour and reality of the sun, making such an
+overwhelming contrast with the insubstantial phenomena of the gloomy night,
+prevented undue cerebral activity. She reflected that Frinton on a dark
+night and Frinton on a bright morning were not like the same place, and she
+left it at that, and gazed at the façade of the Excelsior Hotel, wondering
+for an instant why she should be interested in it, and then looking swiftly
+away.
+
+She had to glance at all the shops, though none of them was open except the
+dairy-shop; and in the shopping street, which had a sunrise at one end and
+the railway station at the other, she lit on the new palatial garage.
+
+"My car may be in there," she thought.
+
+After the manner of most car-owners on tour, she had allowed the chauffeur
+to disappear with the car in the evening where he listed, confident that
+the next morning he and it would reappear cleansed and in good running
+order.
+
+The car was in the garage, almost solitary on a floor of asphalt under a
+glass roof. An untidy youth, with the end of a cigarette clinging to his
+upper lip in a way to suggest that it had clung there throughout the night
+and was the last vestige of a jollification, seemed to be dragging a length
+of hose from a hydrant towards the car, the while his eyes rested on a
+large notice: "Smoking absolutely prohibited. By order."
+
+Then from the other extremity of the garage came a jaunty, dapper,
+quasi-martial figure, in a new grey uniform, with a peaked grey cap, bright
+brown leggings, and bright brown boots to match--the whole highly brushed,
+polished, smooth and glittering. This being pulled out of his pocket a
+superb pair of kid gloves, then a silver cigarette-case, and then a silver
+match-box, and he ignited a cigarette--the unrivalled, wondrous first
+cigarette of the day--casting down the match with a large, free gesture. At
+sight of him the untidy youth grew more active.
+
+"Look 'ere," said the being to the youth, "what the 'ell time did I tell
+you to have that car cleaned by, and you not begun it!"
+
+Pointing to the clock, he lounged magnificently to and fro, spreading smoke
+around the intimidated and now industrious youth. The next second he caught
+sight of Audrey, and transformed himself instantaneously into what she had
+hitherto imagined a chauffeur always was; but in those few moments she had
+learnt that the essence of a chauffeur is godlike, and that he toils not,
+neither does he swab.
+
+"Good morning, madam," in a soft, courtly voice.
+
+"Good morning."
+
+"Were you wanting the car, madam?"
+
+She was not, but the suggestion gave her an idea.
+
+"Can we take it as it is?"
+
+"Yes, madam. I'll just look at the petrol gauge ... But ... I haven't had
+my breakfast, madam."
+
+"What time do you have it?"
+
+"Well, madam, when you have yours."
+
+"That's all right, then. You've got hours yet. I want you to take me to
+Flank Hall."
+
+"Flank Hall, madam?" His tone expressed the fact that his mind was a blank
+as to Flank Hall.
+
+As soon as Audrey had comprehended that the situation of Flank Hall was not
+necessarily known to every chauffeur in England, and that a stay of one
+night in Frinton might not have been enough to familiarise this particular
+one with the geography of the entire district, she replied that she would
+direct him.
+
+They were held up by a train at the railway crossing, and a milk-cart and a
+young pedestrian were also held up. When Audrey identified the pedestrian
+she wished momentarily that she had not set out on the expedition. Then she
+said to herself that really it did not matter, and why should she be
+afraid... etc., etc. The pedestrian was Musa. In French they greeted each
+other stiffly, like distant acquaintances, and the train thundered past.
+
+"I was taking the air, simply, Madame," said Musa, with his ingenuous shy
+smile.
+
+"Take it in my car," said Audrey with a sudden resolve. "In one hour at
+the latest we shall have returned."
+
+She had a great deal to say to him and a great deal to listen to, and there
+could not possibly be any occasion equal to the present, which was ideal.
+
+He got in; the chauffeur manoeuvred to oust the milk-cart from its rightful
+precedence, the gates opened, and the car swung at gathering speed into the
+well-remembered road to Moze. And the two passengers said nothing to each
+other of the slightest import. Musa's escape from Paris was between them;
+the unimaginable episode at the Spatts was between them; the sleepless
+night was between them.  (And had she not saved him by her presence of mind
+from the murderous hand of Mr. Ziegler?) They had a million things to
+impart. And yet naught was uttered save a few banalities about the weather
+and about the healthfulness of being up early. They were bashful,
+constrained, altogether too young and inexperienced. They wanted to behave
+in the grand, social, easeful manner of a celebrated public performer and
+an heiress worth ten million francs. And they could only succeed in being a
+boy and a girl. The chauffeur alone, at from thirty to forty miles an hour,
+was worthy of himself and his high vocation. Both the passengers regretted
+that they had left their beds. Happily the car laughed at the alleged
+distance between Frinton and Moze. In a few minutes, as it seemed, with
+but one false turning, due to the impetuosity of the chauffeur, the vehicle
+drew up before the gates of Flank Hall. Audrey had avoided the village of
+Moze. The passengers descended.
+
+"This is my house," Audrey murmured.
+
+The gates were shut but not locked. They creaked as Audrey pushed against
+them. The drive was covered with a soft film of green, as though it were
+gradually being entombed in the past. The young roses, however, belonged
+emphatically to the present. Dewdrops hung from them like jewels, and their
+odour filled the air. Audrey turned off the main drive towards the garden
+front of the house, which had always been the aspect that she preferred,
+and at the same moment she saw the house windows and the thrilling
+perspective of Mozewater. One of the windows was open. She was glad,
+because this proved that the perfect Aguilar, gardener and caretaker, was
+after all imperfect. It was his crusty perfection that had ever set Audrey,
+and others, against Aguilar. But he had gone to bed and forgotten a
+window--and it was the French window. While, in her suddenly revived
+character of a harsh Essex inhabitant, she was thinking of some sarcastic
+word to say to Aguilar about the window, another window slowly opened from
+within, and Aguilar's head became visible. Once more he had exasperatingly
+proved his perfection. He had not gone to bed and forgotten a window.  But
+he had risen with exemplary earliness to give air to the house.
+
+"'d mornin', miss," mumbled the unsmiling Aguilar, impassively, as though
+Audrey had never been away from Moze.
+
+"Well, Aguilar."
+
+"I didn't expect ye so early, miss."
+
+"But how could you be expecting me at all?"
+
+"Miss Ingate come home yesterday. She said you couldn't be far off, miss."
+
+"Not Miss ... _Mrs._--Moncreiff," said Audrey firmly.
+
+"I beg your pardon, madam," Aguilar responded with absolute
+imperturbability. "She never said nothing about that."
+
+And he proceeded mechanically to the next window.
+
+The yard-dog began to bark. Audrey, ignoring Musa, went round the shrubbery
+towards the kennel. The chained dog continued to bark, furiously, until
+Audrey was within six feet of him, and then he crouched and squirmed and
+gave low whines and his tail wagged with extreme rapidity. Audrey bent
+down, trembling.... She could scarcely see.... There was something about
+the green film on the drive, about the look of the house, about the sheeted
+drawing-room glimpsed through the open window, about the view of
+Mozewater...! She felt acutely and painfully sorry for, and yet envious of,
+the young girl in a plain blue frock who used to haunt the house and the
+garden, and who had somehow made the house and the garden holy for evermore
+by her unhappiness and her longings.... Audrey was crying.... She heard a
+step and stood upright. It was Musa's step.
+
+"I have never seen you so exquisite," said Musa in a murmur subdued and yet
+enthusiastic. All his faculties seemed to be dwelling reflectively upon her
+with passionate appreciation.
+
+They had at last begun to talk, really--he in French, and she partly in
+French and partly in English. It was her tears, or perhaps her gesture in
+trying to master them, that had loosed their tongues. The ancient dog was
+forgotten, and could not understand why. Audrey was excusably startled by
+Musa's words and tone, and by the sudden change in his attitude. She
+thought that his personal distinction at the moment was different from and
+superior to any other in her experience. She had a comfortable feeling of
+condescension towards Nick and towards Jane Foley. And at the same time she
+blamed Musa, perceiving that as usual he was behaving like a child who
+cannot grasp the great fact that life is very serious.
+
+"Yes," she said. "That's all very fine, that is. You pretend this, that,
+and the other. But why are you here?  Why aren't you at work in Paris?
+You've got the chance of a lifetime, and instead of staying at home and
+practising hard and preparing yourself, you come gadding over to England
+simply because there's a bit of money in your pocket!"
+
+She was very young, and in the splendour of the magnificent morning she
+looked the emblem of simplicity; but in her heart she was his mother, his
+sole fount of wisdom and energy and shrewdness.
+
+Pain showed in his sensitive features, and then appeal, and then a hot
+determination.
+
+"I came because I could not work," he said.
+
+"Because you couldn't work? Why couldn't you work?" There was no yielding
+in her hard voice.
+
+"I don't know! I don't know! I suppose it is because you are not there,
+because you have made yourself necessary to me; or," he corrected quickly,
+"because _I_ have made you necessary to myself. Oh! I can practise for so
+many hours per day. But it is useless. It is not authentic practice. I
+think not of the music. It is as if some other person was playing, with my
+arm, on my violin. I am not there. I am with you, where you are. It is the
+same day after day, every day, every day. I am done for. I am convinced
+that I am done for. These concerts will infallibly be my ruin, and I shall
+be shamed before all Paris."
+
+"And did you come to England to tell me this?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She was relieved, for she had thought of another explanation of his
+escapade, and had that explanation proved to be the true one, she was very
+ready to make unpleasantness to the best of her ability. Nevertheless,
+though relieved in one direction, she was gravely worried in another. She
+had undertaken the job of setting Musa grandiosely on his artistic career,
+and the difficulties of it were growing more and more complex and
+redoubtable.
+
+She said:
+
+"But you seemed so jolly when you arrived last night. Nobody would have
+guessed you had a care in the world."
+
+"I had not," he replied eagerly, "as soon as I saw you. The surprise of
+seeing you--it was that.... And you left Paris without saying good-bye! Why
+did you leave Paris without saying good-bye? Never since the moment when I
+learnt that you had gone have I had the soul to practise. My violin became
+a wooden box; my fingers, too, were of wood."
+
+He stopped. The dog sniffed round.
+
+Audrey was melting in bliss. She could feel herself dissolving. Her
+pleasure was terrible. It was true that she had left Paris without saying
+good-bye to Musa. She had done it on purpose. Why? She did not know.
+Perhaps out of naughtiness, perhaps.... She was aware that she could be
+hard, like her father. But she was glad, intensely glad, that she had left
+Paris so, because the result had been this avowal. She, Audrey, little
+Audrey, scarcely yet convinced that she was grown up, was necessary to the
+genius whom all the Quarter worshipped! Miss Thompkins was not necessary to
+him, Miss Nickall was not necessary to him, though both had helped to
+provide the means to keep him alive. She herself alone was necessary to
+him. And she had not guessed it. She had not even hoped for it. The effect
+of her personality upon Musa was mysterious--she did not affect to
+understand it--but it was obviously real and it was vital. If anything in
+the world could surpass the pleasure, her pride surpassed it. All tears
+were forgotten. She was the proudest young woman in the world; and she was
+the wisest, and the most harassed, too. But the anxieties were delicious to
+her.
+
+"I am essential to him," she thought ecstatically. "I stand between him and
+disaster. When he has succeeded his success will be my work and nobody
+else's. I have a mission. I must live for it.... If anyone had told me a
+year ago that a great French genius would be absolutely dependent upon me,
+and that I meant for him all the difference between failure and triumph, I
+should have laughed.... And yet!..." She looked at him surreptitiously.
+"He's an angel. But he's also a baby." The feelings of motherhood were as
+naught compared to hers.
+
+Then she remarked harshly, icily:
+
+"Well, I shall be much obliged if you will go back to Paris at
+once--to-day. _Somebody_ must have a little sense."
+
+Just at this point Aguilar interrupted. He came slouching round the corner
+of the clipped bushes, untidy, shabby, implacable, with some set purpose in
+his hard blue eyes. She could have annihilated him with satisfaction, but
+the fellow was indestructible as well as implacable.
+
+"Could I have a word with ye, madam?" he mumbled, putting on his well-known
+air of chicane.
+
+With the unexplained Musa close by her she could not answer: "Wait a
+little. I'm engaged." She had to be careful. She had to make out especially
+that she and the young man were up to nothing in particular, nothing that
+had the slightest importance.
+
+"What is it, Aguilar?" she questioned, inimically.
+
+"It's down here," said Aguilar, who recked not of the implications of a
+tone. And by the mere force of his glance he drew his mistress away, out of
+sight of Musa and the dog.
+
+"Is that your motor-car at the gates, madam?" he demanded gloomily and
+confidentially, his gaze now fixed on the ground or on his patched boots.
+
+"Of course it is," said Audrey. "Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"That's all right then," said he. "But I thought it might belong to another
+person, and I had to make sure. Now if ye'll just step along a bit
+farther, I've a little thing as I want to point out to ye, madam. It's my
+duty to point it out, let others say _what_ they will."
+
+He walked ahead doggedly, and Audrey crossly came after, until they arrived
+nearly at the end of the hedge which, separating the upper from the lower
+garden, hid from those immediately behind it all view of the estuary.
+Here, still sheltered by the hedge, he stopped and Audrey stopped, and
+Aguilar absently plucked up a young plantain from the turf and dropped it
+into his pocket.
+
+"There's been a man a-hanging round this place since yesterday mornin',"
+said Aguilar intimately. "I call him a suspicious character--at least, I
+_did_, till last night. He ain't slept in the village, that I do know, but
+he's about again this morning."
+
+"Well," said Audrey with impatience. "Why don't you tell Inspector Keeble?
+Or have you quarrelled with Inspector Keeble again?"
+
+"It's not that as would ha' stopped me from acquainting Inspector Keeble
+with the circumstances if I thought it my duty so to do," replied Aguilar.
+"But the fact is I saw the chap talking to Inspector Keeble yesterday
+evening. He don't know as I saw him. It was that as made me think; now is
+he a suspicious character or ain't he? Of course Keeble's a rare
+simple-minded 'un, as we all know."
+
+"And what do you want me to do?"
+
+"I thought you might like to have a look at him yeself, madam. And if
+you'll just peep round the end of this hedge casual-like, ye'll see him
+walking across the salting from Lousey Hard. He's a-comin' this way.
+Casual-like now--and he won't see ye."
+
+Audrey had to obey. She peeped casual-like, and she did in fact see a man
+on the salting, and this man was getting nearer. She could see him very
+plainly in the brilliant clearness of the summer morning. After the
+shortest instant of hesitation she recognised him beyond any doubt. It was
+the detective who had been so plenteously baptised by Susan Foley in the
+area of the house at Paget Gardens. Aguilar looked at Audrey, and Audrey
+annoyed herself somewhat by blushing. However, an agreeable elation quickly
+overcame the blush.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+ENCOUNTER
+
+
+"Good morning," Audrey cried, very gaily, to the still advancing detective,
+who, after the slightest hesitation in the world, responded gaily:
+
+"Good morning."
+
+The man's accent struck her. She said to herself, with amusement:
+
+"He's Irish!"
+
+Audrey had left the astonished but dispassionate gardener at the hedge, and
+was now emerging from the scanty and dishevelled plantation close to the
+boundary wall of the estate. She supposed that the police must have been on
+her track and on the track of Jane Foley, and that by some mysterious skill
+they had hunted her down. But she did not care. She was not in the least
+afraid. The sudden vision of a jail did not affright her. On the contrary
+her chief sensation was one of joyous self-confidence, which sensation had
+been produced in her by the remarks and the attitude of Musa. She had
+always known that she was both shy and adventurous, and that the two
+qualities were mutually contradictory; but now it appeared to her that
+diffidence had been destroyed, and that that change which she had ever
+longed for in her constitution had at least really come to pass.
+
+"You don't seem very surprised to see me," said Audrey.
+
+"Well, madam," said the detective, "I'm not paid to be surprised--in my
+business."
+
+He had raised his hat. He was standing on the dyke, and from that height he
+looked somewhat down upon Audrey leaning against the wall. The watercourse
+and the strip of eternally emerald-green grass separated them. Though
+neither tall nor particularly handsome, he was a personable man, with a
+ready smile and alert, agile movements. Audrey was too far off to judge of
+his eyes, but she was quite sure that they twinkled. The contrast between
+this smart, cheerful fellow and the half-drowned victim in the area of the
+house in Paget Gardens was quite acute.
+
+"Now I've a good mind to hold a meeting for your benefit," said Audrey,
+striving to recall the proper phrases of propaganda which she had heard in
+the proper quarters in London during her brief connection with the cause.
+However, she could not recall them, "But there's no need to," she added. "A
+gentleman of your intelligence must be of our way of thinking."
+
+"About what?"
+
+"About the vote, of course. And so your conduct is all the more shocking."
+
+"Why!" he exclaimed, laughing. "If it comes to that, your own sex is
+against you."
+
+Audrey had heard this argument before, and it had the same effect on her as
+on most other stalwarts of the new political creed. It annoyed her, because
+there was something in it.
+
+"The vast majority of women are with us," said she.
+
+"My wife isn't."
+
+"But your wife isn't the vast majority of women," Audrey protested.
+
+"Oh yes, she is," said the detective, "so far as I'm concerned. Every wife
+is, so far as her husband is concerned. Sure, you ought to know that!" In
+his Irish way he doubled the "r" of the word "sure," and somehow this trick
+made Audrey like him still more. "My wife believes," he concluded, "that
+woman's sphere is the home."
+
+("His wife is stout," Audrey decided within herself, on no grounds
+whatever. "If she wasn't, she couldn't be a vast majority.")
+
+Aloud she said:
+
+"Well, then, why can't you leave them alone in their sphere, instead of
+worrying them and spying on them down areas?"
+
+"D'ye mean at Paget Gardens?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Oh!" he laughed. "That wasn't professional--if you'll excuse me being so
+frank. That was just due to human admiration. It's not illegal to admire a
+young woman, I suppose, even if she is a suffragette."
+
+"What young woman are you talking about?"
+
+"Miss Susan Foley, of course. I won't tell you what I think of her, in
+spite of all she did, because I've learnt that it's a mistake to praise one
+woman to another. But I don't mind admitting that her going off to the
+north has made me life a blank. If I'd thought she'd go, I should never
+have reported the affair at the Yard. But I was annoyed, and I'm rather
+hasty." He paused, and ended reflectively: "I committed follies to get a
+word with the young lady, and I didn't get it, but I'd do the same again."
+
+"And you a married man!" Audrey burst out, startled, and diverted, at the
+explanation, but at the same time outraged by a confession so cynical.
+
+The detective pulled a silky moustache.
+
+"When a wife is very strongly convinced that her sphere is the home," he
+retorted slowly and seriously, "you're tempted at times to let her have the
+sphere all to herself. That's the universal experience of married men, and
+ye may believe me, miss--madam."
+
+Audrey said:
+
+"And now Miss Foley's gone north, you've decided to come and admire _me_ in
+_my_ home!"
+
+"So it is your home!" murmured the detective with an uncontrolled quickness
+which wakened Audrey's old suspicions afresh--and which created a new
+suspicion, the suspicion that the fellow was simply playing with her. "I
+assure you I came here to recover; I'd heard it was the finest climate in
+England."
+
+"Recover?"
+
+"Yes, from fire-extinguishers. D'ye know I coughed for twenty-four hours
+after that reception?... And you should have seen my clothes! The doctor
+says my lungs may never get over it.... That's what comes of admiration."
+
+"It's what comes of behaving as no married man ought to behave."
+
+"Did I say I was married?" asked the detective with an ingenuous air.
+"Well, I may be. But I dare say I'm only married just about as much as you
+are yourself, madam."
+
+Upon this remark he raised his hat and departed along the grassy summit of
+the sea-wall.
+
+Audrey flushed for the second time that morning, and more strikingly than
+before. She was extremely discontented with, and ashamed of, herself, for
+she had meant to be the equal of the detective, and she had not been. It
+was blazingly clear that he had indeed played with her--or, as she put it
+in her own mind: "He just stuffed me up all through."
+
+She tried to think logically. Had he been pursuing the motor-car all the
+way from Birmingham? Obviously he had not, since according to Aguilar he
+had been in the vicinity of Moze since the previous morning. Hence he did
+not know that Audrey was involved in the Blue City affair, and he did not
+know that Jane Foley was at Frinton. How he had learnt that Audrey belonged
+to Moze, and why and what he had come to investigate at Moze, she could not
+guess. Nor did these problems appear to her to have an importance at all
+equal to the importance of hiding from the detective that she had been
+staying at Frinton. If he followed her to Frinton he would inevitably
+discover that Jane Foley was at Frinton, and the sequel would be more
+imprisonment for Jane. Therefore Audrey must not return to Frinton. Having
+by a masterly process of ratiocination reached this conclusion, she began
+to think rather better of herself, and ceased blushing.
+
+"Aguilar," she demanded excitedly, having gone back through the plantation.
+"Did Miss Ingate happen to say where I was staying last night?"
+
+"No, madam."
+
+"I must run into the house and write a note to her, and you must take it
+down instantly." In her mind she framed the note, which was to condemn Miss
+Ingate to the torture of complete and everlasting silence about the episode
+at the Blue City and the flight eastwards.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+FLIGHT
+
+
+"Fast, madam, did you say?" asked the chauffeur, bending his head back from
+the wheel as the car left the gates of Flank Hall.
+
+"Fast."
+
+"The Colchester road?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's really just as quick to take the Frinton road for Colchester--it's so
+much straighter."
+
+"No, no, no! On no account. Don't go near Frinton."
+
+Audrey leaned back in the car. And as speed increased the magnificence of
+the morning again had its effect on her. The adventure pleased her far more
+than the perils of it, either for herself or for other people, frightened
+her. She knew that she was doing a very strange thing in thus leaving the
+Spatts and her luggage without a word of explanation before breakfast; but
+she did not care. She knew that for some reason which she did not
+comprehend the police were after her, as they had been after nearly all the
+great ones of the movement; but she did not care. She was alive in the
+rushing car amid the magnificence of the morning. Musa sat next to her. She
+had more or less incompletely explained the situation to him--it was not
+necessary to tell everything to a boy who depended upon you absolutely for
+his highest welfare--such boys must accept, thankfully, what they received.
+And Musa had indeed done so. He appeared to be quite happy and without
+anxieties. That was the worst He had wanted to be with her, and he was with
+her, and he cared for nothing else. He had no interest in what might happen
+next. He yielded himself utterly to the enjoyment of her presence and of the
+magnificent morning.
+
+And yet Musa, whom Audrey considered that she understood as profoundly as
+any mother had ever understood any child--even Musa could surprise.
+
+He said, without any preparation:
+
+"I calculate that I shall have 3,040 francs in hand after the concerts,
+assuming that I receive only the minimum. That is, after paying the
+expenses of my living."
+
+"But do you know how much it costs you to live?" Audrey demanded, with
+careless superiority.
+
+"Assuredly. I write all my payments down in a little book. I have done so
+since some years."
+
+"Every sou?"
+
+"Yes. Every sou."
+
+"But do you save, Musa?"
+
+"Save!" he repeated the word ingenuously. "Till now to save has been
+impossible for me. But I have always kept in hand one month's subsistence.
+I could not do more. Now I shall save. You reproached me with having spent
+money in order to come to see you in England. But I regarded the money so
+spent as part of the finance of the concerts. Without seeing you I could
+not practise. Without practice I could not play. Without playing I could
+not earn money. Therefore I spent money in order to get money. Such,
+Madame, was the commercial side. What a beautiful lawn for tennis you have
+in your garden!"
+
+Audrey was more than surprised, she was staggered by the revelation of the
+attitude of genius towards money. She had not suspected it. Then she
+remembered the simple natural tome in which Musa had once told her that
+both Tommy and Nick contributed to his income. She ought to have
+comprehended from that avowal more than she, in fact, had comprehended. And
+now the first hopes of worldly success were strongly developing that
+unsuspected trait in the young man's character. Audrey was aware of a great
+fear. Could he be a genius, after all? Was it conceivable that an authentic
+musical genius should enter up daily in a little book every sou he spent?
+
+A rapid, spitting, explosive sound, close behind the car and a little to
+the right, took her mind away from Musa and back to the adventure. She
+looked round, half expecting what she should see--and she saw it, namely,
+the detective on a motor-cycle. It was an "Indian" machine and painted red.
+And as she looked, the car, after taking a corner, got into a straight bit
+of the splendid road and the motor-bicycle dropped away from it.
+
+"Can't you shake off that motor-bicycle thing?" Audrey rather
+superciliously asked the chauffeur.
+
+Having first looked at his mirror, the chauffeur, who, like a horse, could
+see in two directions at once, gazed cautiously at the road in front and at
+the motor-bicycle behind, simultaneously.
+
+"I doubt it, madam," he said. And yet his tone and glance expressed deep
+scorn of the motor-bicycle. "As a general rule you can't."
+
+"I should have thought you could beat a little thing like that," said
+Audrey.
+
+"Them things can do sixty when they've a mind to," said the chauffeur, with
+finality, and gave all his attention to the road.
+
+At intervals he looked at his mirror. The motor-bicycle had vanished into
+the past, and as it failed to reappear he gradually grew confident and
+disdainful. But just as the car was going down the short hill into the
+outskirts of Colchester the motor-bicycle came into view once more.
+
+"Where to, madam?" inquired the chauffeur.
+
+"This is Colchester, isn't it?" she demanded nervously, though she knew
+perfectly well that it was Colchester.
+
+"Yes, madam."
+
+"Straight through! Straight through!"
+
+"The London road?"
+
+"Yes. The London road," she agreed. London was, of course, the only
+possible destination.
+
+"But breakfast, madam?"
+
+"Oh! The usual thing," said Audrey. "You'll have yours when I have mine."
+
+"But we shall run out of petrol, madam."
+
+"Never mind," said Audrey sublimely.
+
+The chauffeur, with characteristic skill, arranged that the car should run
+out of petrol precisely in front of the best hotel in Chelmsford, which was
+about half-way to London. The motor-bicycle had not been seen for several
+miles. But scarcely had they resumed the journey, by the Epping road, when
+it came again into view--in front of them. How had the fellow guessed that
+they would take the longer Epping road instead of the shorter Romford road?
+
+"When shall we be arriving in Frinton?" Musa inquired, beatific.
+
+"We shan't be arriving in Frinton any more," said Audrey. "We must go
+straight to London."
+
+"It is like a dream," Musa murmured, as it were in ecstasy. Then his
+features changed and he almost screamed: "But my violin! My violin! We must
+go back for it."
+
+"Violin!" said Audrey. "That's nothing! I've even come without gloves." And
+she had.
+
+She reassured Musa as to the violin, and the chauffeur as to the abandoned
+Gladstone bag containing the chauffeur's personal effects, and herself as
+to many things. An hour and twenty minutes later the car, with three people
+in it, thickly dusted even to the eyebrows, drew up in the courtyard of
+Charing Cross railway station, and the motor-cycle was visible, its glaring
+red somewhat paled, in the Strand outside. The time was ten-fifteen.
+
+"We shall take the eleven o'clock boat train for Paris," she said to Musa.
+
+"You also?"
+
+She nodded. He was in heaven. He could even do without his violin.
+
+"How nice it is not to be bothered with luggage," she said.
+
+The chauffeur was pacified with money, of which Audrey had a sufficiency.
+
+And all the time Audrey kept saying to herself:
+
+"I'm not going to Paris to please Musa, so don't let him think it! I'm only
+going so as to put the detective off and keep Jane Foley out of his
+clutches, because if I stay in London he'll be bound to find everything
+out."
+
+While Musa kept watch for the detective at the door of the telegraph office
+Audrey telegraphed, as laconically as possible, to Frinton concerning
+clothes and the violin, and then they descended to subterranean marble
+chambers in order to get rid of dust, and they came up to earth again, each
+out of a separate cellar, renewed. And, lastly, Audrey slipped into the
+Strand and bought a pair of gloves, and thereafter felt herself to be
+completely equipped against the world's gaze.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+ARIADNE
+
+
+A few days later an automobile--not Audrey's but a large limousine--bumped,
+with slow and soft dignity, across the railway lines which diversify the
+quays of Boulogne harbour and, having hooted in a peculiar manner, came to
+a stop opposite nothing in particular.
+
+"Here we are," said Mr. Gilman, reaching to open the door. "You can see her
+masthead light."
+
+It was getting dark. Behind, over the station, a very faint flush lightened
+the west, and in front, across the water, and reflected in the water, the
+thousand lamps of the town rose in tiers to the lofty church which stood
+out a dark mass against the summer sky. On the quays the forms of men moved
+vaguely among crates and packages, and on the water, tugs and boats flitted
+about, puffing, or with the plash of oars, or with no sound whatever. And
+from the distance arrived the reverberation of electric trams running their
+courses in the maze of the town.
+
+Madame Piriac and Audrey descended, after Mr. Gilman, from the car and Mr.
+Gilman turned off the electric light in the interior and shut the door.
+
+"Do not trouble about the luggage, I beg you," said Mr. Gilman, breathing,
+as usual, rather noticeably. "_Bon soir_, Leroux. Don't forget to meet the
+nine-thirty-five." This last to the white-clad chauffeur, who saluted
+sharply.
+
+At the same moment two sailors appeared over the edge of the quay, and a
+Maltese cross of light burst into radiance at the end of a sloping gangway,
+whose summit was just perched on the solid masonry of the port. The sailors
+were clothed in blue, with white caps, and on their breasts they bore the
+white-embroidered sign: "_Ariadne, R.T.Y.C._"
+
+"Look lively, lads, with the luggage," said Mr. Gilman.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Then another figure appeared under the Maltese cross. It was clad in white
+ducks, with a blue reefer ornamented in gold, and a yachting cap crowned in
+white: a stoutish and middle-aged figure, much like Mr. Gilman himself in
+bearing and costume, except that Mr. Gilman had no gold on his jacket.
+
+"Well, skipper!" greeted Mr. Gilman, jauntily and spryly. In one moment, in
+one second, Mr. Gilman had grown at least twenty years younger.
+
+"Captain Wyatt," he presented the skipper to the ladies. "And this is Mr.
+Price, my secretary, and Doctor Cromarty," as two youths, clothed exactly
+to match Mr. Gilman, followed the skipper up the steep incline of the
+gangway.
+
+And now Audrey could see the _Ariadne_ lying below, for it was only just
+past low water and the tide was scarcely making. At the next berth higher
+up, with lights gleaming at her innumerable portholes and two cranes hard
+at work producing a mighty racket on her, lay a Channel steamer, which, by
+comparison with the yacht, loomed enormous, like an Atlantic liner. Indeed,
+the yacht seemed a very little and a very lowly and a very flimsy flotation
+on the dark water, and her illuminated deck-house was no better than a toy.
+On the other hand, her two masts rose out of the deep high overhead and had
+a certain impressiveness, though not quite enough.
+
+Audrey thought:
+
+"Is this what we're going on? I thought it was a big yacht." And she had a
+qualm.
+
+And then a bell rang twice, extremely sweet and mellow, somewhere on the
+yacht. And Audrey was touched by the beauty of its tone.
+
+"Two bells. Nine o'clock," said Mr. Gilman. "Will you come aboard? I'll
+show you the way." He tripped down the gangway like a boy. Behind could be
+heard the sailors giving one another directions about the true method of
+handling luggage.
+
+Audrey had met Madame Piriac by sheer hazard in a corset shop in the Rue de
+la Chaussée-d'Antin. The fugitive from justice had been obliged, in the
+matter of wardrobe, to begin life again on her arrival trunkless in Paris,
+and the business of doing so was not disagreeable. Madame Piriac had
+greeted her with most affectionate warmth. One of her first suggestions had
+been that Audrey should accompany her on a short yachting trip projected by
+Mr. Gilman. She had said that though the excellent Gilman was her uncle,
+and her adored uncle, he was not her real uncle, and that therefore, of
+course, she was incapable of going unaccompanied, though she would hate to
+disappoint the dear man. As for Monsieur Piriac, the destiny of France was
+in his hands, and the moment being somewhat critical, he would not quit the
+Ministry of Foreign Affairs without leaving a fixed telegraphic address.
+
+On the next day Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac had called on Audrey at the
+Hôtel du Danube, and the invitation became formal. It was pressing and
+flattering. Why refuse it? Mr. Gilman was obviously prepared to be her
+slave. She accepted, with enthusiasm. And she said to herself that in doing
+so she was putting yet another spoke in the wheel of the British police.
+Immediately afterwards she learnt that Musa also had been asked. Madame
+Piriac informed her, in reply to a sort of protest, that Musa's first
+concert was postponed by the concert agency until the autumn. "I never
+heard of that!" Audrey had cried. "And why should you have heard of it?
+Have you not been in England?" Madame Piriac had answered, a little
+surprised at Audrey's tone. Whereupon Audrey had said naught. The chief
+point was that Musa could take a holiday without detriment to his career.
+Moreover, Mr. Gilman, who possessed everything, possessed a marvellous
+violin, which he would put at the disposal of Musa on the yacht if Musa's
+own violin had not been found in the meantime. The official story was that
+Musa's violin had been mislaid or lost on the Métropolitain Railway, and
+the fact that he had been to England somehow did not transpire at all.
+
+Mr. Gilman had gone forward in advance to make sure that his yacht was in a
+state worthy to receive two such ladies, and he had insisted on meeting
+them in his car at Abbeville on the way to Boulogne. He had not insisted on
+meeting Musa similarly. He was a peculiar and in some respects a
+stiff-necked man. He had decided, in his own mind, that he would have the
+two women to himself in the car, and so indeed it fell out. Nevertheless
+his attitude to Musa, and Madame Piriac's attitude to Musa, and everybody's
+attitude to Musa, had shown that the mere prospect of star-concerts in a
+first-class hall had very quickly transformed Musa into a genuine Parisian
+lion. He was positively courted. His presence on the yacht was deemed an
+honour, and that was why Mr. Gilman had asked him. Audrey both resented the
+remarkable change and was proud of it--as a mother perhaps naturally would
+do and be. The admitted genius was to arrive the next morning.
+
+On boarding the _Ariadne_ in the wake of Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac, the
+first thing that impressed Audrey was the long gangway itself. It was made
+of thin resilient steel, and the handrails were of soft white rope, almost
+like silk, and finished off with fancy knots; and at the beginning of the
+gangway, on the dirty quay, lay a beautiful mat bearing the name of the
+goddess, while at the end, on the pale, smooth deck, was another similar
+mat. The obvious costliness of that gangway and those superlative mats made
+Audrey feel poor, in spite of her ten million francs. And the next thing
+that impressed her was that immediately she got down on deck the yacht, in
+a very mysterious manner, had grown larger, and much larger. At the forward
+extremity of the deck certain blue figures lounging about seemed to be
+quite a long way off, indeed in another world. Here and there on the deck
+were circles of yellow or white rope, coiled as precisely and perfectly as
+Audrey could coil her own hair. Mr. Gilman led them to the door of the
+deck-house and they gazed within. The sight of the interior drew out of the
+ravished Audrey an ecstatic exclamation: "What a darling!" And at the words
+she saw that Mr. Gilman, for all his assumed nonchalant spryness, almost
+trembled with pleasure. The deck-house was a drawing-room whose walls were
+of carved and inlaid wood. Orange-shaded electric bulbs hung on short, silk
+cords from the ceiling, and flowers in sconces showed brilliantly between
+the windows, which were draped with curtains of silk matching the thick
+carpet. Several lounge chairs and a table of bird's-eye maple completed the
+place, and over the table were scattered newspapers and illustrated
+weeklies. Everything, except the literature, was somewhat diminished in
+size, but the smallness of the scale only intensified the pleasure derived
+from the spectacle.
+
+Then they went "downstairs," as Audrey said; but Mr. Gilman corrected her
+and said "below," whereupon Audrey retorted that she should call it the
+"ground floor," and Mr. Gilman laughed as she had never heard a man of his
+age laugh. The sight of the ground floor still further increased Audrey's
+notion of the dimensions of the yacht, whose corridors and compartments
+appeared to stretch away endlessly in two directions. At the foot of the
+curving staircase Mr. Gilman, pulling aside a curtain, announced: "This is
+the saloon." When she heard the word Audrey expected a poky cubicle, but
+found a vast drawing-room with more books than she had ever seen in any
+other drawing-room, many pictures, an open piano, with music on it; sofas
+in every quarter, and about a thousand cupboards and drawers, each with a
+silver knob or handle. Above all was a dome of multi-coloured glass, and
+exactly beneath the dome a table set for supper, with the finest napery,
+cutlery and crystal. The apartment was dazzlingly lighted, and yet not a
+single lamp could be detected in the act of illumination. A real
+parlourmaid suddenly appeared at the far end of the room, and behind her
+two stewards in gilt-buttoned white Eton jackets and black trousers. Mr.
+Gilman, with seriousness, bade the parlourmaid take charge of the ladies
+and show them the sleeping-cabins.
+
+"Choose any cabins you like," said he, as Madame Piriac and Audrey rustled
+off.
+
+There might have been hundreds of sleeping-cabins. And there did, in fact,
+appear to be quite a number of them, to say nothing of two bathrooms. They
+inspected all of them save one, which was locked. In an awed voice the
+parlourmaid said, "That is the owner's cabin." At another door she said, in
+a different, disdainful voice, "That only leads to the galley and the
+crew's quarters." Audrey wondered what a galley could be, and the mystery
+of that name, and the mystery of the two closed doors, merely made the
+whole yacht perfect. The sleeping-cabins surpassed all else--they were so
+compact, so complex, so utterly complete. No large bedchamber, within
+Audrey's knowledge, held so much apparatus, and offered so much comfort and
+so much wardrobe room as even the least of these cabins. It was impossible,
+to be sure, that in one's amused researches one had not missed a cupboard
+ingeniously disguised somewhere. And the multiplicity of mirrors, and the
+message of the laconic monosyllable "Hot" on silver taps, and the
+discretion of the lighting, all indicated that the architect and creator of
+these marvellous microcosms had "understood." The cosy virtue of
+littleness, and the entire absurdity of space for the sake of space, were
+strikingly proved, and the demonstration amounted, in Audrey's mind, to a
+new and delicious discovery.
+
+The largest of the cabins had two berths at right angles to one another,
+each a lovely little bed with a running screen of cashmere. Having admired
+it once, they returned to it.
+
+"Do you know, my dear," said Madame Piriac in French, "I have an idea. You
+will tell me if it is not good.... If we shared this cabin...! In this so
+curious machine one feels a satisfaction, somehow, in being very near the
+one to the other. The ceiling is so low.... That gives you
+sensations--human sensations.... I know not if you experience the same...."
+
+"Oh! Let's!" Audrey exclaimed impulsively in English. "Do let's!"
+
+When the parlourmaid had gone, and before the luggage had come down, Madame
+Piriac caught Audrey to her and kissed her fervently on both cheeks, amid
+the glinting confusion of polished woods and draperies and silver mountings
+and bevelled glass.
+
+"I am so content that you came, my little one!" murmured Madame Piriac.
+
+The next minute the cabin and the corridor outside were full of open trunks
+and bags, over which bent the forms of Madame Piriac, Audrey and the
+parlourmaid. And all the drawers were gaping, and the doors of all the
+cupboards swinging, and the narrow beds were hidden under piles of
+variegated garments. And while they were engaged in the breathless business
+of installing themselves in the celestial domain, strange new thoughts
+flitted about like mice in Audrey's head. She felt as though she were in a
+refuge from the world, and as though her conscience was being narcotised.
+In that cabin, firm as solid land and yet floating on the water, with Mr.
+Gilman at hand her absolute slave--in that cabin the propaganda of women's
+suffrage presented itself as a very odd and very remote phenomenon, a
+phenomenon scarcely real. She had positively everything she wanted without
+fighting for it. The lion's share of life was hers. Comfort and luxury were
+desirable and beautiful things, not to be cast aside nor scorned. Madame
+Piriac was a wise woman and a good woman. She was a happy woman.... There
+was a great deal of ugliness in sitting on Joy Wheels and being chased by
+policemen. True, as she had heard, a crew of nineteen human beings was
+necessary to the existence of Mr. Gilman and his guests on board the yacht.
+Well, what then? The nineteen were undoubtedly well treated and in clover.
+And the world was the world; you had to take it as you found it.... And
+then in her mind she had a glimpse of the blissful face of Jane
+Foley--blissful in a different way from any other face she had met in all
+her life. Disconcerting, this glimpse, for an instant, but only for an
+instant! She, Audrey, was blissful, too. The intense desire for joy and
+pleasure surged up in her.... The bell which she had previously heard
+struck three; its delicate note vibrated long through the yacht, unwilling
+to expire. Half-past nine, and supper and the chivalry of Mr. Gilman
+waiting for them in the elegance of the saloon!
+
+As the two women approached the _portière_ which screened the forward
+entrance to the saloon, they heard Mr. Gilman say, in a weary and resigned
+voice:
+
+"Well, I suppose there's nothing better than a whisky and soda."
+
+And the vivacious reply of a steward:
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+The owner was lounging in a corner, with a gloomy, bored look on his face.
+But as soon as the _portière_ stirred and he saw the smiles of Madame
+Piriac and Audrey upon him, his whole demeanour changed in an instant. He
+sprang up, laughed, furtively smoothed his waistcoat, and managed to convey
+the general idea that he had a keen interest in life, and that the keenest
+part of that interest was due to a profound instinctive desire to serve
+these two beautiful benefactors of mankind--the idea apparently being that
+the charming creatures had conferred a favour on the human race by
+consenting to exist. He cooed round them, he offered them cushions, he
+inquired after their physical condition, he expressed his fear lest the
+cabins had not contained every convenience that caprice might expect. He
+was excited; surely he was happy! Audrey persuaded herself that this must,
+after all, be his true normal condition while aboard the yacht, and that
+the ennui visible on his features a moment earlier could only have been
+transient and accidental.
+
+"I am sure the piano is as wonderful as all else on board," said Madame
+Piriac.
+
+"Do play!" he entreated. "I love to hear music here. My secretary plays
+for me when I am alone."
+
+"I, who do not adore music!" Madame Piriac protested against the
+invitation. But she sat down on the clamped music stool and began a waltz.
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Gilman, dropping into a seat by Audrey. "I wish I danced!"
+
+"But you don't mean to say you don't," said Audrey, with fascination. She
+felt that she could fascinate him, and that it was her duty to fascinate
+him.
+
+Mr. Gilman responded to the challenge.
+
+"I suppose I do," he said modestly. "We must have a dance on deck one
+night. I'll tell my secretary to get the gramophone into order. I have a
+pretty good one."
+
+"How lovely!" Audrey agreed. "I do think the _Ariadne's_ the most heavenly
+thing, Mr. Gilman! I'd no idea what a yacht was! I hope you'll tell me the
+proper names for all the various parts--you know what I mean. I hate to
+use the wrong words. It's not polite on a yacht, is it?"
+
+His smile was entranced.
+
+"You and I will go round by ourselves to-morrow morning, Mrs. Moncreiff,"
+he said.
+
+Just then the steward appeared with the whisky and soda, but Mr. Gilman
+dismissed him with a sharp gesture, and he vanished back into the
+unexplored parts of the vessel. The implication was that the society of
+Audrey made whisky and soda a superfluity for Mr. Gilman. Although she was
+so young, he treated her with exactly the same deference as he lavished on
+Madame Piriac, indeed with perhaps a little more. If Madame Piriac was for
+him the incarnation of sweetness and balm and majesty, so also was Audrey,
+and Audrey had the advantage of novelty. She was growing, morally, every
+minute. The confession of Musa had filled her with a good notion of
+herself. The impulsive flattery of Madame Piriac in the joint cabin, and
+now the sincere, grave homage of Mr. Gilman, caused her to brim over with
+consciousness that she was at last somebody.
+
+An automobile hooted on the quay, and at the disturbing sound Madame Piriac
+ceased to play and swung round on the stool.
+
+"That--that must be our other lady guest," said Mr. Gilman, who had
+developed nervousness; his cheeks flushed darkly.
+
+"Ah?" cautiously smiled Madame Piriac, who was plainly taken aback.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Gilman. "Miss Thompkins. Before I knew for certain that
+Mrs. Moncreiff could come with you, Hortense, I asked Miss Thompkins if she
+would care to come. I only got her answer this morning--it was delayed. I
+meant to tell you.... You are a friend of Miss Thompkins, aren't you?" He
+turned to Audrey.
+
+Audrey replied gaily that she knew Tommy very well.
+
+"I'd better go up," said Mr. Gilman, and he departed, and his back, though
+a nervous back, seemed to be defying Madame Piriac and Audrey to question
+in the slightest degree his absolute right to choose his own guests on his
+own yacht.
+
+"Strange man!" muttered Madame Piriac. It was a confidence to Audrey, who
+eagerly accepted it as such. "Imagine him inviting Mees Thompkins without
+a word to us, without a word! But, you know, my dear uncle was always
+bizarre, mysterious. Yet--is he mysterious, or is he ingenuous?"
+
+"But how did he come to know Miss Thompkins?" Audrey demanded.
+
+"Ah! You have not heard that? Miss Thompkins gave a--a musical tea in her
+studio, to celebrate these concerts which are to occur. Musa asked the Foas
+to come. They consented. It was understood they should bring friends. Thus
+I went also, and Monsieur Gilman being at my orders that afternoon, he went
+too. Never have I seen so strange a multitude! But it was amusing. And all
+Paris has begun to talk of Musa. Miss Thompkins and my uncle became friends
+on the instant. I assume that it was her eyes. Also those Americans have
+vivacity, if not always distinction. Do you not think so?"
+
+"Oh, yes! And do you mean to say that on the strength of that he asked her
+to go yachting?"
+
+"Well, he had called several times."
+
+"Aren't you surprised she accepted?" asked Audrey.
+
+"No," said Madame Piriac. "It is another code, that is all. It is a
+surprise, but she will be amusing."
+
+"I'm sure she will," Audrey concurred. "I'm frightfully fond of her
+myself."
+
+They glanced at each other very intimately, like long-established allies
+who fear an aggression--and are ready for it.
+
+Then steps were heard. Miss Thompkins entered.
+
+"Well," drawled Miss Thompkins, gazing first at Audrey and then at Madame
+Piriac. "Of all the loveliest shocks----Say, Musa----"
+
+Behind her stood Musa. It appeared that he had been able to get away by the
+same train as Tommy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE NOSTRUM
+
+
+The hemisphere of heaven was drenched in moonlight, and--rare happening
+either on British earth or on the waters surrounding it, in mid-summer--the
+night was warm. In the midst of the glittering sea the yacht moved without
+the appearance of motion; only by leaning over the rail and watching the
+bubbles glide away from her could you detect her progress. There were no
+waves, no ripples, nothing but a scarcely perceptible swell. The gentle
+breeze, unnoticeable on deck, was abaft; all the sails had been lowered and
+stowed except the large square sail bent on a yard to the mainmast and
+never used except with such a wind. The _Ariadne_ had a strong flood tide
+under her, and her 200-h.p. twin motors were stopped. Hence there was no
+tremor in the ship and no odour of paraffin in the nostrils of those who
+chanced to wander aft of the engine-room. The deck awning had been rolled
+up to the centre, and at the four corners of its frame had been hung four
+temporary electric lights within Chinese lanterns. A radiance ascended from
+the saloon skylight; the windows of the deck-house blazed as usual, but the
+deck-house was empty; a very subdued glow indicated where the binnacle was.
+And, answering these signs of existence, could be distinguished the red and
+green lights of steamers, the firm rays of lighthouses, and the red or
+white warnings of gas-buoys run by clockwork.
+
+The figures of men and women--the women in pale gowns, the men in
+blue-and-white--lounged or strolled on the spotless deck which unseen hands
+swabbed and stoned every morning at 6 o'clock; and among these figures
+passed the figure of a steward with a salver, staying them with flagons,
+comforting them with the finest exotic fruit. Occasionally the huge square
+sail gave an idle flap. "Get that lead out, 'Orace," commanded a grim voice
+from the wheel. A splash followed, as a man straddled himself over the
+starboard bow, swung a weighted line to and fro and threw it from him.
+"Four." Another splash. "Four." Another splash. "Four." Another splash.
+"Three-half." Another splash. "Three-half." Another splash. "Three."
+Another splash. "Two-half." Another splash. "Three." Another splash.
+"Five." "That'll do, 'Orace," came the voice from the wheel. Then an
+entranced silence.
+
+The scene had the air of being ideal. And yet it was not. Something lacked.
+That something was the owner. The owner lay indisposed in the sacred
+owner's cabin. And this was a pity because a dance had been planned for
+that night. It might have taken place without the owner, but the strains of
+the gramophone and especially the shuffling of feet on the deck would have
+disturbed him. True, he had sent up word by Doctor Cromarty that he was not
+to be considered. But the doctor had delivered the message without any
+conviction, and the unanimous decision was that the owner must, at all
+costs, be considered.
+
+It was Ostend, on top of the owner's original offer to Audrey, that had
+brought about the suggestion of a dance. They had coasted up round
+Gris-Nez from Boulogne to Ostend, and had reached the harbour there barely
+in time to escape from the worst of a tempest that had already begun to
+produce in the minds of sundry passengers a grave doubt whether yachting
+was, after all, the most delightful of pursuits. Some miles before the
+white dome of the Kursaal was sighted the process of moral decadence had
+set in, and passengers were lying freely to each other, and boastfully
+lying, just as though somebody had been accusing them of some dreadful
+crime of cowardice or bad breeding instead of merely inquiring about the
+existence of physical symptoms over which they admittedly had no control
+whatever. The security of a harbour, with a railway station not fifty
+yards from the yacht's bowsprit, had restored them, by dint of calming
+secret fears, to their customary condition of righteousness and rectitude.
+Several days of gusty rainstorms had elapsed at Ostend, and the passengers
+had had the opportunity to study the method of managing a yacht, and to
+visit the neighbourhood. The one was as wondrous as the other. They found
+letters and British and French newspapers on their plates at breakfast. And
+the first object they had seen on the quay, and the last object they saw
+there, was the identical large limousine which they had left on the quay at
+Boulogne. It would have taken them to Ghent but for the owner's powerful
+objection to their eating any meal off the yacht. Seemingly he had a great
+and sincere horror of local viands and particularly of local water. He was
+their slave; they might demand anything from him; he was the very symbol of
+hospitality and chivalry, but somehow they could not compass a meal away
+from the yacht. Similarly, he would have them leave the Kursaal not later
+than ten o'clock, when the evening had not veritably begun. They did not
+clearly understand by what means he imposed his will, but he imposed it.
+
+The departure from Ostend was accomplished after the glass had begun to
+rise, but before it had finished rising, and there were apprehensions in
+the saloon and out of it, when the spectacle of the open sea, and the feel
+of it under the feet, showed that, as of old, water was still unstable. The
+process of moral decadence would have set in once more but for the prudence
+and presence of mind of Audrey, who had laid in a large stock of the
+specific which had been of such notable use to herself and Miss Ingate on
+previous occasions. Praising openly its virtues, confessing frankly her own
+weakness and preaching persuasively her own faith, she had distributed the
+nostrum, and in about a quarter of an hour had established a justifiable
+confidence. Mr. Gilman alone would not partake, and indeed she had hardly
+dared to offer the thing to so experienced a sailor. The day had favoured
+her. The sea grew steadily more tranquil, and after skirting the Belgian
+and French coasts for some little distance the _Ariadne_, under orders, had
+turned her nose boldly northward for the estuary of the Thames. The
+_Ariadne_ was now in the midst of that very complicated puzzle of deeps and
+shallows. The passengers, in fact, knew that they were in the region of the
+North Edinburgh, but what or where the North Edinburgh was they had only
+the vaguest idea. The blot on the voyage had been the indisposition of Mr.
+Gilman, who had taken to his berth early, and who saw nobody but his
+doctor, through whom he benignantly administered the world of the yacht.
+Doctor Cromarty had a face which imparted nothing and yet implied
+everything. He said less and meant more than even the average pure-blooded
+Scotsman. It was imparted that Mr. Gilman had a chronic complaint. The
+implications were vast and baffling.
+
+"We shall dance after all," said Miss Thompkins, bending with a mysterious
+gesture over Audrey, who reclined in a deck-chair near the companion
+leading to the deserted engine-room. Miss Thompkins was dressed in lacy
+white, with a string of many tinted beads round her slim neck. Her tawny
+hair was arranged in a large fluffiness, and the ensemble showed to a
+surprised Audrey what Miss Thompkins could accomplish when she deemed the
+occasion to be worthy of an effort.
+
+"Shall we? What makes you think so, dear?" absently asked Audrey, in whom
+the scene had induced profound reflections upon life and the universe.
+
+"He'll come up on deck," said Miss Thompkins, disclosing her teeth in an
+inscrutable smile that the moonbeams made more strange than it actually
+was. "Like to know how I know? Sure you'd like to know, Mrs. Simplicity?"
+Her beads rattled above Audrey's insignificant upturned nose. "Isn't a
+yacht the queerest little self-contained state you ever visited? It's as
+full of party politics as Massachusetts; and that's some. Well, I didn't
+use all my medicine you gave me. Didn't need it. So I've shared it with
+_him_. I got the empty packet with all the instructions on it, and I put
+two of my tablets in it, and if he hasn't swallowed them by this time my
+name isn't Anne Tuckett Thompkins."
+
+"But you don't mean he's been----"
+
+"Audrey, you're making a noise like a goose. 'Course I do."
+
+"But how did you manage to----"
+
+"I gave them to Mr. Price, with instructions to leave them by
+the--er--bedside. Mr. Price is a friend. I hope I've made that plain these
+days to everybody, including Mr. Gilman. Mr. Price is a good sample of
+what painters are liable to come to after they've found out they don't care
+for the smell of oil-tubes. I knew him when he always said 'Puvis' instead
+of 'Puvis de Chavannes.' He's cured now. If I hadn't happened to know he'd
+be on board I shouldn't have dared to come. He's my lifebuoy."
+
+"But I assure you, Tommy, Mr. Gilman refused the stuff from me. He did."
+
+"Oh! Dove! Wood-pigeon! Of course he refused it. He was bound to. Owner of
+a two-hundred-and-fifty-ton yacht taking a remedy for sea-sickness in
+public on the two-hundred-and-fifty-ton yacht! The very idea makes you
+shiver. But he'll take it down there. And he won't ask any questions. And
+he'll hide it from the doctor. And he'll pretend, and he'll expect
+everybody else to pretend, that he's never been within a mile of the
+stuff."
+
+"Tommy, I don't believe you."
+
+"And he's a lovely man, all the same."
+
+"Tommy, I don't believe you."
+
+"Yes, you do. You'd like not to, but you can't help it. I sometimes do
+bruise people badly in their organ of illusions-about-human-nature, but it
+is fun, after all, isn't it?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Getting down to the facts."
+
+Accompanied by the tattoo of her necklace, Miss Thompkins moved away in the
+direction of Madame Piriac, who was engaged with Musa.
+
+"Admit I'm rather brilliant to-night," she threw over her shoulder.
+
+The dice seem to be always loaded in favour of the Misses Thompkins of
+society. Less than a quarter of an hour later Doctor Cromarty, showing his
+head just above the level of the deck, called out:
+
+"Price, ye can wind up that box o' yours. Mr. Gilman is coming on deck.
+He's wonderful better."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+BY THE BINNACLE
+
+
+The owner was at the wheel. But he had not got there at once. This singular
+man, who strangely enough was wearing one of his most effulgent and
+heterogeneous club neckties, had begun by dancing. He danced with all three
+ladies, one after the other; and he did not merely dance--he danced
+modernly, he danced the new dances to the new tunes, given off like
+intoxicating gas from the latest of gramophones. He knew how to hold the
+arm of a woman above her head, while coiling his own around it in the
+manner of a snake, and he knew how to make his very body a vast
+syncopation. The effect of his arrival was as singular as himself. Captain
+Wyatt, Doctor Cromarty and Mr. Price withdrew to that portion of the deck
+about the wheel which convention had always roped off for them with
+invisible ropes. The captain, by custom, messed by himself, whereas the
+other two had their meals in the saloon, entering and leaving quickly and
+saying little while at table. But apart from meals the three formed a
+separate clan on the yacht. The indisposition of the owner had dissolved
+this clan into the general population of the saloon. The recovery of the
+owner re-created it. Mr. Price had suddenly begun to live arduously for the
+gramophone alone. And when summoned by the owner to come and form half of
+the third couple for dancing, Doctor Cromarty had the air of arousing
+himself from a meditation upon medicine. Also, the passengers themselves
+danced with conscientiousness, with elaborate gusto and with an earnest
+desire to reach a high standard. And between dances everybody went up to
+Mr. Gilman and said how lovely it all was. And it really was lovely.
+
+Mr. Gilman had taken the wheel after about the sixth dance. Approaching
+Audrey, who owed him the next dance, he had said that the skipper had
+hinted something about his taking the wheel and he thought he had better
+oblige the old fellow, if Audrey was quite, quite sure she didn't mind, and
+would she come and sit by him instead--for one dance?  ... As soon as two
+sailors had fixed cushions for Audrey, and the skipper had given the owner
+the course, all persons seemed to withdraw respectfully from the pair, who
+were in the shadow of a great spar, with the glimmer of the binnacle just
+in front of them. The square sail had been lowered, and the engines
+started, and a steady, faint throb kept the yacht mysteriously alive in
+every plank of her. The gramophone and the shuffle of feet continued,
+because Mr. Gilman had expressly desired that his momentary defection with
+a lady and in obedience to duty should not bring the ball to an end.
+Laughter and even giggles came from the ballroom. Males were dancing
+together. The power of the moon had increased. The binnacle-light, however,
+threw up a radiance of its own on to Mr. Gilman's lowered face, the face of
+a kind, a good, and a dependably expert individuality who was watching over
+the safety, the welfare and the highest interests of every soul on board.
+
+"I was very sorry to be laid up to-day," Mr. Gilman began suddenly, in a
+very quiet voice, frowning benevolently at the black pointer on the
+compass. "But, of course, you know my great enemy."
+
+"No, I don't," said Audrey gently.
+
+"Hasn't Doc told you?"
+
+"Doctor Cromarty? No, he doesn't tell much."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Gilman, looking round quickly and shyly, rather in the
+manner of a boy, "it's liver."
+
+Audrey seemed to read in his face, first, that Doctor Cromarty had received
+secret orders never to tell anybody anything, and, second, that the great
+enemy was not liver. And she thought: "So this is human nature! Mature
+men, wise men, dignified men, do descend to these paltry deceits just in
+order to keep up appearances, though they must know quite well that they
+don't deceive anyone who is worth deceiving." The remarkable fact was that
+she did not feel in the least shocked or disdainful. She merely
+decided--and found a certain queer pleasure in the decision--that human
+nature was a curious phenomenon, and that there must be a lot of it on
+earth. And she felt kindly towards Mr. Gilman.
+
+"If you'd said gout----" she remarked. "I always understood that men
+generally had gout." And she consciously, with intention, employed a
+simple, innocent tone, knowing that it misled Mr. Gilman, and wanting it to
+mislead him.
+
+"No!" he went on. "Liver. All sailors suffer from it, more or less. It's
+the bugbear of the sea. I have a doctor on board because, with a score or
+so of crew, it's really a duty to have a doctor."
+
+"I quite see that," Audrey agreed, thinking mildly: "You only have a doctor
+on board because you're always worrying about your own health."
+
+"However," said Mr. Gilman, "he's not much use to me personally. He doesn't
+understand liver. Scotsmen never do. Fortunately, I have a very good doctor
+in Paris. I prefer French doctors. And I'm sure they're right on the great
+liver question. All English doctors tell you to take plenty of violent
+exercise if you want to shake off a liver attack. Quite wrong. Too much
+exercise tires the body and so it tires the liver as well--obviously.
+What's the result? You can see, can't you? The liver works worse than ever.
+Now, a French doctor will advise complete rest until the attack is over.
+_Then_ exercise, if you like; but not before. Of course, _you_ don't know
+you've got a liver, and I dare say you think it's very odd of me to talk
+about my liver. I'm sure you do."
+
+"I don't, honestly. I like you to talk like that. It's very interesting."
+And she thought: "Suppose Tommy was wrong, after all! ... She's very
+spiteful."
+
+"That's you all over, Mrs. Moncreiff. You understand men far better than
+any other woman I ever saw, unless, perhaps, it's Madame Piriac."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Gilman! How can you say such a thing?"
+
+"It's not the first time you've heard it, I wager!" said Mr. Gilman. "And
+it won't be the last! Any man who knows women can see at once that you are
+one of the women who understand. Otherwise, do you imagine I should have
+begun upon my troubles?"
+
+Now, at any rate, he was sincere--she was convinced of that. And he looked
+very smart as he spied the horizon for lights and peered at the compass,
+and moved the wheel at intervals with a strong, accustomed gesture. And,
+assuredly, he looked very experienced. Audrey blushed. She just had to
+believe that there must be something in what he said concerning her talent.
+She had noticed it herself several times.
+
+In an interval of the music the sea washed with a long sound against the
+bow of the yacht; then silence.
+
+"I do love that sudden wash against the yacht," said Audrey.
+
+"Yes," agreed Mr. Gilman, "so do I. All doctors tell me that I should be
+better if I gave up yachting. But I won't. I couldn't. Whatever it costs in
+health, yachting's worth it."
+
+"Oh! It must be!" cried Audrey, with enthusiasm. "I've never been on a
+yacht before, but I quite agree with you. I feel as if I could live on a
+yacht for ever--always going to new places, you know; that's how I feel."
+
+"You do?" Mr. Gilman exclaimed and gazed at her for a moment with a sort of
+ecstasy. Audrey instinctively checked herself. "There's a freemasonry among
+those who like yachting." His eyes returned to the compass. "I've kept
+your secret. I've kept it like something precious. I've enjoyed keeping
+it. It's been a comfort to me. Now I wonder if you'll do the same for me,
+Mrs. Moncreiff?"
+
+"Do what?" Audrey asked weakly, intimidated.
+
+"Keep a secret. I shouldn't dream of telling it to Madame Piriac. Will you?
+May I tell you?"
+
+"Yes, if you think you can trust me," said Audrey, concealing, with amazing
+ease and skill, her excitement and her mighty pleasure in the scene.... "He
+wouldn't dream of telling it to Madame Piriac." ...It is doubtful whether
+she had ever enjoyed anything so much, and yet she was as prim as a nun.
+
+"I'm not a happy man, Mrs. Moncreiff. Materially, I've everything a man can
+want, I suppose. But I'm not happy. You may laugh and say it's my liver.
+But it isn't. You're a woman of the world; you know what life is; and yet
+experience hasn't spoilt you. I could say anything to you; anything! And
+you wouldn't be shocked, would you?"
+
+"No," said Audrey, hoping, nevertheless, that he would not say "anything,
+anything," but somehow simultaneously hoping that he would. It was a
+disconcerting sensation.
+
+"I want you always to remember that I'm unhappy and never to tell anybody,"
+Mr. Gilman resumed.
+
+"But why?"
+
+"It will be a kindness to me."
+
+"I mean, why are you unhappy?"
+
+"My opinions have all changed. I used to think I could be independent of
+women. Not that I didn't like women!  I did. But when I'd left them I was
+quite happy. You know what the facts of life are, Mrs. Moncreiff. Young as
+you are you are older than me in some respects, though I have a long life
+before me. It's just because I have a long life before me--dyspeptics are
+always long-lived--that I'm afraid for the future. It wouldn't matter so
+much if I was an old man."
+
+"But," asked Audrey adventurously, "why should you be unhappy because your
+opinions have changed? What opinions?" She endeavoured to be perfectly
+judicial and indifferent, and yet kind.
+
+"What opinions? Well, about Woman Suffrage, for instance. You remember that
+night at the Foas', and what I remarked afterwards about what you all
+said?"
+
+"Yes, I remember," said Audrey. "But can _you_ remember it? Fancy you
+remembering a thing like that!"
+
+"I remember every word that was said. It changed me.... Not at first. Oh,
+no! Not for several days, perhaps weeks. I fought against it. Then I said
+to myself, 'How absurd to fight against it!' ... Well, I've come to believe
+in women having the vote. You've no more stanch supporter than I am. I
+_want_ women to have the vote. And you're the first person I've ever said
+that to. I want _you_ to have the vote."
+
+He smiled at her, and she saw scores and scores of excellent qualities in
+his smile; she could not believe that he had any defect whatever. His
+secret was precious to her. She considered that he had confided it to her
+in a manner both distinguished and poetical. He had shown a quality which
+no youth could have shown. Youths were inferior, crude, incomplete. Not
+that Mr. Gilman was not young! Emphatically he was young, but her
+conception of the number of years comprised in youthfulness had been
+enlarged. She saw, as in a magical enlightenment, that forty was young,
+fifty was young, any age was young provided it had the right gestures. As
+for herself, she was without age. The obvious fact that Mr. Gilman was her
+slave touched her; it saddened her, but sweetly; it gave her a new sense of
+responsibility.
+
+She said:
+
+"I still don't see why this change of view should make you unhappy. I
+should have thought it would have just the opposite effect."
+
+"It has altered all my desires," he replied. "Do you know, I'm not really
+interested in this new yacht now! And that's the truth."
+
+"Mr. Gilman!" she checked him. "How can you say such a thing?"
+
+It now appeared that she was not a nice girl. If she had been a nice girl
+she would not have comprehended what Mr. Gilman was ultimately driving at.
+The word "marriage" would never have sounded in her brain. And she would
+have been startled and shocked had Mr. Gilman even hinted that there was
+such a word in the dictionary. But not being, after all, a nice girl, she
+actually dwelt on the notion of marriage with somebody exactly like Mr.
+Gilman. She imagined how fine and comfortable and final it would be. She
+admitted that despite her riches and her independence she would be and
+could be simply naught until she possessed a man and could show him to the
+world as her own. Strange attitude for a wealthy feminist, but she had the
+attitude! And, moreover, she enjoyed having it; she revelled in it. She
+desired, impatiently, that Mr. Gilman should proceed further. She thirsted
+for his next remark. And her extremely deceptive features displayed only a
+blend of simplicity and soft pity. Those features did not actually lie, for
+she was ingenuous without being aware of it and her pity for the
+fellow-creature whose lot she could assuage with a glance was real enough.
+But they did suppress about nine-tenths of the truth.
+
+"I tell you," said Mr. Gilman, "there is nothing I could not say to you.
+And--and--of course, you'll say I scarcely know you--yet----"
+
+Clearly he was proceeding further. She waited as in a theatre one waits for
+a gun to go off on the stage. And then the gun did go off, but not the gun
+she was expecting.
+
+Skipper Wyatt's head popped up like a cannon shot out of a hole in the
+forward deck, and it gazed sharply and apprehensively around the calm,
+moonlit sea. Mr. Gilman was, beyond question, perturbed by the movements of
+that head, though he could not see the expression of the eyes. This was
+the first phenomenon. The second phenomenon was a swirling of water round
+the after part of the ship, and this swirling went on until the water was
+white with a thin foam.
+
+"Reverse those d----d engines!" shouted Captain Wyatt, quite regardless of
+the proximity of refined women. He had now sprung clear of the hole and
+was running aft. The whole world of the yacht could not but see that he
+was coatless and that his white shirtsleeves, being rather long, were kept
+in position by red elastic rings round his arms. "Is that blithering
+engineer asleep?" continued Captain Wyatt, ignoring the whole system of
+yacht etiquette. "She's getting harder on every second!"
+
+"Ay, ay, skipper!" came a muffled voice from the engine-room.
+
+"And not too soon either!" snapped the captain.
+
+The yacht throbbed more violently; the swirling increased furiously. The
+captain stared over the rail. Then, after an interval, he stamped on the
+deck in disgust.
+
+"Shut off!" he yelled. "It's no good."
+
+The yacht ceased to throb. The swirling came to an end, and the thin white
+foam faded into flat sombre water. Whereupon Captain Wyatt turned back to
+the wheel, which, in his extreme haste, he had passed by.
+
+"You've run her on to the sand, sir," said he to Mr. Gilman, respectfully
+but still accusingly.
+
+"Oh, no! Impossible!" Mr. Gilman defended himself, pained by the charge.
+
+"She's hard on, anyhow, sir. And many a good yacht's left her bones on this
+Buxey."
+
+"But you gave me the course," protested Mr. Gilman, with haughtiness.
+
+Captain Wyatt bent down and looked at the binnacle. He was contentedly
+aware that the compass of a yacht hard aground cannot lie and cannot be
+made to lie. The camera can lie; the speedometer of an automobile after an
+accident can lie--or can conceal the truth and often does, but the compass
+of a yacht aground is insusceptible to any blandishment; it shows the
+course at the moment of striking and nothing will persuade it to alter its
+evidence.
+
+"What course did I give you, sir?" asked Captain Wyatt.
+
+And as Mr. Gilman hesitated in his reply, the skipper pointed silently to
+the compass.
+
+"Where's the chart? Let me see the chart," said Mr. Gilman with sudden
+majesty.
+
+The chart in its little brass frame was handy. Mr. Gilman examined it in a
+hostile manner; one might say that he cross-examined it, and with it the
+horizon. "Ah!" he muttered at length, peering at the print under the chart,
+"'Corrected 1906.' Out of date. Pity they don't re-issue these charts
+oftener."
+
+His observations had no relation whatever to the matter in hand; considered
+as a contribution to the unravelling of the matter in hand they were merely
+idiotic. Nevertheless, such were the exact words he uttered, and he
+appeared to get great benefit and solace from them. They somehow enabled
+him to meet, quite satisfactorily, the gaze of his guests who had now
+gathered in the vicinity of the wheel.
+
+Audrey alone showed a desire to move away from the wheel. The fact was that
+the skipper had glanced at her in a peculiar way and his eyes had seemed to
+say, with disdain: "Women! Women again!" Nothing but that!  The
+implications, however, were plain. Audrey may have been discountenanced by
+the look in the captain's eyes, but at the same time she had an inward
+pride, because it was undeniable that Mr. Gilman, owing to his extreme and
+agitated interest in herself, had put the yacht off the course and was
+thereby imperilling numerous lives. Audrey liked that. And she exonerated
+Mr. Gilman, and she hated the captain for daring to accuse him, and she
+mysteriously nursed the wounded dignity of Mr. Gilman far better than he
+could nurse it himself.
+
+Her feelings were assuredly complex, and they grew more complex when the
+sense of danger began to dominate them. The sense of danger came to her out
+of the demeanour of her companions and out of the swift appearance on deck
+of every member of the crew, including the parlourmaid, and including three
+men who were incompletely clothed. The yacht was no longer a floating
+hotel, automobile and dancing-saloon; it was a stranded wreck. Not a
+passenger on board knew whether the tide was making or ebbing, but,
+secretly, all were convinced that it was ebbing and that they would be left
+on the treacherous sand and ultimately swallowed up therein, even if a
+storm did not supervene and smash the craft to bits in the classical
+manner. The skipper's words about the bones of many a good yacht had
+escaped no ear.
+
+Further, not a passenger knew where the yacht was or whither, exactly, she
+was bound or whether the glass was rising or falling, for guests on yachts
+seldom concern themselves about details. Of course, signals might be made
+to passing ships, but signals were often, according to maritime history,
+unheeded, and the ocean was very large and empty, though it was only the
+German Ocean.... Musa was nervous and angry. Audrey knew from her intimate
+knowledge of him that he was angry and she wondered why he should be angry.
+Madame Piriac, on the other hand, was entirely calm. Her calmness seemed to
+say to those responsible, and even to the not-responsible passenger: "You
+got me into this and it is inconceivable that you should not get me out of
+it. I have always been looked after and protected, and I must be looked
+after and protected now. I absolutely decline to be worried." But Miss
+Thompkins was worried, she was very seriously alarmed; fear was in her
+face.
+
+"I do think it's a shame!" she broke out almost loudly, in a trembling
+voice, to Audrey. "I do think it's a shame you should go flirting with poor
+Mr. Gilman when he's steering." And she meant all she said.
+
+"Me flirting!" Audrey exclaimed, passionately resentful.
+
+Withal, the sense of danger continued to increase. Still there were the
+boats. There were the motor-launch, the cutter and the dinghy. The sea
+was--for the present--calm and the moon encouraging.
+
+"Lower the dinghy there and look lively now!" cried the captain.
+
+This command more than ever frightened all the passengers who, in their
+nervousness and alarm, had tried to pretend to themselves that nervousness
+and alarm were absurd, and that first-class yachts never did, and could
+not, get wrecked. The command was a thunderstroke. It proved that the
+danger was immediate and intense. And the thought of all the beautiful food
+and drink on board, and all the soft cushions and the electric hair-curlers
+and the hot-water supply and the ice gave no consolation whatever. The
+idea of the futility and wickedness of luxury desolated the guests and made
+them austere, and yet even in that moment they speculated upon what goods
+they might take with them.
+
+And why the dinghy, though it was a dinghy of large size? Why not the
+launch?
+
+After the dinghy had been dropped into the sea an old sail was carefully
+spread amidships over her bottom and she was lugged, by her painter,
+towards the bow of the yacht where, with much grating of windlasses and of
+temperaments and voices, an anchor was very gently lowered into her and
+rested on the old sail. The anchor was so immense that it sank the dinghy
+up to Her gunwale, and then she was rowed away to a considerable distance,
+a chain grinding after her, and in due time the anchor was pitched with a
+great splash into the water. The sound of orders and of replies vibrated
+romantically over the surface of the water. Then a windlass was connected
+with the engine, and the passengers comprehended that the intention was to
+drag the yacht off the sand by main force. The chain clacked and strained
+horribly. The shouting multiplied, as though the vessel had been a great
+beast that could be bullied into obedience. The muscles of all passengers
+were drawn taut in sympathy with the chain, and at length there was a lurch
+and the chain gradually slackened.
+
+"She's off!" breathed the captain. "We've saved a good half-hour."
+
+"She'd have floated off by herself," said Mr. Gilman grandly.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the captain. "But if it had happened to be the ebb, sir--"
+He left it at that and began on a new series of orders, embracing the
+dinghy, the engines, the anchor and another anchor.
+
+And all the passengers resumed their courage and their ancient notions
+about the excellence of luxury, and came to the conclusion that navigation
+was a very simple affair, and in less than five minutes were sincerely
+convinced that they had never known fear.
+
+Later, the impressive sight was witnessed of Madame Piriac, on her
+shoulders such a cloak as certainly had never been seen on a yacht before,
+bearing Mr. Gilman's valuable violin like a jewel casket. She had found it
+below and brought it up on deck.
+
+The _Ariadne_, was now passing to port those twinkling cities of delight,
+Clacton and Frinton, and the long pier of Walton stretched out towards it,
+a string of topazes. The moon was higher and brighter than ever, but clouds
+had heaped themselves up to windward, and the surface of the water was
+rippled. Moreover, the yacht was now working over a strong, foul tide. The
+company, with the exception of Mr. Gilman, who had gone below--apparently
+in order to avoid being on the same deck with Captain Wyatt--had decided
+that Musa should be asked to play. Although the sound of his practising had
+escaped occasionally through the porthole of a locked cabin, he had not
+once during the cruise performed for the public benefit. Dancing was
+finished. Why should not the yacht profit by the presence of a great genius
+on board? The doctor and the secretary were of one mind with the women that
+there was no good answer to this question, and even the crew obviously felt
+that the genius ought to show what he was made of.
+
+"Dare we ask you?" said Madame Piriac to the youth, offering him the violin
+case. Her supplicatory tone and attitude, though they were somewhat
+assumed, proved to what a height Musa had recently risen as a personage.
+
+He hesitated, leaning against the rail and nervously fingering it.
+
+"I know it is a great deal to ask. But you would give us so much pleasure,"
+said Madame Piriac.
+
+Musa replied in a dry, curt voice:
+
+"I should prefer not to play."
+
+"Oh! But Musa--" There was a general protest.
+
+"I cannot play," Musa exclaimed with impatience, and moved almost savagely
+away.
+
+The experience was novel for Madame Piriac, left standing there, as it
+were, respectfully presenting the violin case to the rail. This beautiful
+and not unpampered lady was accustomed to see her commands received as an
+honour; and when she condescended to implore, the effect usually was to
+produce a blissful and deprecatory confusion in the person besought. Her
+husband and Mr. Gilman had for a number of years been teaching her that
+whatever she desired was the highest good and the most complete felicity to
+everybody concerned in the fulfilment of the desire. She bore the blow from
+Musa admirably, keeping both her smile and her dignity, and with one
+gesture excusing Musa to all beholders as a capricious and a sensitive
+artist in whom moodiness was lawful. It was exquisitely done. It could not
+have been better done. But not even Madame Piriac's extreme skill could
+save the episode from having the air of a social disaster. The gaiety which
+had been too feverishly resumed after the salvage of the yacht from the
+sandbank expired like a pricked balloon. People silently vanished, and only
+Audrey was left on the after deck.
+
+It was after a long interval that she became aware of the reappearance of
+Musa. Seemingly, he had been in the engine-room; since the beginning of the
+cruise he had shown a fancy for both the engine-room and the engineer. To
+her surprise, he marched straight towards her deckchair.
+
+"I must speak to you," he said with emotion.
+
+"Must you?" Audrey replied, full of hot resentment. "I think you've been
+horrid, Musa. Perfectly horrid! But I suppose you have your own notions of
+politeness now. Everything has been done for you, and--"
+
+"What is that?" he stopped her. "Everything has been done for me. What is
+it that has been done for me? I play for years, I am ignored. Then I
+succeed. I am noticed. Men of affairs offer me immense sums.  But am I
+surprised? Not the least in the world. It is the contrary which would have
+surprised me. It was inevitable that I should succeed. But note well--it is
+I myself who succeed. It is not my friends. It is not the concert agent. Do
+I regard the concert agent as a benefactor? Again, not the least in the
+world. You say everything has been done for me. Nothing has been done for
+me, Madame."
+
+"Yes, yes," faltered Audrey, who was in a dilemma, and therefore more
+resentful than ever. "I--I only mean your friends have always stood by
+you." She gathered courage, sat up erect in her deck-chair, and finished
+haughtily: "And now you're conceited. You're insufferably conceited."
+
+"Because I refused to play?" He laughed stridently and grimly. "No. I
+refused to play because I could not, because I was outside myself with
+jealousy. Yes, jealousy. You do not know jealousy. Perhaps you are
+incapable of it. But permit me to tell you, Madame, that jealousy is one of
+the finest and most terrible emotions. And that is why I must speak to
+you. I cannot live and see you flirt so seriously with that old idiot. I
+cannot live."
+
+Audrey jumped up from the chair.
+
+"Musa! I shall never speak to you again.... Me ... flirt.... And you call
+Mr. Gilman an old idiot!"
+
+"What words would you employ, Madame? He was so agitated by your intimate
+conversation that he brought us all near to death, in any case. Moreover,
+it jumps to the eyes that the decrepit satyr is mad about you. Mad!"
+
+And Musa's voice broke. In the midst of all her fury Audrey was relieved
+that it did break, for the reason that it was getting very loud, and the
+wheel, with Captain Wyatt thereat, was not far off.
+
+There was one thing to do, and Audrey did it. She walked away rapidly. And,
+as she did so, she was startled to discover a sob in her throat. The drawn,
+highly emotionalised face of Musa remained with her. She was angry,
+indignant, infuriated, and yet her feelings were not utterly unpleasant,
+though she wanted them to be so. In the first place, they were exciting.
+And in the second place--what was it?--well, she had the strange, sweet
+sensation of being, somehow, the mainspring of the universe, of being
+immensely important in the scheme of things.
+
+She thought her cup was full. It was not. Staring blankly over the side of
+the ship she saw a buoy float slowly by. She saw it with the utmost
+clearness, and on its round black surface was painted in white letters the
+word "Flank." There could not be two Flank buoys. It was the Flank buoy of
+the Mozewater navigable channel. ... She glanced around. The
+well-remembered shores of Mozewater were plainly visible under the moon. In
+the distance, over the bowsprit, she could discern the mass of the tower of
+Mozewater church. She could not distinguish Flank Hall, but she knew it was
+there. Why were they threading the Mozewater channel? It had been
+distinctly given out that the yacht would make Harwich harbour. Almost
+unconsciously she turned in the direction of the wheel, where Captain Wyatt
+was. Then, controlling herself, she moved away. She knew that she could not
+speak to the captain. She went below, and, before she could escape, found
+the saloon populated.
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Moncreiff!" cried Madame Piriac. "It is a miraculous coincidence.
+You will never guess. One tells me we are going to the village of Moze for
+the night; it is because of the tide. You remember, I told you. It is where
+lives my little friend, Audrey Moze. To-morrow I visit her, and you must
+come with me. I insist that you come with me. I have never seen her. It
+will be all that is most palpitating."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+AGUILAR'S DOUBLE LIFE
+
+Madame Piriac came down into the saloon the next afternoon.
+
+"Oh! You are still hiding yourself here!" she murmured gaily to Audrey, who
+was alone among the cushions.
+
+"I was just resting," said Audrey. "Remember what a night we had!"
+
+It was true that the yacht had not been berthed at Lousey Hard until
+between two and three o'clock in the morning, and that no guest had slept
+until after the job was done, though more than one had tried to sleep. It
+was also true that in consequence the saloon breakfast had been abrogated,
+that even the saloon lunch lacked vicacity, and that at least one passenger
+was at that moment dozing in his cabin. But not on account of fatigue and
+somnolence was Audrey remaining in the saloon instead of taking the
+splendid summer afternoon on deck under the awning. She felt neither tired
+nor sleepy. The true secret was that she feared the crowd of village
+idlers, quidnuncs, tattlers and newsmongers who all day gazed from Lousey
+Hard at the wonder-yacht.
+
+Examining the line of faces as well as she could through portholes, she
+recognised nearly every one of them, and was quite sure that every one of
+them would recognise her face. To go ashore or to stay prominently on deck
+would, therefore, be to give away her identity and to be forced, sooner or
+later, to admit that she had practised a long and naughty deception. She
+could conceive some of those villagers greeting her loudly from the Hard if
+she should appear; for Essex manners were marked by strange freedoms. Her
+situation would be terrible. It, in fact, was terrible. Risks surrounded
+her like angry dogs. Musa, for example, ought surely to have noticed that
+the estuary in which the yacht lay was the same estuary which he had seen
+not long before from the garden of the house stated by Audrey to be her
+own, and he ought to have commented eagerly on the marvellous coincidence.
+Happily, he had not yet done so--no doubt because he had spent most of the
+time in bed. If and when he did so there would naturally be an excited
+outcry and a heavy rain of amazed questions which simply could not be
+answered.
+
+"I am going almost at once to call on my little friend Audrey Moze, at
+Flank Hall," said Madame Piriac. "The house looks delicious from the deck.
+If you will come up I will show it to you. It is precisely like the picture
+post card which the dear little one sent to me last year. Are you ready to
+come with me?"
+
+"But, darling, hadn't you better go alone?"
+
+"But certainly not, darling! You are not serious. The meeting will be very
+agitating. With a third person, however, it will be less so. I count on you
+absolutely, as I have said already. Nay, I insist. I invoke your
+friendship."
+
+"She may be out. She may be away altogether."
+
+"In that case we shall return," said Madame Piriac briefly, and, not giving
+Audrey time to reply further, she vanished, with a firm carriage and an
+obstinate look in her eyes, towards the sleeping-cabins.
+
+The next instant Mr. Gilman himself entered the saloon.
+
+"Mrs. Moncreiff," he started nervously, in a confidential and deprecating
+tone, "this is the first chance I have had to tell you. We came into
+Mozewater without my orders. I won't say against my orders, but certainly
+not with them. On the plea that I had retired, Captain Wyatt changed our
+destination last night without going through the formality of consulting
+me. We ought to have made Harwich, but I am now told that we were running
+short of paraffin, and that if we had continued to Harwich we should have
+had the worst of the tide against us, whereas in coming up Mozewater the
+tide helped us; also that Captain Wyatt did not care about trying to get
+into Harwich harbour at night with the wind in its present quarter, and
+rising as it was then. Of course, Wyatt is responsible for the safety of
+the ship, and it is true that I had her designed with a very light draught
+on purpose for such waters as Mozewater; but he ought to have consulted me.
+We might get away again on this tide, but Hortense will not hear of it. She
+has a call to pay, she says. I can only tell you how sorry I am. And I do
+hope you will forgive me." The sincerity and alarm of his manly apology
+were touching.
+
+"But, Mr. Gilman," said Audrey, with the simplicity which more and more she
+employed in talking to her host, "there is nothing to forgive. What can it
+matter to me whether we come here or go to Harwich?"
+
+"I thought, I was afraid--" Mr. Gilman hesitated.
+
+"In short ... your secret, Mrs. Moncreiff, which you asked me to keep, and
+which I have kept. It was here, at this very spot, with my old barge-yacht,
+that I first had the pleasure of meeting you. And I thought ... perhaps
+you had reasons.... However, your secret is safe."
+
+"How nice you are, Mr. Gilman!" Audrey said, with a gentle smile. "You're
+kindness itself. But there is nothing to trouble about, really. Keep my
+little secret by all means, if you don't mind. As for anything else--that's
+perfectly all right.... Shall we go on deck?"
+
+He thanked her without words.
+
+She was saying to herself, rather desperately:
+
+"After all, what do I care? I haven't committed a crime. It's nobody's
+business but my own. And I'm worth ten million francs. And if the fat's in
+the fire, and anything is found out, and people don't like it--well, they
+must do the other thing."
+
+Thus she went on deck, and her courage was rewarded by the discovery of a
+chair on the starboard side of the deck-house, from which she could not
+possibly be seen by any persons on the Hard. She took this chair like a
+gift from heaven. The deck was busy enough. Mr. Price, the secretary, was
+making entries in an account book. Dr. Cromarty was pacing to and fro,
+expectant. Captain Wyatt was arguing with the chauffeur of a vast motor-van
+from Clacton, and another motor-van from Colchester was also present on the
+Hard. Rows of paraffin cans were ranged against the engine-room hatchway,
+and the odour of paraffin was powerfully conflicting with the odour of
+ozone and possibly ammonia from the marshes. Parcels kept coming down by
+hand from the village of Moze. Fresh water also came in barrels on a lorry,
+and lumps of ice in a dog-cart. The arrival of six bottles of aspirin,
+brought by a heated boy on a bicycle, from Clacton, and seized with gusto
+by Dr. Cromarty, completed the proof that money will not only buy anything,
+but will infallibly draw it to any desired spot, however out of the way the
+spot may be. The probability was that neither paraffin nor ice nor aspirin
+had ever found itself on Lousey Hard before in the annals of the world. Yet
+now these things forgathered with ease and naturalness owing to the magic
+of the word "yacht" in telegrams.
+
+And over the scene floated the wavy, inspiring folds of the yacht's immense
+blue ensign, with the Union Jack in the top inside corner.
+
+Mr. Price went into the deck-house and began to count money.
+
+"Mr. Price," demanded Mr. Gilman urgently, "did you look up the facts about
+this village?"
+
+"I was just looking up the place in 'East Coast Tours,' sir, when the
+paraffin arrived," replied Mr. Price. "It says that Moze is mentioned in
+'Green's Short History of the English People.'"
+
+"Ah! Very interesting. That work is a classic. It really treats of the
+English people, and not solely of their kings and queens. Dr. Cromarty, Mr.
+Price is busy, will you mind bringing me the catalogue of the library up
+here?"
+
+Dr. Cromarty obeyed, and Mr. Gilman examined the typewritten, calf-bound
+volume.
+
+"Yes," said he. "Yes. I thought we had Green on board, and we have. I
+should like extremely to know what Green says about Moze. It must have been
+in the Anglo-Saxon or Norman period. Dr. Cromarty, will you mind bringing
+me up the first three volumes of Green? You will find them on shelf Z8.
+Also the last volume, for the index."
+
+A few moments later Mr. Gilman, with three volumes of Green on his knees
+and one in his hand, said reproachfully to Mr. Price:
+
+"Mr. Price, I requested you to see that the leaves of all our books were
+cut. These volumes are absolutely uncut."
+
+"Well, sir, I'm working through them as fast as I can. But I haven't got
+to shelf Z8 yet."
+
+"I cannot stop to cut them now," said Mr. Gilman, politely displeased.
+"What a pity! It would have been highly instructive to know what Green says
+about Moze. I always like to learn everything I can about the places we
+stop at. And this place must be full of historic interest. Wyatt, have you
+had that paraffin counted properly?" He spoke very coldly to the captain.
+
+It thus occurred that what John Richard Green said about Moze was never
+known on board the yacht _Ariadne_.
+
+Audrey listened to the episode in a reverie. She was thinking about Musa's
+intractability and inexcusable rudeness, and about what she should do in
+the matter of Madame Piriac's impending visit to Audrey Moze at Flank Hall,
+and through the texture of these difficult topics she could see, as it
+were, shining the sprightly simplicity, the utter ingenuousness, the
+entirely reliable fidelity of Mr. Gilman. She felt, rather than
+consciously realised, that he was a dull man. But she liked his dullness;
+it reassured her; it was tranquillising; it was even adorable. She liked
+also his attitude towards Moze. She had never suspected, no one had ever
+hinted to her, that Moze was full of historic interest. But looking at it
+now from the yacht which had miraculously wafted her past the Flank buoy at
+dead of night, she perceived Moze in a quite new aspect--a pleasure which
+she owed to Mr. Gilman's artless interest in things. (Not that he was
+artless in all affairs! No; in the great masculine affairs he must be far
+from artless, for had he not made all his money himself?)
+
+Then Madame Piriac appeared on deck, armed and determined. Audrey found,
+as hundreds of persons had found, that it was impossible to deny Madame
+Piriac. Beautiful, gracious, elegant, kind, when she would have a thing she
+would have it. Audrey had to descend and prepare herself. She had to
+reascend ready for the visit. But at the critical and dreadful moment of
+going ashore to affront the crowd she had a saving idea. She pointed to
+Flank Hall and its sloping garden, and to the sea-wall against which the
+high spring tide was already washing, and she suggested that they should be
+rowed thither in the dinghy instead of walking around by the sea-wall or
+through' the village.
+
+"But we cannot climb over that dyke," Madame Piriac protested.
+
+"Oh, yes, we can," said Audrey. "I can see steps in it from here, and I can
+see a gate at the bottom of the garden."
+
+"What a vision you have, darling!" murmured Madame Piriac. "As you wish,
+provided we get there."
+
+The dinghy, at Audrey's request, was brought round to the side of the yacht
+opposite from the Hard, and, screening her face as well as she could with
+an open parasol, she tripped down by the steps into it. If only Aguilar was
+away from the premises she might be saved, for the place would be shut up,
+and there would be nothing to do but return. Should Madame Piriac suggest
+going into the village to inquire--well, Audrey would positively refuse to
+go into the village. Yes, she would refuse!
+
+As the boat moved away from the yacht, Musa showed himself on deck. Madame
+Piriac signalled to him a salutation of the finest good humour. She had
+forgotten his pettishness. By absolutely ignoring it she had made it as
+though it had never existed. This was her art. Audrey, observing the
+gesture, and Musa's smiling reply to it, acquired wisdom. She saw that she
+must treat Musa as Madame Piriac treated him. She had undertaken the
+enterprise of launching him on a tremendous artistic career, and she must
+carry it through. She wanted to make a neat, clean job of the launching,
+and she would do it dispassionately, like a good workwoman. He had
+admitted--nay, he had insisted--that she was necessary to him. Her pride in
+that fact had a somewhat superior air. He might be the most marvellous of
+violinists, but he was also a child, helpless without her moral support.
+She would act accordingly. It was absurd to be angry with a child, no
+matter what his vagaries.... At this juncture of her reflections she
+noticed that Mr. Gilman and Miss Thompkins had quitted the yacht together
+and were walking seawards. They seemed very intimate, impregnated with
+mutual understanding. And Audrey was sorry that Mr. Gilman was quite so
+simple, quite so straightforward and honest.
+
+When the dinghy arrived at the sea-wall Audrey won the stalled admiration
+of the sailor in charge of the boat by pointing at once to the best--if not
+the only--place fit for a landing. The sailor was by no means accustomed to
+such _flair_ in a yacht's guests. Indeed, it had often astonished him that
+people who, as a class, had so little notion of how to get into or out of a
+dinghy could have succeeded, as they all apparently had, in any department
+of life.
+
+With continuing skill, Audrey guided Madame Piriac over the dyke and past
+sundry other obstacles, including a watercourse, to a gate in the wall
+which formed the frontier of the grounds of Flank Hall. The gate seemed at
+first to be unopenably fastened, but Audrey showed that she possessed a
+genius with gates, and opened it with a twist of the hand. They wandered
+through a plantation and then through an orchard, and at length saw the
+house. There was not a sign of Aguilar, but the unseen yard-dog began to
+bark, hearing which, Madame Piriac observed in French: "The property seems
+a little neglected, but there must be someone at home."
+
+"Aguilar is bound to come now!" thought Audrey. "And I am lost!" Then she
+added to herself: "And I don't care if I _am_ lost. What an unheard-of
+lark!" And to Madame Piriac she said lightly: "Well, we must explore."
+
+The blinds were nearly all up on the garden front. And one window--the
+French window of the drawing-room--was wide open.
+
+"The crisis will be here in one minute at the latest," thought Audrey.
+
+"Evidently Miss Moze is at home," said Madame Piriac, gazing at the house.
+"Yes, it is distinguished. It is what I had expected.... But ought we not
+to go to the front door?"
+
+"I think we ought," Audrey agreed.
+
+They went round the side of the house, into the main drive, and without
+hesitation Madame Piriac rang the front door bell, which they could plainly
+hear. "I must have my cards ready," said she, opening her bag. "One always
+hears how exigent you are in England about such details, even in the
+provinces. And, indeed, why not?"
+
+There was no answer to the bell. Madame Piriac rang again, and there was
+still no answer. And the dog had ceased to bark.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" she muttered. "Have you observed, darling, that all the
+blinds are down on this façade?"
+
+She rang a third time. Then, without a word, they returned slowly to the
+garden front.
+
+"How mysterious! _Mon Dieu!_ How English it all is!" muttered Madame
+Piriac. "It gives me fear."
+
+Audrey had almost decided definitely that she was saved when she happened
+to glance through the open window of the drawing-room. She thought she saw
+a flicker within. She looked again. She could not be mistaken. Then she
+noticed that all the dust sheets had been removed from the furniture, that
+the carpet had been laid, that a table had been set for tea, that there
+were flowers and china and a teapot and bread-and-butter and a kettle and a
+spirit-lamp on the table. The flicker was the flicker of the blue flame of
+the spirit-lamp. The kettle over it was puffing out steam.
+
+Audrey exclaimed, within herself:
+
+"Aguilar!"
+
+She had caught him at last. There were two cups and saucers--the best
+ancient blue-and-white china, out of the glass-fronted china cupboard in
+that very room! The celibate Aguilar, never known to consort with anybody
+at all, was clearly about to entertain someone to tea, and the aspect of
+things showed that he meant to do it very well. True, there was no cake,
+but the bread-and-butter was expertly cut and attractively arranged. Audrey
+felt sure that she was on the track of Aguilar's double life, and that a
+woman was concerned therein. She was angry, but she was also enormously
+amused and uplifted. She no longer cared the least bit about the imminent
+danger threatening her incognito. Her sole desire was to entrap Aguilar,
+and with deep joy she pictured his face when he should come into the room
+with his friend and find the mistress of the house already installed.
+
+"I think we had better go in here, darling," she said to Madame Piriac,
+with her hand on the French window. "There is no other entrance."
+
+Madame Piriac looked at her.
+
+"_Eh bien!_ It is your country, not mine. You know the habits. I follow
+you," said Madame Piriac calmly. "After all, my dear little Audrey ought
+to be delighted to see me. I have several times told her that I should
+come. All the same, I expected to announce myself.... What a charming
+room! So this is the English provinces!"
+
+The room was certainly agreeable to the eye. And Audrey seemed to see it
+afresh, to see it for the first time in her life. And she thought: "Can
+this be the shabby old drawing-room that I hated so?"
+
+The kettle continued to puff vigorously.
+
+"If they don't come soon," said Audrey, "the water will be all boiled away
+and the kettle burnt. Suppose we make the tea?"
+
+Madame Piriac raised her eyebrows.
+
+"It is your country," she repeated. "That appears to be singular, but I
+have not the English habits."
+
+And she sat down, smiling.
+
+Audrey opened the tea caddy, put three spoonfuls of tea into the pot, and
+made the tea.
+
+The clock struck on the mantelpiece. The clock was actually going. Aguilar
+was ever thorough in his actions.
+
+"Four minutes to brew, and if they don't come we'll have tea," said Audrey,
+tranquil in the assurance that the advent of Aguilar could not now be long
+delayed.
+
+"Do you take milk and sugar, darling?" she asked Madame Piriac at the end
+of the four minutes, which they had spent mainly in a curious silence. "I
+believe you do."
+
+Madame Piriac nodded.
+
+"A little bread-and-butter? I'm sorry there's no cake or jam."
+
+It was while Madame Piriac was stirring her first cup that the drawing-room
+door opened, and at once there was a terrific shriek.
+
+"Audrey!"
+
+The invader was Miss Ingate. Close behind Miss Ingate came Jane Foley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE TANK-ROOM
+
+
+"Did you get my letter?" breathed Miss Ingate weakly, after she had a
+little recovered from the shock, which had the appearance of being
+terrific.
+
+"No," said Audrey. "How could I? We're yachting. Madame Piriac, you know
+Miss Ingate, don't you? And this is my friend Jane Foley." She spoke quite
+easily and naturally, though Miss Ingate in her intense agitation had
+addressed her as Audrey, whereas the Christian name of Mrs. Moncreiff, on
+the rare occasions when a Christian name became necessary or advisable, had
+been Olivia--or, infrequently, Olive.
+
+"Yachting!"
+
+"Yes. Haven't you seen the yacht at the Hard?"
+
+"No! I did hear something about it, but I've been too busy to run after
+yachts. We've been too busy, haven't we, Miss Foley? I even have to keep my
+dog locked up. I don't know what you'll say. Aud--Mrs. Moncreiff! I really
+don't! But we acted for the best. Oh! How dreadfully exciting my life does
+get at times! Never since I played the barrel organ all the way down Regent
+Street have I--! Oh! dear!"
+
+"Have my tea, and do sit down, Winnie, and remember you're an Essex woman!"
+Audrey adjured her, going to the china cupboard to get more cups.
+
+"_I'll_ just tell you all about it, Mrs. Moncreiff, if you'll let me," Jane
+Foley began with a serene and happy smile, as she limped to a chair. "I'm
+quite ready to take all the consequences. It's the police again, that's
+all. I don't know how exactly they got on the track of the Spatts at
+Frinton. But I dare say you've seen that the police have seized a lot of
+documents at our head-quarters. Perhaps that explains it. Anyway I caught
+sight of our old friend at Paget Gardens nosing about, and so as soon as it
+was dark I left the Spatts. It's a horrid thing to say, but I never was so
+glad about anything as I was at leaving the Spatts. I didn't tell them
+where I was going, and they didn't ask. I'm sure the poor things were very
+relieved to have me go. Miss Ingate tells me to-day she's heard they've
+both resigned from the Union. Mr. Spatt went up to London on purpose to do
+it. And can you be surprised?"
+
+"Yes, you can, and yet you can't!" exclaimed Miss Ingate. "You can, and yet
+you can't!"
+
+"I met Miss Ingate on Frinton front," Jane Foley proceeded. "She was just
+getting into her carriage. I had my bag and I asked her to drive me to the
+station. 'To the station?' she said. 'What for? There's no train
+to-night.'"
+
+"No more there wasn't!" Miss Ingate put in, "I'd been dining at the
+Proctors' and it was after ten, I know it was after ten because they never
+let me leave until after ten, in spite of the long drive I have. Fancy
+there being a train from Frinton after ten! So of course I brought Miss
+Foley along. Oh! It was vehy interesting. Vehy interesting. You see we had
+to think of the police. I didn't want the police coming poking round my
+house. It would never do, in a little place like Moze. I should never hear
+the last of it. So I--I thought of Flank Hall. I----"
+
+Jane Foley went on:
+
+"Miss Ingate was sure you wouldn't mind, Mrs. Moncreiff. And personally I
+was quite certain you wouldn't mind. We left the carriage at Miss Ingate's,
+and carried the bag in turns. And I stood outside while Miss Ingate woke up
+Mr. Aguilar. It was soon all right."
+
+"I must say Aguilar was vehy reasonable," said Miss Ingate. "Vehy
+reasonable. And he's got a great spite against my dear Inspector Keeble. He
+suggested everything. He never asked any questions, so I told him. You do,
+you know. He suggested Miss Foley should have a bed in the tank-room, so
+that if there was any trouble all the bedrooms should look innocent."
+
+"Did he tell you I'd come here to see him not long since?" Audrey demanded.
+
+"And why didn't you pop in to see _me?_ I was hurt when I got your note."
+
+"Did he tell you?"
+
+"Of course he didn't. He never tells anybody anything. That sort of
+thing's very useful at times, especially when it's combined with a total
+lack of curiosity. He fixed every, thing up. And he keeps the gates locked,
+so that people can't wander in."
+
+"He didn't lock the gate at the bottom of the garden, because it won't
+lock," said Audrey. "And so he didn't keep me from wandering in." She felt
+rather disappointed that Aguilar should once more have escaped her reproof
+and that the dream of his double life should have vanished away, but she
+was determined to prove that he was not perfect.
+
+"Well, I don't know about that," said Miss Ingate. "It wouldn't startle me
+to hear that he knew you were intending to come. All I know is that Miss
+Foley's been here for several days. Not a soul knows except me and Aguilar.
+And it seems to get safer every day. She does venture about the house now,
+though she never goes into the garden while it's light. It was Aguilar had
+the idea of putting this room straight for her."
+
+"And it was he who cut the bread-and-butter," added Jane Foley.
+
+"And this was to be our first tea-party!" Miss Ingate half shrieked. "I'd
+come--I do come, you know, to keep an eye on things as you asked me--I'd
+come, and we were just having a cosy little chat in the tank-room.
+Aguilar's gone to Colchester to get a duplicate key of the front gates. He
+left me his, so I could get in and lock up after myself, and he put the
+water on to boil before leaving. I said to Miss Foley, I said, up in the
+tank-room: 'Was that a ring at the door?' But she said it wasn't."
+
+"I've been a little deaf since I was in prison," said Jane Foley.
+
+"And now we come down and find you here! I--I hope I've done right." This,
+falteringly, from Miss Ingate.
+
+"Of course you have, you silly old thing," Audrey reassured her. "It's
+splendid!"
+
+"Whenever I think of the police I laugh," said Miss Ingate in an unsettled
+voice. "I can't help it. They can't possibly suspect. And they're looking
+everywhere, everywhere!  I can't help laughing." And suddenly she burst
+into tears.
+
+"Oh! Now! Winnie, dear. Don't spoil it all!" Audrey protested, jumping up.
+
+Madame Piriac, who had hitherto maintained the most complete passivity,
+restrained her.
+
+"Leave her tranquil!" murmured Madame Piriac in French. "She is not
+spoiling it. On the contrary! One is content to see that she is a woman!"
+
+And then Miss Ingate laughed, and blushed, and called herself names.
+
+"And so you haven't had my letter," said she. "I wish you had had it. But
+what is this yachting business? I never heard of such goings-on. Is it your
+yacht? This world is getting a bit too wonderful for me."
+
+The answer to these questions was cut short by rather heavy masculine
+footsteps approaching the door of the drawing-room. Miss Ingate grew
+instantly serious. Audrey and Jane looked at each other, and Jane Foley
+went quickly but calmly to the door and opened it.
+
+"Oh! It's Mr. Aguilar--returned!" she said, quietly. "Is anything the
+matter, Mr. Aguilar?"
+
+Aguilar, hat in hand, entered the room.
+
+"Good afternoon, Aguilar," Audrey greeted him.
+
+"'Noon, madam," he responded, exactly as though he had been expecting to
+find the mistress there. "It's like this. I've just seen Inspector Keeble
+and that there detective as was here afore--_you_ know, madam" (nodding to
+Audrey) "and I fancy they're a-coming this way, so I thought I'd better cut
+back and warn ye. I don't think they saw me. I was too quick for 'em. Was
+the bread-and-butter all right, Miss Ingate? Thank ye."
+
+Miss Ingate had risen.
+
+"I ought to go home," she said. "I feel sure it would be wiser for me to go
+home. I never could talk to detectives."
+
+Jane Foley snatched at one of the four cups and saucers on the table, and
+put it back, all unwashed, into the china cupboard.
+
+"Three cups will be enough for them to see, if they come," she said, with a
+bright, happy smile to Audrey. "Yes, Miss Ingate, you go home. I'm ever so
+much obliged to you. Now, I'll go upstairs and Aguilar shall lock me in the
+tank-room and push the key under the door. We are causing you a lot of
+trouble, Mrs. Moncreiff, but you won't mind. It might have been so much
+worse." She laughed as she went.
+
+"And suppose I meet those police on the way out, what am I to say to them?"
+asked Miss Ingate when Jane Foley and Aguilar had departed.
+
+"If they're very curious, tell them you've been here to have tea with me
+and that Aguilar cut the bread-and-butter," Audrey replied. "The detective
+will be interested to see me. He chased me all the way to London not long
+since. Au revoir, Winnie."
+
+"Dear friend," said Madame Piriac, with admirable though false calm. "Would
+it not be more prudent to fly back at once to the yacht--if in truth this
+is the same police agent of whom you recounted to me with such drollness
+the exploits? It is not that I am afraid----"
+
+"Nor I," said Audrey. "There is no danger except to Jane Foley."
+
+"Ah! You cannot abandon her. That is true. Nevertheless I regret ..."
+
+"Well, darling," Audrey exclaimed. "You would insist on my coming!"
+
+The continuing presence of Miss Ingate, who had lost one glove and her
+purse, rendered this brief conversation somewhat artificial. And no sooner
+had Miss Ingate got away--by the window, for the sake of dispatch--than a
+bell made itself heard, and Aguilar came back to the drawing-room in the
+rôle of butler.
+
+"Inspector Keeble and a gentleman to see you, madam."
+
+"Bring them in," said Audrey.
+
+Aguilar's secret glance at Inspector Keeble as he brought in the visitors
+showed that his lifelong and harmless enemy had very little to hope from
+his goodwill.
+
+"Wait a moment, you!" called the detective as Aguilar, like a perfect
+butler, was vanishing. "Good afternoon, ladies. Excuse me, I wish to
+question this man." He indicated Aguilar with a gesture of apologising for
+Aguilar.
+
+Inspector Keeble, an overgrown mass of rectitude and kindliness, greeted
+Audrey with that constraint which always afflicted him when he was beneath
+any roof more splendid than that of his own police-station.
+
+"Now, Aguilar," said the detective, "it's you that'll be telling me. Ye've
+got a woman concealed in the house. Where is she?"
+
+He knew, then, this ferreting and divinatory Irishman!  Of course Miss
+Ingate must have committed some indiscretion, or was it that Aguilar was
+less astute than he gave the impression of being? Audrey considered that
+all was lost, and she was aware of a most unpleasant feeling of
+helplessness and inefficiency. Then she seemed to receive inspiration and
+optimism from somewhere. She knew not exactly from where, but perhaps it
+was from the shy stiffness of the demeanour of her old acquaintance,
+Inspector Keeble. Moreover, the Irishman's twinkling eyes were a challenge
+to her.
+
+"Oh! Aguilar!" she exclaimed. "I'm very sorry to hear this. I knew women
+were always your danger, but I never dreamt you would start carrying on in
+my absence."
+
+Aguilar fronted her, and their eyes met. Audrey gazed at him steadily.
+There was no smile in Audrey's eyes, but there was a smile glimmering
+mysteriously behind them, and after a couple of seconds this phenomenon
+aroused a similar phenomenon behind the eyes of Aguilar. Audrey had the
+terrible and god-like sensation of lifting a hired servant to equality with
+herself. She imagined that she would never again be able to treat him as
+Aguilar, and she even feared that she would soon begin to cease to hate
+him. At the same time she observed slight signs of incertitude in the
+demeanour of the detective.
+
+Aguilar replied coldly, not to Audrey, but to the police:
+
+"If Inspector Keeble or anybody else has been mixing my name up with any
+scandal about females, I'll have him up for slander and libel and damages
+as sure as I stand here."
+
+Inspector Keeble looked away, and then looked at the detective--as if for
+support in peril.
+
+"Do you mean to say, Aguilar, that you haven't got a woman hidden in the
+house at this very moment?" the detective demanded.
+
+"I'll thank ye to keep a civil tongue in your head," said Aguilar. "Or I'll
+take ye outside and knock yer face sideways. Pardon me, madam. Of course I
+ain't got no woman concealed on the premises. And mark ye, if I lose my
+place through this ye'll hear of it. And I shall put a letter in the
+_Gardeners' Chronicle_, too."
+
+"Well, ye can go," the detective responded.
+
+"Yes," sneered Aguilar. "I can go. Yes, and I shall go. But not so far but
+what I can protect my interests. And I'll make this village too hot for
+Keeble before I've done, police or no police."
+
+And with a look at Audrey like the look of a knight at his lady after a
+joust, Aguilar turned to leave the room.
+
+"Aguilar," Audrey rewarded him. "You needn't be afraid about your place."
+
+"Thank ye, m'm."
+
+"May I ask what your name is?" Audrey inquired of the detective as soon as
+Aguilar had shut the door.
+
+"Hurley," replied the detective.
+
+"I thought it might be," said Audrey, sitting down, but not offering seats.
+"Well, Mr. Hurley, after all your running after Miss Susan Foley, don't you
+think it's rather unfair to say horrid things about a respectable man like
+Aguilar? You were funny about that stout wife of yours last time I saw you,
+but you must remember that Aguilar can't be funny about his wife, because
+he hasn't got one."
+
+"I really don't know what you're driving at, miss," said Mr. Hurley simply.
+
+"Well, what were you driving at when you followed me all the way to London
+the other day?"
+
+"Madam," said Mr. Hurley, "I didn't follow you to London. I only happened
+to arrive at Charing Cross about twenty seconds after you, that was all. As
+a matter of fact, nearly half of the way you were following me."
+
+"Well, I hope you were satisfied."
+
+"I only want to know one thing," the detective retorted. "Am I speaking to
+Mrs. Olivia Moncreiff?"
+
+Audrey hesitated, glancing at Madame Piriac, who, in company with the vast
+Inspector Keeble, was carefully inspecting the floor. She invoked wisdom
+and sagacity from heaven, and came to a decision.
+
+"Not that I know of," she answered.
+
+"Then, if you please, who are you?"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Audrey. "You're in the village of Moze itself and you ask
+who I am. Everybody knows me. My name is Audrey Moze, of Flank Hall, Moze,
+Essex. Any child in Moze Street will tell you that. Inspector Keeble knows
+as well as anybody."
+
+Madame Piriac proceeded steadily with the inquiry into the carpet. Audrey
+felt her heart beating.
+
+"Unmarried?" pursued the detective.
+
+"Most decidedly," said Audrey with conviction.
+
+"Then what's the meaning of that ring on your finger, if you don't mind my
+asking?" the detective continued.
+
+Certainly Audrey was flustered, but only for a moment.
+
+"Mr. Hurley," said she; "I wear it as a protection from men of all ages who
+are too enterprising."
+
+She spoke archly, with humour; but now there was no answering humour in the
+features of Mr. Hurley, who seemed to be a changed man, to be indeed no
+longer even an Irishman. And Audrey grew afraid. Did he, after all, know of
+her share in the Blue City enterprise? She had long since persuaded herself
+that the police had absolutely failed to connect her with that affair, but
+now uncertainty was born in her mind.
+
+"I must search the house," said the detective.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I have to arrest a woman named Jane Foley," answered Mr. Hurley, adding
+somewhat grimly: "The name will be known to ye, I'm thinking.... And I have
+reason to believe that she is now concealed on these premises."
+
+The directness of the blow was terrific. It was almost worse than the blow
+itself. And Audrey now believed everything that she had ever heard or read
+about the miraculous ingenuity of detectives. Still, she did not regard
+herself as beaten, and the thought of the yacht lying close by gave her a
+dim feeling of security. If she could only procure delay!...
+
+"I'm not going to let you search my house," she said angrily. "I never
+heard of such a thing! You've got no right to search my house."
+
+"Oh yes, I have!" Mr. Hurley insisted.
+
+"Well, let me see your paper--I don't know what you call it. But I know you
+can't do anything-without a paper. Otherwise any bright young-man might
+walk into my house and tell me he meant to search it. Keeble, I'm really
+surprised at _you_."
+
+Inspector Keeble blushed.
+
+"I'm very sorry, miss," said he contritely. "But the law's the law. Show
+the lady your search-warrant, Mr. Hurley." His voice resembled himself.
+
+Mr. Hurley coughed. "I haven't got a search-warrant yet," he remarked. "I
+didn't expect----"
+
+"You'd better go and get one, then," said Audrey, calculating how long it
+would take three women to transport themselves from the house to the yacht,
+and perpending upon the probable behaviour of Mr. Gilman under a given set
+of circumstances.
+
+"I will," said Mr. Hurley. "And I shan't be long. Keeble, where is the
+nearest justice of the peace?... You'd better stay here or hereabouts."
+
+"I got to go to the station to sign on my three constables," Inspector
+Keeble protested awkwardly, looking at his watch, which also resembled
+himself.
+
+"You'd better stay here or hereabouts," repeated Mr. Hurley, and he moved
+towards the door. Inspector Keeble, too, moved towards the door.
+
+Audrey let them get into the passage, and then she was vouchsafed a new
+access of inspiration.
+
+"Mr. Hurley," she called, in a bright, unoffended tone. "After all, I see
+no reason why you shouldn't search the house. I don't really want to put
+you to any unnecessary trouble. It is annoying, but I'm not going to be
+annoyed." The ingenuous young creature expected Mr. Hurley to be at once
+disarmed and ashamed by this kind offer. She was wrong. He was evidently
+surprised, but he gave no evidence of shame or of the sudden death in his
+brain of all suspicions.
+
+"That's better," he said calmly. "And I'm much obliged."
+
+"I'll come with you," said Audrey. "Madame Piriac," she addressed Hortense
+with averted eyes. "Will you excuse me for a minute or two while I show
+these gentlemen the house?" The fact was that she did not care just then to
+be left alone with Madame Piriac.
+
+"Oh! I beg you, darling! "Madame Piriac granted the permission with
+overpowering sweetness.
+
+The procedure of Mr. Hurley was astonishing to Audrey; nay, it was
+unnerving. First he locked the front door and the garden door and pocketed
+the keys. Then he locked the drawing-room on the passage side and pocketed
+that key. He instructed Inspector Keeble to remain in the hall at the foot
+of the stairs. He next went into the kitchen and the sculleries and locked
+the outer doors in that quarter. Then he descended to the cellars, with
+Audrey always in his wake. Having searched the cellars and the ground
+floor, he went upstairs, and examined in turn all the bedrooms with a
+thoroughness and particularity which caused Audrey to blush. He left
+nothing whatever to chance, and no dust sheet was undisturbed. Audrey said
+no word. The detective said no word. But Audrey kept thinking: "He is
+getting nearer to the tank-room." A small staircase led to the attic floor,
+upon which were only servants' bedrooms and the tank-room. After he had
+mounted this staircase and gone a little way along the passage he swiftly
+and without warning dashed back and down the staircase. But nothing seemed
+to happen, and he returned. The three doors of the three servants' bedrooms
+were all ajar. Mr. Hurley passed each of them with a careless glance
+within. At the end of the corridor, in obscurity, was the door of the
+tank-room.
+
+"What's this?" he asked abruptly. And he knocked nonchalantly on the door
+of the tank-room.
+
+Audrey was acutely alarmed lest Jane Foley should respond, thinking the
+knock was that of a friend. She saw how idiotic she had been not to warn
+Jane by means of loud conversation with the detective.
+
+"That's the tank-room," she said loudly. "I'm afraid it's locked."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Mr. Hurley negligently, and he turned the searchlight of his
+gaze upon the three bedrooms, which he examined as carefully as he had
+examined anything in the house. The failure to discover in any cupboard or
+corner even the shadow of a human being did not appear to discourage him in
+the slightest degree. In the third bedroom--that is to say, the one nearest
+the head of the stairs and farthest from the tank-room--he suddenly
+beckoned to Audrey, who was standing in the doorway. She went within the
+room and he pushed the door to, without, however, quite shutting it.
+
+"Now about the tank-room, Miss Moze," he began quietly. "You say it's
+locked?"
+
+"Yes," said the quaking Audrey.
+
+"As a matter of form I'd better just look in. Will you kindly let me have
+the key?"
+
+"I can't," said Audrey.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Audrey acquired tranquillity as she went on: "It's at Frinton. Friends of
+mine there keep a punt on Mozewater, and I let them store the sail and
+things in the tank-room. There's plenty of room. I give them the key
+because that's more satisfactory. The tank-room isn't wanted at all, you
+see, while I'm away from home."
+
+"Who are these friends?"
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Spatt," said Audrey at a venture.
+
+"I see," said the detective.
+
+They came downstairs, and the detective made it known that he would
+re-visit the drawing-room. Inspector Keeble followed them. In that room
+Audrey remarked:
+
+"And now I hope you're satisfied."
+
+Mr. Hurley merely said:
+
+"Will you please ring for Aguilar?"
+
+Audrey complied. But she had to ring three times before the gardener's
+footsteps were heard on the uncarpeted stone floor of the hall.
+
+"Aguilar," Mr. Hurley demanded. "Where is the key of the tank-room?"
+
+Audrey sank into a chair, knowing profoundly that all was lost.
+
+"It's at Mrs. Spatt's at Frinton," replied Aguilar glibly. "Mistress lets
+her have that room to store some boat-gear in. I expected she'd ha' been
+over before this to get it out. But the yachting season seems to start
+later and later every year these times."
+
+Audrey gazed at the man as at a miracle-worker.
+
+"Well, I think that's all," said Mr. Hurley.
+
+"No, it isn't," Audrey corrected him. "You've got all my keys in your
+pocket--except one."
+
+When the police had gone Audrey said to Aguilar in the hall:
+
+"Aguilar, how on earth did you----"
+
+But she was in such a state of emotion at the realisation of dangers
+affronted and past that she could not finish.
+
+"I'm sorry I was so long answering the bell, m'm," replied Aguilar
+strangely. "But I'd put my list slippers on--them as your father made me
+wear when I come into the house, mornings, to change the plants, and I
+thought it better to put my boots on again before I come.... Shall I put
+the keys back in the doors, madam?"
+
+So saying he touched his front hair, after his manner, and took the keys
+and retired. Audrey was as full of fear as of gratitude. Aguilar daunted
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE THIRD SORT OF WOMAN
+
+
+"It was quite true what I told the detective. So I suppose you've finished
+with me for evermore!" Audrey burst out recklessly, as soon as she and
+Madame Piriac were alone together. The supreme moment had come, and she
+tried to grasp it like a nettle. Her adventurous rashness was, she
+admitted, undeniable. She had spoken the truth to the police officer about
+her identity and her spinsterhood because with unusual wisdom she judged
+that fibs or even prevarication on such a subject to such an audience might
+entangle her in far more serious difficulties later on. Moreover, with
+Inspector Keeble present, she could not successfully have gone very far
+from the truth. It was a pity that Madame Piriac had witnessed the scene,
+for really, when Audrey came to face it, the deception which she had
+practised upon Madame Piriac was of a monstrous and inexcusable kind. And
+now that Madame Piriac knew the facts, many other people would have to know
+the facts--including probably Mr. Gilman. The prospect of explanations was
+terrible. In vain Audrey said to herself that the thing was naught, that
+she had acted within her rights, and that anyhow she had long ago ceased to
+be diffident and shy!... She was intimidated by her own enormities. And she
+also thought: "How could I have been silly enough to tell that silly tale
+about the Spatts? More complications. And poor dear Inspector Keeble will
+be so shocked."
+
+After a short pause Madame Piriac replied, in a grave but kind tone:
+
+"Why would you that I should have finished with you for ever? You had the
+right to call yourself by any name you wished, and to wear any ring-that
+pleased your caprice. It is the affair of nobody but yourself."
+
+"Oh! I'm so glad you take it like that," said Audrey with eager relief.
+"That's just what _I_ thought all along!"
+
+"But it _is_ your affair!" Madame Piriac finished, with a peculiar
+inflection of her well-controlled voice. "I mean," she added, "you cannot
+afford to neglect it."
+
+"No--of course not," Audrey agreed, rather dashed, and with a vague new
+apprehension. "Naturally I shall tell you everything, darling. I had my
+reasons. I----"
+
+"The principal question is, darling," Madame Piriac stopped her. "What are
+you going to do now? Ought we not to return to the yacht?"
+
+"But I must look after Jane Foley!" cried Audrey. "I can't leave her here."
+
+"And why not? She has Miss Ingate."
+
+"Yes, worse luck for her! Winnie would make the most dreadful mess of
+things if she wasn't stopped. If Winnie was right out of it, and Jane Foley
+had only herself and Aguilar to count on, there might be a chance. But not
+else."
+
+"It is by pure hazard that you are here. Nobody expected you. What would
+this young girl Mees Foley have done if you had not been here?"
+
+"It's no good wasting time about that, darling, because I _am_ here, don't
+you see?" Audrey straightened her shoulders and put her hands behind her
+back.
+
+"My little one," said Madame Piriac with a certain solemnity. "You remember
+our conversation in my boudoir. I then told you that you would find
+yourself in a riot within a month, if you continued your course. Was I
+right?  Happily you have escaped from that horrible complication. Go no
+farther. Listen to me. You were not created for these adventures. It is
+impossible that you should be happy in them."
+
+"But look at Jane Foley," said Audrey eagerly. "Is she not happy? Did you
+ever see anybody as happy as Jane?  I never did."
+
+"That is not happiness," replied Madame Piriac. "That is exaltation. It is
+morbid. I do not say that it is not right for her. I do not say that she is
+not justified, and that that which she represents is not justified. But I
+say that a rôle such as hers is not your rôle. To commence, she does not
+interest herself in men. For her there are no men in the world--there are
+only political enemies. Do you think I do not know the type? We have it,
+_chez nous_. It is full of admirable qualities--but it is not your type.
+For you, darling, the world is inhabited principally by men, and the time
+will come--perhaps soon--when for you it will be inhabited principally by
+one man. If you remain obdurate, there must inevitably arrive a quarrel
+between that man and these--these riotous adventures."
+
+"No man that I could possibly care for," Audrey retorted, "would ever
+object to me having an active interest in--er--politics."
+
+"I agree, darling," said Madame Piriac. "He would not object. It is you who
+would object. The quarrel would occur within your own heart. There are two
+sorts of women--individualists and fanatics. It was always so. I am a
+woman, and I know what I'm saying. So do you. Well, you belong to the first
+sort of woman."
+
+"I don't," Audrey protested. Nevertheless she recollected her thoughts on
+the previous night, near the binnacle and Mr. Gilman, about the
+indispensability of a man and about the futility of the state of not owning
+and possessing a man. The memory of these thoughts only rendered her more
+obstinate.
+
+"But you will not have the courage to tell me that you are a fanatic?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then what?"
+
+"There is a third sort of woman."
+
+"Darling, believe me, there is not."
+
+"There's going to be, anyhow!" said Audrey with decision, and in English.
+"And I won't leave Jane Foley in the lurch, either!... Now I'll just run up
+and have a talk with her, if you don't mind waiting a minute or two."
+
+"But what are you going to do?" Madame Piriac demanded.
+
+"Well," said Audrey. "It is obvious that there is only one safe thing to
+do. I shall take Jane on board the yacht. We shall sail off, and she'll be
+safe."
+
+"On the yacht!" repeated Madame Piriac, truly astounded. "But my poor oncle
+will never agree. You do not know him. You do not know how peculiar he is.
+Never will he agree! Besides----"
+
+"Darling," said Audrey quietly and confidently. "If he does not agree, I
+undertake to go into a convent for the rest of my days."
+
+Madame Piriac was silent.
+
+Just as she was opening the door to go upstairs, Audrey suddenly turned
+back into the room.
+
+"Darling," she said, kissing Madame Piriac. "How calmly you've taken it!"
+
+"Taken what?"
+
+"About me not being Mrs. Moncreiff nor a widow nor anything of that kind."
+
+"But, darling," answered Madame Piriac with exquisite tranquillity. "Of
+course I knew it before."
+
+"You knew it before!"
+
+"Certainly. I knew it the first time I saw you, in the studio of
+Mademoiselle Nickall. You were the image of your father! The image, I
+repeat--except perhaps the nose. Recollect that as a child I saw your
+father. I was left with my mother's relatives, until matters should be
+arranged; but he came to Paris. Then before matters could be arranged my
+mother died, and I never saw him again. But I could never forget him....
+Then also, in my boudoir that night, you blushed--it was very amusing--when
+I mentioned Essex and Audrey Moze. And there were other things."
+
+"For instance?"
+
+"Darling, you were never quite convincing as a widow--at any rate to a
+Frenchwoman. You may have deceived American and English women. But not
+myself. You did not say the convincing things when the conversation took
+certain turns. That is all."
+
+"You knew who I was, and you never told me!" Audrey pouted.
+
+"Had I the right, darling? You had decided upon your identity. It would
+have been inexcusable on my part to inform you that you were mistaken in so
+essential a detail."
+
+Madame Piriac gently returned Audrey's kiss.
+
+"So that was why you insisted on me coming with you to-day!" murmured
+Audrey, crestfallen. "You are a marvellous actress, darling."
+
+"I have several times been told so," Madame Piriac admitted simply.
+
+"What on earth did you expect would happen?"
+
+"Not that which has happened," said Madame Piriac.
+
+"Well, if you ask me," said Audrey with gaiety and a renewal of
+self-confidence. "I think it's all happened splendidly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+IN THE DINGHY
+
+
+When the pair got back to the sea-wall the tide had considerably ebbed, and
+where the dinghy had floated there was nothing more liquid than exquisitely
+coloured mud. Nevertheless water still lapped the yacht, whereas on the
+shore side of the yacht was now no crowd. The vans and carts had all
+departed, and the quidnuncs and observers of human nature, having gazed
+steadily at the yacht for some ten hours, had thought fit to depart also.
+The two women looked about rather anxiously, as though Mr. Gilman had
+basely marooned them.
+
+"But what must we do?" demanded Madame Piriac.
+
+"Oh! We can walk round on the dyke," said Audrey superiorly. "Unless the
+stiles frighten you."
+
+"It is about to rain," said Madame Piriac, glancing at the high curved
+heels of her shoes.
+
+The sky, which was very wide and variegated over Mozewater, did indeed seem
+to threaten.
+
+At that moment the dinghy appeared round the forefoot of the _Ariadne_. Mr.
+Gilman and Miss Thompkins were in it, and Mr. Gilman was rowing with
+gentleness and dignity. They had, even afar off, a tremendous air of
+intimacy; each leaned towards the other, face to face, and Tommy had her
+chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees. And in addition to an air of
+intimacy they had an air of mystery. It was surprising, and perhaps a
+little annoying, to Audrey that those two should have gone on living to
+themselves, in their own self-absorbed way, while such singular events had
+been happening to herself in Flank Hall. She put several fingers in her
+mouth and produced a piercing long-distance whistle which effectively
+reached the dinghy.
+
+"My poor little one!" exclaimed Madame Piriac, shocked in spite of her
+broadmindedness by both the sound and the manner of its production.
+
+"Oh! I learnt that when I was twelve," said Audrey. "It took me four
+months, but I did it. And nobody except Miss Ingate knows that I can do
+it."
+
+The occupants of the dinghy were signalling their intention to rescue, and
+Mr. Gilman used his back nobly.
+
+"But we cannot embark here!" Madame Piriac complained.
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Audrey. "You see those white stones? ... It's quite easy."
+
+When the dinghy had done about half the journey Madame Piriac murmured:
+
+"By the way, who are you, precisely, for the present?  It would be prudent
+to decide, darling."
+
+Audrey hesitated an instant.
+
+"Who am I? ... Oh! I see. Well, I'd better keep on being Mrs. Moncreiff for
+a bit, hadn't I?"
+
+"It is as you please, darling."
+
+The fact was that Audrey recoiled from a general confession, though
+admitting it to be ultimately inevitable. Moreover, she had a slight fear
+that each of her friends in turn might make a confession ridiculous by
+saying: "We knew all along, of course."
+
+The dinghy was close in.
+
+"My!" cried Tommy. "Who did that whistle? It was enough to beat the cars."
+
+"Wouldn't you like to know!" Audrey retorted.
+
+The embarkation, under Audrey's direction, was accomplished in safety, and,
+save for one tiny French scream, in silence. The silence, which persisted,
+was peculiar. Each pair should have had something to tell the other, yet
+nothing was told, or even asked. Mr. Gilman rowed with careful science, and
+brought the dinghy alongside the yacht in an unexceptionable manner. Musa
+stood on deck apart, acting indifference. Madame Piriac, having climbed
+into the _Ariadne_, went below at once. Miss Thompkins, seeing her friend
+Mr. Price half-way down the saloon companion, moved to speak to him, and
+they vanished together. Mr. Gilman was respectfully informed by the
+engineer that the skipper and Dr. Cromarty were ashore.
+
+"How nice it is on the water!" said Audrey to Mr. Gilman in a low, gentle
+voice. "There is a channel round there with three feet of water in it at
+low tide." She sketched a curve in the air with her finger. "Of course you
+know this part," said Mr. Gilman cautiously and even apprehensively. His
+glance seemed to be saying: "And it was you who gave that fearful whistle,
+too! Are you, can you be, all that I dreamed?"
+
+"I do," Audrey answered. "Would you like me to show it you."
+
+"I should be more than delighted," said Mr. Gilman.
+
+With a gesture he summoned a man to untie the dinghy again and hold it, and
+the man slid down into the dinghy like a monkey.
+
+"I'll pull," said Audrey, in the boat.
+
+The man sprang out of the dinghy.
+
+"One instant!" Mr. Gilman begged her, standing up in the sternsheets, and
+popping his head through a porthole of the saloon. "Mr. Price!"
+
+"Sir?" From the interior.
+
+"Will you be good enough to play that air with thirty-six variations, of
+Beethoven's? We shall hear splendidly from the dinghy."
+
+"Certainly, sir."
+
+And Audrey said to herself: "You don't want him to flirt with Tommy while
+you're away, so you've given him something to keep him busy."
+
+Mr. Gilman remarked under his breath to Audrey: "I think there is nothing
+finer than to hear Beethoven on the water."
+
+"Oh! There isn't!" she eagerly concurred.
+
+Ignoring the thirty-six variations of Beethoven, Audrey rowed slowly away,
+and after about a hundred yards the boat had rounded a little knoll which
+marked the beginning of a narrow channel known as the Lander Creek. The
+thirty-six variations, however, would not be denied; they softly
+impregnated the whole beautiful watery scene.
+
+"Perhaps," said Mr. Gilman suddenly, "perhaps your ladyship was not quite
+pleased at me rowing-about with Miss Thompkins--especially after I had
+taken her for a walk." He smiled, but his voice was rather wistful. Audrey
+liked him prodigiously in that moment.
+
+"Foolish man!" she replied, with a smile far surpassing his, and she rested
+on her oars, taking care to keep the boat in the middle of the channel. "Do
+you know why I asked you to come out? I wanted to talk to you quite
+privately. It is easier here."
+
+"I'm so glad!" he said simply and sincerely. And Audrey thought: "Is it
+possible to give so much pleasure to an important and wealthy man with so
+little trouble?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "Of course you know who I really am, don't you, Mr.
+Gilman?"
+
+"I only know you're Mrs. Moncreiff," he answered.
+
+"But I'm not! Surely you've heard something? Surely it's been hinted in
+front of you?"
+
+"Never!" said he.
+
+"But haven't you asked--about my marriage, for instance?"
+
+"To ask might have been to endanger your secret," he said.
+
+"I see!" she murmured. "How frightfully loyal you are, Mr. Gilman! I do
+admire loyalty. Well, I dare say very, very few people do know. So I'll
+tell you. That's my home over there." And she pointed to Flank Hall, whose
+chimneys could just be seen over the bank.
+
+"I admit that I had thought so," said Mr. Gilman.
+
+"But naturally that was your home as a girl, before your marriage."
+
+"I've never been married, Mr. Gilman," she said. "I'm only what the French
+call a _jeune fille_."
+
+His face changed; he seemed to be withdrawing alarmed into himself.
+
+"Never--been married?"
+
+"Oh! You _must_ understand me!" she went on, with an appealing vivacity. "I
+was all alone. I was in mourning for my father and mother. I wanted to see
+the world. I just had to see it! I expect I was very foolish, but it was
+so easy to put a ring on my finger and call myself Mrs. And it gave me
+such advantages. And Miss Ingate agreed. She was my mother's oldest
+friend.... You're vexed with me."
+
+"You always seemed so wise," Mr. Gilman faltered.
+
+"Ah! That's only the effect of my forehead!"
+
+"And yet, you know, I always thought there was something very innocent
+about you, too."
+
+"I don't know what _that_ was," said Audrey. "But honestly I acted for the
+best. You see I'm rather rich. Supposing I'd only gone about as a young
+marriageable girl--what frightful risks I should have run, shouldn't I?
+Somebody would be bound to have married me for my money. And look at all I
+should have missed--without this ring! I should never have met you in
+Paris, for instance, and we should never have had those talks.... And--and
+there's a lot more reasons--I shall tell you another time--about Madame
+Piriac and so on. Now do say you aren't vexed!"
+
+"I think you've been splendid," he said, with enthusiasm. "I think the
+girls of to-day _are_ splendid! I've been a regular old fogey, that's what
+it is."
+
+"Now there's one thing I want you not to do," Audrey proceeded. "I want you
+not to alter the way you talk to me. Because I'm really just the same girl
+I was last night. And I couldn't bear you to change."
+
+"I won't! I won't! But of course----"
+
+"No, no! No buts. I won't have it. Do you know why I told you just this
+afternoon? Well, partly because you were so perfectly sweet last night. And
+partly because I've got a favour to ask you, and I wouldn't ask it until
+I'd told you."
+
+"You can't ask me a favour," he replied, "because it wouldn't be a favour.
+It would be my privilege."
+
+"But if you put it like that I can't ask you."
+
+"You must!" he said firmly.
+
+Then she told him something of the predicament of Jane Foley. He listened
+with an expression of trouble. Audrey finished bluntly: "She's my friend.
+And I want you to take her on the yacht to-night after it's dark. Nobody
+but you can save her. There! I've asked you!"
+
+"Jane Foley!" he murmured.
+
+She could see that he was aghast. The syllables of that name were notorious
+throughout Britain. They stood for revolt, damage to property, defiance of
+law, injured policemen, forcible feeding, and all sorts of phenomena that
+horrified respectable pillars of society.
+
+"She's the dearest thing!" said Audrey. "You've no idea. You'd love her.
+And she's done as much for Women's Suffrage as anybody in the world. She's
+a real heroine, if you like. You couldn't help the cause better than by
+helping her. And I know how keen you are to help." And Audrey said to
+herself: "He's as timid as a girl about it. How queer men are, after all!"
+
+"But what are we to do with her afterwards?" asked Mr. Gilman. There was
+perspiration on his brow.
+
+"Sail straight to France, of course. They couldn't touch her there, you
+see, because it's political. It _is_ political, you know," Audrey insisted
+proudly.
+
+"And give up all our cruise?"
+
+Audrey bent forward, as she had seen Tommy do. She smiled enchantingly. "I
+quite understand," she said, with a sort of tenderness. "You don't want to
+do it. And it was a shame of me even to suggest it."
+
+"But I do want to do it," he protested with splendid despairful resolve. "I
+was only thinking of you--and the cruise. I do want to do it. I'm
+absolutely at your disposal. When you ask me to do a thing, I'm only too
+proud. To do it is the greatest happiness I could have."
+
+Audrey replied softly:
+
+"You deserve the Victoria Cross."
+
+"Whatever do you mean?" he demanded nervously.
+
+"I don't know exactly what I mean," she said. "But you're the nicest man I
+ever knew."
+
+He blushed.
+
+"You mustn't say that to me," he deprecated.
+
+"I shall, and I shall."
+
+The sound of the thirty-six variations still came very faintly over the
+water. The sun sent cataracts of warm light across all the estuary. The
+water lapped against the boat, and Audrey was overwhelmed by the
+inexplicable marvel of being alive in the gorgeous universe.
+
+"I shall have to back water," she said, low. "There's no room to turn round
+here."
+
+"I suppose we'd better say as little about it as possible," he ventured.
+
+"Oh! Not a word! Not a word till it's done."
+
+"Yes, of course." He was drenched in an agitating satisfaction.
+
+Five bells rang clear from the yacht, overmastering the thirty-six
+variations.
+
+Audrey thought:
+
+"So he'd never agree, wouldn't he, Madame Piriac!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+AFLOAT
+
+That night, which was an unusually dark night for the time of year, Audrey
+left the yacht, alone, to fetch Jane Foley. She had made a provisional
+plan with Jane and Aguilar, and the arrangement with Mr. Gilman had been of
+the simplest, necessitating nothing save a brief order from the owner to
+the woman whom Audrey could always amuse Mr. Gilman by calling the
+"parlourmaid," but who was more commonly known as the stewardess. This
+young married creature had prepared a cabin. For the rest little had been
+said. The understanding between Mr. Gilman and Audrey was that Mrs.
+Moncreiff should continue to exist, and that not a word as to the arrival
+of Jane Foley should escape either of them until the deed was accomplished.
+It is true that Madame Piriac knew of the probable imminence of the affair,
+but Madame Piriac was discretion elegantly attired, and from the moment
+they had left Flank Hall together she had been wise enough not even to
+mention Jane Foley to Audrey. Madame Piriac appreciated the value of
+ignorance in a questionable crisis. Mr. Gilman had been less guarded.
+Indeed he had shown a tendency to discuss the coming adventure with Audrey
+in remote corners--a tendency which had to be discouraged because it gave
+to both of them a too obvious air of being tremendous conspirators, Also
+Audrey had had to dissuade him from accompanying her to the Hall. He had
+rather conventional ideas about women being abroad alone after dark, and he
+abandoned them with difficulty even now.
+
+As there were no street lamps alight in summer in the village of Moze,
+Audrey had no fear of being recognised; moreover, recognition by her former
+fellow-citizens could now have no sinister importance; she did not much
+care who recognised her. The principal gates of Flank Hall were slightly
+ajar, as arranged with Aguilar, and she passed with a suddenly aroused
+heart up the drive towards the front entrance of the house. In spite of
+herself she could not get rid of an absurd fear that either Mr. Hurley or
+Inspector Keeble or both would jump out of the dark bushes and slip
+handcuffs upon her wrists. And the baffling invisibility of the sky further
+affected her nerves. There ought to have been a lamp in the front hall, but
+no ray showed through the eighteenth century fanlight over the door. She
+rang the bell cautiously. She heard the distant ting. Aguilar, according to
+the plan, ought to have opened; but he did not open; nobody opened. She was
+instantly sure that she knew what had happened. Mr. Hurley had been to
+Frinton and ascertained that the Spatt story as to the tank-room was an
+invention, and had returned with a search warrant and some tools. But in
+another ten seconds she was equally sure that nothing of the sort could
+have happened, for it was an axiom with her that Aguilar's masterly lying,
+based on masterly listening at an attic door, had convinced Mr. Hurley of
+the truth of the story about the tank-room.
+
+Accidentally pushing against the front door with an elbow in the deep
+obscurity, she discovered that it was not latched. This was quite contrary
+to the plan. She stepped into the house. The unforeseeing simpleton had
+actually come on the excursion without a box of matches! She felt her way,
+aided by the swift returning memories of childhood, to the foot of the
+stairs, and past the stairs into the kitchen, for in ancient days a
+candlestick with a box of matches in it had always been kept on the ledge
+of the small square window that gave light to the passage between the hall
+and the kitchen. Her father had been most severely particular about that
+candlestick (with matches) being-always ready on that ledge in case of his
+need. Ridiculous, of course, to expect a candlestick to be still there!
+Times change so. But she felt for it, and there it was, and the matches
+too! She lit the candle. The dim scene thus revealed seemed strange enough
+to her after the electricity of the Hôtel du Danube and of the yacht. It
+made her want to cry....
+
+She was one of those people who have room in their minds for all sorts of
+things at once. And thus she could simultaneously be worried to an extreme
+about Jane Foley, foolish and sad about her immensely distant childhood,
+and even regretful that she had admitted the fraudulence of the
+wedding-ring on her hand. On the last point she had a very strong sense of
+failure and disillusion. When she had first donned a widow's bonnet she had
+meant to have wondrous adventures and to hear marvellous conversations as a
+widow. And what had she done with her widowhood after all? Nothing. She
+could not but think that she ought to have kept it a little longer, on the
+chance....
+
+Aguilar made a practice of sleeping in the kitchen; he considered that a
+house could only be well guarded at night from the ground floor. There was
+his bed, in the corner against the brush and besom cupboard, all made up.
+Its creaselessness, so characteristic of Aguilar, had not been disturbed.
+The sight of the narrow bed made Audrey think what a strange existence was
+the existence of Aguilar. ... Then, with a boldness that was half bluster,
+she went upstairs, and the creaking of the woodwork was affrighting.
+
+"Jane! Jane, dear!" she called out, as she arrived at the second-storey
+landing. The sound of her voice was uncanny in the haunted stillness. All
+Audrey's infancy floated up the well of the stairs and wrapped itself round
+her and tightened her throat. She went along the passage to the door of the
+tank-room.
+
+"Jane, Jane!"
+
+No answer! The door was locked. She listened. She put her ear against the
+door in order to catch the faintest sound of life within. But she could
+only hear the crude, sharp ticking of the cheap clock which, as she knew,
+Aguilar had supplied to Jane Foley. The vision of Jane lying unconscious or
+dead obsessed her. Then she thrust it away and laughed at it. Assuredly
+Aguilar and Jane must have received some alarm as to a reappearance of the
+police; they must have fled while there had yet been time. Where could they
+have gone? Of course, through the garden and plantation and down to the
+sea-wall, whence Jane might steal to the yacht. Audrey turned back towards
+the stairs, and the vast intimidating emptiness of the gloomy house, lit by
+a single flickering candle, assaulted her. She had to fight it before she
+could descend. The garden door was latched, but not locked. Extinguishing
+the candle, she went forth. The gusty breeze from the estuary was now damp
+on her cheek with the presage of rain. She hurried, fumbling as it were,
+through the garden. When she achieved the hedge the spectacle of the yacht,
+gleaming from stem to stern with electricity, burst upon her; it shone like
+something desired and unattainable. Carefully she issued from the grounds
+by the little gate and crossed the intervening space to the dyke. A dark
+figure moved in front of her, and her heart violently jumped.
+
+"Is that you, madam?"
+
+It was the cold, imperturbable voice of Aguilar. At once she felt
+reassured.
+
+"Where is Miss Foley?" she demanded in a whisper.
+
+"I've got her down here, ma'am," said Aguilar. "I presume as you've been to
+the house. We had to leave it."
+
+"But the door of the tank-room was locked!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. I locked it a-purpose.... I thought as it would keep the
+police employed a bit when they come. I seen my cousin Sarah when I went to
+tell Miss Ingate as you instructed me. My cousin Sarah seen Keeble. They
+been to Frinton to Mrs. Spatt's, and they found out about _that_. And now
+the 'tec's back, or nearly. I reckon it was the warrant as was delaying
+him. So I out with Miss Foley. I thought I could take her across to the
+yacht from here. It wouldn't hardly be safe for her to walk round by the
+dyke. Hurley may have several of his chaps about by this time."
+
+"But there's not water enough, Aguilar."
+
+"Yes, madam. I dragged the old punt down. She don't draw three inches.
+She's afloat now, and Miss Foley's in her. I was just a-going off. If you
+don't mind wetting your feet----"
+
+In one minute Audrey had splashed into the punt. Jane Foley took her hand
+in silence, and she heard Jane's low, happy laugh.
+
+"Isn't it funny?" Jane whispered.
+
+Audrey squeezed her hand.
+
+Aguilar pushed off with an oar, and he continued to use the oar as a
+punt-pole, so that no sound of their movement should reach the bank. Water
+was pouring into the old sieve, and they touched ground once. But Aguilar
+knew precisely what he was about and got her off again. They approached
+the yacht with the slow, sure inexorability of Aguilar's character. A beam
+from the portholes of the saloon caught Aguilar's erect figure. He sat
+down, poling as well as he could from the new position. When they were a
+little nearer he stopped dead, holding the punt firm by means of the pole
+fixed in the mud.
+
+"He's there afore us!" he murmured, pointing.
+
+Under the Maltese cross of electric lights at the inner end of the gangway
+could clearly be seen the form of Mr. Hurley, engaged in conversation with
+Mr. Gilman. Mr. Hurley was fairly on board.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+IN THE UNIVERSE
+
+When Audrey, having been put ashore in execution of a plan arranged with
+those naturally endowed strategists, Aguilar and Jane Foley, arrived at the
+Hard by way of the sea-wall, Mr. Hurley was still in parley with Mr.
+Gilman under the Maltese cross of electric lights. From the distance Mr.
+Gilman had an air of being somewhat intimidated by the Irishman, but as
+soon as he distinguished the figure of Audrey at the shore end of the
+gangway his muscles became mysteriously taut, and his voice charged with
+defiance.
+
+"I have already told you, sir," Audrey heard him say, "there is no such
+person aboard the yacht. And I most certainly will not allow you to search.
+You have no right whatever to search, and you know it. You have my word.
+My name is Gilman. You may have heard of me. I'm chairman of the Board of
+Foodstuffs, Limited. Gilman, sir. And I shall feel obliged if you will
+leave my decks."
+
+"Are you sailing to-night?" asked Mr. Hurley placidly.
+
+"What the devil has that got to do with you, sir?" replied Mr. Gilman
+gloriously.
+
+Audrey, standing behind the detective and unseen by him, observed the
+gloriousness of Mr. Gilman's demeanour and also Mr. Gilman's desire that
+she should note the same and appreciate it. She nodded violently several
+times to Mr. Gilman, to urge him to answer the detective in the
+affirmative.
+
+"Ye-es, sir. Since you are so confoundedly inquisitive, I am sailing
+to-night. I shall sail as soon as the tide serves," said Mr. Gilman
+hurriedly and fiercely, and then glanced again at Audrey for further
+approval.
+
+"Where for?" Mr. Hurley demanded.
+
+"Where I please, sir," Mr. Gilman snorted. By this time he evidently
+imagined that he was furious, and was taking pleasure in his fury.
+
+Mr. Hurley, having given a little ironic bow, turned to leave and found
+himself fronting Audrey, who stiffly ignored his salute. The detective
+gone, Mr. Gilman walked to and fro, breathing more loudly than ever, and
+unsuccessfully pretending to a scattered audience, which consisted of the
+skipper, Mr. Price, Dr. Cromarty, and sundry deck-hands, that he had done
+nothing in particular and was not a hero. As Audrey approached him he
+seemed to lay all his glory with humble pride at her feet.
+
+"Well, he brought that on himself!" said Audrey, smiling.
+
+"He did," Mr. Gilman concurred, gazing at the Hard with inimical scorn.
+
+"She can't come--now," said Audrey. "It wouldn't be safe. He means to stay
+on the Hard till we're gone. He's a very suspicious man."
+
+Mr. Hurley was indeed lingering just beyond the immediate range of the
+_Ariadne's_ lamps.
+
+"Can't come! What a pity! What a pity!" murmured Mr. Gilman, with an accent
+that was not a bit sincere. The news was the best he had heard for hours.
+"But I suppose," he added, "we'd better sail just the same, as I've said we
+should?" He did not want to run the risk of getting Jane Foley after all.
+
+"Oh! Do!" Audrey exclaimed. "It will be lovely! If it doesn't rain--and
+even if it does rain! We all like sailing at night.... Are the others in
+the saloon? I'll run down."
+
+"Mr. Wyatt," the owner sternly accosted the captain. "When can we get
+off?"
+
+"Oh! About midnight," Audrey answered quickly, before Mr. Wyatt could
+compose his lips.
+
+The men gazed at each other surprised by this show of technical knowledge
+in a young widow. By the time Mr. Wyatt had replied, Audrey was descending
+into the saloon. It was Aguilar who, having ascertained the _Ariadne's_
+draught, had made the calculation as to the earliest possible hour of
+departure.
+
+And in the saloon Musa was, as it were, being enveloped and kept
+comfortable in the admiring sympathy of Madame Piriac and Miss Thompkins.
+Mr. Gilman's violin lay across his knees--perhaps he had been tuning
+it--and the women inclined towards him, one on either side. It was a sight
+that somewhat annoyed Audrey, who told herself that she considered it
+silly. Admitting that Musa had genius, she could not understand this soft
+flattery of genius. She never flattered genius herself, and she did not
+approve of others doing so. Certainly Musa was now being treated on the
+yacht as a celebrity of the first order, and Audrey could find no
+explanation of the steady growth in the height and splendour of his throne.
+Her arrival dissolved the spectacle. Within one minute, somehow, the saloon
+was empty and everybody on deck again.
+
+And then, drawing her away, Musa murmured to Audrey in a disconcerting tone
+that he must speak to her on a matter of urgency, and that in order that he
+might do so, they must go ashore and walk seawards, far from interruption.
+She consented, for she was determined to prove to him at close quarters
+that she was a different creature from the other two. They moved to the
+gangway amid discreet manifestations from the doctor and the
+secretary--manifestations directed chiefly to Musa and indicative of his
+importance as a notability. Audrey was puzzled. For her, Musa was more than
+ever just Musa, and less than ever a personage.
+
+"I shall not return to the yacht," he said, with an excited bitterness,
+after they had walked some distance along one of the paths leading past low
+bushes into the wilderness of the marsh land that bounded the estuary to
+the south. The sky was still invisible, but there was now a certain amount
+of diffused light, and the pale path could easily be distinguished amid the
+sombreness of green. The yacht was hidden behind one of the knolls. No
+sound could be heard. The breeze had died. That which was around them--on
+either hand, above, below--was the universe. They knew that they stood
+still in the universe, and this idea gave their youth the sensation of
+being very important.
+
+"What is that which you say?" Audrey demanded sharply in French, as Musa
+had begun in French. She was aware, not for the first time with Musa, of
+the sudden possibilities of drama in a human being. She could scarcely make
+out his face, but she knew that he was in a mood for high follies; she knew
+that danger was gathering; she knew that the shape of the future was
+immediately to be moulded by her and him, and chiefly by herself. She liked
+it. The sensation of her importance was reinforced.
+
+"I say I shall never return to the yacht," he repeated.
+
+She thought compassionately:
+
+"Poor foolish thing!"
+
+She was incalculably older and wiser than this irrational boy. She was the
+essence of wisdom.
+
+She said, with acid detachment:
+
+"But your luggage, your belongings? What an idea to leave in this manner!
+It is so polite, so sensible!"
+
+"I shall not return."
+
+"Of course," she said, "I do not at all understand why you are going. But
+what does that matter? You are going." Her indifference was superb. It was
+so superb that it might have driven some men to destroy her on the spot.
+
+"Yes, you understand! I told you last night," said Musa, overflowing with
+emotion.
+
+"Oh! You told me? I forget."
+
+"Naturally Monsieur Gilman is rich. I am not rich, though I shall be. But
+you can't wait," Musa sneered.
+
+"I do not know what you mean," said Audrey.
+
+"Ah!" said Musa. "Once I told you that Tommy and Nick lent me the money
+with which to live. For me, since then, you have never been the same being.
+How stupid I was to tell you! You could not comprehend such a thing. Your
+soul is too low to comprehend it. Permit me to say that I have already
+repaid Nick. And at the first moment I shall repay Tommy. My position is
+secure. I have only to wait. But you will not wait. You are a bourgeoise
+of the most terrible sort. Opulence fascinates you. Mr. Gilman has
+opulence. He has nothing else. But he has opulence, and for you that is
+all."
+
+In an instant her indifference, self-control, wisdom vanished. It was a sad
+exhibition of frailty; but she enjoyed it, she revelled in it, giving play
+to everything in herself that was barbaric. The marsh around them was
+probably as it had been before the vikings had sailed into it, and Audrey
+rushed back with inconceivable speed into the past and became the primeval
+woman of twenty centuries earlier. Like almost all women she possessed this
+wondrous and affrighting faculty.
+
+"You are telling a wicked untruth!" she exploded in English. "And what's
+more, you know you are. You disgust me. You know as well as I do I don't
+care anything for money--anything. Only you're a horrid, spoilt beast. You
+think you can upset me, but you can't. I won't have it, either from you or
+from anybody else. It's a shame, that's what it is. Now you've got to
+apologise to me. I absolutely insist on it. You aren't going to bully me,
+even if you think you are. I'll soon show you the sort of girl I am, and
+you make no mistake! Are you going to apologise or aren't you?"
+
+The indecorous creature was breathing as loudly as Mr. Gilman himself.
+
+"I admit it," said Musa yielding.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"I demand your pardon. I knew that what I said was not true. I am outside
+myself. But what would you? It is stronger than I. This existence is
+terrible, on the yacht. I cannot support it. I shall become mad. I am
+ruined. My jealousy is intolerable."
+
+"It is!" said Audrey, using French again, more calmly, having returned to
+the twentieth century.
+
+"It is intolerable to me." Then Musa's voice changed and grew persuasive,
+rather like a child's. "I cannot live without you. That is the truth. I am
+an artist, and you are necessary to me and to my career." He lifted his
+head. "And I can offer you everything that is most brilliant."
+
+"And what about my career?" Audrey questioned inimically.
+
+"Your career?" He seemed at a loss.
+
+"Yes. My career. It has possibly not occurred to you that I also may have a
+career."
+
+Musa became appealing.
+
+"You understand me," he said. "I told you you do not comprehend, but you
+comprehend everything. It is that which enrages me. You have had
+experience. You know what men are. You could teach me so much. I hate young
+girls. I have always hated them. They are so tasteless, so insufferably
+innocent. I could not talk to a young girl as I talk to you. It would be
+absurd. Now as to my career--what I said----"
+
+"Musa," she interrupted him, with a sinister quietude, "I want to tell you
+something. But you must promise to keep it secret. Will you?"
+
+He assented, impatient.
+
+"It is not possible!" he exclaimed, when she had told him that she belonged
+to precisely the category of human beings whom he hated and despised.
+
+"Isn't it?" said she. "Now I hope you see how little you know, really,
+about women." She laughed.
+
+"It is not possible!" he repeated. And then he said with deliberate
+ingenuousness: "I am so content. I am so happy. I could not have hoped for
+it. It is overwhelming. I am everything you like of the most idiotic,
+blind, stupid. But now I am happy. Could I ever have borne that you had
+loved before I knew you? I doubt if I could have borne it. Your innocence
+is exquisite. It is intoxicating to me."
+
+"Musa," she remarked dryly; "I wish you would remember that you are in
+England. People do not talk in that way in England. It simply is not done.
+And I will not listen to it." Her voice grew a little tender. "Why can we
+not just be friends?"
+
+"It is folly," said he, with sudden disgust. "And it would kill me."
+
+"Well, then," she replied, receding. "You're entitled to die."
+
+He advanced towards her. She kept him away with a gesture.
+
+"You want me to marry you?" she questioned.
+
+"It is essential," he said, very seriously. "I adore you. I can't do
+anything because of you. I can't think of anything but you. You are more
+marvellous than anyone can be. You cannot appreciate what you are to me!"
+
+"And suppose you are nothing to me?"
+
+"But it is necessary that you should love me!"
+
+"Why? I see no necessity. You want me--because you want me. That's all. I
+can't help it if you're mad. Your attitude is insulting. You have not given
+one thought to my feelings. And if I said 'yes' to you, you'd marry me
+whatever my feelings were. You think only of yourself. It is the old
+attitude. And when I offer you my friendship, you instantly decline it.
+That shows how horribly French you are. Frenchmen can't understand the idea
+of friendship between a man and a girl. They sneer at it. It shows what
+brutes you all are. Why should I marry you? I should have nothing to gain
+by it. You'll be famous. Well, what do I care? Do you think it would be
+very amusing for me to be the wife of a famous man that was run after by
+every silly creature in Paris or London or New York?  Not quite! And I
+don't see myself. You don't like young girls. I don't like young men.
+They're rude and selfish and conceited. They're like babies."
+
+"The fact is," Musa broke in, "you are in love with the old Gilman."
+
+"He is not old!" cried Audrey. "In some ways he is much less worn out than
+you are. And supposing I am in love with Mr. Gilman? Does it regard you? Do
+not be rude. Mr. Gilman is at any rate polite. He is not capricious. He is
+reliable. You aren't reliable. You want someone upon whom you can rely. How
+nice for your wife! You play the violin. True. You are a genius. But you
+cannot always be on the platform. And when you are not on the platform...!
+Heavens! If I wish to hear you play I can buy a seat and come and hear you
+and go away again. But your wife, responsible for your career--she will
+never be free. Her life will be unbearable. What anxiety!  Misery, I should
+say rather! You would have the lion's share of everything. Now for myself I
+intend to have the lion's share. And why shouldn't I? Isn't it about time
+some woman had it? You can't have the lion's share if you are not free. I
+mean to be free. If I marry I shall want a husband that is not a prison....
+Thank goodness I've got money.... Without that----!"
+
+"Then," said Musa, "you have no feeling for me."
+
+"Love?" she laughed exasperatingly.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"Not that much!" She snapped her fingers. "But"--in a changed tone--"I
+_should_ like to like you. I shall be very disgusted if your concerts are
+not a tremendous success. And they will not be if you don't keep control
+over yourself and practise properly. And it will be your fault."
+
+"Then, good-bye!" he said, coldly ignoring all her maternal suggestions.
+And turned away.
+
+"Where are you going to?"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"I do not know. But if I do not deceive myself I have already informed you
+that in certain circumstances I should not return to the yacht."
+
+"You are worse than a schoolboy."
+
+"It is possible."
+
+"Anyway, _I_ shan't explain on the yacht. I shall tell them that I know
+nothing about it."
+
+"But no one will believe you," he retorted maliciously over his shoulder.
+And then he was gone.
+
+She at any rate was no longer surrounded by the largeness of the universe.
+He might still be, but she was not. She was in mind already on the yacht
+trying to act a surprise equal to the surprise of the others when Musa
+failed to reappear. She was very angry with him, not because he had been a
+rude schoolboy and was entirely impossible as a human being, but because
+she had allowed herself to leave the yacht with him and would therefore be
+compelled sooner or later to answer questions about him. She seriously
+feared that Mr. Gilman might refuse to sail unless she confessed to him her
+positive knowledge that Musa would not be seen again, and that thus she
+might have to choose between the failure of her plans for Jane Foley and
+her own personal discomfiture.
+
+Instead of being in the mighty universe she was struggling amid the
+tiresome littleness of society on a yacht. She hated yachts for their very
+cosiness and their quality of keeping people close together who wanted to
+be far apart. And as she watched the figure of Musa growing fainter she was
+more than ever impressed by the queerness of men. Women seemed to be so
+logical, so realistic, so understandable, so calculable, whereas men were
+enigmas of waywardness and unreason. At just that moment her feet reminded
+her that they had been wetted by the adventure in the punt, and she said to
+herself sagely that she must take precautions against a chill.
+
+And then she thought she detected some unusual phenomenon behind a clump of
+bushes to the right which hid a plank-bridge across a waterway. She would
+have been frightened if she had not been very excited. And in her
+excitement she marched straight up to the clump, and found Mr. Hurley in a
+crouching posture. She started, and recovered.
+
+"I might have known!" she said disdainfully.
+
+"We all make mistakes," said Mr. Hurley defensively. "We all make
+mistakes. I knew I'd made a mistake as soon as I got here, but I couldn't
+get away quietly enough. And you talked so loud. Ye'll admit I had just
+cause for suspicion. And being a very agreeable lady ye'll pardon me."
+
+She blushed, and then ceased blushing because it was too dark for him to
+perceive the blush, and she passed on without a word. When, across the
+waste, she had come within sight of the yacht again, she heard footsteps
+behind her, and turned to withstand the detective. But the overtaker was
+Musa.
+
+"It is necessary that I should return to the yacht," he said savagely. "The
+thought of you and Monsieur Gilman together, without me.... No! I did not
+know myself. ... I did not know myself.... It is impossible for me to
+leave."
+
+She made no answer. They boarded the yacht as though they had been for a
+stroll. Few could have guessed that they had come back from the universe
+terribly scathed. Accepting deferential greetings as a right, Musa
+vanished rapidly to his cabin.
+
+Several hours later Audrey and Mr. Gilman, alone among the passengers, were
+standing together, both tarpaulined, on the starboard bow, gazing seaward
+as the yacht cautiously felt her way down Mozewater. Captain Wyatt, and not
+Mr. Gilman, was at the binnacle. A little rain was falling and the night
+was rather thick but not impenetrable.
+
+"There's the light!" said Audrey excitedly.
+
+"What sharp eyes you have!" said Mr. Gilman. "I can see it, too." He spoke
+a word to the skipper, and the skipper spoke, and then the engine went
+still more slowly.
+
+The yacht approached the Flank buoy dead slow, scarcely stemming the tide.
+The Moze punt was tied up to the buoy, and Aguilar held a lantern on a
+boathook, while Jane Foley, very wet, was doing a spell of baling. Aguilar
+dropped the boathook and, casting off, brought the punt alongside the
+yacht. The steps were lowered and Jane Foley, with laughing, rain-sprinkled
+face, climbed up. Aguilar handed her bag which contained nearly everything
+she possessed on earth. She and Audrey kissed calmly, and Audrey presented
+Mr. Gilman to a suddenly shy Jane. In the punt Miss Foley had been seen to
+take an affectionate leave of Aguilar. She now leaned over the rail.
+
+"Good-bye!" she said, with warmth. "Thanks ever so much. It's been
+splendid. I do hope you won't be too wet. Can you row all the way home?"
+She shivered.
+
+"I shall go back on the tide, Miss Foley," answered Aguilar.
+
+He touched his cap to Audrey, mumbled gloomily a salutation, and loosed his
+hold on the yacht; and at once the punt felt the tide and began to glide
+away in the darkness towards Moze. The yacht's engine quickened. Flank buoy
+faded.
+
+Mr. Gilman and the two girls made a group.
+
+"You're wonderful! You really are!" said Mr. Gilman, addressing apparently
+the pair of them. He was enthusiastic. ... He added with grandeur, "And
+now for France!"
+
+"I do hope Mr. Hurley is still hanging about Moze," said Audrey. "Mr.
+Gilman, shall I show Miss Foley her cabin? She's rather wet."
+
+"Oh, do! Oh, do, please! But don't forget that we are to have supper
+together. I insist on supper."
+
+And Audrey thought: "How agreeable he is! How kind-hearted! He hasn't got
+any 'career' to worry about, and I adore him, and he's as simple as
+knitting."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE IMMINENT DRIVE
+
+
+"Oh!" cried Miss Thompkins. "You can see it from here. It's funny how
+unreal it seems, isn't it?"
+
+She pointed at one of the large white-curtained windows of the restaurant,
+through which was visible a round column covered with advertisements of
+theatres, music-halls, and concert-halls, printed in many colours and
+announcing superlative delights. Names famous wherever pleasure is
+understood gave to their variegated posters a pleasant air of distinguished
+familiarity--names of theatres such as "Variétés," "Vaudeville,"
+"Châtelet," "Théâtre Français," "Folies-Bergère," and names of persons such
+as "Sarah Bernhardt," "Huegenet," "Le Bargy," "Litvinne," "Lavallière." But
+the name in the largest type--dark crimson letters on rose paper--the name
+dominating all the rest, was the name of Musa. The ingenuous stranger to
+Paris was compelled to think that as an artist Musa was far more important
+than anybody else. Along the length of all the principal boulevards, and in
+many of the lesser streets, the ingenuous stranger encountered, at regular
+distances of a couple of hundred yards or so, one of these columns planted
+on the kerb; and all the scores of them bore exactly the same legend; they
+all spoke of nothing but blissful diversions, and they all put Musa ahead
+of anybody else in the world of the stage and the platform. Sarah Bernhardt
+herself, dark blue upon pale, was a trifle compared to Musa on the columns.
+And it had been so for days. Other posters were changed daily--changed by
+mysterious hands before even bread-girls were afoot with their yards of
+bread--but the space given to Musa repeated always the same tidings, namely
+that Musa ("the great violinist") was to give an orchestral concert at the
+Salle Xavier, assisted by the Xavier orchestra, on Thursday, September 24,
+at 9 P.M. Particulars of the programme followed.
+
+Paris was being familiarised with Musa. His four letters looked down upon
+the fever of the thoroughfares; they were perused by tens of thousands of
+sitters in cafés and in front of cafés; they caught the eye of men and
+women fleeing from the wrath to come in taxicabs; they competed
+successfully with newspaper placards; and on that Thursday--for the
+Thursday in question had already run more than half its course--they had so
+entered into the sub-conscious brain of Paris that no habitué of the
+streets, whatever his ignorant indifference to the art of music, could have
+failed to reply with knowledge, on hearing Musa mentioned, "Oh, yes!"
+implying that he was fully acquainted with the existence of the said Musa.
+
+Tommy was right: there did seem to be a certain unreality about the thing,
+yet it was utterly real.
+
+All the women turned to glance at the name through the window, and some of
+them murmured sympathetic and interested exclamations and bright hopes.
+There were five women: Miss Thompkins, Miss Nickall, Madame Piriac, Miss
+Ingate and Audrey. And there was one man--Mr. Gilman. And the six were
+seated at a round table in the historic Parisian restaurant. Mr. Gilman had
+the air triumphant, and he was entitled to it. The supreme moment of his
+triumph had come. Having given a luncheon to these ladies, he had just
+asked, with due high negligence, for the bill. If there was one matter in
+which Mr. Gilman was a truly great expert, it was the matter of giving a
+meal in a restaurant. He knew how to dress for such an affair--with strict
+conventionality but a touch of devil-may-care youthfulness in the necktie.
+He knew how to choose the restaurant; he had about half a dozen in his
+répertoire--all of the first order and for the most part combining the
+exclusive with the amusing--entirely different in kind from the pandemonium
+where Audrey had eaten on the night of her first arrival in Paris; he knew
+how to get the best out of head-waiters and waiters, who in these
+restaurants were not head-waiters and waiters but worldly priests and
+acolytes; his profound knowledge of cookery sprang from a genuine interest
+in his stomach, and he could compose a menu in a fashion to command the
+respect of head-waiters and to excite the envy of musicians composing a
+sonata; he had the wit to look in early and see to the flowers; above all
+he was aware what women liked in the way of wine, and since this was never
+what he liked in the way of wine, he would always command a half-bottle of
+the extra dry for himself, but would have it manipulated with such
+discretion that not a guest could notice it. He paid lavishly and
+willingly, convinced by hard experience that the best is inestimable, but
+he felt too that the best was really quite cheap, for he knew that there
+were imperfectly educated people in the world who thought nothing of paying
+the price of a good meal for a mere engraving or a bit of china. Withal,
+he never expected his guests truly to appreciate the marvels he offered
+them. They could not, or very rarely. Their twittering ecstatic praise,
+which was without understanding, sufficed for him, though sometimes he
+would give gentle diffident instruction. This trait in him was very
+attractive, proving the genuineness of his modesty.
+
+The luncheon was partly to celebrate the return of various persons to
+Paris, but chiefly in honour of Musa's concert. Musa could not be present,
+for distinguished public performers do not show themselves on the day of an
+appearance. Mr. Gilman had learnt this from Madame Piriac, whom he had
+consulted as to the list of guests. It is to be said that he bore the
+absence of Musa from his table with stoicism. For the rest, Madame Piriac
+knew that he wanted no other men, and she had suggested none. She had
+assumed that he desired Audrey, and had pointed out that Audrey could not
+well be invited without Miss Ingate, who, sick of her old Moze, had
+rejoined Audrey in the splendour of the Hôtel du Danube. Mr. Gilman had
+somehow mentioned Miss Thompkins, whereupon Madame Piriac had declared that
+Miss Thompkins involved Miss Nickall, who after a complete recovery from
+the broken arm had returned for a while to her studio. And then Mr. Gilman
+had closed the list, saying that six was enough, and exactly the right
+number.
+
+"At what o'clock are you going for the drive?" asked Madame Piriac in her
+improved, precise English. She looked equally at her self-styled uncle and
+at Audrey.
+
+"I ordered the car for three o'clock," answered Mr. Gilman. "It is not yet
+quite three."
+
+The table with its litter of ash-trays, empty cups, empty small glasses,
+and ravaged sweets, and the half-deserted restaurant, and the polite
+expectant weariness of the priests and acolytes, all showed that the hour
+was in fact not quite three--an hour at which such interiors have
+invariably the aspect of roses overblown and about to tumble to pieces.
+
+And immediately upon the reference to the drive everybody at the table
+displayed a little constraint, avoiding the gaze of everybody else, thus
+demonstrating that the imminent drive was a delicate, without being a
+disagreeable, topic. Which requires explanation.
+
+Mr. Gilman had not been seen by any of his guests during the summer. He had
+landed them at Boulogne from the _Ariadne_--sound but for one casualty.
+That casualty was Jane Foley, suffering from pneumonia, which had
+presumably developed during the evening of exposure spent with Aguilar in
+the leaking punt and in rain showers. Madame Piriac and Audrey took her to
+Wimereux and there nursed her through a long and sometimes dangerous
+illness. Jane possessed no constitution, but she had obstinacy, which
+saved her. In her convalescence, part of which she spent alone with Audrey
+(Madame Piriac having to pay visits to Monsieur Piriac), she had proceeded
+with the writing of a book, and she had also received in conclave the
+rarely seen Rosamund, who like herself was still a fugitive from British
+justice. These two had been elaborating a new plan of campaign, which was
+to include an incursion by themselves into England, and which had in part
+been confided by Jane to Audrey, who, having other notions in her head, had
+been somewhat troubled thereby. Audrey's conscience had occasionally told
+her to throw herself heartily into the campaign, but her individualistic
+instincts had in the end kept her safely on a fence between the campaign
+and something else. The something else was connected with Mr. Gilman.
+
+Mr. Gilman had written to her regularly; he had sent dazzling subscriptions
+to the Suffragette Union; and Audrey had replied regularly. His letters
+were very simple, very modest, and quite touching. They were dated from
+various coastal places. However, he never came near Wimereux, though it was
+a coastal place. Audrey had excusably deemed this odd; but Madame Piriac
+having once said with marked casualness, "I hinted to him that he might
+with advantage stay away," Audrey had concealed her thoughts on the point.
+And one of her thoughts was that Madame Piriac was keeping them apart so as
+to try them, so as to test their mutual feelings. The policy, if it was a
+policy, was very like Madame Piriac; it had the effect of investing Mr.
+Gilman in Audrey's mind with a peculiar romantic and wistful charm, as of a
+sighing and obedient victim. Then Jane Foley and Rosamund had gone off
+somewhere, and Madame Piriac and Audrey had returned to Paris, and had
+found that practically all Paris had returned to Paris too. And on the
+first meeting with Mr. Gilman it had been at once established that his
+feelings and those of Audrey had surmounted the Piriac test. Within
+forty-eight hours all persons interested had mysteriously assumed that Mr.
+Gilman and Audrey were coupled together by fate and that a delicious crisis
+was about to supervene in their earthly progress. And they had become
+objects of exquisite solicitude. They had also become perfect. A circle of
+friends and acquaintances waited in excited silence for a palpitating
+event, as a populace waits for the booming gunfire which is to inaugurate a
+national rejoicing. And when the news exuded that he was taking her for a
+drive to Meudon, which she had never seen, alone, all decided beyond any
+doubt that _he would do it during the drive_.
+
+Hence the nice constraint at the table when the drive grew publicly and
+avowedly imminent.
+
+Audrey, as the phrase is, "felt her position keenly," but not unpleasantly,
+nor with understanding. Not a word had passed of late between herself and
+Mr. Gilman that any acquaintance might not have listened to. Indeed, Mr.
+Gilman had become slightly more formal. She liked him for that, as she
+liked him for a large number of qualities. She did not know whether she
+loved him. And strange to say, the question did not passionately interest
+her. The only really interesting questions were: Would he propose to her?
+And would she accept him? She had no logical ground for assuming that he
+would propose to her. None of her friends had informed her of the general
+expectation that he would propose to her. Yet she knew that everybody
+expected him to propose to her quite soon--indeed within the next couple of
+hours. And she felt that everybody was right. The universe was full of
+mysteries for Audrey. As regards her answer to any proposal, she
+foresaw--another mystery--that it would not depend upon self-examination or
+upon reason, or upon anything that could be defined. It would depend upon
+an instinct over which her mind--nay, even her heart--had no control. She
+was quite certainly aware that this instinct would instruct her brain to
+instruct her lips to say "Yes." The idea of saying "No" simply could not be
+conceived. All the forces in the universe would combine to prevent her from
+saying "No."
+
+The one thing that might have countered that enigmatic and powerful
+instinct was a consideration based upon the difference between her age and
+that of Mr. Gilman. It is true that she did not know what the difference
+was, because she did not know Mr. Gilman's age. And she could not ask him.
+No! Such is the structure of society that she could not say to Mr. Gilman,
+"By the way, Mr. Gilman, how old are you?" She could properly ascertain his
+tastes about all manner of fundamental points, such as the shape of
+chair-legs, the correct hour for dining, or the comparative merits of
+diamonds and emeralds; but this trifle of information about his age could
+not be asked for. And he did not make her a present of it. She might have
+questioned Madame Piriac, but she could not persuade herself to question
+Madame Piriac either. However, what did it matter? Even if she learnt his
+age to a day, he would still be precisely the same Mr. Gilman. And let him
+be as old or as young as he might, she was still his equal in age. She was
+far more than six months older than she had been six months ago.
+
+The influence of Madame Piriac through the summer had indirectly matured
+her. For above all Madame Piriac had imperceptibly taught her the
+everlasting joy and duty of exciting the sympathy, admiration and gratitude
+of the other sex. Hence Audrey had aged at a miraculous rate because in
+order to please Mr. Gilman she wished--possibly without knowing it--to undo
+the disparity between herself and him. This may be strange, but it is
+assuredly more true than strange. To the same ends she had concealed her
+own age. Nobody except Miss Ingate knew how old she was. She only made it
+clear, when doubts seemed to exist, that she had passed her majority long
+before. Further, her wealth, magnified by legend, assisted her age. Not
+that she was so impressed by her wealth as she had been. She had met
+American women in Paris compared to whom she was at destitution's door. She
+knew one woman who had kept a 2,000-ton yacht lying all summer in the outer
+harbour at Boulogne, and had used it during that period for exactly eleven
+hours.
+
+Few of these people had an establishment. They would rent floors in hotels,
+or châteaux in Touraine, or yachts, but they had no home, and yet they
+seemed very content and beyond doubt they were very free. And so Audrey did
+not trouble about having a home. She had Moze, which was more than many of
+her acquaintances had. She would not use it, but she had it. And she was
+content in the knowledge of the power to create a home when she felt
+inclined to create one. Not that it would not have been absurd to set about
+creating a home with Mr. Gilman hanging over her like a destiny. It would
+have been rude to him to do so; it would have been to transgress against
+the inter-sexual code as promulgated by Madame Piriac.... She wondered what
+sort of a place Meudon was, and whether he would propose to her while they
+were looking at the view together.... She trembled with the sense of
+adventure, which had little to do with happiness or unhappiness.... But
+_would_ he propose to her? Not improbably the whole conception of the
+situation was false and she was being ridiculous!
+
+Still the nice constraint persisted as the women began to put on their
+gloves, while Mr. Gilman had a word with the chief priest. And Audrey had
+the illusion of being a dedicated victim. As she self-consciously and yet
+proudly handled her gloves she could not help but notice the simple gold
+wedding-ring on a certain finger. She had never removed it. She had never
+formally renounced her claim to the status of a widow. That she was not a
+widow, that she had been guilty of a fraud on a gullible public, was
+somehow generally known; but the facts were not referred to, save perhaps
+in rare hints by Tommy, and she had continued to be known as Mrs.
+Moncreiff. Ignominious close to a daring enterprise! And in the
+circumstances nothing was more out of place than the ring, bought in cold,
+wilful, calculating naughtiness at Colchester.
+
+Just when Miss Ingate was beginning to discuss her own plans for the
+afternoon, Mr. Price entered the restaurant, and as he did so Miss
+Thompkins, saying something about the small type on the poster outside,
+went to the window to examine it. Mr. Price, disguised as a discreet
+dandy-about-town, bore a parcel of music. He removed a most glossy hat; he
+bowed to the whole company of ladies, who responded with smiles in which
+was acknowledge that he was a dandy in addition to being a secretary; and
+lastly with deference he handed the parcel of music to Mr. Gilman.
+
+"So you did get it! What did I tell you?" said Mr. Gilman with negligent
+condescension. "A minute later, and we should have been gone.... Has Mr.
+Price got this right?" he asked Audrey, putting the music respectfully in
+front of her.
+
+It included the reduced score of the Beethoven violin concerto, and other
+items to be performed that night at the Salle Xavier.
+
+"Oh! Thank you, Mr. Price!" said Audrey. The music was so fresh and glossy
+and luscious to the eye that it was like a gift of fruit.
+
+"That'll do, then, Price," said Mr. Gilman. "Don't forget about those
+things for to-night, will you?"
+
+"No, sir. I have a note of all of them."
+
+Mr. Price bowed and turned away, assuming his perfect hat. As he approached
+the door Tommy intercepted him; and said something to him in a low voice,
+to which he uncomfortably mumbled a reply. As they had admittedly been
+friends in Mr. Price's artistic days, exception could not be taken to this
+colloquy. Nevertheless Audrey, being as suspicious as a real widow,
+regarded it ill, thinking all manner of things. And when Tommy, humming,
+came back to her seat on Mr. Gilman's left hand, Audrey thought: "And why,
+after all, should she be on his left hand? It is of course proper that I
+should be on his right, but why should Tommy be on his left? Why not Madame
+Piriac or Miss Ingate?"
+
+"And what am _I_ going to do this afternoon?" demanded Miss Ingate,
+lengthening the space between her nose and her upper lip, and turning down
+the corners of her lower lip.
+
+"You have to try that new dress on, Winnie," said Audrey rather
+reprovingly.
+
+"Alone? Me go alone there? I wouldn't do it. It's not respectable the way
+they look at you and add you up and question you in those trying-on rooms,
+when they've _got_ you."
+
+"Well, take Elise with you."
+
+"Me take Elise? I won't do it, not unless I could keep her mouth full of
+pins all the time. Whenever we're alone, and her mouth isn't full of pins,
+she always talks to me as if I was an actress. And I'm not."
+
+"Well, then," said Miss Nickall kindly, "come with me and Tommy. We haven't
+anything to do, and I'm taking Tommy to see Jane Foley. Jane would love to
+see you."
+
+"She might," replied Miss Ingate. "Oh! She might. But I think I'll walk
+across to the hotel and just go to bed and sleep it off."
+
+"Sleep what off?" asked Tommy, with necklace rattling and orchidaceous eyes
+glittering.
+
+"Oh! Everything! Everything!" shrieked Miss Ingate.
+
+There was one other customer left in the restaurant, a solitary fair, fat
+man, and as Mr. Gilman's party was leaving, Audrey last, this solitary
+fair, fat man caught her eye, bowed, and rose. It was Mr. Cowl, secretary
+of the National Reformation Society. He greeted her with the assurance of
+an old and valued friend, and he called her neither Miss nor Mrs.; he
+called her nothing at all. Audrey accepted his lead.
+
+"And is your Society still alive?" she asked with casual polite disdain.
+
+"Going strong!" said Mr. Cowl. "More flourishing than ever--in spite of our
+bad luck." He lifted his sandy-coloured eyebrows. "Of course I'm here on
+Society business. In fact, I often have to come to Paris on Society
+business." His glance deprecated the appearance of the table over which his
+rounded form was protruding.
+
+"Well, I'm glad to have seen you again," said Audrey, holding out her hand.
+
+"I wonder," said Mr. Cowl, drawing some tickets from his pocket. "I wonder
+whether you--and your friends--would care to go to a concert to-night at
+the Salle Xavier. The concierge at my hotel is giving tickets away, and I
+took some--rather to oblige him than anything else. For one never knows
+when a concierge may not be useful. I don't suppose it will be anything
+great, but it will pass the time, and--er--strangers in Paris----"
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Cowl, but I'm not a stranger in Paris. I live here."
+
+"Oh! I beg your pardon," said Mr. Cowl. "Excuse me. Then you won't take
+them? Pity! I hate to see anything wasted."
+
+Audrey was both desolated and infuriated.
+
+"Remember me respectfully to Miss Ingate, please," finished Mr. Cowl. "She
+didn't see me as she passed."
+
+He returned the tickets to his pocket.
+
+Outside, Madame Piriac, standing by her automobile, which had rolled up
+with the silence of an hallucination, took leave of Audrey.
+
+"_Eh bien! Au revoir!_" said she shortly, with a peculiar challenging
+half-smile, which seemed to be saying, "Are you going to be worthy of my
+education? Let us hope so."
+
+And Miss Nickall, with her grey hair growing fluffier under a somewhat
+rakish hat, said with a smile of sheer intense watchful benevolence:
+
+"Well, good-bye!"
+
+While Nick was ecstatically thanking Mr. Gilman for his hospitality, Tommy
+called Audrey aside. Madame Piriac's car had vanished.
+
+"Have you heard about the rehearsal this morning?" she asked, in a
+confidential tone, anxious and yet quizzical.
+
+"No! What about it?" Audrey demanded. Various apprehensions were competing
+for attention in her brain. The episode of Mr. Cowl had agitated her
+considerably. And now she was standing right against the column bearing
+Musa's name in those large letters, and other columns up and down the gay,
+busy street echoed clear the name. And how unreal it was!... Tickets being
+given away in half-dozens!... She ought to have been profoundly disturbed
+by such a revelation, and she was. But here was the drive with Mr. Gilman
+insisting on a monopoly of all her faculties. And on the top of
+everything--Tommy with her strange gaze and tone! Tommy carefully hesitated
+before replying.
+
+"He lost his temper and left it in the middle--orchestra and conductor and
+Xavier and all! And he swore he wouldn't play to-night."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Yes, he did."
+
+"Who told you?"
+
+Already the two women were addressing each other as foes.
+
+"A man I know in the orchestra."
+
+"Why didn't you tell us at once--when you came?"
+
+"Well, I didn't want to spoil the luncheon. But of course I ought to have
+done. You, at any rate, seeing your interest in the concert! I'm sorry."
+
+"My interest in the concert?" Audrey objected.
+
+"Well, my girl," said Tommy, half cajolingly and half threateningly, "you
+aren't going to stand there and tell me to my face that you haven't put up
+that concert for him?"
+
+"Put up the concert! Put up the----" Audrey knew she was blushing.
+
+"Paid for it! Paid for it!" said Tommy, with impatience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+GENIUS AT BAY
+
+Audrey got away from the group in front of the restaurant with stammering
+words and crimson confusion. She ran. She stopped a taxi and stumbled into
+it. There remained with her vividly the vision of the startled, entirely
+puzzled face of Mr. Gilman, who in an instant had been transformed from a
+happy, dignified and excusably self-satisfied human male into an outraged
+rebel whose grievance had overwhelmed his dignity. She had said hurriedly:
+"Please excuse me not coming with you. But Tommy says something's happened
+to Musa, and I must go and see. It's very important." And that was all she
+had said. Had she asked him to drive her to Musa's, Mr. Gilman would have
+been very pleased to do so; but she did not think of that till it was too
+late. Her precipitancy had been terrible, and had staggered even Tommy. She
+had no idea how the group would arrange itself. And she had no very clear
+idea as to what was wrong with Musa or how matters stood in regard to the
+concert. Tommy had asserted that she did not know whether the orchestra and
+its conductor meant to be at their desks in the evening just as though
+nothing whatever had occurred at the rehearsal. All was vague, and all was
+disturbing. She had asked Tommy the authority for her assertion that she,
+Audrey, was financing the concert. To which Tommy had replied that she had
+"guessed, of course." And seeing that Audrey had only interviewed a concert
+agent once--and he a London concert agent with relations in Paris--and
+that she had never uttered a word about the affair to anybody except Mr.
+Foulger, who had been keeping an eye on the expenditure, it was not
+improbable that Tommy had just guessed. But she had guessed right. She was
+an uncanny woman. "Have you ever spoken to Musa about--it?" Audrey had
+passionately demanded; and Tommy had answered also passionately: "Of course
+not. I'm a white woman all through. Haven't you learnt that yet?"
+
+The taxi, although it was a horse-taxi and incapable of moving at more than
+five miles an hour, reached the Rue Cassette, which was on the other side
+of the river and quite a long way off, in no time. That is to say, Audrey
+was not aware that any time had passed. She had received the address from
+Tommy, for it was a new address, Musa having admittedly risen in the world.
+The house was an old one; it had a curious staircase, with china knobs on
+the principal banisters of the rail, and crimson-tasselled bell cords at
+all the doors of the flats. Musa lived at the summit of it. Audrey arrived
+there short of breath, took the crimson-tasselled cord in her hand to pull,
+and then hesitated in order to think.
+
+Why had she come? The response was clear. She had come solely because she
+hated to see a job botched, and there was not a moment to lose if it was
+not to be botched. She had come, not because she had the slightest
+sympathetic interest in Musa--on the contrary, she was coldly angry with
+him--but because she had a horror of fiascos. She had found a genius who
+needed financing, and she, possessing some tons of money, had financed him,
+and she did not mean to see an ounce of her money wasted if she could help
+it. Her interest in the affair was artistic and impersonal, and none other.
+It was the duty of wealthy magnates to foster art, and she was fostering
+art, and she would have the thing done neatly and completely, or she would
+know the reason. Fancy a rational creature making a scene at a final
+rehearsal and swearing that he would not play, and then bolting!  It was
+monstrous! People really did not do such things. Assuredly no artist had
+ever done such a thing before. Artists who had a concert all to themselves
+invariably appeared according to advertised promise. An artist who was only
+one among several in a programme might fall ill and fail to appear, for
+such artists are liable to the accidents of earthly existence. But an
+artist who shared the programme with nobody else was above the accidents of
+earthly existence and magically protected against colds, coughs, influenza,
+orange peel, automobiles, and all the other enemies of mankind. But, of
+course, Musa was peculiar, erratic and unpredictable beyond even the wide
+range granted by society to genius. And yet of late he had been behaving
+himself in a marvellous manner. He had never bothered her. On the voyage
+back to France he had not bothered her. They had separated with punctilious
+cordiality. Neither of them had written to the other, but she knew that he
+was working diligently and satisfactorily. He was apparently cured of her.
+It was perhaps due to the seeming completeness of his cure that her
+relations with Mr. Gilman had been what they were. ... And now, suddenly,
+this!
+
+So with clear conscience she pulled the bell cord.
+
+Musa himself opened the door. He was coatless and in a dressing-gown, under
+which showed glimpses of a new smartness. As soon as he saw her he went
+very pale.
+
+"_Bon jour_," she said.
+
+He repeated the phrase stiffly.
+
+"Can I come in?" she asked.
+
+He silently signified, with a certain annoying resignation, that she might.
+For one instant she was under a tremendous impulse to walk grandly and
+haughtily down the stairs. But she conquered the impulse. He was so pale.
+
+"This way, excuse me," he said, and preceded her along a short, narrow
+passage which ended in an open door leading into a small room. There was no
+carpet on the floor of the passage, and only a quite inadequate rug on the
+floor of the room. The furniture was scanty and poor. There was a table, a
+music stand, a cheap imitation of a Louis Quatorze chair, two other chairs,
+and some piles of music. No curtains to the window! Not a picture on the
+walls!  On the table a dusty disorder of small objects, including
+ash-trays, and towards the back of it a little account book, open, with a
+pencil on it and a low pile of coppers and a silver ten-sou piece on the
+top of the coppers. Nevertheless this interior represented a novel
+luxuriousness for Musa; for previously, as Audrey knew, he had lived in one
+room, and there was no bed here. The flat, indeed, actually comprised three
+rooms. The account book and the pitiful heap of coins touched her. She had
+expended much on the enterprise of launching him to glory, and those coins
+seemed to be all that had filtered through to him. The whole dwelling was
+pathetic, and she thought of the splendours of her own daily life, of the
+absolute unimportance to her of such sums as would keep Musa in content for
+a year or for ten years, and of the grandiose, majestic, dazzling career of
+herself and Mr. Gilman when their respective fortunes should be joined
+together. And she mysteriously saw Mr. Gilman's face again, and that too
+was pathetic. Everything was pathetic. She alone seemed to be hard,
+dominating, overbearing. Her conscience waked to fresh activity. Was she
+losing her soul? Where were her ideals? Could she really work in full
+honesty for the feminist cause as the wife of a man like Mr. Gilman? He was
+adorable: she felt in that moment that she had a genuine affection for him;
+but could Mrs. Gilman challenge the police, retort audaciously upon
+magistrates, and lie in prison? In a word, could she be a martyr? Would Mr.
+Gilman, with all his amenability, consent?  Would she herself consent?
+Would it not be ridiculous? Thus her flying, shamed thoughts in front of
+the waiting Musa!
+
+"Then you aren't ill?" she began.
+
+"Ill!" he exclaimed. "Why do you wish that I should be ill?"
+
+As he answered her he removed his open fiddle case, with the violin inside
+it, from the Louis Quatorze chair, and signed to her to sit down. She sat
+down.
+
+"I heard that--this morning--at the rehearsal----"
+
+"Ah! You have heard that?"
+
+"And I thought perhaps you were ill. So I came to see."
+
+"What have you heard?"
+
+"Frankly, Musa, it is said that you said you would not play to-night."
+
+"Does it concern you?"
+
+"It concerns everyone.... And you have been so good lately."
+
+"Ah! I have been good lately. You have heard that. And did you expect me
+to continue to be good when you returned to Paris and passed all your days
+in public with that antique and grotesque Monsieur Gilman? All the world
+sees you. I myself have seen you. It is horrible."
+
+She controlled herself. And the fact that she was intensely flattered
+helped her to do so.
+
+"Now Musa," she said, firmly and kindly, as on previous occasions she had
+spoken to him. "Do be reasonable. I refuse to be angry, and it is
+impossible for you to insult me, however much you try. But do be
+reasonable. Do think of the future. We are all wishing for your success. We
+shall all be there. And now you say you aren't going to play. It is really
+too much."
+
+"You have perhaps bought tickets," said Musa, and a flush gradually spread
+over his cheeks. "You have perhaps bought tickets, and you are afraid lest
+you have been robbed. Tranquillise yourself, Madame. If you have the least
+fear, I will instruct my agent to reimburse you. And why should I not play?
+Naturally I shall play. Accept my word, if you can." He spoke with an icy
+and convincing decision.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!" Audrey murmured.
+
+"What right have you to be glad, Madame? If you are glad it is your own
+affair. Have I troubled you since we last met? I need the sympathy of
+nobody. I am assured of a large audience. My impresario is excessively
+optimistic. And if this is so, I owe it to none but myself. You speak of
+insults. Permit me to say that I regard your patronage as an insult. I have
+done nothing, I imagine, to deserve it. I crack my head to divine what I
+have done to deserve it. You hear some silly talk about a rehearsal and you
+precipitate yourself _chez moi_--"
+
+Without a word Audrey rose and departed. He followed her to the door and
+held it open.
+
+"_Bon jour_, Madame."
+
+She descended the stairs. Perhaps it was his sudden illogical change of
+tone; perhaps it was the memory of his phrase, "assured of a large
+audience," coupled with a picture of the sinister Mr. Cowl unsuccessfully
+trying to give away tickets--but whatever was the origin of the sob, she
+did give a sob. As she walked downcast through the courtyard she heard
+clearly the sounds of Musa's violin, played with savage vigour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+FINANCIAL NEWS
+
+The Salle Xavier, or Xavier Hall, had been built, with other people's
+money, by Xavier in order to force the general public to do something which
+the general public does not want to do and never would do of its own
+accord. Namely, to listen to high-class music. It had not been built, and
+it was not run, strange to say, to advertise a certain brand of piano.
+Xavier was an old Jew, of surpassing ugliness, from Cracow or some such
+place. He looked a rascal, and he was one--admittedly; he himself would
+imply it, if not crudely admit it. He had no personal interest in music,
+either high-class or low-class. But he possessed a gift for languages and
+he had mixed a great deal with musicians in an informal manner. Wagner, at
+Venice, had once threatened Xavier with a stick, and also Xavier had twice
+run away with great exponents of the rôle of Isolde. His competence as a
+connoisseur of Wagner's music, and of the proper methods of rendering
+Wagner's music, could therefore not be questioned, and it was not
+questioned.
+
+He had a habit of initiating grandiose schemes for opera or concerts and of
+obtaining money therefor from wealthy amateurs. After a few months he would
+return the money less ten per cent. for preliminary expenses and plus his
+regrets that the schemes had unhappily fallen through owing to unforeseen
+difficulties. And wealthy amateurs were so astonished to get ninety per
+cent. of their money back from a rascal that they thought him almost an
+honest man, asked him to dinner, and listened sympathetically to details of
+his next grandiose scheme. The Xavier Hall was one of the few schemes--and
+the only real estate scheme--that had ever gone through. With the hall for
+a centre, Xavier laid daily his plans and conspiracies for persuading the
+public against its will. To this end he employed in large numbers clerks,
+printers, bill posters, ticket agents, doorkeepers, programme writers,
+programme sellers, charwomen, and even artists. He always had some new
+dodge or hope. The hall was let several times a week for concerts or other
+entertainments, and many of them were private speculations of Xavier. They
+were nearly all failures. And the hall, thoroughly accustomed to seeing
+itself half empty, did not pay interest on its capital. How could it? Upon
+occasions there had actually been more persons in the orchestra than in the
+audience. Seated in the foyer, with one eye upon a shabby programme girl
+and another upon the street outside, Xavier would sometimes refer to these
+facts in conversation with a titled patron, and would describe the public
+realistically and without pretence of illusion. Nevertheless, Xavier had
+grown to be a rich man, for percentages were his hourly food; he received
+them even from programme sellers. At nine o'clock the hall was rather less
+than half full, and this was rightly regarded as very promising, for the
+management, like the management of every place of distraction in Paris,
+held it a point of honour to start from twenty to thirty minutes late--as
+though all Parisians had many ages ago decided that in Paris one could not
+be punctual, and that, long since tired of waiting for each other, they had
+entered into a competition to make each other wait, the individual who
+arrived last being universally regarded as the winner. The members of the
+orchestra were filing negligently in from the back of the vast terraced
+platform, yawning, and ravaged by the fearful ennui of eternal high-class
+music. They entered in dozens and scores, and they kept on entering, and as
+they gazed inimically at each other, fingering their instruments, their
+pale faces seemed to be asking: "Why should it be necessary to collect so
+many of us in order to prove that just one single human being can play the
+violin? We can all play the violin, or something else just as good. And we
+have all been geniuses in our time."
+
+In strong contrast to their fatigued and disastrous indifference was the
+demeanour of a considerable group of demonstrators in the gallery. This
+body had crossed the Seine from the sacred Quarter, and, not owning a
+wardrobe sufficiently impressive to entitle it to ask for free seats, it
+had paid for its seats. Hence naturally its seats were the worst in the
+hall. But the group did not care. It was capable of exciting itself about
+high-class music. Moreover it had, for that night, an article of religious
+faith, to wit, that Musa was the greatest violinist that had ever lived or
+ever could live, and it was determined to prove this article of faith by
+sheer force of hands and feet. Therefore it was very happy, and just a
+little noisy.
+
+In the main part of the hall the audience could be divided into two
+species, one less numerous than the other. First, the devotees of music,
+who went to nearly every concert, extremely knowing, extremely blasé,
+extremely disdainful and fastidious, with precise views about every musical
+composition, every conductor, and every performer; weary of melodious
+nights at which the same melodies were ever heard, but addicted to them, as
+some people are addicted to vices equally deleterious. These devotees would
+have had trouble with their conscience or their instincts had they not, by
+coming to the concert, put themselves in a position to affirm exactly and
+positively what manner of a performer Musa was. They had no hope of being
+pleased by him. Indeed they knew beforehand that he was yet another false
+star, but they had to ascertain the truth for themselves, because--you
+see--there was a slight chance that he might be a genuine star, in which
+case their careers would have been ruined had they not been able to say to
+succeeding generations: "I was at his first concert. It was a memorable,"
+etc. etc. They were an emaciated tribe, and in fact had the air of mummies
+temporarily revived and escaped out of museums. They were shabby, but not
+with the gallery shabbiness; they were shabby because shabbiness was part
+of their unworldly refinement; and it did not matter--they would have got
+their free seats even if they had come in sacks and cerements.
+
+The second main division of the audience--and the larger--consisted of the
+jolly pleasure seekers, who had dined well, who respected Beethoven no more
+than Oscar Straus, and who demanded only one boon--not to be bored. They
+had full dimpled cheeks, and they were adequately attired, and they dropped
+cigarettes with reluctance in the foyer, and they entered adventurously
+with marked courage, well aware that they had come to something queer and
+dangerous, something that was neither a revue nor a musical comedy, and,
+while hoping optimistically for the best, determined to march boldly out
+again in the event of the worst. They had seven mortal evenings a week to
+dispose of somehow, and occasionally they were obliged to take risks. Their
+expressions for the most part had that condescension which is
+characteristic of those who take a risk without being paid for it.
+
+All around the hall ran a horseshoe of private boxes, between the balcony
+and the gallery. These boxes gradually filled. At a quarter-past nine over
+half of them were occupied; which fact, combined with the stylishness of
+the hats in them, proved that Xavier had immense skill in certain
+directions, and that on that night, for some reason or other, he had been
+doing his very best.
+
+At twenty minutes past nine the audience had coalesced and become an
+entity, and the group from the Quarter was stamping an imitation of the
+first bars of the C minor Symphony, to indicate that further delay might
+involve complications.
+
+Audrey sat with Miss Ingate modestly and inconspicuously in the fifth row
+of the stalls. Miss Ingate, prodigious in crimson, was in a state of
+beatitude, because she never went to concerts and imagined that she had
+inadvertently slipped into heaven. The mere size of the orchestra so
+overwhelmed her that she was convinced that it was an orchestra specially
+enlarged to meet the unique importance of Musa's genius. "They _must_ think
+highly of him!" she said. She employed the time in looking about her. She
+had already found, besides many other Anglo-Saxon acquaintances, Rosamund,
+in black, Tommy with Nick, and Mr. Cowl, who was one seat to Audrey's left
+in the sixth row of the stalls. Also Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac and
+Monsieur Piriac in a double box. Audrey and herself ought to have been in
+that box, and had the afternoon developed otherwise they probably would
+have been in that box. Fortunately at the luncheon, Audrey, who had bought
+various lots of seats, had with the strange cautiousness of a young girl
+left herself free to utilise or not to utilise the offered hospitality of
+Mr. Gilman's double box, and Mr. Gilman had not pressed her for a decision.
+Was it not important that the hall should seem as full as possible? When
+Miss Ingate, pushing her investigations farther, had discovered not merely
+Monsieur Dauphin, but Mr. Ziegler, late of Frinton and now resident in
+Paris, her cup was full.
+
+"It's vehy wonderful, _vehy_ wonderful!" said she.
+
+But it was Audrey who most deeply had the sense of the wonderfulness of the
+thing. For it was Audrey who had created it. Having months ago comprehended
+that a formal and splendid debut was necessary for Musa if he was to
+succeed within a reasonable space of time, she had willed the debut within
+her own brain. She alone had thought of it. And now the realisation seemed
+to her to be absolutely a miracle. Had she read of such an affair a year
+earlier in a newspaper--with the words "Paris," "_tout Paris_," "young
+genius," and so on--she would have pictured it as gloriously, thrillingly
+romantic, and it indeed was gloriously and thrillingly romantic. She
+thought: "None of these people sitting around me know that I have brought
+it about, and that it is all mine." The thought was sweet. She felt like an
+invisible African genie out of the Thousand and One Nights.
+
+And yet what had she done to bring it about? Nothing, simply nothing,
+except to command it! She had not even signed cheques. Mr. Foulger had
+signed the cheques! Mr. Foulger, who set down the whole enterprise as
+incomprehensible lunacy! Mr. Foulger, who had never been to aught but a
+smoking-concert in his life, and who could not pronounce the name of
+Beethoven without hesitations!  The great deed had cost money, and it would
+cost more money; it would probably cost four hundred pounds ere it was
+finished with. An extravagant sum, but Xavier had motor-cars and toys even
+more expensive than motor-cars to keep up! Audrey, however, considered it a
+small sum, compared to the terrific spectacular effect obtained. And she
+was right. The attributes of money seemed entirely magical to her. And she
+was right again. She respected money with a new respect. And she respected
+herself for using money with such large grandeur.
+
+And withal she was most horribly nervous, just as nervous as though it was
+she who was doomed to face the indifferent and exacting audience with
+nothing but a violin bow for weapon. She was so nervous that she could not
+listen, could not even follow Miss Ingate's simple remarks; she heard them
+as from a long distance, and grasped them after a long interval. Still, she
+was uplifted, doughty, and proud. The humiliation of the afternoon had
+vanished like a mist. Nay, she felt glad that Musa had behaved to her just
+as he did behave. His mien pleased her; his wounding words, each of which
+she clearly remembered, were a source of delight. She had never admired him
+so much. She had now no resentment against him. He had proved that her
+hopes of him were, after all, well justified. He would succeed. Only some
+silly and improbable accident could stop him from succeeding. She was not
+nervous about his success. She was nervous for him. She became him. She
+tuned his fiddle, gathered herself together and walked on to the platform,
+bowed to the dim multitudinous heads in front of him, looked at the
+conductor, waited for the opening bars, drew his bow across his strings at
+precisely the correct second, and heard the resulting sound under her ear.
+And all that before the conductor had appeared! Such were the
+manifestations of her purely personal desire for the achievement of a neat,
+clean job.
+
+"See!" said Miss Ingate. "Mr. Gilman is bowing to us. He does look
+splendid, and isn't Madame Piriac lovely?  I must say I don't care so much
+for these French husbands."
+
+Audrey had to turn and join Miss Ingate in acknowledging the elaborate bow.
+At any rate, then, Mr. Gilman had not been utterly estranged by her
+capricious abandonment of him. And why should he be? He was a man of sense;
+he would understand perfectly when she explained to-morrow. Further, he
+was her slave. She was sure of him. She would apologise to him. She would
+richly recompense him by smiles and honey and charming persuasive
+simplicity. And he would see that with all her innocent and modest
+ingenuousness she was capable of acting seriously and effectively in a
+sudden crisis. She would rise higher in his esteem. As for the foreseen
+proposal, well----
+
+A sporadic clapping wakened her out of those reflections. The conductor
+was approaching his desk. The orchestra applauded him. He tapped the desk
+and raised his stick. And there was a loud noise, the thumping of her
+heart. The concert had begun. Musa was still invisible--what was he doing
+at that instant, somewhere behind?--but the concert had begun. Stars do not
+take part in the first item of an orchestral concert. There is a convention
+that they shall be preluded; and Musa was preluded by the overture to _Die
+Meistersinger_. In the soft second section of the overture, a most
+noticeable babble came from a stage-box. "Oh! It's the Foas," muttered Miss
+Ingate. "What a lot of people are fussing around them!" "Hsh!" frowned
+Audrey, outraged by the interruption. Madame Foa took about fifty bars in
+which to settle herself, and Monsieur Foa chattered to people behind him as
+freely as if he had been in a café Nobody seemed to mind.
+
+The overture was applauded, but Madame Foa, instead of applauding, leaned
+gracefully back, smiling, and waved somebody to the seat beside her.
+
+Violent demonstrations from the gallery!... He was there, tripping down the
+stepped pathway between the drums. The demonstrations grew general. The
+orchestra applauded after its own fashion. He reached the conductor, smiled
+at the conductor and bowed very admirably. He seemed to be absolutely at
+his ease. Then there was a delay. The conductor's scores had got themselves
+mixed up. It was dreadful. It was enough to make a woman shriek.
+
+"I say!" said a voice in Audrey's ear. She turned as if shot. Mr. Cowl's
+round face was close to hers. "I suppose you saw the _New York Herald_ this
+morning."
+
+"No," answered Audrey impatiently.
+
+The orchestra started the Beethoven violin Concerto. But Mr. Cowl kept his
+course.
+
+"Didn't you?" he said. "About the Zacatecas Oil Corporation? It's under a
+receivership. It's gone smash. I've had an idea for some time it would.
+All due to these Mexican revolutions. I thought you might like to know."
+
+Musa's bow hung firmly over the strings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+INTERVAL
+
+The most sinister feature of entertainments organised by Xavier was the
+intervals. Xavier laid stress on intervals; they gave repose, and in many
+cases they saved money. All Paris managers are inclined to give to the
+interval the importance of a star turn, and Xavier in this respect
+surpassed his rivals, though he perhaps regarded his cloak-rooms, which
+were organised to cause the largest possible amount of inconvenience to the
+largest possible number of people, as his surest financial buttress. Xavier
+could or would never see the close resemblance of intervals to wet
+blankets, extinguishers, palls and hostile critics. The Allegro movement of
+the Concerto was a real success, and the audience as a whole would have
+applauded even more if the gallery in particular had not applauded so much.
+The second or Larghetto movement was also a success, but to a less degree.
+As for the third and last movement, it put the gallery into an ecstasy
+while leaving the floor in possession of full critical faculties. Musa
+retired and had to return, and when he returned the floor good-humouredly
+joined the vociferous gallery in laudations, and he had to return again.
+Then the interminable interval. Silence! Murmurings!  Silence! Creepings
+towards exits! And in many, very many hearts the secret trouble question:
+"Why are we here? What have we come for? What is all this pother about art
+and genius? Honestly, shall we not be glad and relieved when the solemn old
+thing is over?"... And the desolating, cynical indifference of the
+conductor and the orchestra! Often there is a clearer vision of the truth
+during the intervals of a classical concert than on a deathbed.
+
+Audrey was extremely depressed in the interval after the Beethoven Concerto
+and before the Lalo. But she was not depressed by the news of the accident
+to the Zacatecas Oil Corporation in which was the major part of her wealth.
+The tidings had stunned rather than injured that part of her which was
+capable of being affected by finance. She had not felt the blow. Moreover
+she was protected by the knowledge that she had thousands of pounds in hand
+and also the Moze property intact, and further she was already
+reconsidering her newly-acquired respect for money. No!  What depressed her
+was a doubt as to the genius of Musa. In the long dreadful pause it seemed
+impossible that he should have genius. The entire concert presented itself
+as a grotesque farce, of which she as its creator ought to be ashamed. She
+was ready to kill Xavier or his responsible representative.
+
+Then she saw the tall and calm Rosamund, with her grey hair and black
+attire and her subduing self-complacency, making a way between the rows of
+stalls towards her.
+
+"I wanted to see you," said Rosamund, after the formal greetings. "Very
+much." Her voice was as kind and as unrelenting as the grave.
+
+At this point Miss Ingate ought to have yielded her seat to the terrific
+Rosamund, but she failed to do so, doubtless by inadvertence.
+
+"Will you come into the foyer for a moment?" Rosamund inflexibly suggested.
+
+"Isn't the interval nearly over?" said Audrey.
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+And as a fact there was not the slightest sign of the interval being nearly
+over. Audrey obediently rose. But the invitation had been so conspicuously
+addressed to herself that Miss Ingate, gathering her wits, remained in her
+chair.
+
+The foyer--decorated in the Cracovian taste--was dotted with cigarette
+smokers and with those who had fled from the interval. Rosamund did not sit
+down; she did not try for seclusion in a corner. She stepped well into the
+foyer, and then stood still, and absently lighted a cigarette, omitting to
+offer a cigarette to Audrey. Rosamund's air of a deaconess made the
+cigarette extremely remarkable.
+
+"I wanted to tell you about Jane Foley," began Rosamund quietly. "Have you
+heard?"
+
+"No! What?"
+
+"Of course you haven't. I alone knew. She has run away to England."
+
+"Run away! But she'll be caught!"
+
+"She may be. But that is not all. She has run away to get married. She
+dared not tell me. She wrote me. She put the letter in the manuscript of
+the last chapter but one of her book, which I am revising for her. She will
+almost certainly be caught if she tries to get married in her own name.
+Therefore she will get married in a false name. All this, however, is not
+what I wanted to tell you about."
+
+"Then you shouldn't have begun to talk about it," said Audrey suddenly.
+"Did you expect me to let you leave it in the middle! Jane getting married!
+I do think she might have told me.... What next, I wonder! I suppose
+you've--er--lost her now?"
+
+"Not entirely, I believe," said Rosamund. "Certainly not entirely. But of
+course I could never trust her again. This is the worst blow I have ever
+had. She says--but why go into that? Well, she does say she will work as
+hard as ever, nearly; and that her future husband strongly supports us--and
+so on." Rosamund smiled with complete detachment.
+
+"And who's he?" Audrey demanded.
+
+"His name is Aguilar," said Rosamund. "So she says."
+
+"Aguilar?"
+
+"Yes. I gather--I say I gather--that he belongs to the industrial class.
+But of course that is precisely the class that Jane springs from. Odd! Is
+it not? Heredity, I presume." She raised her shoulders.
+
+Audrey said nothing. She was too shocked to speak--not pained or outraged,
+but simply shaken. What in the name of Juno could Jane see in Aguilar?
+Jane, to whom every man was the hereditary enemy! Aguilar, who had no use
+for either man or woman! Aguilar, a man without a Christian name, one of
+those men in connection with whom a Christian name is impossibly
+ridiculous. How should she, Audrey, address Aguilar in future? Would he
+have to be asked to tea? These vital questions naturally transcended all
+others in Audrey's mind.... Still (she veered round), it was perhaps after
+all just the union that might have been expected.
+
+"And now," said Rosamund at length, "I have a question to put to you."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I don't want a definite answer here and now." She looked round
+disdainfully at the foyer. "But I do want to set your mind on the right
+track at the earliest possible moment--before any accidents occur." She
+smiled satirically. "You see how frank I am with you. I'll be more frank
+still, and tell you that I came to this concert to-night specially to see
+you."
+
+"Did you?" Audrey murmured. "Well!"
+
+The older woman looked down upon her from a superior height. Her eyes were
+those of an autocrat. It was quite possible to see in them the born leader
+who had dominated thousands of women and played a drawn game with the
+British Government itself. But Audrey, at the very moment when she was
+feeling the overbearing magic of that gaze, happened to remember the scene
+in Madame Piriac's automobile on the night of her first arrival in Paris,
+when she herself was asleep and Rosamund, not knowing that she was asleep,
+had been solemnly addressing her. Miss Ingate's often repeated account of
+the scene always made her laugh, and the memory of it now caused her to
+smile faintly.
+
+"I want to suggest to you," Rosamund proceeded, "that you begin to work for
+me."
+
+"For the suffrage--or for you?"
+
+"It is the same thing," said Rosamund coldly. "I am the suffrage. Without
+me the cause would not have existed to-day."
+
+"Well," said Audrey, "of course I will. I have done a bit already, you
+know."
+
+"Yes, I know," Rosamund admitted. "You did very well at the Blue City.
+That's why I'm approaching you. That's why I've chosen you."
+
+"Chosen me for what?"
+
+"You know that a new great campaign will soon begin. It is all arranged.
+It will necessitate my returning to England and challenging the police. You
+know also that Jane Foley was to have been my lieutenant-in-chief--for the
+active part of the operation. You will admit that I can no longer count on
+her completely. Will you take her place?"
+
+"I'll help," said Audrey. "I'll do what I can. I dare say I shan't have
+much money, because one of those 'accidents' you mentioned has happened to
+me already."
+
+"That need not trouble you," replied Rosamund imperturbable. "I have
+always been able to get all the money that was needed."
+
+"Well, I'll help all I can."
+
+"That's not what I ask," said Rosamund inflexibly. "Will you take Jane
+Foley's place? Will you give yourself utterly?"
+
+Audrey answered with sudden vehemence:
+
+"No, I won't. You didn't want a definite answer, but there it is."
+
+"But surely you believe in the cause?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's the greatest of all causes."
+
+"I'm rather inclined to think it is."
+
+"Why not give yourself, then? You are free. I have given myself, my child."
+
+"Yes," said Audrey, who resented the appellation of "child." "But, you see,
+it's your hobby."
+
+"My hobby, Mrs. Moncreiff!" exclaimed Rosamund.
+
+"Certainly, your hobby," Audrey persisted.
+
+"I have sacrificed everything to it," said Rosamund.
+
+"Pardon me," said Audrey. "I don't think you've sacrificed anything to it.
+You just enjoy bossing other people above everything, and it gives you
+every chance to boss. And you enjoy plots too, and look at the chances you
+get for that'. Mind you, I like you for it. I think you're splendid. Only
+_I_ don't want to be a monomaniac, and I won't be." Her convictions seemed
+to have become suddenly clear and absolutely decided.
+
+"Do you mean to infer that I am a monomaniac?" asked Rosamund, raising her
+eyebrows--but only a little.
+
+"Well," said Audrey, "as you mentioned frankness--what else would you call
+yourself but a monomaniac?  You only live for one thing--don't you, now?"
+
+"It is the greatest thing."
+
+"I don't say it isn't," Audrey admitted. "But I've been thinking a good
+deal about all this, and at last I've come to the conclusion that one
+thing-isn't enough for me, not nearly enough. And I'm not going to be
+peculiar at any price. Neither a fanatic nor a monomaniac, nor anything
+like that."
+
+"You are in love," asserted Rosamund.
+
+"And what if I am? If you ask me, I think a girl who isn't in love ought to
+be somewhat ashamed of herself, or at least sorry for herself. And I am
+sorry for myself, because I am not in love. I wish I was. Why shouldn't I
+be? It must be lovely to be in love. If I was in love I shouldn't be _only_
+in love. You think you understand what girls are nowadays, but you don't. I
+didn't myself until just lately. But I'm beginning to. Girls were supposed
+to be only interested in one thing--in your time. Monomaniacs, that's what
+they had to be. You changed all that, or you're trying to change it, but
+you only mean women to be monomaniacs about something else. It isn't good
+enough. I want everything, and I'm going to get it--or have a good try for
+it. I'll never be a martyr if I can help it. And I believe I can help it. I
+believe I've got just enough common sense to save me from being a martyr
+--either to a husband or a house or family--or a cause. I want to have a
+husband and a house and a family, and a cause too. That'll be just about
+everything, won't it? And if you imagine I can't look after all of them at
+once, all I can say is I don't agree with you. Because I've got an idea I
+can. Supposing I had all these things, I fancy I could have a tiff with my
+husband and make it up, play with my children, alter a dress, change the
+furniture, tackle the servants, and go out to a meeting and perhaps have a
+difficulty with the police--all in one day. Only if I did get into trouble
+with the police I should pay the fine--you see. The police aren't going to
+have me altogether. Nobody is. Nobody, man or woman, is going to be able to
+boast that he's got me altogether. You think you're independent. But you
+aren't. We girls will show you what independence is."
+
+"You're a rather surprising young creature," observed Rosamund with a
+casual air, unmoved. "You're quite excited."
+
+"Yes. I surprise myself. But these things do come in bursts. I've noticed
+that before. They weren't clear when you began to talk. They're clear now."
+
+"Let me tell you this," said Rosamund. "A cause must have martyrs."
+
+"I don't see it," Audrey protested. "I should have thought common sense
+would be lots more useful than martyrs. And monomaniacs never do have
+common sense."
+
+"You're very young."
+
+"Is that meant for an insult, or is it just a statement?" Audrey laughed
+pleasantly.
+
+And Rosamund laughed too.
+
+"It's just a statement," said she.
+
+"Well, here's another statement," said Audrey. "You're very old. That's
+where I have the advantage of you. Still, tell me what I can do in your
+new campaign, and I'll do it if I can. But there isn't going to be any
+utterly--that's all."
+
+"I think the interval is over," said Rosamund with finality. "Perhaps we'd
+better adjourn."
+
+The foyer had nearly emptied. The distant sound of music could be heard.
+
+As she was re-entering the hall, Audrey met Mr. Cowl, who was coming out.
+
+"I have decided I can't stand any more," Mr. Cowl remarked in a loud
+whisper. "I hope you didn't mind me telling you about the Zacatecas. As I
+said, I thought you might be interested. Good-bye. So pleasant to have met
+you again, dear lady." His face had the same enigmatic smile which had made
+him so formidable at Moze.
+
+Musa had already begun to play the Spanish Symphony of Lalo, without which
+no genius is permitted to make his formal debut on the violin in France.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+
+ENTR'ACTE
+
+After the Spanish Symphony not only the conductor but the entire orchestra
+followed Musa from the platform, and Audrey understood that the previous
+interval had not really been an interval and that the first genuine
+interval was about to begin. The audience seemed to understand this too,
+for practically the whole of it stood up and moved towards the doors.
+Audrey would have stayed in her seat, but Miss Ingate expressed a desire to
+go out and "see the fun" in the foyer, and, moreover, she asserted that the
+Foas from their box had been signalling to her and Audrey an intention to
+meet them in the foyer. Miss Ingate was in excellent spirits. She said it
+beat her how Musa's fingers could get through so many notes in so short a
+time, and also that it made her feel tired even to watch the fingers. She
+was convinced that nobody had ever handled the violin so marvellously
+before. As for success, Musa had been recalled, and the applause from the
+gallery, fired by its religious belief, was obstinate and extremely
+vociferous. Audrey, however, was aware of terrible sick qualms, for she
+knew that Musa was not so far dominating his public. Much of the applause
+had obviously the worst quality that applause can have--it was
+good-natured. Yet she could not accept failure for Musa. Failure would be
+too monstrous an injustice, and therefore it could not happen.
+
+The emptiness of the Foas' box indicated that Miss Ingate might be correct
+in her interpretation of signals, and Audrey allowed herself to be led away
+from the now forlorn auditorium. As they filed along the gangways she had
+to listen to the indifferent remarks of utterly unprejudiced and
+uninterested persons about the performance of genius, and further she had
+to learn that a fair proportion of them were departing with no intention to
+return. In the thronged foyer they saw Mr. Gilman, alone, before he saw
+them. He was carrying a box of chocolates--doubtless one of the little
+things that Mr. Price had had instructions to provide for the evening, Mr.
+Gilman perhaps would not have caught sight of them had it not been for the
+stridency of Miss Ingate's voice, which caused him to turn round.
+
+Audrey experienced once again the sensation--which latterly was apt to
+recur in her--of having too many matters on her mind simultaneously; in a
+phrase, the sensation of the exceeding complexity of existence. And she
+resented it. The interview with Rosamund was quite enough for one night. It
+had been a triumph for her; she had surprised herself in that interview; it
+had left her with a conviction of freedom; it had uplifted her. She ought
+to have been in a state of exaltation after that interview, and she was.
+Only, while in a state of exaltation, she was still in the old state of
+depression--about the tendency of the concert, of her concert, and about
+the rumoured disappearance of her fortune. Also she was preoccupied by the
+very strange affair of Jane Foley and Aguilar.
+
+And now--a further intricacy of mood--came a whole new set of emotions due
+to the mere spectacle of Mr. Gilman's august back! She was intimidated by
+Mr. Gilman's back. She knew horribly that in the afternoon she had treated
+Mr. Gilman as Mr. Gilman ought never to have been treated. And, quite apart
+from intimidation, she had another feeling, a feeling which was ghastly and
+of which she was ashamed.... Assuming the disappearance of her fortune,
+would Mr. Gilman's attitude towards her be thereby changed? ... She
+admitted that young girls ought not to have such suspicions against
+respectable and mature men of established position in the world.
+Nevertheless, she could not blow the suspicion away.
+
+But the instant Mr. Gilman's eye met hers the suspicion vanished, and not
+the suspicion only, but all her intimidation. The miracle was produced by
+something in the gaze of Mr. Gilman as it rested on her, something
+wistful--not more definable than that, something which she had noticed in
+Mr. Gilman's gaze on other occasions. It perfectly restored her. It gave
+her the positive assurance of a fact which marvellously enheartens young
+girls of about Audrey's years--to wit, that they have a mysterious power
+surpassing the power of age, knowledge, wisdom, or wealth, that they
+influence and decide the course of history, and are the sole true
+mistresses of the world. Whence the mysterious power sprang she did not
+exactly know, but she surmised--rightly--that it was connected with her
+youth, with a dimple, with the incredibly soft down on her cheek, with the
+arch softness of her glance, with a gesture of the hand, with a turn of the
+shoulder, with a pleat of the skirt.... Anyhow, she possessed it, and to
+possess it was to wield it. It transformed her into a delicious tyrant, but
+a tyrant; it inspired her with exquisite cruelty, but cruelty. Her thoughts
+might have been summed up in eight words:
+
+"Pooh! He has suffered. Well, he must suffer."
+
+Ah! But she meant to be very kind to him. He was so reliable, so adorable,
+and so dependent. She had genuine affection for him. And he was at once a
+rock and a cushion.
+
+"Isn't it going splendidly--splendidly, Mr. Gilman?" exclaimed Miss Ingate
+in her enthusiasm.
+
+"Apparently," said Mr. Gilman, with comfort in his voice.
+
+At that moment the musical critic with large, dark Eastern eyes, whom
+Audrey had met at the Foas', strolled nonchalantly by, and, perceiving Miss
+Ingate, described a huge and perfect curve in the air with his glossy silk
+hat, which had been tipped at the back of his head. Mr. Gilman had come
+close to Audrey.
+
+"The Foas started down with me," said Mr. Gilman mildly. "But they always
+meet such crowds of acquaintances at these affairs that they seldom get
+anywhere. Hortense would not leave the box. She never will."
+
+"Oh! I'm so glad I've seen you," Audrey began excitedly, but with
+simplicity and compelling sweetness. "You've no idea how sorry I am about
+this afternoon!  I'm frightfully sorry, really! But I was so upset. I
+didn't know what to do. You know how anxious everybody was about Musa for
+to-night. He's the pet of the Quarter, and, of course, I belong to the
+Quarter. At least--I did. I thought he might be ill, or something.
+However, it was all right in the end. I was looking forward tremendously to
+that drive. Are you going to forgive me?"
+
+"Please, please!" he eagerly entreated, with a faint blush. "Of course, I
+quite understand. There's nothing whatever to forgive."
+
+"Oh! but there is," she insisted. "Only you're so good-natured."
+
+She was being magnanimous. She was pretending that she had no mysterious
+power. But her motive was quite pure. If he was good-natured, so was she.
+She honestly wanted to recompense him, and to recompense him richly. And
+she did. Her demeanour was enchanting in its ingenuous flattery. She felt
+happy despite all her anxieties, for he was living up to her ideal of him.
+She felt happy, and her resolve to make him happy to the very limit of his
+dreams was intense. She had a vision of her future existence stretching out
+in front of her, and there was not a shadow on it. She thought he was going
+to offer her the box of chocolates, but he did not.
+
+"I rather wanted to ask your advice," she said.
+
+"I wish you would," he replied.
+
+Just then the Foas arrived, and with them Dauphin, the great and
+fashionable painter and the original discoverer of Musa. And as they all
+began to speak at once Audrey heard the Oriental musical critic say slowly
+to an inquiring Miss Ingate:
+
+"It is not a concert talent that he has."
+
+"You hear! You hear!" exclaimed Monsieur Foa to Monsieur Dauphin and Madame
+Foa, with an impressed air. "You hear what Miquette says. He has not a
+concert talent. He has everything that you like, but not a concert talent."
+
+Foa seemed to be exhibiting the majestic Oriental, nicknamed Miquette, as
+the final arbiter, whose word settled problems like a sword, and Miquette
+seemed to be trying to bear the high rôle with negligent modesty.
+
+"But, yes, he has! But, yes, he has!" Dauphin protested, sweeping all
+Miquettes politely away. And then there was an urbane riot of greetings,
+salutes, bowings, smilings, cooings and compliments.
+
+Dauphin was magnificent, playing the part of the opulent painter _à la
+mode_ with the most finished skill, the most splendid richness of detail.
+It was notorious that in the evenings he wore the finest silk shirts in
+Paris, and his waistcoat was designed to give scope to these shirts. He
+might have come--he probably had come--straight from the bower of
+archduchesses; but he produced in Audrey the illusion that archduchesses
+were a trifle compared to herself. He had not seen her for a long time.
+Gazing at her, he breathed relief; all his features indicated the sudden,
+unexpected assuaging of eternal and intense desires. He might have been
+travelling through the desert for many days and she might have been the
+oasis--the pool of living water and the palm.
+
+"Now--like that! Just like that!" he said, holding her hand and, as it
+were, hypnotising her in the pose in which she happened to be. He looked
+hard at her. "It is unique. Madame, where did you find that dress?"
+
+"Callot," answered Audrey submissively.
+
+"I thought so. Well, Madame, I can wait no more. I will wait no more. It
+is Dauphin who implores you to come to his studio. To come--it is your
+duty. Madame Foa, you will bring her. I count on you absolutely to bring
+her. Even if it is only to be a sketch--the merest hint. But I must do it."
+
+"Oh, yes, Madame," said Madame Foa with all the Italian charm. "Dauphin
+must paint you. The contrary is unthinkable. My husband and I have often
+said so."
+
+"To-morrow?" Dauphin suggested.
+
+"Ah! To-morrow, my little Dauphin, I cannot," said Madame Foa.
+
+"Nor I," said Audrey.
+
+"The day after to-morrow, then. I will send my auto. What address?
+Half-past eleven. That goes? In any case, I insist. Be kind! Be kind!"
+
+Audrey blushed. Half the foyer was staring at the group. She was flattered.
+She saw herself remarkable. She thought she would look more particularly,
+with perfect detachment, at the mirror that night, in order to decide
+whether her appearance was as striking, as original, as distinguished, as
+Dauphin's attitude implied. There must surely be something in it.
+
+"About that advice--may I call to-morrow?" It was Mr. Gilman's voice at her
+elbow.
+
+"Advice?" She had forgotten her announced intention of asking his advice.
+(The subject was to be Zacatecas.) "Oh, yes. How nice of you! Please do
+call. Come for tea." She was delightful to him, but at the same time there
+was in her tone a little of the condescending casualness proper to the tone
+of a girl openly admired by the confidant and painter of princesses and
+archduchesses, the man who treated all plain women and women past the prime
+with a desolating indifference.
+
+She thought:
+
+"I am a rotten little snob."
+
+Mr. Gilman gave thanksgivings and departed, explaining that he must return
+to Madame Piriac.
+
+Foa and Dauphin and the Oriental resumed the argument about Musa's talent
+and the concert. Miquette would say nothing as to the success of the
+concert. Foa asserted that the concert was not and would not be a success.
+Dauphin pooh-poohed and insisted vehemently that the success was
+unmistakable and increasing. Moreover, he criticised the hall, the choice
+of programme, the orchestra, the conductor. "I discovered Musa," said he.
+"I have always said that he is a great concert player, and that he is
+destined for a great world-success, and to-night I am more sure of it than
+ever." Whereupon Madame Foa said with much sympathy that she hoped it was
+so, and Foa said: "You create illusions for yourself, on purpose." Dauphin
+bore him down with wavy gestures and warm cries of "No! No! No!" And he
+appealed to Audrey as-a woman incapable of illusions. And Audrey agreed
+with Dauphin. And while she was agreeing she kept saying to herself: "Why
+do I pretend to agree with him?  He is not sincere. He knows he is not
+sincere. We all know--except perhaps Winnie Ingate. The concert is a
+failure. If it were not a failure, Madame Foa would not be so sympathetic.
+She is more subtle even than Madame Piriac. I shall never be subtle like
+that. I wish I could be. I wish I was at Moze. I am too Essex for all this.
+And Winnie here is too comic for words."
+
+An aged and repellent Jew came into sight. He raised Madame Foa's hand to
+his odious lips and kissed it, and Audrey wondered how Madame Foa could
+tolerate the formality.
+
+"Well, Monsieur Xavier?"
+
+Xavier shrugged his round shoulders.
+
+"Do not say," said he, in a hoarse voice to the company, "do not say that I
+have not done my best on this occasion." He lifted his eyes heavenward, and
+as he did so his passing glance embraced Audrey, and she violently hated
+him.
+
+"Winnie," said she, "I think we ought to be getting back to our seats."
+
+"But," cried Madame Foa, "we are going round with Dauphin to the artists'
+room. You do not come with us, Madame Moncreiff?"
+
+"In your place ..." muttered Xavier discouragingly, with a look at Dauphin,
+and another shrug of the shoulders. "I have been ..."
+
+"Ah!" said Dauphin, in a strange new tone. And then very brightly to
+Audrey: "Now, as to Saturday, dear lady----"
+
+Xavier engaged in private converse with Foa, and his demeanour to Foa was
+extremely deferential, whereas he almost ignored the Oriental critic. And
+Audrey puzzled her head once again to discover why the Foas should exert
+such influence upon the fate of music in Paris. The enigma was only one
+among many.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+END OF THE CONCERT
+
+
+The first item after the true interval was the Chaconne of Bach, which Musa
+had played upon a memorable occasion in Frinton. He stood upon the platform
+utterly alone, against a background of empty chairs, double-basses and
+drums. He seemed to be unfriended and forlorn. It appeared to Audrey that
+he was playing with despair. She wished, as she looked from Musa to the
+deserted places in the body of the hall, that the piece was over, and that
+the entire concert was over. How could anyone enjoy such an arid maze of
+sounds? The whole theory of classical composition and its vogue was hollow
+and ridiculous. People did not like the classics; they could not and they
+never would. Now a waltz ... after a jolly dinner and wine! ... But the
+Chaconne! But Bach! But culture!  The audience was visibly and audibly
+restless. For about two hundred years the attempt to force this Chaconne
+upon the public had been continuous, and it was still boring them. Of
+course it was! The thing was unnatural.
+
+And she herself was a fool; she was a ninny. And the alleged power of money
+was an immense fraud. She had thought to perform miracles by means of a
+banking account. For a moment she had imagined that the miracles had come
+to pass. But they had not come to pass. The public was too old, too tired,
+and too wary. It could not thus be tricked into making a reputation. The
+forces that made reputations were far less amenable than she had fancied.
+The world was too clever and too experienced for her ingenuous self.
+Geniuses were not lying about and waiting to be picked up. Musa was not a
+genius. She had been a simpleton, and the sacred Quarter had been a
+simpleton. She was rather angry with Musa for not being a genius.  And the
+confidence which he had displayed a few hours earlier was just grotesque
+conceit! And men and women who were supposed to be friendly human hearts
+were not so in truth. They were merely indifferent and callous spectators.
+The Foas, for example, were chattering in their box, apparently oblivious
+of the tragedy that was enacting under their eyes. But then, it was perhaps
+not a tragedy; it was perhaps a farce.
+
+And what would these self-absorbed spectators of existence say and do, if
+and when it was known that she was no longer a young woman of enormous
+wealth? Would Dauphin have sought to compel her to enter his studio had he
+been aware that her fortune had gone tip in smoke?  She was not in a real
+world. She was in a world of shams. And she was a sham in the world of
+shams. She wanted to be back again in the honest realities of Moze, where
+in the churchyard she could see the tombs of her great-great-grandfathers.
+Only one extraneous interest drew her thoughts away from Moze. That
+interest was Mr. Gilman. Mr. Gilman was her conquest and her slave. She
+adored him because he was so wistful and so reliable and so adoring. Mr.
+Gilman sat intent and straight upright in Madame Piriac's box and behaved
+just as though Bach himself was present. He understood nothing of Bach, but
+he could be trusted to behave with benevolence.
+
+The music suddenly ceased. The Chaconne was finished. The gallery of
+enthusiasts still applauded with vociferation, with mystic faith, with
+sublime obstinacy. It was carrying on a sort of religious war against the
+base apathy of the rest of the audience. It was determined to force its
+belief down the throats of the unintelligent mob. It had made up its mind
+that until it had had its way the world should stand still. No encore had
+yet been obtained, and the gallery was set on an encore. The clapping
+fainted, expired, and then broke into new life, only to expire again and
+recommence. A few irritated persons hissed. The gallery responded with
+vigour. Musa, having retired, reappeared, very white, and bowed. The
+applause was feverish and unconvincing. Musa vanished. But the gallery had
+thick soles and hard hands and stout sticks, even serviceable umbrellas. It
+could not be appeased by bows alone. And after about three minutes of
+tedious manoeuvring, Musa had at last to yield an encore that in fact
+nobody wanted. He played a foolish pyrotechnical affair of De Bériot, which
+resembled nothing so much as a joke at a funeral. After that the fate of
+the concert could not be disputed even by the gallery. At the finish of the
+evening there was, in the terrible idiom of the theatre, "not a hand."
+
+Whether Musa had played well or ill, Audrey had not the least idea. Nor did
+that point seem to matter. Naught but the attitude of the public seemed to
+matter. This was strange, because for a year Audrey had been learning
+steadily in the Quarter that the attitude of the public had no importance
+whatever. She suffered from the delusion that the public was staring at her
+and saying to her: "You, you silly little thing, are responsible for this
+fiasco. We condescended to come--and this is what you have offered us. Go
+home, and let your hair down and shorten your skirts, for you are no better
+than a schoolgirl, after all." She was really self-conscious. She despised
+Musa, or rather she threw to him a little condescending pity. And yet at
+the same time she was furious against that group in the foyer for being so
+easily dissuaded from going to see Musa in the artists' room.... Rats
+deserting a sinking ship!... People, even the nicest, would drop a failure
+like a match that was burning out.... Yes, and they would drop her.... No,
+they would not, because of Mr. Gilman. Mr. Gilman was calling-to see her
+to-morrow. He was the rock and the cushion. She would send Miss Ingate out
+for the afternoon. As the audience hurried eagerly forth she spoke sharply
+to Miss Ingate. She was indeed very rude to Miss Ingate. She was
+exasperated, and Miss Ingate happened to be handy.
+
+In the foyer not a trace of the Foa clan nor of Madame Piriac and her
+husband, nor of Mr. Gilman! But Tommy and Nick were there, putting on their
+cloaks, and with them, but not helping them, was Mr. Ziegler. The blond Mr.
+Ziegler greeted Audrey as though the occasion of their previous meeting had
+been a triumph for him. His self-satisfaction, if ever it had been damaged,
+was repaired to perfection. The girls were silent; Miss Ingate was silent;
+but Mr. Ziegler was not silent.
+
+"He played better than I did anticipate," said Mr. Ziegler, lighting a
+cigarette, after he had nonchalantly acknowledged the presentation to him
+of Miss Ingate. "But of what use is this French public? None. Even had he
+succeeded here it would have meant nothing. Nothing. In music Paris does
+not exist. There are six towns in Germany where success means
+vorldt-reputation. Not that he would succeed in Germany. He has not studied
+in Germany. And outside Germany there are no schools. However, we have the
+intention to impose our culture upon all European nations, including
+France. In one year our army will be here--in Paris. I should wait for
+that, but probably I shall be called up. In any case, I shall be present."
+
+"But whatever do you mean?" cried Miss Ingate, aghast.
+
+"What do I mean? I mean our army will be here. All know it in Germany.
+They know it in Paris! But what can they do? How can they stop us?...
+Decadent!..." He laughed easily.
+
+"Oh, my chocolates!" exclaimed Miss Thompkins. "I've left them in the
+hall!"
+
+"No, here they are," said Nick, handing the box.
+
+To Audrey it seemed to be the identical box that Mr. Gilman had been
+carrying. But of course it might not be. Thousands of chocolate boxes
+resemble each other exactly.
+
+Carefully ignoring Mr. Ziegler, Audrey remarked to Tommy with a
+light-heartedness which she did not feel:
+
+"Well, what did you think of Jane this afternoon?"
+
+"Jane?"
+
+"Jane Foley. Nick was taking you to see her, wasn't she?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Tommy with a bright smile. "But I didn't go. I went for a
+motor drive with Mr. Gilman."
+
+There was a short pause. At length Tommy said:
+
+"So he's got the goods on you at last!"
+
+"Who?" Audrey sharply questioned.
+
+"Dauphin. I knew he would. Remember my words. That portrait will cost you
+forty thousand francs, not counting the frame."
+
+This was the end of the concert.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+STRANGE RESULT OF A QUARREL
+
+
+The next afternoon Audrey sat nervous and expectant, but highly finished,
+in her drawing-room at the Hôtel du Danube. Miss Ingate had gone out,
+pretending to be quite unaware that she had been sent out. The more
+detailed part of Audrey's toilette had been accomplished subsequent to Miss
+Ingate's departure, for Audrey had been at pains to inform Miss Ingate that
+she, Audrey, was even less interested than usual in her appearance that
+afternoon. They were close and mutually reliable friends; but every
+friendship has its reservations. Elise also was out; indeed, Miss Ingate
+had taken her.
+
+Audrey had the weight of all the world on her, and so long as she was alone
+she permitted herself to look as though she had. She had to be wise, not
+only for Audrey Moze, but for others. She had to be wise for Musa, whose
+failure, though the newspapers all spoke (at about twenty francs a line) of
+his overwhelming success, was admittedly lamentable; and she hated Musa;
+she confessed that she had been terribly mistaken in Musa, both as an
+artist and as a man; still, he was on her mind. She had to be wise about
+her share in the new campaign of Rosamund, which, while not on her mind,
+was on her conscience. She had to be wise about the presumable loss of her
+fortune; she had telegraphed to Mr. Foulger early that morning for
+information, and an answer was now due. Finally she had to be wise for Mr.
+Gilman, whose happiness depended on a tone of her voice, on a single
+monosyllable breathed through those rich lips. She looked forward with
+interest to being wise for Mr. Gilman. She felt capable of that. The other
+necessary wisdoms troubled her brow. She seemed to be more full of
+responsibility and sagacity than any human being could have been expected
+to be. She was, however, very calm. Her calmness was prodigious.
+
+Then the bell rang, and she could hear one of the hotel attendants open the
+outer door with his key. Instantly her calmness, of which she had been so
+proud, was dashed to pieces and she had scarcely begun in a hurry to pick
+the pieces up and put them together again when the attendant entered the
+drawing-room. She was afraid, but she thought she was happy.
+
+Only it was not Mr. Gilman the attendant announced. The man said:
+
+"Mademoiselle Nickall."
+
+Audrey said to herself that she must get Nick very quickly away. She was in
+no humour to talk even to Nick, and, moreover, she did not want Nick to
+know that Mr. Gilman was calling upon her.
+
+Miss Nickall was innocent and sweet. Good nature radiated from her soft,
+tired features, and was somehow also entangled in her fluffy grey hair. She
+kissed Audrey with affection.
+
+"I've just come to say good-bye, you dear!" she said, sitting down and
+putting her check parasol across her knees. "How lovely you look!"
+
+"Good-bye?" Audrey questioned. "Do I?"
+
+"I have to cross for England to-night. I've had my orders. Rosamund came
+this morning. What about yours?"
+
+"Oh!" said Audrey. "I don't take orders. But I expect I shall join in, one
+of these days, when I've had everything explained to me properly. You see,
+you and I haven't got the same tastes, Nick. You aren't happy without a
+martyrdom. I am."
+
+Nick smiled gravely and uncertainly.
+
+"It's very serious this time," said she. "Hasn't Rosamund spoken to you
+yet?"
+
+"She's spoken to me. And I've spoken to her. It was deuce, I should say. Or
+perhaps my 'vantage. Anyhow, I'm not moving just yet."
+
+"Well, then," said Nick, "if you're staying in Paris, I hope you'll keep an
+eye on Musa. He needs it. Tommy's going away. At least I fancy she is. We
+both went to see him this morning."
+
+"Both of you!"
+
+"Well, you see, we've always looked after him. He was in a terrible state
+about last night. That's really one reason why I called. Not that I'd have
+gone without kissing you----"
+
+She stopped. There was another ring at the bell. The attendant came in with
+great rapidity.
+
+"I'm lost!" thought Audrey, disgusted and perturbed. "Her being here will
+spoil everything."
+
+But the attendant handed her a card, and the card bore the name of Musa.
+Audrey flushed. Almost instinctively, without thinking, she passed the card
+to Nick.
+
+"My land!" exclaimed Nick. "If he sees me here he'll think I've come on
+purpose to talk about him and pity him, and he'll be just perfectly
+furious. Can I get out any other way?" She glanced interrogatively at the
+half-open door of the bedroom.
+
+"But I don't want to see him, either!" Audrey protested.
+
+"Oh! You must! He'll listen to sense from you, perhaps. Can I go this way?"
+
+Impelled to act in spite of herself, Audrey took Nick into the bedroom, and
+as soon as Musa had been introduced into the drawing-room she embraced Nick
+in silence and escorted her on tiptoe through Miss Ingate's bedroom to the
+vestibule and waved an adieu. Then she retraced her steps and made a grand
+entry into the drawing-room from her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of
+Musa immediately. A meeting between him and Mr. Gilman on her hearthrug
+might involve the most horrible complications.
+
+The young man and the young woman shook hands. But it was the handshaking
+of bruisers when they enter the ring, and before the blood starts to flow.
+
+"Won't you please sit down?" said Audrey. He was obliged now to obey her,
+as she had been obliged to obey him on the previous afternoon in the Rue
+Cassette.
+
+If Audrey looked as though the whole world was on her shoulders, Musa's
+face seemed to contradict hers and to say that the world, far from being on
+anybody's shoulders, had come to an end. All the expression of the
+violinist showed that in his honest conviction a great mundane calamity had
+occurred, the calamity of course being that his violin bow had not caused
+catgut to vibrate in such a way as to affect the ears of a particular set
+of people in a particular manner. But in addition to this sense of a
+calamity he was under the influence of another emotion--angry resentment.
+However, he sat down, holding firmly his hat, gloves, and stick.
+
+"I saw my agent this morning," said he, in a grating voice, in French. He
+was pale.
+
+"Yes?" said Audrey. She suddenly guessed what was coming, and she felt a
+certain alarm, which nevertheless was not entirely disagreeable.
+
+"Why did you pay for that concert, and the future concerts, without telling
+me, Madame?"
+
+"Paid for the concerts?" she repeated, rather weakly.
+
+"Yes, Madame. To do so was to make me ridiculous--not to the world, but to
+myself. For I believed all the time that I had succeeded in gaining the
+genuine interest of an agent who was prepared to risk money upon the proper
+exploitation of my talent. I worked in that belief. In spite of your
+attitude to me I did work. Your antipathy was bad for me; but I conquered
+myself, and I worked. I had confidence in myself. If last night I did not
+have a triumph, it was not because I did not work, but because I had been
+upset--and again by you, Madame. Even after the misfortune of last night I
+still had confidence, for I knew that the reasons of my failure were
+accidental and temporary. But I now know that I was living in a fool's
+paradise, which you had kindly created for me. You have money. Apparently
+you have too much money. And with money you possess the arrogance of
+wealth. You knew that I had accepted assistance from good friends. And you
+thought in your arrogance that you might launch me without informing me of
+your intention. You thought it would amuse you to make a little fairy-tale
+in real life. It was a negligent gesture on the part of a rich and idle
+woman. It cost you nothing save a few bank-notes, of which you had so many
+that it bored you to count them. How amusing to make a reputation! How
+charitable to help a starving player! But you forgot one thing. You forgot
+my dignity and my honour. It was nothing to you that you exposed these to
+the danger of the most grave affront. It was nothing to you that I was
+received just as though I had been a child, and that for months I was made,
+without knowing it, to fulfil the rôle of a conceited jackanapes. When one
+is led to have confidence in oneself one is tempted to adopt a certain tone
+and to use certain phrases, which may or may not be justified. I yielded to
+the temptation. I was wrong, but I was also victimised. This morning, with
+a moment's torture under the impertinent tongue of a rascally impresario, I
+paid for all the spurious confidence which I have felt and for all the
+proud words I have uttered. I came to-day in order to lay at your feet my
+thanks for the unique humiliation which I owe to you."
+
+His mien was undoubtedly splendid. It ought to have cowed and shamed
+Audrey. But it did not. She absolutely refused to acknowledge, even within
+her own heart, that she had committed any wrong. On the contrary, she
+remembered all the secret sympathy which she had lavished on Musa, all her
+very earnest and single-minded desires for his apotheosis at the hands of
+the Parisian public; and his ingratitude positively exasperated her. She
+was aroused. But she tried to hide the fact that she was roused, speaking
+in a guarded and sardonic voice.
+
+"And did this agent of yours--I do not know his name--tell you that I was
+paying for the concert--I mean, the concerts?" she demanded with an air of
+impassivity. "He did not give your name."
+
+"That's something," Audrey put in, her body trembling. "I am much obliged
+to him."
+
+"But he clearly indicated that money had been paid--that he had not paid it
+himself--that the enterprise was not genuine. He permitted himself to sneer
+until I corrected him. He then withdrew what he had said and told me that I
+had misunderstood. But he was not convincing. It was too late. And I had
+not misunderstood. Far from that, I had understood. At once the truth
+traversed my mind like a flash of lightning. It was you who had paid."
+
+"And how did you guess that?" She laughed carelessly, though she could not
+keep her foot from shaking on the carpet.
+
+"I knew because I knew!" cried Musa. "It explained all your conduct, your
+ways of speaking to me, your attitude of a schoolmistress, everything. How
+ingenuous I have been not to perceive it before!"
+
+"Well," said Audrey firmly. "You are wrong. It is absolutely untrue that I
+have ever paid a penny, or ever shall, to any agent on your behalf. Do you
+hear? Why should I, indeed! And now what have you to reply?"
+
+She was aware of not the slightest remorse for this enormous and
+unqualified lie. Nay, she held it was not a lie, because Musa deserved to
+hear it. Strange logic, but her logic! And she was much uplifted and
+enfevered, and grandly careless of all consequences.
+
+"You are a woman," said Musa curtly and obstinately.
+
+"That, at any rate, is true."
+
+"Therefore I cannot treat you as a man."
+
+"Please do," she said, rising.
+
+"No. If you were a man I should call you out." And Musa rose also. "And I
+should be right. As you are a woman I have told you the truth, and I can do
+no more. I shall not characterise your denial. I have no taste for
+recrimination. Besides, in such a game, no man can be the equal of a woman.
+But I maintain what I have said, and I affirm that I know it to be true,
+and that there is no excuse for your conduct. And so I respectfully take
+leave." He moved towards the door and then stopped. "There never had been
+any excuse for your conduct to me," he added. "It has always been the
+conduct of a rich and capricious woman who amused herself by patronising a
+poor artist."
+
+"You may be interested to know," she said fiercely, "that I am no longer
+rich. Last night I heard that my fortune is gone. If I have amused myself,
+that may amuse you."
+
+"It does amuse me," he retorted grimly and more loudly. "I wish that you
+had never possessed a son. For then I might have been spared many mournful
+hours. All would have been different. Yes! From three days ago when I saw
+you walking intimately in the Tuileries Gardens with the unspeakable
+Gilman--right back to last year when you first, from caprice, did your best
+to make me love you--did it deliberately, so that all the Quarter could
+see!"
+
+In a furious temper Audrey rushed past Musa to the door, and stood with her
+back to it, palpitating. She vaguely recalled a similar movement of hers
+long ago, and the slightly comic figure of Mr. Foulger flitted through her
+memory.
+
+"You shall apologise for that! You shall apologise before you leave this
+room!" she exploded. Her chin was aloft and her mouth remained open. "I say
+you shall apologise for that monstrous untruth!"
+
+He approached her, uttering not a word. She was quite ready to kill him.
+She had no fear of anything whatever. Not once since his arrival had she
+given one thought to the imminent advent of Mr. Gilman.
+
+She said to herself, watching Musa intently:
+
+"Yes, he shall apologise. It is shameful, what he says. It's worse than
+horrid. I am as strong as he is."
+
+Musa dropped his hat, stick and gloves. The hat, being English and hard,
+bounced on the carpet. Then he put his trembling arms around her waist, and
+his trembling lips came nearer and nearer to hers.
+
+She thought, very puzzled:
+
+"What is happening? This is all wrong. I am furious with him! I will never
+speak to him again! What is he doing? This is all wrong. I must stop it.
+I'm saying nothing to him about my career, and my independence, and how
+horrid it is to be the wife of a genius, and all that.... I must stop it."
+
+But she had no volition to stop it.
+
+She thought:
+
+"Am I fainting?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was upon this scene that Mr. Gilman intruded. Mr. Gilman looked from
+one to the other. Perhaps the thought in his mind was that if they added
+their ages together they could not equal his age. Perhaps it was not. He
+continued to look from one to the other, and this needed some ocular
+effort, for they were as far apart as two persons in such a situation
+usually get when they are surprised. Then he caught sight of the hat, stick
+and gloves on the floor.
+
+"I've been expecting you for a long time," said Audrey, with that
+miraculous bland tranquillity of which young girls alone have the secret
+when the conventions are imperilled. "I was just going to order tea."
+
+Mr. Gilman hesitated and then replied:
+
+"How kind of you! But please don't order tea for me. The--er--fact is, I
+have been unexpectedly called away, and I only called to explain
+that--er--I could not call." After all, he was a man of some experience.
+
+She let him go. His demeanour to Musa, like Musa's to him, was a marvel of
+high courtesy.
+
+"Musa," said Audrey, with an intimidated, defiant, proud smile, when the
+door had shut on Mr. Gilman, "I am still frightfully angry with you. If we
+stay here I shall suffocate. Let us go out for a walk. Besides, other
+people might call."
+
+Simultaneously there was another ring. It was a cable. She read:
+
+"Sold Zacatecas at an average of six and a quarter dollars three weeks ago.
+Wrote you at length to Wimereux. Writing again as to new investments.
+
+"FOULGER."
+
+"This comes of having no fixed address," she said, throwing the blue
+cablegram carelessly down in front of Musa. "I'm not quite ruined, after
+all. But I might have known--with Mr. Foulger." Then she explained.
+
+"I wish----" he began.
+
+"No, you don't," she stopped him. "So you needn't start on that line. You
+are brilliant at figures. At least I long since suspected you were. How
+much is one hundred and eighty thousand times six and a quarter?"
+
+Notwithstanding his brilliance, it took two pencils, two heads, and one
+piece of paper to solve the problem. They were not quite certain, but the
+answer seemed to be £225,000 in English money.
+
+"We cannot starve," said Audrey, and then paused.... "Musa, are we
+friends? We shall quarrel horribly. Do you know, I never knew that
+proposals of marriage were made like that!"
+
+"I have not told you one thing," said Musa. "I am going to play in Germany,
+instead of further concerts in Paris. It is arranged."
+
+"Not in Germany," she pleaded, thinking of Ziegler.
+
+"Yes, in Germany," said Musa masterfully. "I have a reputation to make. It
+is the agent who has suggested it."
+
+"But the concerts in London?"
+
+"You are English. I wish not to wound you."
+
+When Audrey stood up again, she had to look at the floor in order to make
+sure that it was there. Once she had tasted absinthe. She had had to take
+the same precaution then.
+
+"Stop! I entreat thee!" said Musa suddenly, just as, all arrayed in her
+finery, she was opening the door for the walk.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+He kissed her, and with his lips almost on hers he murmured:
+
+"Thou shalt not go out without avowing. And if thou art angry--well, I
+adore thy anger. The concerts were ... thy enterprise? I guessed well?"
+
+"You see," she replied like a shot, "you weren't sure, although you
+pretended you were."
+
+In the Rue de Rivoli, and in the resplendent Champs Elysées they passed
+column after column of entertainment posters. But the name of Musa had been
+mysteriously removed from all of them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+AN EPILOGUE
+
+
+Audrey was walking along Piccadilly when she overtook Miss Ingate, who had
+been arrested by a shop window, the window of one of the shops recently
+included in the vast edifice of the Hotel Majestic.
+
+Miss Ingate gave a little squeal of surprise. The two kissed very heartily
+in the street, which was full of spring and of the posters of evening
+papers bearing melodramatic tidings of the latest nocturnal development of
+the terrible suffragette campaign.
+
+"You said eleven, Audrey. It isn't eleven yet."
+
+"Well, I'm behind time. I meant to be all spruced up and receive you in
+state at the hotel. But the boat was three hours late at Harwich. I jumped
+into a cab at Liverpool Street, but I got out at Piccadilly Circus because
+the streets looked so fine and I felt I really must walk a bit."
+
+"And where's your husband?"
+
+"He's at Liverpool Street trying to look after the luggage. He lost some of
+it at Hamburg. He likes looking after luggage, so I just left him at it."
+
+Miss Ingate's lower lip dropped at the corners.
+
+"You've had a tiff."
+
+"Winnie, we haven't."
+
+"Did you go to all his concerts?"
+
+"All. I heard all his practising, and I sat in the stalls at all his
+concerts. Quite contrary to my principles, of course. But, Winnie, it's
+very queer, I _wanted_ to do it. So naturally I did it. We've never been
+apart--until now."
+
+"And it's not exaggerated, what you've written me about his success?"
+
+"Not a bit. I've been most careful not to exaggerate. In fact, I've tried
+to be gloomy. No use, however! It was a triumph.... And how's all this
+business?" Audrey demanded, in a new key, indicating an orange-tinted
+newspaper bill that was being flaunted in front of her.
+
+"Oh! I believe it's dreadful. Of course, you know Rosamund's in prison. But
+they'll have to let her out soon. Jane Foley--she still calls herself
+Foley--hasn't been caught. And that's funny. I doubled my subscription. We
+had to, you see. But that's all I've done. They don't have processions and
+things now, and barrel organs are _quite_ out of fashion. What with that,
+and my rheumatism!... I used to think I should live to vote myself. I feel
+I shan't now. So I've gone back into water-colours. They're very soothing,
+if you let the paper dry after each wash and don't take them seriously....
+Now, I'm a very common-sense woman, Audrey, as you must have noticed, and
+I'm not subject to fancies. Will you just look at the girl on the left hand
+in this window here, and tell me whether I'm dreaming or not?"
+
+Miss Ingate indicated the shop window which had arrested her. The
+establishment was that of a hair specialist, and the window was mainly
+occupied by two girls who sat in arm-chairs with their backs to the glass,
+and all their magnificent hair spread out at length over the backs of the
+chairs for the inspection of the public; the implication being that the
+magnificent hair was due to the specific of the hair specialist. Passers-by
+continually stopped to gaze at the spectacle, but they never stopped long,
+because the spectacle was monotonous.
+
+"Well, what about her?" said Audrey, staring.
+
+"Isn't it Lady Southminster?"
+
+"Good heavens!" Audrey's mind went back to the Channel packet and the rain
+squall and the scenes on the Paris train. "So it is! Whatever can have
+happened to her? Let's go in."
+
+And in they went, Audrey leading, and demanding at once a bottle of the
+specific; Audrey had scarcely spoken when the left-hand girl in the window,
+who, of course, from her vantage had a full view of the shop, screamed
+lightly and jumped down from the window.
+
+"Don't give me away!" she whispered appealingly in Audrey's ear. The next
+moment, not heeding the excitement of the shop manager, she had drawn
+Audrey and Miss Ingate through another door which led into the
+entrance-hall of the Majestic Hotel. The shop was thus contrived to catch
+two publics at once.
+
+"If they knew I was Lady Southminster in there," said Lady Southminster in
+a feverish murmur--she seemed not averse to the sensation caused by her
+hair in the twilight of the hotel--"I expect I should lose my place, and I
+don't want to lose it. _He'll_ be coming by presently, and he'll see me,
+and it'll be a lesson to him. We're always together. Race meetings, dances,
+golf, restaurants, bridge. Twenty-four hours every day. He won't lose sight
+of me. He's that fond of me, you know. I couldn't stand it. I'd as lief be
+in prison--only I'm that fond of him, you know. But I was so homesick, and
+I felt if I didn't have a change I should burst. This is
+Constantinopoulos's old shop, you know, where I used to make cigarettes in
+the window. He's dead, Constantinopoulos is. I don't know what _he'd_ have
+said to hair restorers. I asked for the place, and I showed 'em my hair,
+and I got it. And me sitting there--it's quite like old times. Only
+before, you know, I used to have my face to the street. I don't know which
+I like best. But, anyhow, you can see my profile from the side window. And
+_he_ will. He always looks at that sort of thing. He'll be furious. But it
+will do him no end of good. Well, good-bye. But come back in and buy a
+bottle, or I shall be let in for a shindy. In fact, you might buy two
+bottles."
+
+"So that's love!" said Audrey when the transaction was over and they were
+in the entrance-hall again.
+
+"No," said Miss Ingate. "That's marriage. And don't you forget it....
+Hallo, Tommy!"
+
+"You'd better not let Mr. Gilman hear me called Tommy in this hotel,"
+laughed Miss Thompkins, who was attired with an unusual richness, as she
+advanced towards Miss Ingate and Audrey. "And what are you doing here?" she
+questioned Audrey.
+
+"I'm staying here," said Audrey. "But I've only just arrived. I'm advance
+agent for my husband. How are you? And what are _you_ doing here? I thought
+you hated London."
+
+"I came the day before yesterday," Tommy replied. "And I'm very fit. You
+see, Mr. Gilman preferred us to be married in London. And I'd no objection.
+So here I am. The wedding's to-morrow. You aren't very startled, are you?
+Had you heard?"
+
+"Well," said Audrey, "not what you'd call 'heard.' But I'd a sort of a kind
+of a--"
+
+"You come right over here, young woman."
+
+"But I want to get my number."
+
+"You come right over here right now," Tommy insisted. And in another
+corner of the entrance-hall she spoke thus, and there was both seriousness
+and fun in her voice: "Don't you run away with the idea that I'm taking
+your leavings, young woman. Because I'm not. We all knew you'd lost your
+head about Musa, and it was quite right of you. But you never had a chance
+with Ernest, though you thought you had, after I'd met him. Admit I'm much
+better suited for him than you'd have been. I'd only one difficulty, and
+that was the nice boy Price, who wanted to drown himself for my beautiful
+freckled face. That's all. Now you can go and get your number."
+
+The incident might not have ended there had not Madame Piriac appeared in
+the entrance-hall out of the interior of the hotel.
+
+"He exacted my coming," said Madame Piriac privately to Audrey. "You know
+how he is strange. He asks for a quiet wedding, but at the same time it
+must be all that is most correct. There are things, he says, which demand a
+woman.... I know four times nothing of the English etiquette. I have
+abandoned my husband. And here I am. _Voilà_! Listen. She has great skill
+with him, _cette Tommy_. Nevertheless, I have the intention to counsel her
+about her complexion. Impossible to keep any man with a complexion like
+hers!"
+
+They saw Mr. Gilman himself enter the hotel. He was very nervous and very
+important. As soon as he caught sight of Miss Thompkins he said to the
+door-keeper:
+
+"Tell my chauffeur to wait."
+
+He was punctiliously attentive to Miss Thompkins, and held her hand for two
+seconds after he had practically finished with it.
+
+"Are you ready, dear?" he said. "You'll be sorry to hear that my liver is
+all wrong again. I knew it was because I slept so heavily."
+
+These words were distinctly heard by Audrey herself.
+
+"I think I'll slip upstairs now," she murmured to Madame Piriac. And
+vanished, before Mr. Gilman had observed her presence.
+
+She thought:
+
+"How he has aged!"
+
+Scarcely ten minutes later, when Audrey was upstairs in her sitting-room,
+waiting idly for the luggage and her husband to arrive, and thinking upon
+the case of Lady Southminster, the telephone bell rang out startlingly.
+
+"Mr. Shinner to see you."
+
+"Mr. Shinner? Oh! Mr. Shinner. Send him up, please."
+
+This Mr. Shinner was the concert agent with connections in Paris whom
+Audrey had first consulted in the enterprise of launching Musa upon the
+French public. He was a large, dark man, black moustached and bearded, with
+heavy limbs and features, and an opaque, pimpled skin. In spite of these
+characteristics, he entered the room soft-footed as a fairy, ingratiating
+as a dog aware of his own iniquity, reassuring as applause.
+
+"Well, Mr. Shinner. But how did you know we were here? As a matter of fact
+we aren't here. My husband has not arrived yet."
+
+"Madam," said Mr. Shinner, "I happened to hear that you had telegraphed for
+rooms, and as I was in the neighbourhood I thought I would venture to
+call."
+
+"But who told you we had telegraphed for rooms?"
+
+"The manager is a good friend of mine, and as you are now famous----" Ah! I
+have heard all about the German tour. I mean I have read about it. I
+subscribe to the German musical papers. One must, in my profession. Also I
+have had direct news from my correspondents in Germany. It was a triumph
+there, was it not?"
+
+"Yes," said Audrey. "After Dusseldorf. My husband did not make much
+money----"
+
+"That will not trouble you," Mr. Shinner smiled easily.
+
+"But somebody did--the agents did."
+
+"Perhaps not so much as you think, madam, if I may say so. Perhaps not so
+much as you think. And we must all live--unfortunately. Has your husband
+made any arrangements yet for London or for a provincial tour? I have
+reason to think that the season will be particularly brilliant. And I can
+now offer advantages----"
+
+"But, Mr. Shinner, when I last saw you, and it isn't so very long ago, you
+told me that my husband was not a concert-player, which was exactly what I
+had heard in Paris."
+
+"I didn't go quite so far as that, surely, did I?" Mr. Shinner softly
+insinuated. He might have been pouring honey from his mouth. "Surely I
+didn't say quite that?  And perhaps I had been too much influenced by
+Paris."
+
+"Yes, you said he wasn't a concert-player and never would be----"
+
+"Don't rub it in, madam," said Mr. Shinner merrily. "_Peccavi_."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing, madam," he disclaimed.
+
+"And you said there were far too many violinists on the market, and that it
+was useless for a French player to offer himself to the London musical
+public. And I don't know what you didn't say."
+
+"But I didn't know then that your husband would have such a success in
+Germany."
+
+"What difference does that make?"
+
+"Madam," said Mr. Shinner, "it makes every difference."
+
+"But England and Germany hate each other. At least they despise each other.
+And what's more, nearly everybody in Germany was talking about going to war
+this summer. I was told they are all ready to invade England after they
+have taken Paris and Calais. We heard it everywhere."
+
+"I don't know anything about any war," said Mr. Shinner with tranquillity.
+"But I do know that the London musical public depends absolutely on
+Germany. The only first-class instrumentalist that England has ever
+produced had no success here until he went to Germany and Germanised his
+name and himself and announced that he despised England. Then he came back,
+and he has caused a furore ever since. So far as regards London, a success
+in Karlsruhe, Wiesbaden, Leipzig, Dusseldorf, and so on, is worth far more
+than a success in the Queen's Hall. Indeed--can you get a success in the
+Queen's Hall without a success in these places first? I doubt it. Your
+husband now has London at his feet. Not Paris, though he may capture Paris
+after he has captured London. But London certainly. He cannot find a better
+agent than myself. All artists like me, because I _understand_. You see, my
+mother was harpist to the late Queen."
+
+"But----"
+
+"Your husband is assuredly a genius, madam!" Mr. Shinner stood up in his
+enthusiasm, and banged his left fist with his right palm.
+
+"Yes, I know that," said Audrey. "But you are such an expensive luxury."
+
+Mr. Shinner pushed away the accusation with both hands. "Madam, madam, I
+shall take all the risks. I should not dream, now, of asking for a cheque
+on account. On the contrary, I should guarantee a percentage of the gross
+receipts. Perhaps I am unwise to take risks--I dare say I am--but I could
+not bear to see your husband in the hands of another agent. We professional
+men have our feelings."
+
+"Don't cry, Mr. Shinner," said Audrey impulsively. It was not a proper
+remark to make, but the sudden impetuous entrance of Musa himself, carrying
+his violin case, eased the situation.
+
+"There is a man which is asking for you outside in the corridor," said Musa
+to his wife. "It is the gardener, Aguilar, I think. I have brought all the
+luggage, not excluding that which was lost at Hamburg." He had a glorious
+air, and was probably more proud of his still improving English and of his
+ability as a courier than of his triumphs on the fiddle. "Ah!" Mr. Shinner
+was bowing before him.
+
+"This is Mr. Shinner, the agent, my love," said Audrey. "I'll leave you to
+talk to him. He sees money in you."
+
+In the passage the authentic Aguilar stood with Miss Ingate.
+
+"Here's Mr. Aguilar," said Miss Ingate. "I'm just going into No. 37, Madame
+Piriac's room. Don't you think Mr. Aguilar looks vehy odd in London?"
+
+"Good morning, Aguilar. You in town on business?"
+
+Aguilar touched his forehead. It is possible that he looked very odd in
+London, but he was wearing a most respectable new suit of clothes, and
+might well have passed for a land agent.
+
+"'Mornin', ma'am. I had to come up because I couldn't get delivery of those
+wallpapers you chose. Otherwise all the repairs and alterations are going
+on as well as could be expected."
+
+"And how is your wife, Aguilar?"
+
+"She's nicely, thank ye, ma'am. I pointed out to the foreman that it would
+be a mistake to make the dining-room door open the other way, as the
+architect suggested. But he would do it. However, I've told you, ma'am.
+It'll only have to be altered back. Perhaps I ought to tell you that I took
+the liberty of taking a fortnight's holiday, ma'am. It's the only holiday I
+ever did take, except the annual day off for the Colchester Rose Show,
+which is perhaps more a matter of business with a head gardener than a
+holiday, as ye might say. My wife wanted me in London."
+
+"She's not caught yet?"
+
+"No'm. And I don't think as she will be, not with me about. I never did
+allow myself to be bossed by police, and I always been too much for 'em.
+And as I'm on the matter, ma'am, I should like to give you notice as soon
+as it's convenient. I wouldn't leave on any account till that foreman's off
+the place; he's no better than a fool. But as soon afterwards as you like."
+
+"Certainly, Aguilar. I was quite expecting it. Where are you going to
+live?"
+
+"Well, ma'am, I've got hold of a little poultry run business in the north
+of London. It'll be handy for Holloway in case--And Jane asked me to give
+you this letter, ma'am. I see her this morning."
+
+Audrey read the note. Very short, it was signed "Jane" and "Nick," and
+dated from a house in Fitzroy Street. It caused acute excitement in Audrey.
+
+"I shall come at once," said she.
+
+Getting rid of Aguilar, she knocked at the door of No. 37.
+
+"Read that," she ordered Miss Ingate and Madame Piriac, giving them the
+note jointly.
+
+"And are you going?" said Miss Ingate, nervous and impressed.
+
+"Of course," Audrey answered. "Don't they ask me to go at once? I meant to
+write to my cousins at Woodbridge and my uncles in the colonies, and tell
+them all that I was settling down at last. And I meant to look at those new
+flats in Park Lane with Musa. But I shall have to leave all that for the
+present. Also my lunch."
+
+"But, darling," put in Madame Piriac, who had been standing before the
+dressing-table trying on a hat. "But, darling, it is very serious, this
+matter. What about your husband?"
+
+"He'll keep," said Audrey. "He's had his turn. I must have mine now. I
+haven't had a day off from being a wife for ever so long. And it's a little
+enervating, you know. It spoils you for the fresh air."
+
+"I imagined to myself that you two were happy in an ideal fashion,"
+murmured Madame Piriac.
+
+"So we are!" said Audrey. "Though a certain coolness did arise over the
+luggage this morning. But I don't want to be ideally happy all the time.
+And I won't be. I want--I want all the sensations there are; and I want to
+be everything. And I can be. Musa understands."
+
+"If he does," said Miss Ingate, "he'll be the first husband that ever did."
+Her lips were sardonic.
+
+"Well, of course," said Audrey nonchalantly, "he _is_. Didn't you know
+that?... And didn't you tell me not to forget Lady Southminster?"
+
+"Did I?" said Miss Ingate.
+
+Audrey heard voices in the corridor. Musa was parting from a subservient
+Shinner. Also the luggage was bumping along the carpet. She called her
+husband into No. 37 and kissed him rather violently in front of Madame
+Piriac and Miss Ingate, and showed him the note. Then she whispered to him,
+smiling.
+
+"What's that you're whispering?" Miss Ingate archly demanded.
+
+"Nothing. I was only asking him to come and help me to open my big trunk. I
+want something out of it. Au revoir, you two."
+
+"What do you think of it all, Madame Piriac?" Miss Ingate inquired when the
+pair were alone.
+
+"'All the sensations there are!' 'Everything!'" Madame Piriac repeated
+Audrey's phrases. "One is forced to conclude that she has an appetite for
+life."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Ingate, "she wants the lion's share of it, that's what she
+wants. No mistake. But of course she's young."
+
+"I was never young like that."
+
+"Neither was I! Neither was I!" Miss Ingate asseverated. "But something
+vehy, vehy strange has come over the world, if you ask me."
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lion's Share, by E. Arnold Bennett
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lion's Share, by E. Arnold Bennett
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lion's Share
+
+Author: E. Arnold Bennett
+
+Release Date: December 27, 2004 [EBook #14487]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LION'S SHARE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Nick Kocharhook and the PG Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<p><em>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</em></p>
+
+<div id="byTheSameAuthor">
+<p class="header">NOVELS&mdash;</p>
+<p>    A MAN FROM THE NORTH<br />
+    ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS<br />
+    LEONORA<br />
+    A GREAT MAN<br />
+    SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE<br />
+    WHOM GOD HATH JOINED<br />
+    BURIED ALIVE<br />
+    THE OLD WIVES&#8217; TALE<br />
+    THE GLIMPSE<br />
+    HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND<br />
+    CLAYHANGER<br />
+    HILDA LESSWAYS<br />
+    THESE TWAIN<br />
+    THE CARD<br />
+    THE REGENT<br />
+    THE PRICE OF LOVE</p>
+
+
+<p class="header">FANTASIAS&mdash;</p>
+<p>    THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL<br />
+    THE GATES OF WRATH<br />
+    TERESA OF WATLING STREET<br />
+    THE LOOT OF CITIES<br />
+    HUGO<br />
+    THE GHOST<br />
+    THE CITY OF PLEASURE</p>
+
+
+<p class="header">SHORT STORIES&mdash;</p>
+<p>    TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS<br />
+    THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS<br />
+    THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS</p>
+
+
+<p class="header">BELLES-LETTRES&mdash;</p>
+<p>    JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN<br />
+    FAME AND FICTION<br />
+    HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR<br />
+    THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR<br />
+    THE REASONABLE LIFE<br />
+    HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY<br />
+    THE HUMAN MACHINE<br />
+    LITERARY TASTE<br />
+    FRIENDSHIP AND HAPPINESS<br />
+    THOSE UNITED STATES<br />
+    MARRIAGE<br />
+    LIBERTY</p>
+
+
+<p class="header">DRAMA&mdash;</p>
+<p>    POLITE FARCES<br />
+    CUPID AND COMMONSENSE<br />
+    WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS<br />
+    THE HONEYMOON<br />
+    THE GREAT ADVENTURE<br />
+    MILESTONES (in collaboration with Edward Knoblauch)</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>(In collaboration with Eden Phillpotts)<br />
+THE SINEWS OF WAR: A Romance<br />
+THE STATUE: A Romance</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+
+
+<h1>The Lion&#8217;s Share</h1>
+
+<p id="by">by</p>
+
+<h2>Arnold Bennett</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p id="firstPublished">First Published 1916.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table id="contents">
+<tr>
+<td align="right">CHAPTER</td>
+<td></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_1">1.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_1">MISS INGATE, AND THE YACHT</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_2">2.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_2">THE THIEF&#8217;S PLAN WRECKED</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_3">3.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_3">THE LEGACY</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_4">4.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_4">MR. FOULGER</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_5">5.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_5">THE DEAD HAND</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_6">6.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_6">THE YOUNG WIDOW</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_7">7.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_7">THE CIGARETTE GIRL</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_8">8.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_8">EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_9">9.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_9">LIFE IN PARIS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_10">10.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_10">FANCY DRESS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_11">11.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_11">A POLITICAL REFUGEE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_12">12.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_12">WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_13">13.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_13">THE SWOON</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_14">14.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_14">MISS INGATE POINTS OUT THE DOOR</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_15">15.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_15">THE RIGHT BANK</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_16">16.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_16">ROBES</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_17">17.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_17">SOIRÉE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_18">18.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_18">A DECISION</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_19">19.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_19">THE BOUDOIR</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_20">20.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_20">PAGET GARDENS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_21">21.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_21">JANE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_22">22.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_22">THE DETECTIVE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_23">23.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_23">THE BLUE CITY</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_24">24.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_24">THE SPATTS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_25">25.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_25">THE MUTE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_26">26.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_26">NOCTURNE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_27">27.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_27">IN THE GARDEN</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_28">28.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_28">ENCOUNTER</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_29">29.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_29">FLIGHT</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_30">30.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_30">ARIADNE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_31">31.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_31">THE NOSTRUM</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_32">32.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_32">BY THE BINNACLE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_33">33.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_33">AGUILAR&#8217;S DOUBLE LIFE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_34">34.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_34">THE TANK-ROOM</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_35">35.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_35">THE THIRD SORT OF WOMAN</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_36">36.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_36">IN THE DINGHY</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_37">37.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_37">AFLOAT</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_38">38.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_38">IN THE UNIVERSE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_39">39.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_39">THE IMMINENT DRIVE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_40">40.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_40">GENIUS AT BAY</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_41">41.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_41">FINANCIAL NEWS</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_42">42.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_42">INTERVAL</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_43">43.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_43">ENTR&#8217;ACTE</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_44">44.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_44">END OF THE CONCERT</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_45">45.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_45">STRANGE RESULT OF A QUARREL</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+<td align="right"><a href="#chapter_46">46.</a></td>
+<td><a href="#chapter_46">AN EPILOGUE</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_1" id="chapter_1" />CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>MISS INGATE, AND THE YACHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey had just closed the safe in her father&#8217;s study when
+she was startled by a slight noise. She turned like a
+defensive animal to face danger. It had indeed occurred
+to her that she was rather like an animal in captivity, and
+she found a bitter pleasure in the idea, though it was not
+at all original.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And Flank Hall is my Zoo!&#8221; she had said. (Not
+that she had ever seen the Zoological Gardens or visited
+London.)</p>
+
+<p>She was lithe; she moved with charm. Her short, plain
+blue serge walking-frock disclosed the form of her limbs
+and left them free, and it made her look younger even
+than she was. Its simplicity suited her gestures and took
+grace from them. But she wore the old thing without the
+least interest in it&mdash;almost unconsciously. She had none of
+the preoccupations caused by the paraphernalia of existence.
+She scarcely knew what it was to own. She was aware only
+of her body and her soul. Beyond these her possessions
+were so few, so mean, so unimportant, that she might have
+carried them to the grave and into heaven without protest
+from the authorities earthly or celestial.</p>
+
+<p>The slight noise was due to the door of the study,
+which great age had distorted and bereft of sense, and, in
+fact, almost unhinged. It unlatched itself, paused, and
+then calmly but firmly swung wide open. When it could
+swing no farther it shook, vibrating into repose.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey condemned the door for a senile lunatic, and
+herself for a poltroon. She became defiant of peril, until
+the sound of a step on the stair beyond the door threw
+her back into alarm. But when the figure of Miss Ingate
+appeared in the doorway she was definitely reassured, to
+the point of disdain. All her facial expression said: &#8220;It&#8217;s
+only Miss Ingate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And yet Miss Ingate was not a negligible woman. Her
+untidy hair was greying; she was stout, she was fifty, she
+was plain, she had not elegance; her accent and turns of
+speech were noticeably those of Essex. But she had a
+magnificent pale forehead; the eyes beneath it sparkled
+with energy, inquisitiveness, and sagacity; and the mouth
+beneath the eyes showed by its sardonic dropping corners
+that she had come to a settled, cheerful conclusion about
+human nature, and that the conclusion was not flattering.
+Miss Ingate was a Guardian of the Poor, and the Local
+Representative of the Soldiers&#8217; and Sailors&#8217; Families Association.
+She had studied intimately the needy and the rich
+and the middling. She was charitable without illusions;
+and, while adhering to every social convention, she did so
+with a toleration pleasantly contemptuous; in her heart she
+had no mercy for snobs of any kind, though, unfortunately,
+she was at times absurdly intimidated by them&mdash;at other
+times she was not.</p>
+
+<p>To the west, within a radius of twelve miles, she knew
+everybody and everybody knew her; to the east her fame
+was bounded only by the regardless sea. She and her
+ancestors had lived in the village of Moze as long as even
+Mr. Mathew Moze and his ancestors. In the village, and
+to the village, she was Miss Ingate, a natural phenomenon,
+like the lie of the land and the river Moze. Her opinions
+offended nobody, not Mr. Moze himself&mdash;she was Miss
+Ingate. She was laughed at, beloved and respected. Her
+sagacity had one flaw, and the flaw sprang from her sincere
+conviction that human nature in that corner of Essex,
+which she understood so profoundly, and where she was
+so perfectly at home, was different from, and more fondly
+foolish than, human nature in any other part of the world.
+She could not believe that distant populations could be
+at once so pathetically and so naughtily human as the
+population in and around Moze.</p>
+
+<p>If Audrey disdained Miss Ingate, it was only because
+Miss Ingate was neither young nor fair nor the proprietress
+of some man, and because people made out that she was
+peculiar. In some respects Audrey looked upon Miss
+Ingate as a life-belt, as the speck of light at the end of a
+tunnel, as the enigmatic smile which glimmers always in
+the frown of destiny.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221; cried Miss Ingate in her rather shrill voice,
+grinning sardonically, with the corners of her lips still lower
+than usual in anticipatory sarcasm. It was as if she had
+said: &#8220;You cannot surprise me by any narrative of imbecility
+or turpitude or bathos. All the same, I am dying
+to hear the latest eccentricity of this village.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221; parried Audrey, holding one hand behind her.</p>
+
+<p>They did not shake hands. People who call at ten
+o&#8217;clock in the morning cannot expect to have their hands
+shaken. Miss Ingate certainly expected nothing of the
+sort. She had the freedom of Flank Hall, as of scores
+of other houses, at all times of day. Servants opened front
+doors for her with a careless smile, and having shut
+front doors they left her loose, like a familiar cat, to find
+what she wanted. They seldom &#8220;showed&#8221; her into any
+room, nor did they dream of acting before her the unconvincing
+comedy of going to &#8220;see&#8221; whether masters or
+mistresses were out or in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s your mother?&#8221; asked Miss Ingate idly, quite
+sure that interesting divulgations would come, and quite
+content to wait for them. She had been out of the village
+for over a week.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mother&#8217;s taking her acetyl salicylic,&#8221; Audrey answered,
+coming to the door of the study.</p>
+
+<p>This meant merely that Mrs. Moze had a customary
+attack of the neuralgia for which the district is justly
+renowned among strangers.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; murmured Miss Ingate callously. Mrs. Moze,
+though she had lived in the district for twenty-five years,
+did not belong to it. If she chose to keep on having
+neuralgia, that was her affair, but in justice to natives
+and to the district she ought not to make too much of it,
+and she ought to admit that it might well be due to her
+weakness after her operation. Miss Ingate considered the
+climate to be the finest in England; which it was, on the
+condition that you were proof against neuralgia.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Father&#8217;s gone to Colchester in the car to see the
+Bishop,&#8221; Audrey coldly added.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If I&#8217;d known he was going to Colchester I should
+have asked him for a lift,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, with
+determination.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes! He&#8217;d have taken <em>you!</em>&#8220; said Audrey, reserved.
+&#8220;I suppose you had fine times in London!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! It was vehy exciting! It was vehy exciting!&#8221;
+Miss Ingate agreed loudly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Father wouldn&#8217;t let me read about it in the paper,&#8221;
+said Audrey, still reserved. &#8220;He never will, you know.
+But I did!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! But you didn&#8217;t read about me playing the barrel
+organ all the way down Regent Street, because that wasn&#8217;t
+in any of the papers.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You <em>didn&#8217;t!</em>&#8220; Audrey protested, with a sudden dark
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And vehy tiring
+it was. Vehy tiring indeed. It&#8217;s quite an art to turn a
+barrel organ. If you don&#8217;t keep going perfectly even it
+makes the tune jerky. Oh! I know a bit about barrel
+organs now. They smashed it all to pieces. Oh yes! All
+to pieces. I spoke to the police. I said, &#8216;Aren&#8217;t you going
+to protect these ladies&#8217; property?&#8217; But they didn&#8217;t lift a
+finger.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And weren&#8217;t you arrested?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Me!&#8221; shrieked Miss Ingate. &#8220;Me arrested!&#8221; Then
+more quietly, in an assured tone, &#8220;Oh no! I wasn&#8217;t
+arrested. You see, as soon as the row began I just walked
+away from the organ and became one of the crowd. I&#8217;m all
+<em>for</em> them, but I wasn&#8217;t going to be arrested.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate&#8217;s sparkling eyes seemed to say: &#8220;Sylvia
+Pankhurst can be arrested if she likes, and so can Mrs.
+Despard and Annie Kenney and Jane Foley, or any of them.
+But the policeman that is clever enough to catch Miss
+Ingate of Moze does not exist. And the gumption of Miss
+Ingate of Moze surpasses the united gumption of all the
+other feminists in England.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!&#8221; repeated Miss Ingate with
+mingled complacency, glee, passion, and sardonic tolerance
+of the whole panorama of worldly existence. &#8220;The police
+were awful, shocking. But I was not arrested.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, <em>I</em> was&mdash;this morning,&#8221; said Audrey in a low and
+poignant voice.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate was startled out of her mood of the detached
+ironic spectator.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; she frowned.</p>
+
+<p>They heard a servant moving about at the foot of the
+stairs, and a capped head could be seen through the
+interstices of the white Chinese balustrade. The study was
+the only immediate refuge; Miss Ingate advanced right into
+it, and Audrey pushed the door to.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Father&#8217;s given me a month&#8217;s C.B.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, gazing at the girl&#8217;s face, saw in its quiet
+and yet savage desperation the possibility that after all she
+might indeed be surprised by the vagaries of human nature
+in the village. And her glance became sympathetic, even
+tender, as well as apprehensive.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;C.B.&#8217;? What do you mean&mdash;&#8216;C.B.&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t you know what C.B. means?&#8221; exclaimed Audrey
+with scornful superiority over the old spinster. &#8220;Confined to
+barracks. Father says I&#8217;m not to go beyond the grounds for
+a month. And to-day&#8217;s the second of April!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, he does. He&#8217;s given me a week, you know, before.
+Now it&#8217;s a month.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate looked round at the shabby study, with its
+guns, cigar-boxes, prints, books neither old nor new,
+japanned boxes of documents, and general litter scattered
+over the voluted walnut furniture. Her own house was old-fashioned,
+and she realised it was old-fashioned; but
+when she came into Flank Hall, and particularly into Mr.
+Moze&#8217;s study, she felt as if she was stepping backwards
+into history&mdash;and this in spite of the fact that nothing
+in the place was really ancient, save the ceilings and the
+woodwork round the windows. It was Mr. Moze&#8217;s habit of
+mind that dominated and transmogrified the whole interior,
+giving it the quality of a mausoleum. The suffragette procession
+in which Miss Ingate had musically and discreetly
+taken part seemed to her as she stood in Mr. Moze&#8217;s changeless
+lair to be a phantasm. Then she looked at the young
+captive animal and perceived that two centuries may coincide
+on the same carpet and that time is merely a convention.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What you been doing?&#8221; she questioned, with delicacy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I took a strange man by the hand,&#8221; said Audrey,
+choosing her words queerly, as she sometimes did, to produce
+a dramatic effect.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This morning?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. Eight o&#8217;clock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What? Is there a strange man in the village?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t mean to say you haven&#8217;t seen the yacht!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yacht?&#8221; Miss Ingate showed some excitement.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come and look, Winnie,&#8221; said Audrey, who occasionally
+thought fit to address Miss Ingate in the manner of the
+elder generation. She drew Miss Ingate to the window.</p>
+
+<p>Between the brown curtains Mozewater, the broad,
+shallow estuary of the Moze, was spread out glittering in
+the sunshine which could not get into the chilly room. The
+tide was nearly at full, and the estuary looked like a mighty
+harbour for great ships; but in six hours it would be
+reduced to a narrow stream winding through mud flats of
+marvellous ochres, greens, and pinks. In the hazy distance
+a fitful white flash showed where ocean waves were breaking
+on a sand-bank. And in the foreground, against a disused
+Hard that was a couple of hundred yards lower down than
+the village Hard, a large white yacht was moored, probably
+the largest yacht that had ever threaded that ticklish
+navigation. She was a shallow-draft barge-yacht, rigged
+like a Thames barge, and her whiteness and the glint of her
+brass, and the flicker of her ensign at the stern were
+dazzling. Blue figures ran busily about on her, and a white-and-blue
+person in a peaked cap stood importantly at the
+wheel.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She was on the mud last night,&#8221; said Audrey eagerly,
+&#8220;opposite the Flank buoy, and she came up this morning at
+half-flood. I think they made fast at Lousey Hard, because
+they couldn&#8217;t get any farther without waiting. They have
+a motor, and it must be their first trip this season. I was
+on the dyke. I wasn&#8217;t even looking at them, but they called
+me, so I had to go. They only wanted to know if Lousey
+Hard was private. Of course I told them it wasn&#8217;t. It was
+a very middle-aged man spoke to me. He must be the
+owner. As soon as they were tied up he wanted to jump
+ashore. It was rather awkward, and I just held out my
+hand to help him. Father saw me from here. I might have
+known he would.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why! It&#8217;s going off!&#8221; exclaimed Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>The yacht swung slowly round, held by her stern to the
+Hard. Then the last hawser was cast off, and she floated
+away on the first of the ebb; and as she moved, her main-sail,
+unbrailed, spread itself out and became a vast pinion.
+Like a dream of happiness she lessened and faded, and
+Lousey Hard was as lonely and forlorn as ever.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But didn&#8217;t you explain to your father?&#8221; Miss Ingate
+demanded of Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course I did. But he wouldn&#8217;t listen. He never
+does. I might just as well have explained to the hall-clock.
+He raged. I think he enjoys losing his temper. He said I
+oughtn&#8217;t to have been there at all, and it was just like me,
+and he couldn&#8217;t understand it in a daughter of his, and it
+would be a great shock to my poor mother, and he&#8217;d talked
+enough&mdash;he should now proceed to action. All the usual
+things. He actually asked me who &#8216;the man&#8217; was.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And who was it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How can I tell? For goodness&#8217; sake don&#8217;t go imitating
+father, Winnie! ... Rather a dull man, I should say.
+Rather like father, only not so old. He had a beautiful
+necktie; I think it must have been made out of a strip of
+Joseph&#8217;s coat.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate giggled at a high pitch, and Audrey responsively
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh dear! Oh dear!&#8221; murmured Miss Ingate when her
+giggling was exhausted. &#8220;How queer it is that a girl like
+you can&#8217;t keep your father in a good temper!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Father hates me to say funny things. If I say anything
+funny he turns as black as ink&mdash;and he takes care to
+keep gloomy all the rest of the day, too. He never laughs.
+Mother laughs now and then, but I never heard father laugh.
+Oh yes, I did. He laughed when the cat fell out of the bathroom
+window on to the lawn-roller. He went quite red in
+the face with laughing.... I say, Miss Ingate, do you
+think father&#8217;s mad?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shouldn&#8217;t think he&#8217;s what you call mad,&#8221; replied Miss
+Ingate judicially, with admirable sang-froid. &#8220;I&#8217;ve known
+so many peculiar people in my time. And you must remember,
+Audrey, this is a peculiar part of the world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I believe he&#8217;s mad, anyway. I believe he&#8217;s got
+men on the brain, especially young men. He&#8217;s growing
+worse. Yesterday he told me I musn&#8217;t have the punt out on
+Mozewater this season unless he&#8217;s with me. Fancy skiffing
+about with father! He says I&#8217;m too old for that now. So
+there you are. The older I get the less I&#8217;m allowed to do.
+I can&#8217;t go a walk, unless it&#8217;s an errand. The pedal is off
+my bike, and father is much too cunning to have it repaired.
+I can&#8217;t boat. I&#8217;m never given any money. He grumbles
+frightfully if I want any clothes, so I never want any.
+That&#8217;s my latest dodge. I&#8217;ve read every book in the house
+except the silly liturgical and legal things he&#8217;s always
+having from the London Library&mdash;and I&#8217;ve read even some
+of those. He won&#8217;t buy any new music. Golf! Ye gods,
+Winnie, you should hear him talk about ladies and golf!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;But it doesn&#8217;t ruffle me,
+because I don&#8217;t play.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But he plays with girls, and young girls, too, all the
+same. He&#8217;s been caught in the act. Ethel told me. He
+little thinks I know. He&#8217;d let me play if he could be
+the only man on the course. He&#8217;s mad about me and
+men. He never looks at me without thinking of all the
+boys in the district.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But he&#8217;s really very fond of you, Audrey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I know,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;He ought to keep me in
+the china cupboard.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, it&#8217;s a great problem.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s invented a beautiful new trick for keeping me in
+when he&#8217;s out. I have to copy his beastly Society letters for
+him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see he&#8217;s got a new box,&#8221; observed Miss Ingate,
+glancing into the open cupboard in which stood the safe.
+On the top of the safe were two japanned boxes, each
+lettered in white: &#8220;The National Reformation Society.&#8221;
+The uppermost box was freshly unpacked and shone with all
+the intact pride of virginity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You should read some of the letters. You really
+should, Winnie,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;All the bigwigs of the
+Society love writing to each other. I bet you father will
+get a typewriting machine this year, and make me learn it.
+The chairman has a typewriter, and father means to be the
+next chairman. You&#8217;ll see.... Oh! What&#8217;s that?
+Listen!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A faint distant throbbing could be heard.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the motor! He&#8217;s coming back for something.
+Fly out of here, Winnie, fly!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey felt sick at the thought that if her father had
+returned only a few minutes earlier he might have trapped
+her at the safe itself. She still kept one hand behind her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, who with all her qualities was rather easily
+flustered, ran out of the dangerous room in Audrey&#8217;s wake.
+They met Mr. Mathew Moze at the half-landing of the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>He was a man of average size, somewhat past sixty
+years. He had plump cheeks, tinged with red; his hair,
+moustache and short, full beard, were quite grey. He wore
+a thick wide-spreading ulster, and between his coat and
+waistcoat a leather vest, and on his head a grey cap. Put
+him in the Strand in town clothes, and he might have been
+taken for a clerk, a civil servant, a club secretary, a retired
+military officer, a poet, an undertaker&mdash;for anything except
+the last of a long line of immovable squires who could not
+possibly conceive what it was not to be the owner of land.
+His face was preoccupied and overcast, but as soon as he
+realised that Miss Ingate was on the stairs it instantly
+brightened into a warm and rather wistful smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning, Miss Ingate,&#8221; he greeted her with
+deferential cordiality. &#8220;I&#8217;m so glad to see you back.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning, good morning, Mr. Moze,&#8221; responded
+Miss Ingate. &#8220;Vehy nice of you. Vehy nice of you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Nobody would have guessed from their demeanour that
+they differed on every subject except their loyalty to that
+particular corner of Essex, that he regarded her and her
+political associates as deadly microbes in the national
+organism, and that she regarded him as a nincompoop
+crossed with a tyrant. Each of them had a magic glass to
+see in the other nothing but a local Effendi and familiar
+guardian angel of Moze. Moreover, Mr. Moze&#8217;s public
+smile and public manner were irresistible&mdash;until he lost his
+temper. He might have had friends by the score, had it
+not been for his deep constitutional reserve&mdash;due partly to
+diffidence and partly to an immense hidden conceit. Mr.
+Moze&#8217;s existence was actuated, though he knew it not, by
+the conviction that the historic traditions of England were
+committed to his keeping. Hence the conceit, which was
+that of a soul secretly self-dedicated.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, outraged by the hateful hypocrisy of persons
+over fifty, and terribly constrained and alarmed, turned
+vaguely back up the stairs. Miss Ingate, not quite knowing
+what she did, with an equal vagueness followed her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come in. Do come in,&#8221; urged Mr. Moze at the door
+of the study.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, who remained on the landing, heard her elders
+talk smoothly of grave Mozian things, while Mr. Moze
+unlocked the new tin box above the safe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d forgotten a most important paper,&#8221; said he, as
+he relocked the box. &#8220;I have an appointment with the
+Bishop of Colchester at ten-forty-five, and I fear I may
+be late. Will you excuse me, Miss Ingate?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She excused him.</p>
+
+<p>Departing, he put the paper into his pocket with a
+careful and loving gesture that well symbolised his passionate
+affection for the Society of which he was already
+the vice-chairman. He had been a member of the National
+Reformation Society for eleven years. Despite the promise
+of its name, this wealthy association of idealists had no
+care for reforms in a sadly imperfect England. Its aim
+was anti-Romanist. The Reformation which it had in mind
+was Luther&#8217;s, and it wished, by fighting an alleged insidious
+revival of Roman Catholicism, to make sure that so far as
+England was concerned Luther had not preached in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moze&#8217;s connection with the Society had originated
+in a quarrel between himself and a Catholic priest from
+Ipswich who had instituted a boys&#8217; summer camp on the
+banks of Mozewater near the village of Moze. Until that
+quarrel, the exceeding noxiousness of the Papal doctrine
+had not clearly presented itself to Mr. Moze. In such
+strange ways may an ideal come to birth. As Mr. Moze,
+preoccupied and gloomy once more, steered himself rapidly
+out of Moze towards the episcopal presence, the image of
+the imperturbable and Jesuitical priest took shape in his
+mind, refreshing his determination to be even with Rome
+at any cost.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_2" id="chapter_2" />CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE THIEF&#8217;S PLAN WRECKED</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;The fact is,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;father has another woman
+in the house now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moze had left Miss Ingate in the study and Audrey
+had cautiously rejoined her there.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Another woman in the house!&#8221; repeated Miss Ingate,
+sitting down in happy expectation. &#8220;What on earth do
+you mean? Who on earth do you mean?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I mean me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You aren&#8217;t a woman, Audrey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m just as much of a woman as you are. All father&#8217;s
+behaviour proves it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But your father treats you as a child.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, he doesn&#8217;t. He treats me as a woman. If he
+thought I was a child he wouldn&#8217;t have anything to worry
+about. I&#8217;m over nineteen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t look it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course I don&#8217;t. But I could if I liked. I simply
+won&#8217;t look it because I don&#8217;t care to be made ridiculous.
+I should start to look my age at once if father stopped
+treating me like a child.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you&#8217;ve just said he treats you as a woman!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t understand, Winnie,&#8221; said the girl sharply.
+&#8220;Unless you&#8217;re pretending. Now you&#8217;ve never told me
+anything about yourself, and I&#8217;ve always told you lots about
+myself. You belong to an old-fashioned family. How
+were you treated when you were my age?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In what way?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You know what way,&#8221; said Audrey, gazing at her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, my dear. Things seemed to come very naturally,
+somehow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Were you ever engaged?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Me? Oh, no!&#8221; answered Miss Ingate with tranquillity.
+&#8220;I&#8217;m vehy interested in them. Oh, vehy! Oh,
+vehy! And I like talking to them. But anything more
+than that gets on my nerves. My eldest sister was the
+one. Oh! She was the one. She refused eleven men,
+and when she was going to be married she made me
+embroider the monograms of all of them on the skirt of her
+wedding-dress. She made me, and I had to do it. I sat up
+all night the night before the wedding to finish them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what did the bridegroom say about it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The bridegroom didn&#8217;t say anything about it because
+he didn&#8217;t know. Nobody knew except Arabella and me.
+She just wanted to feel that the monograms were on her
+dress, that was all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How strange!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, it was. But this is a vehy strange part of the
+world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what happened afterwards?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bella died when she had her first baby, and the baby
+died as well. And the father&#8217;s dead now, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What a horrid story, Winnie!&#8221; Audrey murmured.
+And after a pause: &#8220;I like your sister.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She was vehy uncommon. But I liked her too. I
+don&#8217;t know why, but I did. She could make the best
+marmalade I ever tasted in my born days.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I could make the best marmalade you ever tasted in
+your born days,&#8221; said Audrey, sinking neatly to the floor
+and crossing her legs, &#8220;but they won&#8217;t let me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t let you! But I thought you did all sorts of
+things in the house.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, Winnie. I only do one thing. I do as I&#8217;m
+told&mdash;and not always even that. Now, if I wanted to
+make the best marmalade you ever tasted in your born
+days, first of all there would be a fearful row about the
+oranges. Secondly, father would tell mother she must tell
+me exactly what I was to do. He would also tell cook.
+Thirdly and lastly, dear friends, he would come into the
+kitchen himself. It wouldn&#8217;t be my marmalade at all. I
+should only be a marmalade-making machine. They never
+let me have any responsibility&mdash;no, not even when mother&#8217;s
+operation was on&mdash;and I&#8217;m never officially free. The kitchen-maid
+has far more responsibility than I have. And she
+has an evening off and an afternoon off. She can write a
+letter without everybody asking her who she&#8217;s writing to.
+She&#8217;s only seventeen. She has the morning postman for
+a young man now, and probably one or two others that
+I don&#8217;t know of. And she has money and she buys her
+own clothes. She&#8217;s a very naughty, wicked girl, and I
+wish I was in her place. She scorns me, naturally. Who
+wouldn&#8217;t?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate said not a word. She merely sat with her
+hands in the lap of her spotted pale-blue dress, faintly
+and sadly smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey burst out:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Ingate, what can I do? I must do something.
+What can I do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate shook her head, and put her lips tightly
+together, while mechanically smoothing the sides of her
+grey coat.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It beats me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then <em>I&#8217;ll</em> tell you what I can do!&#8221; answered Audrey
+firmly, wriggling somewhat nearer to her along the floor.
+&#8220;And what I shall do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you promise to keep it a secret?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate nodded, smiling and showing her teeth.
+Her broad polished forehead positively shone with kindly
+eagerness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you swear?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate hesitated, and then nodded again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then put your hand on my head and say, &#8216;I swear.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall leave this house,&#8221; said Audrey in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You won&#8217;t, Audrey!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll eat my hand off if I&#8217;ve not left this house by
+to-morrow, anyway.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To-morrow!&#8221; Miss Ingate nearly screamed. &#8220;Now,
+Audrey, do reflect. Think what you are!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey bounded to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what father&#8217;s always saying,&#8221; she exploded
+angrily. &#8220;He&#8217;s always telling me to examine myself. The
+fact is, I know too much about myself. I know exactly
+the kind of girl it is who&#8217;s going to leave this house.
+Exactly!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey, you frighten me. Where are you going to?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! That&#8217;s all right then. I am relieved. I thought
+perhaps you waited to come to <em>my</em> house. You won&#8217;t
+get to London, because you haven&#8217;t any money.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, I have. I&#8217;ve got a hundred pounds.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Remember, you&#8217;ve sworn.... Here!&#8221; she cried
+suddenly, and drawing her hand from behind her
+back she most sensationally displayed a crushed roll of
+bank-notes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And who did you get those from?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t get them from anybody. I got them out of
+father&#8217;s safe. They&#8217;re his reserve. He keeps them right
+at the back of the left-hand drawer, and he&#8217;s so sure
+they&#8217;re there that he never looks for them. He thinks
+he&#8217;s a perfect model, but really he&#8217;s careless. There&#8217;s a
+duplicate key to the safe, you know, and he leaves it
+with a lot of other keys loose in his desk. I expect he
+thought nobody would ever dream of guessing it was a
+key of the safe. I know he never looked at this roll,
+because I&#8217;ve been opening the safe every day for weeks
+past, and the roll was always the same. In fact, it was
+dusty. Then to-day I decided to take it, and here you
+are! He finished himself off yesterday, so far as I&#8217;m
+concerned, with the business about the punt.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But do you know you&#8217;re a thief, Audrey?&#8221; breathed
+Miss Ingate, extremely embarrassed, and for once somewhat
+staggered by the vagaries of human nature.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You seem to forget, Miss Ingate,&#8221; said Audrey
+solemnly, &#8220;that Cousin Caroline left me a legacy of two
+hundred pounds last year, and that I&#8217;ve never seen a
+penny of it. Father absolutely declined to let me have
+the tiniest bit of it. Well, I&#8217;ve taken half. He can keep
+the other half for his trouble.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate&#8217;s mouth stood open, and her eyes seemed
+startled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you can&#8217;t go to London alone. You wouldn&#8217;t
+know what to do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I should. I&#8217;ve arranged everything. I shall
+wear my best clothes. When I arrive at Liverpool Street
+I shall take a taxi. I&#8217;ve got three addresses of boarding-houses
+out of the <em>Daily Telegraph</em>, and they&#8217;re all in
+Bloomsbury, W.C. I shall have lessons in shorthand and
+typewriting at Pitman&#8217;s School, and then I shall get a
+situation. My name will be Vavasour.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you&#8217;ll be caught.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shan&#8217;t. I shall book to Ipswich first and begin
+again from there. Girls like me aren&#8217;t so easy to catch
+as all that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re vehy cunning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I get that from mother. She&#8217;s most frightfully cunning
+with father.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey,&#8221; said Miss Ingate with a strange grin, &#8220;I
+don&#8217;t know how I can sit here and listen to you. You&#8217;ll
+ruin me with your father, because if you go I&#8217;m sure I shall
+never be able to keep from him that I knew all about it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then you shouldn&#8217;t have sworn,&#8221; retorted Audrey.
+&#8220;But I&#8217;m glad you did swear, because I had to tell somebody,
+and there was nobody but you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate might possibly have contrived to employ
+some of that sagacity in which she took a secret pride
+upon a very critical and urgent situation, had not Mrs.
+Moze, with a white handkerchief wrapped round her forehead,
+at that moment come into the room. Immediately
+the study was full of neuralgia and eau-de-Cologne.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Moze and Miss Ingate at length recovered
+from the tenderness of meeting each other after a separation
+of ten days or more, Audrey had vanished like an illusion.
+She was not afraid of her mother; and she could trust
+Miss Ingate, though Miss Ingate and Mrs. Moze were
+dangerously intimate; but she was too self-conscious to
+remain in the presence of her fellow-creatures; and in spite
+of her faith in Miss Ingate she thought of the spinster
+as of a vase filled now with a fatal liquor which by any
+accident might spill and spread ruin&mdash;so that she could
+scarcely bear to look upon Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>At the back of the house a young Pomeranian dog,
+which had recently solaced Miss Ingate in the loss of a
+Pekingese done to death by a spinster&#8217;s too-nourishing
+love, was prancing on his four springs round the chained
+yard-dog, his friend and patron. In a series of marvellous
+short bounds, he followed Audrey with yapping eagerness
+down the slope of the garden; and the yard-dog, aware
+that none but the omnipotent deity, Mr. Moze, sole source
+of good and evil, had the right to loose him, turned
+round once and laid himself flat and long on the ground,
+sighing.</p>
+
+<p>The garden, after developing into an orchard and
+deteriorating into a scraggy plantation, ended in a low
+wall that was at about the level of the sea-wall and
+separated from it by a water-course and a strip of very
+green meadow. Audrey glanced instinctively back at the
+house to see if anybody was watching her.</p>
+
+<p>Flank Hall, which for a hundred years had been called
+&#8220;the new hall,&#8221; was a seemly Georgian residence, warm
+in colour, with some quaint woodwork; and like most such
+buildings in Essex, it made a very happy marriage with
+the landscape. Its dormers and fine chimneys glowed amid
+the dark bare trees, and they alone would have captivated
+a Londoner possessing those precious attributes, fortunately
+ever spreading among the enlightened middle-classes, a
+motor-car, a cultured taste in architecture, and a desire
+to enter the squirearchy. Audrey loathed the house. For
+her it was the last depth of sordidness and the commonplace.
+She could imagine positively nothing less romantic.
+She thought of the ground floor on chill March mornings
+with no fires anywhere save a red gleam in the dining-room,
+and herself wandering about in it idle, at a loss
+for a diversion, an ambition, an effort, a real task; and
+she thought of the upper floor, a mainly unoccupied wilderness
+of iron bedsteads and yellow chests of drawers and
+chipped earthenware and islands of carpets, and her mother
+plaintively and weariedly arguing with some servant over
+a slop-pail in a corner. The images of the interior, indelibly
+printed in her soul, desolated her.</p>
+
+<p>Mozewater she loved, and every souvenir of it was exquisite&mdash;red
+barges beating miraculously up the shallow
+puddles to Moze Quay, equinoctial spring-tides when the
+estuary was a tremendous ocean covered with foam and the
+sea-wall felt the light lash of spray, thunderstorms in
+autumn gathering over the yellow melancholy of deathlike
+sunsets, wild birds crying across miles of uncovered mud at
+early morning and duck-hunters crouching in punts behind
+a waving screen of delicate grasses to wing them, and the
+mysterious shapes of steamers and warships in the offing
+beyond the Sand.... The sail of the receding yacht
+gleamed now against the Sand, and its flashing broke her
+heart; for it was the flashing of freedom. She thought of
+the yachtsman; he was very courteous and deferential; a
+mild creature; he had behaved to her as to a woman....
+Oh! To be the petted and capricious wife of such a man,
+to nod commands, to enslave with a smile, to want a thing
+and instantly to have it, to be consulted and to decide, to
+spend with large gestures, to be charitable, to be adored by
+those whom you had saved from disaster, to increase
+happiness wherever you went ... and to be free!....</p>
+
+<p>The little dog jumped up at her because he was tired of
+being ignored, and she caught him and kissed him again and
+again passionately, and he wriggled with ecstasy and licked
+her ears with all the love in him. And in kissing him she
+kissed grave and affectionate husbands, she kissed the lovely
+scenery of the Sound, and she kissed the magnificent ideal
+of emancipation. But the dog had soon had enough of her
+arms; he broke free, sprang, alighted, and rolled over, and
+arose sniffing, with earth on his black muzzle....</p>
+
+<p>He looked up at her inquiringly.... Strange, short-frocked
+blue figure looking down at him! She had a bulging
+forehead; her brown eyes were tunnelled underneath it.
+But what living eyes, what ardent eyes, that blazed up and
+sank like a fire! What delicate and exact mirrors of the
+secret traffic between her soul and the soul of the world!
+She had full cheeks, and a large mouth ripe red, inviting
+and provocative. In the midst, an absurd small unprominent
+nose that meant nothing! Her complexion was divine, surpassing
+all similes. To caress that smooth downy cheek (if
+you looked close you could see the infinitesimal down against
+the light like an aura on the edge of the silhouette), even to
+let the gaze dwell on it, what an enchantment!... She
+considered herself piquant and comely, and she was not
+deceived. She had long hands.</p>
+
+<p>The wind from afar on her cheek reminded her
+poignantly that she was a prisoner. She could not go to the
+clustered village on the left, nor into the saltings on the
+right, nor even on to the sea-wall where the new rushes and
+grasses were showing. All the estuary was barred, and the
+winding road that mounted the slope towards Colchester.
+Her revolt against injustice was savage. Hatred of her
+father surged up in her like glittering lava. She had long
+since ceased to try to comprehend him. She despised herself
+because she was unreasonably afraid of him, ridiculously
+mute before him. She could not understand how anybody
+could be friendly with him&mdash;for was he not notorious? Yet
+everywhere he was greeted with respect and smiles, and he
+would chat at length with all manner of people on a note of
+mild and smooth cordiality. He and Miss Ingate would
+enjoy together the most enormous talks. She was, however,
+aware that Miss Ingate&#8217;s opinion of him was not very
+different from her own. Each time she saw her father and
+Miss Ingate in communion she would say in her heart to
+Miss Ingate: &#8220;You are disloyal to me.&#8221; ...</p>
+
+<p>Was it possible that she had confided to Miss Ingate her
+fearful secret? The conversation appeared to her unreal
+now. She went over her plan. In the afternoon her father
+was always out, and to-morrow afternoon her mother would
+be out too. She would have a few things in a light bag that
+she could carry&mdash;her mother&#8217;s bag! She would put on her
+best clothes and a veil from her mother&#8217;s wardrobe. She
+would take the 4.5 p.m. train. The stationmaster would be
+at his tea then. Only the booking-clerk and the porter
+would see her, and neither would dare to make an observation.
+She would ask for a return ticket to Ipswich; that
+would allay suspicion, and at Ipswich she would book again.
+She had cut out the addresses of the boarding-houses. She
+would have to buy things in London. She knew of two
+shops&mdash;Harrod&#8217;s and Shoolbred&#8217;s; she had seen their
+catalogues. And the very next morning after arrival she
+would go to Pitman&#8217;s School. She would change the first
+of the £5 notes at the station and ask for plenty of silver.
+She glanced at the unlimited wealth still crushed in her
+hand, and then she carefully dropped the fortune down the
+neck of her frock.... Stealing? She repulsed the idea
+with violent disdain. What she had accomplished against
+her father was not a crime, but a vengeance.... She
+would never be found in London. It was impossible. Her
+plan seemed to her to be perfect in each detail, except one.
+She was not the right sort of girl to execute it. She was
+very shy. She suspected that no other girl could really be
+as shy as she was. She recalled dreadful rare moments with
+her mother in strange drawing-rooms. Still, she would
+execute the plan even if she died of fright. A force within
+her would compel her to execute it. This force did not make
+for happiness; on the contrary, it uncomfortably scared her;
+but it was irresistible.</p>
+
+<p>Something on the brow of the road from Colchester
+attracted her attention. It was a handcart, pushed by a
+labourer and by Police Inspector Keeble, whom she liked.
+Following the handcart over the brow came a loose procession
+of villagers, which included no children, because the
+children were in school. Except on a Sunday Audrey had
+never before seen a procession of villagers, and these
+villagers must have been collected out of the fields, for the
+procession was going in the direction of, and not away
+from, the village. The handcart was covered with a
+tarpaulin.... She knew what had happened; she knew
+infallibly. Skirting the boundary of the grounds, she
+reached the main entrance to Flank Hall thirty seconds
+before the handcart. The little dog, delighted in a new
+adventure, yapped ecstatically at her heels, and then
+bounded onwards to meet the Inspector and the handcart.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Run and tell yer mother, Miss Moze,&#8221; Inspector
+Keeble called out in a carrying whisper. &#8220;There&#8217;s been
+an accident. He ditched the car near Ardleigh cross-roads,
+trying to avoid some fowls.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moze, hurrying too fast to meet the Bishop of
+Colchester, had met a greater than the Bishop.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey glanced an instant with a sick qualm at the outlines
+of the shape beneath the tarpaulin, and ran.</p>
+
+<p>In the dining-room, over the speck of fire, Mrs. Moze
+and Miss Ingate were locked in a deep intimate gossip.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mother!&#8221; cried Audrey, and then sank like a sack.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why! The little thing&#8217;s fainted!&#8221; Miss Ingate exclaimed
+in a voice suddenly hoarse.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_3" id="chapter_3" />CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LEGACY</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey and Miss Ingate were in the late Mathew Moze&#8217;s
+study, fascinated&mdash;as much unconsciously as consciously&mdash;by
+the thing which since its owner&#8217;s death had grown every
+hour more mysterious and more formidable&mdash;the safe. It
+was a fine afternoon. The secondary but still grandiose
+enigma of the affair, Mr. Cowl, could be heard walking
+methodically on the gravel in the garden. Mr. Cowl was
+the secretary of the National Reformation Society.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the irregular sound of crunching receded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s gone somewhere else,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so relieved,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;I hope he&#8217;s gone
+a long way off.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you?&#8221; murmured Audrey, with an air of surprised
+superiority.</p>
+
+<p>But in secret Audrey felt just as relieved as Miss Ingate,
+despite the fact that, her mother being prostrate, she was
+the mistress of the situation, and could have ordered Mr.
+Cowl to leave, with the certainty of being obeyed. She was
+astonished at her illogical sensations, and she had been frequently
+so astonished in the previous four days.</p>
+
+<p>For example, she was free; she knew that she could
+impose herself on her mother; never again would she be the
+slave of an unreasoning tyrant; yet she was gloomy and
+without hope. She had hated the unreasoning tyrant; yet
+she felt very sorry for him because he was dead. And
+though she felt very sorry for him, she detested hearing the
+panegyrics upon him of the village, and particularly of those
+persons with whom he had quarrelled; she actually stopped
+Miss Ingate in the midst of an enumeration of his good
+qualities&mdash;his charm, his smile, his courtesy, his integrity,
+et cetera; she could not bear it. She thought that no child
+had ever had such a strange attitude to a deceased parent as
+hers to Mr. Moze. She had anticipated the inquest with an
+awful dread; it proved to be a trifle, and a ridiculous trifle.
+In the long weekly letter which she wrote to her adored
+school-friend Ethel at Manningtree she had actually likened
+the coroner to a pecking fowl! Was it possible that a
+daughter could write in such a strain about the inquest on
+her father&#8217;s body?</p>
+
+<p>The funeral had seemed a function by itself, with some
+guidance from the undertaker and still more from Mr. Cowl.
+Villagers and district acquaintances had been many at the
+ceremony, but relatives rare. Mr. Moze&#8217;s four younger
+brothers were all in the Colonies; Mrs. Moze had apparently
+no connections. Madame Piriac, daughter of Mr. Moze&#8217;s
+first wife by that lady&#8217;s first husband, had telegraphed
+sympathies from Paris. A cousin or so had come in person
+from Woodbridge for the day.</p>
+
+<p>It was from the demeanour of these cousins, grave men
+twice her age or more, that Audrey had first divined her new
+importance in the world. Their deference indicated that in
+their opinion the future mistress of Flank Hall was not Mrs.
+Moze, but Audrey. Audrey admitted that they were right.
+Yet she took no pleasure in issuing commands. She spoke
+firmly, but she said to herself: &#8220;There is no backbone to
+this firmness, and I am a fraud.&#8221; She had always yearned
+for responsibility, yet now that it was in her hand she
+trembled, and she would have dropped it and run away from
+it as from a bomb, had she not been too cowardly to show
+her cowardice.</p>
+
+<p>The instance of Aguilar, the head-gardener and mechanic,
+well illustrated her pusillanimity. She loathed Aguilar; her
+mother loathed him; the servants loathed him. He had said
+at the inquest that the car was in perfect order, but that Mr.
+Moze was too excitable to be a good driver. His evidence
+was true, but the jury did not care for his manner. Nor did
+the village. He had only two good qualities&mdash;honesty and
+efficiency; and these by their rarity excited jealousy rather
+than admiration. Audrey strongly desired to throw the
+gardener-mechanic upon the world; it nauseated her to see
+his disobliging face about the garden. But he remained
+scathless, to refuse demanded vegetables, to annoy the
+kitchen, to pronounce the motor-car utterly valueless, and to
+complain of his own liver. Audrey had legs; she had a
+tongue; she could articulate. Neither wish nor power was
+lacking in her to give Aguilar the supreme experience of his
+career. And yet she did not walk up to him and say:
+&#8220;Aguilar, please take a week&#8217;s notice.&#8221; Why? The
+question puzzled her and lowered her opinion of herself.</p>
+
+<p>She was similarly absurd in the paramount matter of the
+safe. The safe could not be opened. The village, having
+been thrilled by four stirring days of the most precious and
+rare fever, had suffered much after the funeral from a severe
+reaction of dullness. It would have suffered much more had
+the fact not escaped that the safe could not be opened. In
+the deep depression of the day following the funeral the
+village could still say to itself: &#8220;Romance and excitement
+are not yet over, for the key of the Moze safe is lost, and the
+will is in the safe!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The village did not know that there were two keys to the
+safe and that they were both lost. Nobody knew that except
+Audrey and Miss Ingate and Mr. Cowl. The official key was
+lost because Mr. Moze&#8217;s key-ring was lost. The theory was
+that it had been jerked out of his pocket in the accident.
+Persistent search for it had been unsuccessful. As for the
+unofficial or duplicate key, Audrey could not remember
+where she had put it after her burglary, the conclusion of
+which had been disturbed by Miss Ingate. At one moment
+she was quite sure that she had left the key in the safe, but
+at another moment she was equally sure that she was holding
+the key in her right hand (the bank-notes being in her
+left) when Miss Ingate entered the room; at still another
+moment she was almost convinced that before Miss Ingate&#8217;s
+arrival she had run to the desk and slipped the key back
+into its drawer. In any case the second key was irretrievable.
+She discussed the dilemma very fully with Miss Ingate, who
+had obligingly come to stay in the house. They examined
+every aspect of the affair, except Audrey&#8217;s guiltiness of
+theft, which both of them tacitly ignored. In the end they
+decided that it might be wiser not to conceal Audrey&#8217;s
+knowledge of the existence of a second key; and they told
+Mr. Cowl, because he happened to be at hand. In so doing
+they were ill-advised, because Mr. Cowl at once acted in a
+characteristic and inconvenient fashion which they ought to
+have foreseen.</p>
+
+<p>On the day before the funeral Mr. Cowl had telegraphed
+from some place in Devonshire that he should represent
+the National Reformation Society at the funeral, and asked
+for a bed, on the pretext that he could not get from
+Devonshire to Moze in time for the funeral if he postponed
+his departure until the next morning. The telegram was
+quite costly. He arrived for dinner, a fat man about thirty-eight,
+with chestnut hair, a low, alluring voice, and a small
+handbag for luggage. Miss Ingate thought him very
+interesting, and he was. He said little about the National
+Reformation Society, but a great deal about the late Mr.
+Moze, of whom he appeared to be an intimate friend;
+presumably the friendship had developed at meetings of
+the Society. After dinner he strolled nonchalantly to the
+sideboard and opened a box of the deceased&#8217;s cigars, and
+suggested that, as he was well acquainted with the brand,
+having often enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Moze&#8217;s cigar-case,
+he should smoke a cigar now to the memory of the
+departed. Miss Ingate then began to feel alarmed. He
+smoked four cigars to the memory of the departed, and on
+retiring ventured to take four more for consumption during
+the night, as he seldom slept.</p>
+
+<p>In the morning he went into the bathroom at eight
+o&#8217;clock and remained there till noon, reading and smoking
+in continually renewed hot water. He descended blandly,
+begged Miss Moze not to trouble about his breakfast, and
+gently assumed a certain control of the funeral. After the
+funeral he announced that he should leave on the morrow;
+but the mystery of the safe held him to the house. When
+he heard of the existence of the second key he organised
+and took command of a complete search of the study, and
+in the course of the search he inspected every document
+in the study. He said he knew that the deceased had
+left a legacy to the Society, and he should not feel justified
+in quitting Moze until the will was found.</p>
+
+<p>Now in these circumstances Audrey ought certainly to
+have telegraphed to her father&#8217;s solicitor at Chelmsford
+at once. In the alternative she ought to have hired a
+safe-opening expert or a burglar from Colchester. She
+had accomplished neither of these downright things. With
+absolute power, she had done nothing but postpone. She
+wondered at herself, for up to her father&#8217;s death she had
+been a great critic of absolute power.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The heavy policemanish step of Mr. Cowl was heard
+on the landing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s coming down on us!&#8221; exclaimed Miss Ingate,
+partly afraid, and partly ironic at her own fear. &#8220;I&#8217;m
+sure he&#8217;s coming down on us. Audrey, I liked that man
+at first, but now I tremble before him. And I&#8217;m sure his
+moustache is dyed. Can&#8217;t you ask him to leave?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is his moustache dyed, Winnie? Oh, what fun!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate&#8217;s apprehension was justified. There was
+a knock at the study door, discreet, insistent, menacing,
+and it was Mr. Cowl&#8217;s knock. He entered, smiling
+gravely and yet, as it were, teasingly. His easy bigness,
+florid and sinister, made a disturbing contrast with the
+artless and pure simplicity of Audrey in her new black robe,
+and even with Miss Ingate&#8217;s pallid maturity, which, after all,
+was passably innocent and ingenuous. Mr. Cowl resembled
+a great beast good-humouredly lolloping into the cage in
+which two rabbits had been placed for his diversion and
+hunger.</p>
+
+<p>Pulling a key from the pocket of his vast waistcoat,
+he said in his quiet voice, so seductive and ominous:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is this the key of the safe?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He offered it delicately to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>It was the key of the safe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did they find it in the ditch?&#8221; Audrey demanded,
+blushing, for she knew that the key had not been found
+in the ditch; she knew by a certain indentation on it that it
+was the duplicate key which she herself had mislaid.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Mr. Cowl. &#8220;I found it myself, and not
+in the ditch. I remembered you had said that you had
+changed at the dressmaker&#8217;s in the village and had left
+there an old frock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did I?&#8221; murmured Audrey, with a deeper blush.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cowl nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I had the happy idea that you might have had the
+key and left it in the pocket of the frock. So I trotted
+down to the dressmaker&#8217;s and asked for the frock, in your
+name, and lo! the result!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to the key lying in Audrey&#8217;s long hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But how should I have had the key, Mr. Cowl? Why
+should I have had the key?&#8221; Audrey burst out like a
+simpleton.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That, Miss Moze,&#8221; said he, with a peculiar grin and
+in an equally peculiar tone, &#8220;is a matter about which
+obviously you are better informed than I am. Shall we
+try the key?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With a smooth undeniable gesture he took the key
+again from Audrey, and bent his huge form to open the
+safe. As he did so Miss Ingate made a sarcastic and yet
+affrighted face at Audrey, and Audrey tried to send a signal
+in reply, but failed, owing to imperfect self-control. However,
+she managed to say to Mr. Cowl&#8217;s curved back:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You couldn&#8217;t have found the key in the pocket of
+my old frock, Mr. Cowl.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why?&#8221; he inquired benevolently, raising and
+turning his chestnut head. Even in that exciting instant
+Audrey could debate within herself whether or not his
+superb moustache was dyed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because it has no pocket.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So I discovered,&#8221; said Mr. Cowl, after a little pause.
+&#8220;I merely stated that I had the happy idea&mdash;for it proved
+to be a happy idea&mdash;that you might have left the key in
+the pocket. I discovered it, as a fact, in a slit of the
+lining of the belt.... Conceivably you had slipped it in
+there&mdash;in a hurry.&#8221; He put strange implications into the
+last three words. &#8220;Yes, it is the authentic key,&#8221; he
+concluded, as the door of the safe swung heavily and
+silently open.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, for the first time, felt rather like a thief as
+she beheld the familiar interior of the safe which a few
+days earlier she had so successfully rifled. &#8220;Is it possible,&#8221;
+she thought, &#8220;that I really took bank-notes out of that
+safe, and that they are at this very moment in my bedroom
+between the leaves of &#8216;Pictures of Palestine&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Cowl was cautiously fumbling among the serried
+row of documents which, their edges towards the front,
+filled the steel shelf above the drawers. Audrey had never
+experienced any curiosity concerning the documents. Lucre
+alone had interested the base creature. No documents
+would have helped her to freedom. But now she thought
+apprehensively: &#8220;My fate may be among those documents.&#8221;
+She was quite prepared to learn that her father had done
+something silly in his will.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This resembles a testament,&#8221; said Mr. Cowl, smiling
+to himself, and pulling out a foolscap scrip, folded and
+endorsed. &#8220;Yes. Dated last year.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He unfolded the document; a letter slipped from the
+interior of it; he placed the letter on the small occasional
+table next to the desk, and offered the will to Audrey with
+precisely the same gesture as he had offered the key.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey tried to decipher the will, and completely failed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you read it, Miss Ingate?&#8221; she muttered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t! I can&#8217;t!&#8221; answered Miss Ingate in excitement.
+&#8220;I&#8217;m sure I can&#8217;t. I never could read wills. They&#8217;re
+so funny, somehow. And I haven&#8217;t got my spectacles.&#8221;
+She flushed slightly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;May <em>I</em> venture to tell you what it contains?&#8221; Mr.
+Cowl suggested. &#8220;There can be no indiscretion on my
+part, as all wills after probate are public property and
+can be inspected by any Tom, Dick or Harry for a fee
+of one shilling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He took the document and gazed at it intently, turning
+over a page and turning back, for an extraordinarily
+long time.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said to herself again and again, with exasperated
+impatience: &#8220;He knows now, and I don&#8217;t know. He
+knows now, and I don&#8217;t know. He knows now, and I
+don&#8217;t know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At length Mr. Cowl spoke:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is a perfectly simple will. The testator leaves the
+whole of his property to Mrs. Moze for life, and afterwards
+to you, Miss Moze. There are only two legacies.
+Ten pounds to James Aguilar, gardener. And the testator&#8217;s
+shares in the Zacatecas Oil Development Corporation to the
+National Reformation Society. I may say that the testator
+had expressed to me his intention of leaving these shares
+to the Society. We should have preferred money, free
+of legacy duty, but the late Mr. Moze had a reason for
+everything he did. I must now bid you good-bye, ladies,&#8221;
+he went on strangely, with no pause. &#8220;Miss Moze, will
+you convey my sympathetic respects to your mother and
+my thanks for her most kind hospitality? My grateful
+sympathies to yourself. Good-bye, Miss Ingate....
+Er, Miss Ingate, why do you look at me in that
+peculiar way?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Mr. Cowl, you&#8217;re a very peculiar man. May
+I ask whether you were born in this part of the
+country?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At Clacton, Miss Ingate,&#8221; answered Mr. Cowl imperturbably.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I knew it,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, and the corners of her
+lips went sardonically down.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Please don&#8217;t trouble to come downstairs,&#8221; said Mr.
+Cowl. &#8220;My bag is packed. I have tipped the parlourmaid,
+and there is just time to catch the train,&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He departed, leaving the two women speechless.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment, Miss Ingate said dryly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He was so very peculiar I knew he must belong to
+these parts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How did he know I left my blue frock at Miss
+Pannell&#8217;s?&#8221; cried Audrey. &#8220;I never told him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He must have been eavesdropping!&#8221; cried Miss Ingate.
+&#8220;He never found the key in your frock. He must have
+found it here somewhere; I feel sure it must have dropped
+by the safe, and I lay anything he had opened the safe
+before and read the will before. I could tell from the
+way he looked.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why should he suppose that I&#8217;d the key?&#8221;
+Audrey put in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Eavesdropping! I&#8217;m convinced that man knows too
+much.&#8221; Audrey reddened once more. &#8220;I believe he thought
+you&#8217;d be capable of burning the will. That&#8217;s why he made
+you handle it in his presence and mine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Winnie,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;I think you might have
+told him all that while he was here, instead of letting
+him go off so triumphant.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I did begin to,&#8221; said Miss Ingate with a snigger.
+&#8220;But you wouldn&#8217;t back me up, you little coward.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall never be a coward again!&#8221; Audrey said
+violently.</p>
+
+<p>They read the will together. They had no difficulty at
+all in comprehending it now that they were alone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do think it&#8217;s a horrid shame Aguilar should have
+that ten pounds,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;But otherwise I don&#8217;t
+care. You can&#8217;t guess how relieved I am, Winnie. I
+imagined the most dreadful things. I don&#8217;t know what
+I imagined. But now we shall have all the property and
+everything, just as much as ever there was, and only me
+and mother to spend it.&#8221; Audrey danced an embryonic
+jig. &#8220;Won&#8217;t I keep mother in order! Winnie, I shall
+make her go with me to Paris. I&#8217;ve always wanted to
+know that Madame Piriac&mdash;she does write such funny
+English in her letters.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s that you&#8217;re saying?&#8221; murmured Miss Ingate,
+who had picked up the letter which Mr. Cowl had laid
+on the small table.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I say I shall make mother go to Paris with me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You won&#8217;t,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;Because she won&#8217;t
+go. I know your mother better than you do.... Oh!
+Audrey!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey saw Miss Ingate&#8217;s face turn scarlet from the
+roots of her hair to her chin.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate had dropped the letter. Audrey snatched it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear Moze,&#8221; the letter ran. &#8220;I send you herewith
+a report of the meeting of the Great Mexican Oil Company at
+New York. You will see that they duly authorised the contract
+by which the Zacatecas Oil Corporation transfers our
+property to them in exchange for shares at the rate of four
+Great Mexican shares for one Zacatecas share. As each of
+the Development Syndicate shares represents ten of the
+Corporation shares, and as on my recommendation you put
+£4,500 into the Syndicate, you will therefore own 180,000
+Great Mexican shares. They are at present above par.
+Mark my words, they will be worth from seven to ten dollars
+apiece in a year&#8217;s time. I think you now owe me a good
+turn, eh?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The letter was signed with a name unknown to either
+of them, and it was dated from Coleman Street, E.C.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_4" id="chapter_4" />CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>MR. FOULGER</h3>
+
+
+<p>Half an hour later the woman and the girl, still in the study
+and severely damaged by the culminating events of Mr.
+Cowl&#8217;s visit, were almost prostrated by the entirely unexpected
+announcement of the arrival of Mr. Foulger. Mr.
+Foulger was the late Mr. Moze&#8217;s solicitor from Chelmsford.
+Audrey&#8217;s first thought was: &#8220;Has heaven telegraphed to
+him on my behalf?&#8221; But her next was that all the solicitors
+in the world would now be useless in the horrible calamity
+that had befallen.</p>
+
+<p>It is to be noted that Audrey was no worse off than
+before the discovery of the astounding value of the
+Zacatecas shares. The Moze property, inherited through
+generations and consisting mainly in farms and tithe-rents,
+was not in the slightest degree impaired. On the contrary,
+the steady progress of agriculture in Essex indicated that its
+yield must improve with years. Nevertheless Audrey felt as
+though she and her mother were ruined, and as though the
+National Reformation Society had been guilty of a fearful
+crime against a widow and an orphan. The lovely vision of
+immeasurable wealth had flashed and scintillated for a month
+in front of her dazzled eyes&mdash;and then blackness, nothingness,
+the dark void! She knew that she would never be
+happy again.</p>
+
+<p>And she thought, scornfully, &#8220;How could father
+have been so preoccupied and so gloomy, with all those
+riches?&#8221; She could not conceive anybody as rich as her
+father secretly was not being day and night in a condition
+of pure delight at the whole spectacle of existence.
+Her opinion of Mathew Moze fell lower than ever, and
+fell finally.</p>
+
+<p>The parlourmaid, in a negligence of attire indicating that
+no man was left alive in the house, waited at the door of the
+study to learn whether or not Miss Moze was in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll <em>have</em> to see him,&#8221; said Miss Ingate firmly.
+&#8220;It&#8217;ll be all right. I&#8217;ve known him all my life. He&#8217;s a very
+nice man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After the parlourmaid had gone, and while Audrey was
+upbraiding her for not confessing earlier her acquaintance
+with Mr. Foulger, Miss Ingate added:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Only his wife has a wooden leg.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then Mr. Foulger entered. He was a shortish man of
+about fifty, with a paunch, but not otherwise fat; dressed
+like a sportsman. He trod very lightly. The expression on
+his ruddy face was amiable but extremely alert, hardening at
+intervals into decision or caution. He saw before him a
+nervous, frowning girl in inelegant black, and Miss Ingate
+with a curious look in her eyes and a sardonic and timid
+twitching of her lips. For an instant he was discountenanced;
+but he at once recovered, accomplishing a
+bright salute.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here you are at last, Mr. Foulger!&#8221; Miss Ingate
+responded. &#8220;But you&#8217;re too late.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>These mysterious words, and the speechlessness of
+Audrey, upset him again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was away in Somersetshire for a little fishing,&#8221; he
+said, after he had deplored the death of Mr. Moze, the illness
+of Mrs. Moze, and the bereavement of Miss Moze, and had
+congratulated Miss Moze on the protective friendship of his
+old friend, Miss Ingate. &#8220;I was away for a little fishing,
+and I only heard the sad news when I got back home at
+noon to-day. I came over at once.&#8221; He cleared his throat
+and looked first at Audrey and then at Miss Ingate. He felt
+that he ought to be addressing Audrey, but somehow he
+could not help addressing Miss Ingate instead. His grey
+legs were spread abroad as he sat very erect on a chair,
+and between them his dependent paunch found a comfortable
+space for itself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You must have been getting anxious about the will.
+I have brought it with me,&#8221; he said. He drew a white
+document from the breast-pocket of his cutaway coat, and
+he perched a pair of eyeglasses carelessly on his nose. &#8220;It
+was executed before your birth, Miss Moze. But a will
+keeps like wine. The whole of the property of every
+description is left to Mrs. Moze, and she is sole executrix. If
+she should predecease the testator, then everything is left
+to his child or children. Not perhaps a very businesslike
+will&mdash;a will likely to lead to unforeseen complications, but the
+sort of will that a man in the first flush of marriage often
+does make, and there is no stopping him. Your father had
+almost every quality, but he was not businesslike&mdash;if I may
+say so with respect. However, I confess that for the present
+I see no difficulties. Of course the death duties will
+have to be paid, but your father always kept a considerable
+amount of money at call. When I say &#8216;considerable,&#8217; I
+mean several thousands. That was a point on which he and
+I had many discussions.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Foulger glanced around with satisfaction. Already
+the prospect of legal business and costs had brought about
+a change in his official demeanour of an adviser truly
+bereaved by the death of a client. He saw the young girl,
+gazing fiercely at the carpet, suddenly begin to weep. This
+phenomenon, to which he was not unaccustomed, did not by
+itself disturb him; but the face of Miss Ingate gave him
+strange apprehensions, which reached a climax when Miss
+Ingate, obviously not at all at ease, muttered:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There is a later will, Mr. Foulger. It was made last
+year.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see,&#8221; he breathed, scarcely above a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>He thought he did see. He thought he understood why
+he had been kept waiting, why Mrs. Moze pretended to be
+ill, why the girl had frowned, why the naively calm Miss
+Ingate was in such a state of nerves. The explanation was
+that he was not wanted. The explanation was that Mr.
+Moze had changed his solicitor. His face hardened, for he
+and his uncle between them had &#8220;acted&#8221; for the Moze
+family for over seventy years.</p>
+
+<p>He rose from the chair.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then I need not trouble you any longer,&#8221; he said in a
+firm tone, and turned with real dignity to leave.</p>
+
+<p>He was exceedingly astonished when with one swift
+movement Audrey rose, and flashed like a missile to the door,
+and stood with her back to it. The fact was that Audrey
+had just remembered her vow never again to be afraid of
+anybody. When Miss Ingate with extraordinary agility also
+jumped up and approached him, he apprehended, recalling
+rumours of Miss Ingate&#8217;s advanced feminism, that the fate
+of an anti-suffragette Cabinet Minister might be awaiting
+him, and he prepared his defence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You mustn&#8217;t go,&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are my solicitor, whatever mother may say, and
+you mustn&#8217;t go,&#8221; added Audrey in a soft voice.</p>
+
+<p>The man was entranced. It occurred to him that
+he would have a tale to tell and to re-tell at his club
+for years, about &#8220;a certain fair client who shall be
+nameless.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The next minute he had heard a somewhat romantic, if
+not hysterical, version of the facts of the case, and he was
+perusing the original documents. By chance he read first
+the letter about the Zacatecas shares. That Mathew Moze
+had made a will without his aid was a shock; that Mathew
+Moze had invested money without his advice was another
+shock quite as severe. But he knew the status of the Great
+Mexican Oil Company, and his countenance lighted as he
+realised the rich immensity of the business of proving the
+will and devolving the estate; his costs would run to the most
+agreeable figures. As soon as he glanced at the testament
+which Mr. Cowl had found, he muttered, with satisfaction
+and disdain:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;H&#8217;m! He made this himself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And he gazed at it compassionately, as a cabinetmaker
+might gaze at a piece of amateur fretwork.</p>
+
+<p>Standing, he read it slowly and with extreme care. And
+when he had finished he casually remarked, in the classic
+legal phrase:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t worth the paper it&#8217;s written on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then he sat down again, and his neat paunch resumed
+its niche between his legs. He knew that he had made a
+tremendous effect.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But&mdash;but&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Miss Ingate began.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not worth the paper it&#8217;s written on,&#8221; he repeated.
+&#8220;There is only one witness, and there ought to be two, and
+even the one witness is a bad one&mdash;Aguilar, because he
+profits under the will. He would have to give up his legacy
+before his attestation could count, and even then it would be
+no good alone. Mr. Moze has not even expressly revoked
+the old will. If there hadn&#8217;t been a previous will, and if
+Aguilar was a thoroughly reliable man, and if the family had
+wished to uphold the new will, I dare say the Court <em>might</em>
+have pronounced for it. But under the circumstances it
+hasn&#8217;t the ghost of a chance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But won&#8217;t the National Reformation Society make
+trouble?&#8221; demanded Miss Ingate faintly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let &#8217;em try!&#8221; said Mr. Foulger, who wished that the
+National Reformation Society would indeed try.</p>
+
+<p>Even as he articulated the words, he was aware of
+Audrey coming towards him from the direction of the door;
+he was aware of her black frock and of her white face, with
+its bulging forehead and its deliciously insignificant nose.
+She held out her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are a dear!&#8221; she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Her lips seemed to aim uncertainly for his face. Did
+they just touch, with exquisite contact, his bristly chin, or
+was it a divine illusion? ... She blushed in a very marked
+manner. He blinked, and his happy blinking seemed to say:
+&#8220;Only wills drawn by me are genuine.... Didn&#8217;t I tell
+you Mr. Moze was not a man of business?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey ran to Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Foulger, suddenly ashamed, and determined to be a
+lawyer, said sharply:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Has Mrs. Moze made a will?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mother made a will? Oh no!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then she should make one at once, in your favour, of
+course. No time should be lost.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But Mrs. Moze is ill in bed,&#8221; protested Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All the more reason why she should make a will. It
+may save endless trouble. And it is her duty. I shall
+suggest that I be the executor and trustee, of course with
+the usual power to charge costs.&#8221; His face was hard again.
+&#8220;You will thank me later on, Miss Moze,&#8221; he added.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean <em>now?</em>&#8220; shrilled Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do,&#8221; said he. &#8220;If you will give me some paper, we
+might go to her at once. You can be one of the witnesses.
+I could be a witness, but as I am to act under the will for a
+consideration somebody else would be preferable.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should suggest Aguilar,&#8221; answered Miss Ingate, the
+corners of her lips dropping.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate went first, to prepare Mrs. Moze.</p>
+
+<p>When Audrey was alone in the study&mdash;she had not even
+offered to accompany her elders to the bedroom&mdash;she made a
+long sound: &#8220;Ooo!&#8221; Then she gave a leap and stood still,
+staring out of the window at the estuary. She tried to force
+her mood to the colour of her dress, but the sense of propriety
+was insufficient for the task. The magnificence of all
+the world was unfolding itself to her soul. Events had
+hitherto so dizzyingly beaten down upon her head that she
+had scarcely been conscious of feeling. Now she luxuriously
+felt. &#8220;I am at last born,&#8221; she thought. &#8220;Miracles have
+happened.... It&#8217;s incredible.... I can do what I like
+with mother.... But if I don&#8217;t take care I shall die of
+relief this very moment!&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_5" id="chapter_5" />CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DEAD HAND</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey was wakened up that night, just after she had
+gone to sleep, by a touch on the cheek. Her mother,
+palely indistinct in the darkness, was standing by the bedside.
+She wore a white wrap over her night attire, and the
+customary white bandage from which emanated a faint odour
+of eau-de-Cologne, was around her forehead.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey, darling, I must speak to you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Audrey became the wise directress of her poor
+foolish mother&#8217;s existence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mother,&#8221; she said, with firm kindness, &#8220;please do go
+back to bed at once. This sort of thing is simply frightful
+for your neuralgia. I&#8217;ll come to you in one moment.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Mrs. Moze meekly obeyed; she had gone even
+before Audrey had had time to light her candle. Audrey
+was very content in thus being able to control her mother
+and order everything for the best. She guessed that the
+old lady had got some idea into her head about the
+property, or about her own will, or about the solicitor, or
+about a tombstone, and that it was worrying her. She
+and Miss Ingate (who had now returned home) had had
+a very extensive palaver, in low voices that never ceased,
+after the triumphant departure of Mr. Foulger. Audrey
+had cautiously protested; she was afraid her mother would
+be fatigued, and she saw no reason why her mother should
+be acquainted with all the details of a complex matter;
+but the gossiping habit of a quarter of a century was too
+powerful for Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>In the large parental bedroom the only light was Audrey&#8217;s
+candle. Mrs. Moze was lying on the right half of the
+great bed, where she had always lain. She might have
+lain luxuriously in the middle, with vast spaces at either
+hand, but again habit was too powerful.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, all in white, held the candle higher, and the
+shadows everywhere shrunk in unison. Mrs. Moze blinked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Put the candle on the night-table,&#8221; said Mrs. Moze
+curtly.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey did so. The bedroom, for her, was full of
+the souvenirs of parental authority. Her first recollections
+were those of awe in regard to the bedroom. And when
+she thought that on that bed she had been born, she had
+a very queer sensation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve decided,&#8221; said Mrs. Moze, lying on her back,
+and looking up at the ceiling, &#8220;I&#8217;ve decided that your
+father&#8217;s wishes must be obeyed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What about, mother?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About those shares going to the National Reformation
+Society. He meant them to go, and they must go to the
+Society. I&#8217;ve thought it well over and I&#8217;ve quite decided.
+I didn&#8217;t tell Miss Ingate, as it doesn&#8217;t concern her. But
+I felt I must tell you at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mother!&#8221; cried Audrey. &#8220;Have you taken leave of
+your senses?&#8221; She shivered; the room was very cold,
+and as she shivered her image in the mirror of the wardrobe
+shivered, and also her shadow that climbed up the
+wall and bent at right-angles at the cornice till it reached
+the middle of the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moze replied obstinately:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve not taken leave of my senses, and I&#8217;ll thank
+you to remember that I&#8217;m your mother. I have always
+carried out your father&#8217;s wishes, and at my time of life
+I can&#8217;t alter. Your father was a very wise man. We
+shall be as well off as we always were. Better, because
+I can save, and I shall save. We have no complaint to
+make; I should have no excuse for disobeying your father.
+Everything is mine to do as I wish with it, and I shall
+give the shares to the Society. What the shares are
+worth can&#8217;t affect my duty. Besides, perhaps they aren&#8217;t
+worth anything. I always understood that things like that
+were always jumping up and down, and generally worthless
+in the end.... That&#8217;s all I wanted to tell you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Why did Audrey seize the candle and walk straight out
+of the bedroom, leaving darkness behind her? Was it
+because the acuteness of her feelings drove her out, or was
+it because she knew instinctively that her mother&#8217;s decision
+would prove to be immovable? Perhaps both.</p>
+
+<p>She dropped back into her own bed with a soundless
+sigh of exhaustion. She did not blow out the candle, but
+lay staring at it. Her dream was annihilated. She foresaw
+an interminable, weary and futile future in and about
+Moze, and her mother always indisposed, always fretful,
+and curiously obstinate in weakness. But Audrey, despite
+her tragic disillusion, was less desolated than made solemn.
+In the most disturbing way she knew herself to be the
+daughter of her father and her mother; and she comprehended
+that her destiny could not be broken off suddenly
+from theirs. She was touched because her mother deemed
+her father a very wise man, whereas she, Audrey, knew
+that he was nothing of the sort. She felt sorry for both
+of them. She pitied her father, and she was a mother
+to her mother. Their relations together, and the mystic
+posthumous spell of her father over her mother, impressed
+her profoundly.... And she was proud of herself for
+having demonstrated her courage by preventing the solicitor
+from running away, and extraordinarily ashamed of her
+sentimental and brazen behaviour to the solicitor afterwards.
+These various thoughts mitigated her despair as
+she gazed at the sinking candle. Nevertheless her dream
+was annihilated.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_6" id="chapter_6" />CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE YOUNG WIDOW</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was early October. Audrey stood at the garden door
+of Flank Hall.</p>
+
+<p>The estuary, in all the colours of unsettled, mild,
+bright weather, lay at her feet beneath a high arch of
+changing blue and white. The capricious wind moved in
+her hair, moved in the rich grasses of the sea-wall, bent
+at a curtseying angle the red-sailed barges, put caps on
+the waves in the middle distance, and drew out into long
+horizontal scarves the smoke of faint steamers in the
+offing.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was dressed in black, but her raiment had
+obviously not been fashioned in the village, nor even at
+Colchester, nor yet at Ipswich, that great and stylish city.
+She looked older; she certainly had acquired something
+of an air of knowledge, assurance, domination, sauciness
+and challenge, which qualities were all partly illustrated
+in her large, audacious hat. The spirit which the late
+Mr. Moze had so successfully suppressed was at length
+coming to the surface for all beholders to see, and the
+process of evolution begun at the moment when Audrey
+had bounced up and prevented an authoritative solicitor
+from leaving the study was already advanced. Nevertheless,
+at frequent intervals Audrey&#8217;s eyes changed, and she seemed
+for an instant to be a very naive, very ingenuous and
+wistful little thing&mdash;and this though she had reached the
+age of twenty. Perhaps she was feeling sorry for the
+girl she used to be.</p>
+
+<p>And no doubt she was also thinking of her mother,
+who had died within eight hours of their nocturnal interview.
+The death of Mrs. Moze surprised everyone, except possibly
+Mrs. Moze. As an unsuspected result of the operation
+upon her, an embolism had been wandering in her veins;
+it reached the brain, and she expired, to the great loss of
+the National Reformation Society. Such was the brief
+and simple history. When Audrey stood by the body, she
+had felt that if it could have saved her mother she would
+have enriched the National Reformation Society with all she
+possessed.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually the sense of freedom had grown paramount
+in her, and she had undertaken the enterprise of completely
+subduing Mr. Foulger to her own ends.</p>
+
+<p>The back hall was carpetless and pictureless, and the
+furniture in it was draped in grey-white. Every room in
+the abode was in the same state, and, since all the
+windows were shuttered, every room lay moribund in a
+ghostly twilight. Only the clocks remained alive, probably
+thinking themselves immortal. The breakfast things were
+washed up and stored away. The last two servants had
+already gone. Behind Audrey, forming a hilly background,
+were trunks and boxes, a large bunch of flowers encased
+in paper, and a case of umbrellas and parasols; the whole
+strikingly new, and every single item except the flowers
+labelled &#8220;Paris via Charing Cross and Calais.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey opened her black Russian satchel, and the
+purse within it. Therein were a little compartment full of
+English gold, another full of French gold, another full
+of multicoloured French bank-notes; and loose in the satchel
+was a blue book of credit-notes, each for five hundred
+francs, or twenty pounds&mdash;a thick book! And she would
+not have minded much if she had lost the whole satchel
+&mdash;it would be so easy to replace the satchel with all its
+contents.</p>
+
+<p>Then a small brougham came very deliberately up the
+drive. It was the vehicle in which Miss Ingate went
+her ways; in accordance with Miss Ingate&#8217;s immemorial
+command, it travelled at a walking pace up all the hills
+to save the horse, and at a walking pace down all hills
+lest the horse should stumble and Miss Ingate be destroyed.
+It was now followed by a luggage-cart on which was a
+large trunk.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment Aguilar, the gardener, appeared
+from somewhere&mdash;he who had been robbed of a legacy
+of ten pounds, but who by his ruthless and incontestable
+integrity had secured the job of caretaker of Flank
+Hall.</p>
+
+<p>The drivers touched their hats to Audrey and jumped
+down, and Miss Ingate, with a blue veil tied like a handkerchief
+round her bonnet and chin&mdash;sign that she was a
+traveller&mdash;emerged from the brougham, sardonically smiling
+at her own and everybody&#8217;s expense, and too excited to
+be able to give greetings. The three men started to move
+the trunks, and the two women whispered together in
+the back-hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey,&#8221; demanded Miss Ingate, with a start, &#8220;what
+are those rings on your finger?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey replied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One&#8217;s a wedding ring and the other&#8217;s a mourning ring.
+I bought them yesterday at Colchester.... Hsh!&#8221; She
+stilled further exclamations from Miss Ingate until the
+men were out of the hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look here! Quick!&#8221; she whispered, hastily unlocking
+a large hat-case that was left. And Miss Ingate looked
+and saw a block toque, entirely unsuitable for a young
+girl, and a widow&#8217;s veil.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I look bewitching in them,&#8221; said Audrey, relocking
+the case.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, my child, what does it mean?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It means that I&#8217;m not silly enough to go to Paris
+as a girl. I&#8217;ve had more than enough of being a girl.
+I&#8217;m determined to arrive in Paris as a young widow. It
+will be much better in every way, and far easier for you.
+In fact, you&#8217;ll have no chaperoning to do at all. I shall
+be the chaperon. Now don&#8217;t say you won&#8217;t go, because
+you will.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You ought to have told me before.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I oughtn&#8217;t. Nothing could have been more
+foolish.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But who are you the widow of?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hurrah!&#8221; cried Audrey. &#8220;You are a sport, Winnie!
+I&#8217;ll tell you all the interesting details in the train.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In another minute Aguilar, gloomy and unbending, had
+received the keys of Flank Hall, and the procession crunched
+down the drive on its way to the station.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_7" id="chapter_7" />CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CIGARETTE GIRL</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey did not deem that she had begun truly to live
+until the next morning, when they left London, after having
+passed a night in the Charing Cross Hotel. During several
+visits to London in the course of the summer Audrey had
+learnt something about the valuelessness of money in a
+metropolis chiefly inhabited by people who were positively
+embarrassed by their riches. She knew, for example, that
+money being very plentiful and stylish hats very rare, large
+quantities of money had to be given for infinitesimal quantities
+of hats. The big and glittering shops were full of
+people whose pockets bulged with money which they were
+obviously anxious to part with in order to obtain goods,
+while the proud shop-assistants, secure in the knowledge
+that money was naught and goods were everything, did their
+utmost, by hauteur and steely negatives, to render any
+transaction possible. It was the result of a mysterious
+&#8220;Law of Exchange.&#8221; She was aware of this. She had
+lost her childhood&#8217;s naive illusions about the sovereignty
+of money.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless she received one or two shocks on the
+journey, which was planned upon the most luxurious scale
+that the imagination of Messrs. Thomas Cook &amp; Son could
+conceive. There was four pounds and ninepence to pay for
+excess luggage at Charing Cross. Half a year earlier four
+pounds would have bought all the luggage she could have
+got together. She very nearly said to the clerk at the window:
+&#8220;Don&#8217;t you mean shillings?&#8221; But in spite of nervousness,
+blushings, and all manner of sensitive reactions to new
+experiences, her natural sang-froid and instinctive knowledge
+of the world saved her from such a terrible lapse, and she
+put down a bank-note without the slightest hint that she was
+wondering whether it would not be more advantageous to
+throw the luggage away.</p>
+
+<p>The boat was crowded, and the sea and wind full of
+menace. Fighting their way along the deck after laden
+porters, Audrey and Miss Ingate simultaneously espied the
+private cabin list hung in a conspicuous spot. They perused
+it as eagerly as if it had been the account of a <em>cause célèbre.</em>
+Among the list were two English lords, an Honourable Mrs.,
+a baroness with a Hungarian name, several Teutonic names,
+and Mrs. Moncreiff.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey blushed deeply at the sign of Mrs. Moncreiff, for
+she was Mrs. Moncreiff. Behind the veil, and with the touch
+of white in her toque, she might have been any age up to
+twenty-eight or so. It would have been impossible to say
+that she was a young girl, that she was not versed in the
+world, that she had not the whole catechism of men at her
+finger-ends. All who glanced at her glanced again&mdash;with
+sympathy and curiosity; and the second glance pricked
+Audrey&#8217;s conscience, making her feel like a thief. But her
+moods were capricious. At one moment she was a thief,
+a clumsy fraud, an ignorant ninny, and a suitable prey for
+the secret police; and at the next she was very clever,
+self-confident, equal to the situation, and enjoying the
+situation more than she had ever enjoyed anything, and
+determined to prolong the situation indefinitely.</p>
+
+<p>The cabin was very spacious, yet not more so than was
+proper, considering that the rent of it came to about sixpence
+a minute. There was room, even after all the packages
+were stowed, for both of them to lie down. But instead
+of lying down they eagerly inspected the little abode. They
+found a lavatory basin with hot and cold water taps, but no
+hot water and no cold water, no soap and no towels. And
+they found a crystal water-bottle, but it was empty. Then
+a steward came and asked them if they wanted anything,
+and because they were miserable poltroons they smiled and
+said &#8220;No.&#8221; They were secretly convinced that all the other
+private cabins, inhabited by titled persons and by financiers,
+were superior to their cabin, and that the captain of the
+steamer had fobbed them off with an imitation of a real cabin.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that Miss Ingate, who since Charing Cross
+had been a little excited by a glimpsed newspaper contents-bill
+indicating suffragette riots that morning, perceived,
+through the open door of the cabin, a most beautiful and
+most elegant girl, attired impeccably in that ritualistic garb
+of travel which the truly cosmopolitan wear on combined
+rail-and-ocean journeys and on no other occasions. It was
+at once apparent that the celestial creature had put on that
+special hat, that special veil, that special cloak, and those
+special gloves because she was deeply aware of what was
+correct, and that she would not put them on again until
+destiny took her again across the sea, and that if destiny
+never did take her again across the sea never again would
+she show herself in the vestments, whose correctness was
+only equalled by their expensiveness.</p>
+
+<p>The young woman, however, took no thought of her impressive
+clothes. She was existing upon quite another plane.
+Miss Ingate, preoccupied by the wrongs and perils of her
+sex, and momentarily softened out of her sardonic irony,
+suspected that they might be in the presence of a victim of
+oppression or neglect. The victim lay Half-prone upon the
+hard wooden seat against the ship&#8217;s rail. Her dark eyes
+opened piteously at times, and her exquisite profile, surmounted
+by the priceless hat all askew, made a silhouette
+now against the sea and now against the distant white cliffs
+of Albion, according to the fearful heaving of the ship.
+Spray occasionally dashed over her. She heeded it not. A
+few feet farther off she would have been sheltered by a
+weather-awning, but, clinging fiercely to the rail, she would
+not move.</p>
+
+<p>Then a sharp squall of rain broke, but she entirely ignored
+the rain.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment Miss Ingate and Audrey, rushing forth,
+had gently seized her and drawn her into their cabin. They
+might have succoured other martyrs to the modern passion
+for moving about, for there were many; but they chose this
+particular martyr because she was so wondrously dressed,
+and also perhaps a little because she was so young. As she
+lay on the cabin sofa she looked still younger; she looked a
+child. Yet when Miss Ingate removed her gloves in order
+to rub those chill, fragile, and miraculously manicured hands,
+a wedding ring was revealed. The wedding ring rendered
+her intensely romantic in the eyes of Audrey and Miss Ingate,
+who both thought, in private:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She must be the wife of one of those lords!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Every detail of her raiment, as she was put at her ease,
+showed her to be clothed in precisely the manner which
+Audrey and Miss Ingate thought peeresses always were
+clothed. Hence, being English, they mingled respect with
+their solacing pity. Nevertheless, their respect was tempered
+by a peculiar pride, for both of them, in taking lemonade
+on the Pullman, had taken therewith a certain preventive
+or remedy which made them loftily indifferent to the heaving
+of ships and the eccentricities of the sea. The specific had
+done all that was claimed for it&mdash;which was a great deal&mdash;so
+much so that they felt themselves superwomen among
+a cargo of flaccid and feeble sub-females. And they grew
+charmingly conceited.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Am I in my cabin?&#8221; murmured the martyr, about a
+quarter of an hour after Miss Ingate, having obtained soda
+water, had administered to her a dose of the miraculous
+specific.</p>
+
+<p>Her delicious cheeks were now a delicate crimson. But
+they had been of a delicate crimson throughout.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;re in ours. Which is
+yours?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s on the other side of the ship, then. I came out for
+a little air. But I couldn&#8217;t get back. I&#8217;d just as lief have
+died as shift from that seat out there by the railings.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Something in the accent, something in those fine English
+words &#8220;lief&#8221; and &#8220;shift,&#8221; destroyed in the minds of Audrey
+and Miss Ingate the agreeable notion that they had a peeress
+on their hands.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is your husband on board?&#8221; asked Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He just is,&#8221; was the answer. &#8220;He&#8217;s in our cabin.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shall I fetch him?&#8221; Miss Ingate suggested. The
+corners of her lips had begun to fall once more.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you?&#8221; said the young woman. &#8220;It&#8217;s Lord Southminster.
+I&#8217;m Lady Southminster.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The two saviours were thrilled. Each felt that she had
+misinterpreted the accent, and that probably peeresses did
+habitually use such words as &#8220;lief&#8221; and &#8220;shift.&#8221; The
+corners of Miss Ingate&#8217;s lips rose to their proper position.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll look for the number on the cabin list,&#8221; said she
+hastily, and went forth with trembling to summon the peer.</p>
+
+<p>As Audrey, alone in the cabin with Lady Southminster,
+bent curiously over the prostrate form, Lady Southminster
+exclaimed with an air of childlike admiration:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re real ladies, you are!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Audrey felt old and experienced. She decided that
+Lady Southminster could not be more than seventeen, and it
+seemed to be about half a century since Audrey was seventeen.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He can&#8217;t come,&#8221; announced Miss Ingate breathlessly,
+returning to the cabin, and supporting herself against the
+door as the solid teak sank under her feet. &#8220;Oh yes! He&#8217;s
+there all right. It was Number 12. I&#8217;ve seen him. I told
+him, but I don&#8217;t think he heard me&mdash;to understand, that
+is. If you ask me, he couldn&#8217;t come if forty wives sent
+for him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, couldn&#8217;t he!&#8221; observed Lady Southminster, sitting
+up. &#8220;Couldn&#8217;t he!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the boat was within ten minutes of France, the
+remedy had had such an effect upon her that she could walk
+about. Accompanied by Audrey she managed to work her
+way round the cabin-deck to No. 12. It was empty, save
+for hand-luggage! The two girls searched, as well as they
+could, the whole crowded ship for Lord Southminster, and
+found him not. Lady Southminster neither fainted nor wept.
+She merely said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! All right! If that&#8217;s it....!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Hand-luggage was being collected. But Lady Southminster
+would not collect hers, nor allow it to be collected.
+She agreed with Miss Ingate and Audrey that her husband
+must ultimately reappear either on the quay or in the train.
+While they were all standing huddled together in the throng
+waiting for the gangway to put ashore, she said in a low
+casual tone, à propos of nothing:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I only married him the day before yesterday. I don&#8217;t
+know whether you know, but I used to make cigarettes in
+Constantinopoulos&#8217;s window in Piccadilly. I don&#8217;t see why
+I should be ashamed of it, d&#8217;you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly not,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;But it <em>is</em> rather
+romantic, isn&#8217;t it, Audrey?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Despite the terrific interest of the adventure of the
+cigarette girl, disappointment began immediately after landing.
+This France, of which Audrey had heard so much and
+dreamed so much, was a very ramshackle and untidy and
+one-horse affair. The custom-house was rather like a battlefield
+without any rules of warfare; the scene in the refreshment-room
+was rather like a sack after a battle; the station
+was a desert with odd files of people here and there; the
+platforms were ridiculous, and you wanted a pair of steps to
+get up into the train. Whatever romance there might be in
+France had been brought by Audrey in her secret heart and
+by Lady Southminster.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had come to France, and she was going to Paris,
+solely because of a vision which had been created in her by
+the letters and by the photographs of Madame Piriac.
+Although Madame Piriac and she had absolutely no tie of
+blood, Madame Piriac being the daughter by a first husband
+of the French widow who became the first Mrs. Moze&mdash;and
+speedily died, Audrey persisted privately in regarding
+Madame Piriac as a kind of elder sister. She felt a very
+considerable esteem for Madame Piriac, upon whom she had
+never set eyes, and Madame Piriac had certainly given her
+the impression that France was to England what paradise is
+to purgatory. Further, Audrey had fallen in love with
+Madame Piriac&#8217;s portraits, whose elegance was superb. And
+yet, too, Audrey was jealous of Madame Piriac, and
+especially so since the attainment of freedom and wealth.
+Madame Piriac had most warmly invited her, after the death
+of Mrs. Moze, to pay a long visit to Paris as a guest in her
+home. Audrey had declined&mdash;from jealousy. She would not
+go to Madame Piriac&#8217;s as a raw girl, overdone with money,
+who could only speak one language and who knew nothing
+at all of this our planet. She would go, if she went, as a
+young woman of the world who could hold her own in any
+drawing-room, be it Madame Piriac&#8217;s or another. Hence
+Miss Ingate had obtained the address of a Paris boarding-house,
+and one or two preliminary introductions from political
+friends in London.</p>
+
+<p>Well, France was not equal to its reputation; and Miss
+Ingate&#8217;s sardonic smile seemed to be saying: &#8220;So this is
+your France!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>However, the excitement of escorting the youngest
+English peeress to Paris sufficed for Audrey, even if it did
+not suffice for Miss Ingate with her middle-aged apprehensions.
+They knew that Lady Southminster was the
+youngest English peeress because she had told them so. At
+the very moment when they were dispatching a telegram for
+her to an address in London, she had popped out the
+remark: &#8220;Do you know I&#8217;m the youngest peeress in England?&#8221;
+And truth shone in her candid and simple smile.
+They had not found the peer, neither on the ship, nor on the
+quay, nor in the station. And the peeress would not wait.
+She was indeed obviously frightened at the idea of remaining
+in Calais alone, even till the next express. She said that her
+husband&#8217;s &#8220;man&#8221; would meet the train in Paris. She ate
+plenteously with Audrey and Miss Ingate in the refreshment-room,
+and she would not leave them nor allow them to leave
+her. The easiest course was to let her have her way, and
+she had it.</p>
+
+<p>By dint of Miss Ingate&#8217;s unscrupulous tricks with small
+baggage they contrived to keep a whole compartment to
+themselves. As soon as the train started the peeress began
+to cry. Then, wiping her heavenly silly eyes, and upbraiding
+herself, she related to her protectresses the glory of a new
+manicure set. Unfortunately she could not show them the
+set, as it had been left in the cabin. She was actually in
+possession of nothing portable except her clothes, some
+English magazines bought at Calais, and a handbag which
+contained much money and many bonbons.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s done it on purpose,&#8221; she said to Audrey as soon
+as Miss Ingate went off to take tea in the tea-car. &#8220;I&#8217;m
+sure he&#8217;s done it on purpose. He&#8217;s hidden himself, and he&#8217;ll
+turn up when he thinks he&#8217;s beaten me. D&#8217;you know why
+I wouldn&#8217;t bring that luggage away out of the cabin?
+Because we had a quarrel about it, at the station, and he
+said things to me. In fact we weren&#8217;t speaking. And we
+weren&#8217;t speaking last night either. The radiator of his&mdash;our&mdash;car
+leaked, and we had to come home from the Coliseum
+in a motor-bus. He couldn&#8217;t get a taxi. It wasn&#8217;t his fault,
+but a friend of mine told me the day before I was married
+that a lady always ought to be angry when her husband
+can&#8217;t get a taxi after the theatre&mdash;she says it does &#8217;em good.
+So first I told him he mustn&#8217;t leave me to look for one.
+Then I said I&#8217;d wait where I was, and then I said we&#8217;d walk
+on, and then I said we must take a motor-bus. It was that
+that finished him. He said: &#8216;Did I expect him to invent a
+taxi when there wasn&#8217;t one?&#8217; And he swore. So of course
+I sulked. You must, you know. And my shoes were too
+thin and I felt chilly. But only a fortnight before I was
+making cigarettes in the window of Constantinopoulos&#8217;s.
+Funny, isn&#8217;t it? Otherwise he&#8217;s behaved splendid. Still,
+what I do say is a man&#8217;s no right to be ill when he&#8217;s taking
+you to Paris on your honeymoon. I knew he was going to
+be ill when I left him in the cabin, but he stuck me out he
+wasn&#8217;t. A man that&#8217;s so bad he can&#8217;t come to his wife when
+<em>she&#8217;s</em> bad isn&#8217;t a man&mdash;that&#8217;s what I say. Don&#8217;t you think
+so? You know all about that sort of thing, I lay.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said briefly that she did think so, glad that the
+peeress&#8217;s intense and excusable interest in herself kept her
+from being curious about others.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Marriage ain&#8217;t all chocolate-creams,&#8221; said the peeress
+after a pause. &#8220;Have one?&#8221; And she opened her bag very
+hospitably.</p>
+
+<p>Then she turned to her magazines. And no sooner had
+she glanced at the cover of the second one than she gave
+a squeal, and, fetching deep breaths, passed the periodical to
+Audrey. At the top of the cover was printed in large letters
+the title of a story by a famous author of short tales. It
+ran:</p>
+
+<p class="quotation">&#8220;MAN OVERBOARD.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Henceforward a suspicion that had lain concealed in the
+undergrowth of the hearts of the two girls stalked boldly
+about in full daylight.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s done it, and he&#8217;s done it to spite me!&#8221; murmured
+Lady Southminster tearfully.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh no!&#8221; Audrey protested. &#8220;Even if he had fallen
+overboard he&#8217;d have been seen and the captain would have
+stopped the boat.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where do you come from?&#8221; Lady Southminster
+retorted with disdain. &#8220;That&#8217;s an <em>omen</em>, that is"&mdash;pointing
+to the words on the cover of the magazine. &#8220;What else
+could it be? I ask you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Miss Ingate returned the child was fast asleep.
+Miss Ingate was paler than usual. Having convinced herself
+that the sleeper did genuinely sleep, she breathed to Audrey:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s in the next compartment! ... He must have
+hidden himself till nearly the last minute on the boat and then
+got into the train while we were sending off that telegram.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey blenched.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shall you wake her?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wake her, and have a scene&mdash;with us here? No, I
+shan&#8217;t. He&#8217;s a fool.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How d&#8217;you know?&#8221; asked Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, he must have been a fool to marry her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; whispered Audrey. &#8220;If I&#8217;d been a man I&#8217;d have
+married that face like a shot.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It might be all right if he&#8217;d only married the face. But
+he&#8217;s married what she calls her mind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is he young?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. And as good-looking in his own way as she is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But the Countess of Southminster stirred, and the slight
+movement stopped conversation.</p>
+
+<p>The journey was endless, but it was no longer than the
+sleep of the Countess. At length dusk and mist began to
+gather in the hollows of the land; stations succeeded one
+another more frequently. The reflections of the electric
+lights in the compartment could be seen beyond the glass of
+the windows. The train still ruthlessly clattered and shook
+and swayed and thundered; and weary lords, ladies and
+financiers had read all the illustrated magazines and six-penny
+novels in existence, and they lolled exhausted and
+bored amid the debris of literature and light refreshments.
+Then the speed of the convoy slackened, and Audrey, looking
+forth, saw a pale cathedral dome resting aloft amid dark
+clouds. It was a magical glimpse, and it was the first
+glimpse of Paris. &#8220;Oh!&#8221; cried Audrey, far more like a girl
+than a widow. The train rattled through defiles of high
+twinkling houses, roared under bridges, screeched, threaded
+forests of cold blue lamps, and at last came to rest under a
+black echoing vault.</p>
+
+<p>Paris!</p>
+
+<p>And, mysteriously, all Audrey&#8217;s illusions concerning
+France had been born again. She was convinced that Paris
+could not fail to be paradisiacal.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Southminster awoke.</p>
+
+<p>Almost simultaneously a young man very well dressed
+passed along the corridor. Lady Southminster, with an
+awful start, seized her bag and sprang after him, but was
+impeded by other passengers. She caught him only after
+he had descended to the platform, which was at the bottom
+of a precipice below the windows. He had just been saluted
+by, and given orders to, a waiting valet. She caught
+him sharply by the arm. He shook free and walked quickly
+away up the platform, guided by a wise instinct for avoiding
+a scene in front of fellow-travellers. She followed close
+after him, talking with rapidity. They receded. Audrey
+and Miss Ingate leaned out of the windows to watch, and
+still farther and farther out. Just as the honeymooning
+pair disappeared altogether their two forms came into
+contact, and Audrey&#8217;s eyes could see the arm of Lord
+Southminster take the arm of Lady Southminster. They
+vanished from view like one flesh. And Audrey and Miss
+Ingate, deserted, forgotten utterly, unthanked, buffeted by
+passengers and by the valet who had climbed up into the
+carriage to take away the impedimenta of his master, gazed
+at each other and then burst out laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So that&#8217;s marriage!&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;That&#8217;s love. I&#8217;ve seen a
+deal of love in my time, ever since my sister Arabella&#8217;s
+first engagement, but I never saw any that wasn&#8217;t vehy,
+vehy queer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do hope they&#8217;ll be happy,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you?&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_8" id="chapter_8" />CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD</h3>
+
+
+<p>The carriage had emptied, and the two adventurers stood
+alone among empty compartments. The platform was also
+empty. Not a porter in sight. One after the other, the
+young widow and the elderly spinster, their purses bulging
+with money, got their packages by great efforts down on
+to the platform.</p>
+
+<p>An employee strolled past.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Porteur?</em>&#8221; murmured Audrey timidly.</p>
+
+<p>The man sniggered, shrugged his shoulders, and
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey felt that she had gone back to her school days.
+She was helpless, and Miss Ingate was the same. She
+wished ardently that she was in Moze again. She could
+not imagine how she had been such a fool as to undertake
+this absurd expedition which could only end in ridicule
+and disaster. She was ready to cry. Then another employee
+appeared, hesitated, and picked up a bag, scowling and
+inimical. Gradually the man, very tousled and dirty,
+clustered all the bags and parcels around his person, and
+walked off. Audrey and Miss Ingate meekly following.
+The great roof of the station resounded to whistles and
+the escape of steam and the clashing of wagons.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond the platforms there were droves of people, of
+whom nearly every individual was preoccupied and hurried.
+And what people! Audrey had in her heart expected a
+sort of glittering white terminus full of dandiacal men
+and elegant Parisiennes who had stepped straight out of
+fashion-plates, and who had no cares&mdash;for was not this
+Paris? Whereas, in fact, the multitude was the dingiest
+she had ever seen. Not a gleam of elegance! No hint of
+dazzling colour! No smiling and satiric beauty! They
+were just persons.</p>
+
+<p>At last, after formalities, Audrey and Miss Ingate
+reached the foul and chilly custom-house appointed for the
+examination of luggage. Unrecognisable peers and other
+highnesses stood waiting at long counters, forming bays,
+on which was nothing at all. Then, far behind, a truck
+hugely piled with trunks rolled in through a back door
+and men pitched the trunks like toys here and there on
+the counters, and officials came into view, and knots of
+travellers gathered round trunks, and locks were turned
+and lids were lifted, and the flash of linen showed in spots
+on the drabness of the scene. Miss Ingate observed with
+horror the complete undoing of a lady&#8217;s large trunk, and
+the exposure to the world&#8217;s harsh gaze of the most intimate
+possessions of that lady. Soon the counters were like a
+fair. But no trunk belonging to Audrey or to Miss Ingate
+was visible. They knew then, what they had both privately
+suspected ever since Charing Cross, that their trunks would
+be lost on the journey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! My trunk!&#8221; cried Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Beneath a pile of other trunks on an incoming truck
+she had espied her property. Audrey saw it, too. The
+vision was magical. The trunk seemed like a piece of
+home, a bit of Moze and of England. It drew affection
+from them as though it had been an animal. They sped
+towards it, forgetting their small baggage. Their <em>porteur</em>
+leaped over the counter from behind and made signs for
+a key. All Audrey&#8217;s trunks in turn joined Miss Ingate&#8217;s;
+none was missing. And finally an official, small and fierce,
+responded to the invocations of the <em>porteur</em> and established
+himself at the counter in front of them. He put his hand
+on Miss Ingate&#8217;s trunk.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Op-en,&#8221; he said in English.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate opened her purse, and indicated to the
+official by signs that she had no key for the trunk,
+and she also cried loudly, so that he should comprehend:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No key! ... Lost!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then she looked awkwardly at Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been told they only want to open one trunk
+when there&#8217;s a lot. Let him choose another one,&#8221; she
+murmured archly.</p>
+
+<p>But the official merely walked away, to deal with the
+trunks of somebody else close by.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was cross.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Ingate,&#8221; she said formally, &#8220;you had the key
+when we started, because you showed it to me. You can&#8217;t
+possibly have lost it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; answered Winnie calmly and knowingly. &#8220;I
+haven&#8217;t lost it. But I&#8217;m not going to have the things in
+my trunk thrown about for all these foreigners to see. It&#8217;s
+simply disgraceful. They ought to have women officials
+and private rooms at these places. And they would have,
+if women had the vote. Let him open one of your trunks.
+All your things are new.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The <em>porteur</em> had meanwhile been discharging French
+into Audrey&#8217;s other ear.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course you must open it, Winnie,&#8221; said she.
+&#8220;Don&#8217;t be so absurd!&#8221; There was a persuasive lightness
+in her voice, but there was also command. For a moment
+she was the perfect widow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d rather not.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The <em>porteur</em> says we shall be here all night,&#8221; Audrey
+persisted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you know French?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I learnt French at school, Winnie,&#8221; said the perfect
+widow. &#8220;I can&#8217;t understand every word, but I can make
+out the drift.&#8221; And Audrey went on translating the porter
+according to her own wisdom. &#8220;He says there have been
+dreadful scenes here before, when people have refused to
+open their trunks, and the police have had to be called
+in. He says the man won&#8217;t upset the things in your trunk
+at all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate gazed into the distance, and privately smiled.
+Audrey had never guessed that in Miss Ingate were such
+depths of obstinate stupidity. She felt quite distinctly that
+her understanding of human nature was increasing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Look!&#8221; said Miss Ingate casually. &#8220;I&#8217;m sure
+those must be real Parisians!&#8221; Her offhandedness, her
+inability to realise the situation, were exasperating to the
+young widow. Audrey glanced where Miss Ingate had
+pointed, and saw in the doorway of the custom-house two
+women and a lad, all cloaked but all obviously in radiant
+fancy dress, laughing together.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t they look French!&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey tapped her foot on the asphalt floor, while people
+whose luggage had been examined bumped strenuously
+against her in the effort to depart. She was extremely
+pessimistic; she knew she could do nothing with Miss
+Ingate; and the thought of the vast, flaring, rumbling city
+beyond the station intimidated her. The <em>porteur</em>, who had
+gone away to collect their neglected small baggage, now
+returned, and nudged her, pointing to the official who had
+resumed his place behind the trunks. He was certainly
+a fierce man, but he was a little man, and there was an
+agreeable peculiarity in his eye.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, suddenly inspired and emboldened, faced him;
+she shrugged her shoulders Gallically at Miss Ingate&#8217;s
+trunk, and gave a sad, sweet, wistful smile, and then
+put her hand with an exquisite inviting gesture on the
+smallest of her own trunks. The act was a deliberate
+exploitation of widowhood. The official fiercely shrugged
+his shoulders and threw up his arms, and told the <em>porteur</em>
+to open the small trunk.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I told you they would,&#8221; said Miss Ingate negligently.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey would have turned upon her and slain her had
+she not been busy with the tremendous realisation of the
+fact that by a glance and a gesture she had conquered the
+customs official&mdash;a foreigner and a stranger. She wanted
+to be alone and to think.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the trunk was being relocked, Audrey heard
+an American girlish voice behind her:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, you must be Miss Ingate!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am,&#8221; Miss Ingate almost ecstatically admitted.</p>
+
+<p>The trio in cloaked fancy dress were surrounding Miss
+Ingate like a bodyguard.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_9" id="chapter_9" />CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>LIFE IN PARIS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall were a charm to
+dissipate all the affrighting menace of the city beyond the
+station. Miss Thompkins had fluffy red hair, with the
+freckles which too often accompany red hair, and was
+addressed as Tommy. Miss Nickall had fluffy grey hair,
+with warm, loving eyes, and was addressed as Nick. The
+age of either might have been anything from twenty-four
+to forty. The one came from Wyoming, the other from
+Arizona; and it was instantly clear that they were close
+friends. They had driven up to the terminus before going
+to a fancy-dress ball to be given that night in the studio
+of Monsieur Dauphin, a famous French painter and a
+delightful man. They had met Monsieur Dauphin on the
+previous evening on the terrace of the Café de Versailles,
+and Monsieur had said, in response to their suggestion,
+that he would be enchanted and too much honoured if they
+would bring their English friends to his little &#8220;leaping"&mdash;that
+was, hop.</p>
+
+<p>Also they had thought that it would be nice for the
+travellers to be met at the terminus, especially as Miss
+Ingate had been very particularly recommended to Miss
+Thompkins by a whole group of people in London. It
+was Miss Thompkins who had supplied the address of
+reliable furnished rooms, and she and Nick would personally
+introduce the ladies to their landlady, who was a
+sweet creature.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy and Nick and Miss Ingate were at once on
+terms of cordial informality; but the Americans seemed to
+be a little diffident before the companion. Their voices,
+at the introduction, had reinforced the surprise of their
+first glances. &#8220;Oh! <em>Mrs.</em> Moncreiff!&#8221; The slightest
+insistence, no more, on the &#8220;Mrs."! Nothing said, but
+evidently they had expected somebody else!</p>
+
+<p>Then there was the boy, whom they called Musa. He
+was dark, slim, with timorous great eyes, and attired in
+red as a devil beneath his student&#8217;s cloak. He apologised
+slowly in English for not being able to speak English.
+He said he was very French, and Tommy and Nick smiled,
+and he smiled back at them rather wistfully. When Tommy
+and Nick had spoken with the chauffeurs in French he
+interpreted their remarks. There were two motor-taxis,
+one for the luggage.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Thompkins accompanied the luggage; she insisted
+on doing so. She could tell sinister tales of Paris cabmen,
+and she even delayed the departure in order to explain
+that once in the suburbs and in the pre-taxi days a cabman
+had threatened to drive her and himself into the Seine
+unless she would be his bride, and she saved herself by
+promising to be his bride and telling him that she lived
+in the Avenue de l&#8217;Opéra; as soon as the cab reached a
+populous thoroughfare she opened the cab door and squealed
+and was rescued; she had let the driver go free because
+of his good taste.</p>
+
+<p>As the procession whizzed through nocturnal streets,
+some thunderous with traffic, others very quiet, but all
+lined with lofty regular buildings, Audrey was penetrated
+by the romance of this city where cabmen passionately and
+to the point of suicide and murder adored their fares.
+And she thought that perhaps, after all, Madame Piriac&#8217;s
+impression of Paris might not be entirely misleading. Miss
+Ingate and Nick talked easily, very charmed with one
+another, both excited. Audrey said little, and the dark
+youth said nothing. But once the dark youth murmured
+shyly to Audrey in English:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you play at ten-nis, Madame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They crossed a thoroughfare that twinkled and glittered
+from end to end with moving sky-signs. Serpents pursued
+burning serpents on the heights of that thoroughfare, invisible
+hands wrote mystic words of warning and invitation,
+and blazing kittens played with balls of incandescent wool.
+Throngs of promenaders moved under theatrical trees that
+waved their pale emerald against the velvet sky, and the
+ground floor of every edifice was a glowing café, whose
+tables, full of idle sippers and loungers, bulged out on to
+the broad pavements.... The momentary vision was shut
+off instantly as the taxis shot down the mouth of a dark
+narrow street; but it had been long enough to make Audrey&#8217;s
+heart throb.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is that?&#8221; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That?&#8221; exclaimed Nick kindly. &#8220;Oh! That&#8217;s only
+the <em>grand boulevard</em>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then they crossed the sombre, lamp-reflecting Seine, and
+soon afterwards the two taxis stopped at a vast black door
+in a very wide street of serried palatial façades that were
+continually shaken by the rushing tumult of electric cars.
+Tommy jumped out and pushed a button, and the door
+automatically split in two, disclosing a vast and dim tunnel.
+Tommy ran within, and came out again with a coatless man
+in a black-and-yellow striped waistcoat and a short white
+apron. This man, Musa, and the two chauffeurs entered
+swiftly into a complex altercation, which endured until
+Audrey had paid the chauffeurs and all the trunks had been
+transported behind the immense door and the door bangingly
+shut.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Vehy amusing, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221; whispered Miss Ingate
+caustically to Audrey. &#8220;Aren&#8217;t they dears?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame Dubois&#8217;s establishment is on the third and
+fourth floors,&#8221; said Nick.</p>
+
+<p>They climbed a broad, curving, carpeted staircase.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re here,&#8221; said Audrey to Miss Ingate after scores
+of stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, breathless, could only smile.</p>
+
+<p>And Audrey profoundly felt that she was in Paris. The
+mere shape of the doorknob by the side of a brass plate
+lettered &#8220;Madame Dubois&#8221; told her that she was in an
+exotic land.</p>
+
+<p>And in the interior of Madame Dubois&#8217;s establishment
+Tommy and Nick together drew apart the curtains, opened
+the windows, and opened the shutters of a pleasantly stuffy
+sitting-room. Everybody leaned out, and they saw the
+superb thoroughfare, straight and interminable, and the
+moving roofs of the tram-cars, and dwarfs on the pavements.
+The night was mild and languorous.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You see that!&#8221; Nick pointed to a blaze of electricity
+to the left on the opposite side of the road. &#8220;That&#8217;s where
+we shall take you to dine, after you&#8217;ve spruced yourselves up.
+You needn&#8217;t bother about fancy dress. Monsieur Dauphin
+always has stacks of kimonos&mdash;for his models, you know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>While the travellers spruced themselves up in different bedrooms,
+Tommy chattered through one pair of double doors
+ajar, and Nick through the other, and Musa strummed with
+many mistakes on an antique Pleyel piano. And as Audrey
+listened to the talk of these acquaintances, Tommy and Nick,
+who in half an hour had put on the hue of her lifelong friends,
+and as she heard the piano, and felt the vibration of cars far
+beneath, she decided that she was still growing happier and
+happier, and that life and the world were marvellous.</p>
+
+<p>A little later they passed into the café-restaurant through
+a throng of seated sippers who were spread around its portals
+like a defence. The interior, low, and stretching backwards,
+apparently endless, into the bowels of the building,
+was swimming in the brightest light. At a raised semicircular
+counter in the centre two women were enthroned,
+plump, sedate, darkly dressed, and of middle age. To these
+priestesses came a constant succession of waiters, in the
+classic garb of waiters, bearing trays which they offered
+to the gaze of the women, and afterwards throwing down
+coins that rang on the marble of the counter. One of the
+women wrote swiftly in a great tome. Both of them, while
+performing their duties, glanced continually into every part
+of the establishment, watching especially each departure and
+each arrival.</p>
+
+<p>At scores of tables were the most heterogeneous collection
+of people that Audrey had ever seen; men and women,
+girls and old men, even a few children with their mothers.
+Liquids were of every colour, ices chromatic, and the scarlet
+of lobster made a luscious contrast with the shaded tints of
+salads. In the extreme background men were playing billiards
+at three tables. Though nearly everybody was talking,
+no one talked loudly, so that the resulting monotone of
+conversation was a gentle drone, out of which shot up at
+intervals the crash of crockery or a hoarse command. And
+this drone combined itself with the glittering light, and with
+the mild warmth that floated in waves through the open windows,
+and with the red plush of the seats, and with the rosiness
+of painted nymphs on the blue walls, and with the
+complexions of women&#8217;s faces, and their hats and frocks,
+and with the hues of the liquids&mdash;to produce a totality of
+impression that made Audrey dizzy with ecstasy. This was
+not the Paris set forth by Madame Piriac, but it was a wondrous
+Paris, and in Audrey&#8217;s esteem not far removed from
+heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, magnificently pale, followed Tommy and
+Nick with ironic delight up the long passage between the
+tables. Her eyes seemed to be saying: &#8220;I am overpowered,
+and yet there is something in me that is not overpowered, and
+by virtue of my kind-hearted derision I, from Essex, am
+superior to you all!&#8221; Audrey, with glance downcast, followed
+Miss Ingate, and Musa came last, sinuously. Nobody
+looked up at them more than casually, but at intervals during
+the passage Tommy and Nick nodded and smiled: &#8220;How
+d&#8217;ye do? How d&#8217;ye do?&#8221; &#8220;<em>Bon soir,</em>&#8220; and answers were
+given in American or French voices.</p>
+
+<p>They came to rest near the billiard tables, and near an
+aperture with a shelf where all the waiters congregated to
+shout their orders. A grey-haired waiter, with the rapidity
+and dexterity of a conjurer, laid a cloth over the marble
+round which they sat, Audrey and Miss Ingate on the plush
+bench, and Tommy and Nick, with Musa between them, on
+chairs opposite. The waiter then discussed with them for
+five minutes what they should eat, and he argued the problem
+seriously, wisely, helpfully, as befitted. It was Audrey,
+in full view of a buffet laden with shell-fish and fruit, who
+first suggested lobster, and lobster was chosen, nothing but
+lobster. Miss Ingate said that she was not a bit tired, and
+that lobster was her dream. The sentiment was universal
+at the table. When asked what she would drink, Audrey
+was on the point of answering &#8220;lemonade.&#8221; But a doubt
+about the propriety of everlasting lemonade for a widow with
+much knowledge of the world, stopped her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I vote we all have grenadines,&#8221; said Nick.</p>
+
+<p>Grenadine was agreeable to Audrey&#8217;s ear, and everyone
+concurred.</p>
+
+<p>The ordering was always summarised and explained by
+Musa in a few phrases which, to Audrey, sounded very different
+from the French of Tommy and Nick. And she took
+oath that she would instantly begin to learn to speak French,
+not like Tommy and Nick, whose accent she cruelly despised,
+but like Musa.</p>
+
+<p>Then Tommy and Nick removed their cloaks, and sat displayed
+as a geisha and a contadina, respectively. Musa had
+already unmasked his devilry. The café was not in the least
+disturbed by these gorgeous and strange apparitions. An
+orchestra began to play. Lobster arrived, and high glasses
+full of glinting green. Audrey ate and drank with gusto,
+with innocence, with the intensest love of life. And she was
+the most beautiful and touching sight in the café-restaurant.
+Miss Ingate, grinning, caught her eye with joyous mockery.
+&#8220;We are going it, aren&#8217;t we, Audrey?&#8221; shrieked Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall began slowly to differentiate
+themselves in Audrey&#8217;s mind. At first they were
+merely two American girls&mdash;the first Audrey had met. They
+were of about the same age&mdash;whatever that age might be&mdash;and
+if they were not exactly of the same age, then Tommy
+with red hair was older than Nick with grey hair. Indeed,
+Nick took the earliest opportunity to remark that her hair
+had turned grey at nineteen. They both had dreamy eyes
+that looked through instead of looking at; they were both
+hazy concerning matters of fact; they were both attached
+like a couple of aunts to Musa, who nestled between them
+like a cat between two cushions; they were both extraordinarily
+friendly and hospitable; they both painted and both
+had studios&mdash;in the same house; they both showed quite
+a remarkable admiration and esteem for all their acquaintances;
+and they both lacked interest in their complexions
+and their hair.</p>
+
+<p>The resemblance did not go very much farther. Tommy,
+for all her praising of friends, was of a critical, curious, and
+analytical disposition, and her greenish eyes were always at
+work qualifying in a very subtle manner what her tongue
+said, when her tongue was benevolent, as it often was.
+Feminism and suffragism being the tie between the new
+acquaintances, these subjects were the first material of conversation,
+and an empress of militancy known to the world
+as &#8220;Rosamund&#8221; having been mentioned, Miss Ingate said
+with enthusiasm:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She lives only for one thing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; replied Tommy. &#8220;And if she got it, I guess no
+one would be more disgusted than she herself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was an instant&#8217;s silence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Tommy!&#8221; Nick lovingly protested.</p>
+
+<p>Said Miss Ingate with a comprehending satiric grin:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see what you mean. I quite see. I quite see. You&#8217;re
+right, Miss Thompkins. I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;re right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey decided she would have to be very clever in
+order to be equal to Tommy&#8217;s subtlety. Nick, on the other
+hand, was not a bit subtle, except when she tried to imitate
+Tommy. Nick was kindness, and sympathy, and vagueness.
+You could see these admirable qualities in every curve of her
+face and gleam of her eyes. She was very sympathetic, but
+somewhat shocked when Audrey blurted out that she had not
+come to Paris in order to paint.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There are at least fifty painters in this café this very
+minute,&#8221; said Tommy. And somehow it was just as if she
+had said: &#8220;If you haven&#8217;t come to Paris to paint, what have
+you come for?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Does Mr. Musa paint, too?&#8221; asked Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh <em>no</em>!&#8221; Both his protectresses answered together,
+pained. Tommy added: &#8220;Musa plays the violin&mdash;of course.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Musa blushed. Later, he murmured to Audrey
+across the table, while Tommy was ordering a salad, that
+there were tennis courts in the Luxembourg gardens.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I used to paint,&#8221; Miss Ingate broke out. &#8220;And I&#8217;m
+beginning to think I should like to paint again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Said Nick, enraptured:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll let you use my studio, if you will. I&#8217;d just love you
+to, now! Where did you study?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, it was like this,&#8221; said Miss Ingate with satisfaction.
+&#8220;It was a long time ago. I finished painting a
+dog-kennel because the house-painter&#8217;s wife died and he had
+to go to her funeral, and the dog didn&#8217;t like being kept waiting.
+That gave me the idea. I went into water-colours, but
+afterwards I went back to oils. Oils seemed more real. Then
+I started on portraits, and I did a portrait of my Aunt Sarah
+from memory. After she saw it she tore up her will, and
+before I could get her into a good temper again she married
+her third husband and she had to make a new will in favour
+of him. So I found painting very expensive. Not that it
+would have made any difference, I suppose, would it? After
+that I went into miniatures. The same dog that I painted
+the kennel for ate up the best miniature I ever did. It killed
+him. I put a cross over his grave in the garden. All that
+made me see what a fool I&#8217;d been, and I exchanged my painting
+things for a lawn-mower, but it never turned out to be
+any good.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You dear! You precious! You priceless!&#8221; cooed Nick.
+&#8220;I shall fix up my second best easel for you to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t she just too lovely!&#8221; Tommy murmured aside to
+Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I not much understand,&#8221; said Musa.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy translated to him, haltingly, and Audrey was
+moved to say, with energy:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What I want most is to learn French, and I&#8217;m going
+to begin to-morrow morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Nick was kindly confusing and shaming Miss Ingate
+with a short history and catechism of modern art, including
+such names as Vuillard, Bonnard, Picasso, Signac, and
+Matisse&mdash;all very eagerly poured out and all very unnerving
+for Miss Ingate, whose directory of painting was practically
+limited to the names of Raphael, Sir Joshua, Rembrandt,
+Rubens, Gainsborough, Turner, Leighton, Millais, Gustave
+Doré and Frank Dicksee. When, however, Nick referred
+to Monsieur Dauphin, Miss Ingate was as it were washed
+safely ashore and said with assurance: &#8220;Oh yes! Oh
+yes! Oh yes!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Tommy listened for a few moments, and then, leaning
+across the table and lighting a cigarette, she said in an
+intimate undertone to Audrey: &#8220;I hope you don&#8217;t <em>mind</em>
+coming to the ball to-night. We really didn&#8217;t know&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;
+She stopped. Her eyes, ferreting in Audrey&#8217;s black, completed
+the communication.</p>
+
+<p>Unnerved for the tenth of a second, Audrey recovered
+and answered:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no! I shall like it very much.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve been up against life!&#8221; murmured Tommy in a
+melting voice, gazing at her. &#8220;But how wonderful all experience
+is, isn&#8217;t it. I once had a husband. We separated&mdash;at
+least, he separated. But I know the feel of being a wife.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey blushed deeply. She wanted to push away all
+that sympathy, and she was exceedingly alarmed by the
+revelation that Tommy was an initiate. The widow was
+the merest schoolgirl once more. But her blush had saved
+her from a chat in which she could not conceivably have
+held her own.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Excuse me being so clumsy,&#8221; said Tommy contritely.
+&#8220;Another time.&#8221; And she waved her cigarette to the waiter
+in demand for the bill.</p>
+
+<p>It was after the orchestra had finished a tango, and
+while Tommy was examining the bill, that the first violin
+and leader, in a magenta coat, approached the table, and
+with a bow offered his violin deferentially to Musa. Many
+heads turned to watch what would happen. But Musa only
+shrugged his shoulders and with an exquisite gesture of
+refusal signified that he had to leave. Whereupon the
+magenta coat gracefully retired, starting a Hungarian
+dance as he went.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa is supposed to be the greatest violinist in Paris&mdash;perhaps
+in the world,&#8221; Tommy whispered casually to
+Audrey. &#8220;He used to play here, till Dauphin discovered
+him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, overcome by this prodigious blow, trembled at
+the contemplation of her blind stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>Beyond question, Musa now looked extremely important,
+vivid, masterful. She had been mistaking him for a nice,
+ornamental, useless boy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_10" id="chapter_10" />CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>FANCY DRESS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Just as the café-restaurant had been an intensification of
+ordinary life, so was the ball in Dauphin&#8217;s studio an intensification
+of the café-restaurant. It had more colour, more
+noise, more music, more heat, more varied kinds of people,
+and, of course, far more riotous movement than the café-restaurant.
+The only quality in which the café-restaurant
+stood first was that of sustenance. Monsieur Dauphin had
+not attempted to rival the café-restaurant in the matter of
+food and drink. And that there was no general hope of
+his doing so could be deduced from the fact that many
+of the more experienced guests arrived with bottles, fruit,
+sausages, and sandwiches of their own.</p>
+
+<p>When Audrey and her friends entered the precincts of
+the vast new white building in the Boulevard Raspail, upon
+whose topmost floor Monsieur Dauphin painted the portraits
+of the women of the French, British, and American plutocracies
+and aristocracies, a lift full of gay-coloured figures
+was just shooting upwards past the wrought-iron balustrades
+of the gigantic staircase. Tommy and Nick stopped to speak
+to a columbine who hovered between the pavement and the
+threshold of the house.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know whether it&#8217;s the grenadine or the lobster,
+or whether it&#8217;s Paris,&#8221; said Miss Ingate confidentially in the
+interval; &#8220;but I can scarcely tell whether I&#8217;m standing on
+my head or my heels.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Before the Americans rejoined them, the lift had returned
+and ascended with another covey of fancy costumes, including
+a man with a nose a foot long and a girl with bright
+green hair, dressed as an acrobat. On its next journey the
+lift held Tommy and Nick&#8217;s party, and it held no more.</p>
+
+<p>When the party emerged from it, they were greeted with
+a cheer, hoarse and half human, by a band of light amateur
+mountebanks of both sexes who were huddled in a doorway.
+Within a quarter of an hour Audrey and Miss Ingate, after
+astounding struggles in a dressing-room in which Nick alone
+saved their lives and reputations, appeared in Japanese disguise
+according to promise, and nobody could tell whether
+Audrey was maid, wife, or widow. She might have been a
+creature created on the spot, for the celestial purpose of a
+fancy-dress ball in Monsieur Dauphin&#8217;s studio.</p>
+
+<p>The studio was very large and rather lofty. Its walls
+had been painted by gifted pupils of Monsieur Dauphin
+and by fellow-artists, with scenes of life according to
+Catullus, Theocritus, Propertius, Martial, Petronius, and
+other classical writers. It is not too much to say that the
+walls of the studio constituted a complete novelty for Audrey
+and Miss Ingate. Miss Ingate opened her mouth to say
+something, but, saying nothing, forgot for a long time to
+shut it again.</p>
+
+<p>Chinese lanterns, electrically illuminated, were strung
+across the studio at a convenient height so that athletic
+dancers could prodigiously leap up and make them swing.
+Beneath this incoherent but exciting radiance the guests
+swayed and glided, in a joyous din, under the influence of
+an orchestra of men snouted like pigs and raised on a dais.
+In a corner was a spiral staircase leading to the flat roof
+of the studio and a view of all Paris. Up and down this
+corkscrew contending parties fought amiably for the right
+of way.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy and Nick began instantly to perform introductions
+between Audrey and Miss Ingate and the other guests.
+In a few moments Audrey had failed to catch the names of
+a score and a half of people&mdash;many Americans, some French,
+some Argentine, one or two English. They were all very
+talented people, and, according to Miss Ingate, the most
+characteristically French were invariably either Americans
+or Argentines.</p>
+
+<p>A telephone bell rang in the distance, and presently a
+toreador stood on a chair and pierced the music with a
+message of yells in French, and the room hugely guffawed
+and cheered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is the host?&#8221; Audrey asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s what the telephoning was about,&#8221; said Tommy,
+speaking loudly against the hubbub. &#8220;He hasn&#8217;t come yet.
+He had to rush off this afternoon to do pastel portraits of two
+Russian princesses at St. Germain, and he hasn&#8217;t got back
+yet. The telephone was to say that he&#8217;s started.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then one of the introduced&mdash;it was a girl wearing a mask
+&mdash;took Audrey by the waist and whirled her strongly away
+and she was lost in the maze. Audrey&#8217;s first impulse was to
+protest, but she said to herself: &#8220;Why protest? This is
+what we&#8217;re here for.&#8221; And she gave herself up to the dance.
+Her partner held her very firmly, somewhat bending over
+her. Neither spoke. Gyrating in long curves, with the other
+dancers swishing mysteriously about them like the dancers of
+a dream, and the music as far off as another world, they
+clung together in the rhythm and in the enchantment, until
+the music ceased.... The strong girl threw Audrey carelessly
+off, and walked away, breathing hard. And there was
+something in the strong girl&#8217;s nonchalant and curt departure
+which woke a chord in Audrey&#8217;s soul that had never been
+wakened before. Audrey could scarcely credit that she was
+on the same planet as Essex. She had many dances with
+men whom she hoped and believed she had been introduced to
+by Tommy, and no less than seventeen persons of either sex
+told her in unusual English that they had heard she wanted
+to learn French and that they would like to teach her; and
+then she met Musa, the devil.</p>
+
+<p>Musa, with an indolent and wistful smile, suggested the
+roof. Audrey was now just one of the throng, and quite
+unconscious of herself; she fought archly and gaily on the
+spiral staircase exactly as she had seen others do, and at last
+they were on the roof, and the silhouettes of other fantastic
+figures and of cowled chimney pots stood out dark against the
+vague yellow glow of the city beneath. While Musa was
+pointing out the historic landmarks to her, she was thinking
+how she could never again be the girl who had left Moze
+on the previous morning. And yet Musa was so natural and
+so direct that it was impossible to take him for anything but
+a boy, and hence Audrey sank back into early girlhood,
+talking spasmodically to Musa as she used in school days to
+talk to the brother of her school friend.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will teach you French,&#8221; said Musa, unaware that he
+had numerous predecessors in the offer. &#8220;But will you play
+tennis with me in the gardens of the Luxembourg?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said she would, and that she would buy a
+racket.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tell me about all those artists Miss Nickall spoke of,&#8221;
+she said. &#8220;I must know about all the artists, and all the
+musicians, and all the authors. I must know all about them
+at once. I shan&#8217;t sleep until I know all their names and I
+can talk French. I shan&#8217;t <em>sleep</em>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa began the catalogue. When a girl came and
+chucked him under the chin, he angrily slapped her face.
+Then, to avoid complications, they descended.</p>
+
+<p>In the middle of the studio, wearing a silk hat, a morning
+coat, striped trousers, yellow gloves, and boots with spats,
+stood a smiling figure.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Voilà</em> Dauphin!&#8221; said Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa!&#8221; called Monsieur Dauphin, espying the youth on
+the staircase. Then he made a gesture to the orchestra:
+&#8220;Give him a violin!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey stood by Musa while he played a dance that nobody
+danced to, and when he had finished she was rather
+ashamed, under the curtain of wild cheering, because with her
+Essex incredulity she had not sufficiently believed in Musa&#8217;s
+greatness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Permit your host to introduce himself,&#8221; said a voice
+behind her, not in the correct English of a linguistic Frenchman,
+but in utterly English English. She had now
+descended to the floor of the studio.</p>
+
+<p>Emile Dauphin raised his glossy hat, and then asked to
+be allowed to put it on again, as the company had decided
+that it was part of his costume. He had a delicious smile, at
+once respectful and intimate. Audrey had read somewhere
+that really great men were always simple and unaffected&mdash;indeed
+that it was often impossible to guess from their
+demeanour that, etc., etc.&mdash;and this experience of the first
+celebrity with whom she had ever spoken (except Musa, who
+was somehow only Musa) confirmed the statement, and confirmed
+also her young instinctive belief that what is printed
+must be true. She was beginning to feel the stealthy on-comings
+of fatigue, and certainly she was very nervous, but
+Monsieur Dauphin&#8217;s quite particularly sympathetic manner,
+and her own sudden determination not to be a little blushing
+fool gave her new power.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t express to you,&#8221; he said, moving towards the
+dais and mesmerising her to keep by his side. &#8220;I can&#8217;t
+express to you how sorry I was to be so late.&#8221; He made
+the apology with lightness, but with sincerity. Audrey knew
+how polite the French were. &#8220;But truly circumstances were
+too much for me. Those two Russian princesses&mdash;they came
+to me through a mutual friend, a dear old friend of mine,
+very closely attached also to them. They leave to-morrow
+morning by the St. Petersburg express, on which they have
+engaged a special coach. What was I to do? I tried to
+tear myself away earlier, but of course there were the portrait
+sketches to finish, and no doubt you know the usage of the
+best society in Russia.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; murmured Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come up on the dais, will you?&#8221; he suggested. &#8220;And
+let us survey the scene together.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They surveyed the scene together. The snouted band
+was having supper on the floor in a corner, and many
+of the guests also were seated on the floor. Miss Ingate,
+intoxicated by the rapture of existence, and Miss
+Thompkins were carefully examining the frescoes on
+the walls. A young woman covered from head to foot with
+gold tinsel was throwing chocolates into Musa&#8217;s mouth, or
+as near to it as she could.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What a splendid player Mr. Musa is!&#8221; Audrey inaugurated
+her career as a woman of the world. &#8220;I doubt
+if I have ever heard such violin playing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so glad you think so,&#8221; replied Monsieur Dauphin.
+&#8220;Of course you know I&#8217;m very conceited about my
+painting. Anybody will tell you so. But beneath all that
+I&#8217;m not so sure. I often have the gravest doubts about
+my work. But I never had any doubt that when I took
+Musa out of the orchestra in the Café de Versailles I was
+giving a genius to the world. And perhaps that&#8217;s how
+I shall be remembered by posterity. And if it is I shall
+be content.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Never before had Audrey heard anybody connect himself
+with posterity, and she was very much impressed. Monsieur
+Dauphin was resigned and yet brave. By no means convinced
+that posterity would do the right thing, he nevertheless
+had no grudge against posterity.</p>
+
+<p>Just then there was a sharp scream at the top of the
+spiral staircase. With a smile that condoned the scream
+and excused his flight, Monsieur Dauphin ran to the
+staircase, and up it, and disappeared on to the roof.
+Nobody seemed to be perturbed. Audrey was left alone
+and conspicuous on the dais.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Charming, isn&#8217;t he?&#8221; said Miss Thompkins, arriving
+with Miss Ingate in front of the flower-screened
+platform.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! he is!&#8221; answered Audrey with sincerity, leaning
+downwards.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Has he told you all about the Russian princesses?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes,&#8221; said Audrey, pleased.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought he would,&#8221; said Miss Thompkins, with a
+peculiar intonation.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey knew then that Miss Thompkins, having first
+maliciously made sure that she was a ninny, was now
+telling her to her face that she was a ninny.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy continued:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then I guess he told you he&#8217;d given Musa to the
+world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! I knew he would. Well, when he comes back
+he&#8217;ll tell you that you must come to one of his <em>real</em>
+entertainments here, and that this one is nothing. Then
+he&#8217;ll tell you about all the nobs he knows in London. And
+at last he&#8217;ll say that you have a strangely expressive face,
+and he&#8217;d like to paint it and show the picture in the
+Salon. But he won&#8217;t tell you it&#8217;ll cost you forty thousand
+francs. So I&#8217;ll tell you that, because perhaps later on,
+if you don&#8217;t know, you might find yourself making a noise
+like a tenderfoot. You see, Miss Ingate hasn&#8217;t concealed
+that you&#8217;re a lady millionaire.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I haven&#8217;t,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, glowing and yet
+sarcastic. &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t bring myself to, because I was so
+anxious to see if human nature in Paris is anything like
+what it is in Essex.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why should you hide it, Winnie?&#8221; Audrey stoutly
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, au revoir,&#8221; Tommy murmured delicately, with
+a very original gesture. &#8220;He&#8217;s coming back.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As Monsieur Dauphin, having apparently established
+peace on the roof, approached again, Audrey discreetly
+examined his face and his demeanour, to see if she could
+perceive in him any of the sinister things that Tommy
+had implied. She was unable to make up her mind whether
+she could or not. But in the end she decided that she
+was as shrewd as anybody in the place.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you been to my roof-garden, Mrs. Moncreiff?&#8221;
+he asked in a persuasive voice, raising his eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>She said she had, and that she thought the roof was
+heavenly.</p>
+
+<p>Then from the corner of her eye she saw Miss Ingate
+and Tommy sidling mischievously away, like conspirators
+who have lighted a time fuse. She considered that Tommy,
+with her red hair and freckles, and strange glances and
+strange tones full of a naughty and malicious sweetness,
+was even more peculiar than Miss Ingate. But she was
+not intimidated by them nor by the illustrious Monsieur
+Dauphin, so perfectly master of his faculties. Rather she
+was exultant in the contagion of their malice. Once more
+she felt as if she had ceased to be a girl a very long
+time ago. And she was aware of agreeable and exciting
+temptations.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you taking a house in Paris?&#8221; inquired Monsieur
+Dauphin.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey answered primly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I haven&#8217;t decided. Should you advise me to do so?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He waved a hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! It depends on the life you wish to lead. Who
+knows&mdash;with a young woman who has all experience behind
+her and all life before her! But I do hope I may see
+you again. And I trust I may persuade you to come to
+my studio again.&#8221; Audrey felt the thrill of drama as he
+proceeded. &#8220;This is scarcely a night for you. I ought
+to tell you that I give three entertainments during the
+autumn. To-night is the first. It is for students and those
+English and Americans who think they are seeing Paris
+here. Then I give another for the political and dramatic
+worlds. Each is secretly proud to meet the other. The
+third I reserve to my friends. Some of my many friends
+in London are good enough to come over specially for it.
+It is on Christmas Eve. I do wish you would come to
+that one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose,&#8221; she said, catching the diabolic glances of
+Miss Ingate and Tommy, &#8220;I suppose you know almost
+more people in London than in Paris?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He answered:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I count among my friends more than two-thirds
+of the subscribers to Covent Garden Opera.... By the
+way, do you happen to be connected with the Moncreiffs
+of Suddon Wester? They have a charming house in Hyde
+Park Terrace. But probably you know it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey burst out laughing. She laughed loud and
+violently till the tears stood in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; he said, at a loss, deprecatingly. &#8220;Perhaps
+these Moncreiffs <em>are</em> rather weird.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was only laughing,&#8221; she said in gasps, but with a
+complete secret composure. &#8220;Because we had such an awful
+quarrel with them last year. I couldn&#8217;t tell you the details.
+They&#8217;re too shocking.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He gave a dubious smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;D&#8217;you know, dear young lady,&#8221; he recommenced after
+a brief pause, &#8220;I should adore to paint a portrait of you
+laughing. It would be very well hung in the Salon. Your
+face is so strangely expressive. It is utterly different, in
+expression, from any other face I ever saw&mdash;and I have
+studied faces.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Heedless of the general interest which she was arousing,
+Audrey leaned on the rail of the screen of flowers, and
+gave herself up afresh to laughter. Monsieur Dauphin
+was decidedly puzzled. The affair might have ended in
+hysteria and confusion had not Miss Ingate, with Nick
+and Tommy, come hurrying up to the dais.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_11" id="chapter_11" />CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>A POLITICAL REFUGEE</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Rosamund has come to my studio and wants to see me
+at once. <em>She has sent for me.</em> Miss Ingate says she
+shall go, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was these words in a highly emotionalised voice from
+Miss Nickall that, like a vague murmured message of vast
+events, drew the entire quartet away from the bright
+inebriated scene created by Monsieur Dauphin.</p>
+
+<p>The single word &#8220;Rosamund&#8221; sufficed to break one
+mood and induce another in all bosoms save that of Audrey,
+who was in a state of permanent joyous exultation that
+she scarcely even attempted to control. The great militant
+had a surname, but it was rarely used save by police
+magistrates. Her Christian name alone was more impressive
+than the myriad cognomens of queens and princesses. Miss
+Nickall ran away home at once. Miss Thompkins was
+left to deliver Miss Ingate and Audrey at Nick&#8217;s studio,
+which, being in the Rue Delambre, was not far away.
+And not the shedding of the kimono and the re-assumption
+of European attire could affect Audrey&#8217;s spirits. Had
+she been capable of regret in that hour, she would have
+regretted the abandonment of the ball, where the refined,
+spiritual, strange faces of the men, and the enigmatic
+quality of the women, and the exceeding novelty of the
+social code had begun to arouse in her sentiments of
+approval and admiration. But she quitted the staggering
+frolic without a sigh; for she carried within her a frolic
+surpassing anything exterior or physical.</p>
+
+<p>The immense flickering boulevard with its double
+roadway stretched away to the horizon on either hand,
+empty.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What time is it?&#8221; asked Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy looked at her wrist-watch.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t tell me! Don&#8217;t tell me!&#8221; cried Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We might get a taxi in the Rue de Babylone,&#8221; Tommy
+suggested. &#8220;Or shall we walk?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We <em>must</em> walk,&#8221; cried Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>She knew the name of the street. In the distance she
+could recognise the dying lights of the café-restaurant where
+they had eaten. She felt already like an inhabitant of
+the dreamed-of city. It was almost inconceivable to her
+that she had been within it for only a few hours, and that
+England lay less than a day behind her in the past, and
+Moze less than two days. And Aguilar the morose, and
+the shuttered rooms of Flank Hall, shot for an instant into
+her mind and out again.</p>
+
+<p>The other two women walked rather quickly, mesmerised
+possibly by the magic of the illustrious Christian name,
+and Audrey gave occasional schoolgirlish leaps by their
+side. A little policeman appeared inquisitive from a by-street,
+and Audrey tossed her head as if saying: &#8220;Pooh! I belong
+here. All the mystery of this city is mine, and I am as
+at home as in Moze Street.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And as they surged through the echoing solitude of
+the boulevard, and as they crossed the equally tremendous
+boulevard that cut through it east and west, Tommy told
+the story of Nick&#8217;s previous relations with Rosamund. Nick
+had met Rosamund once before through her English chum,
+Betty Burke, an art student who had ultimately sacrificed
+art to the welfare of her sex, but who with Mrs. Burke
+had shared rooms and studio with Nick for many months.
+Tommy&#8217;s narrative was spotted with hardly perceptible
+sarcasms concerning art, women, Betty Burke, Mrs. Burke,
+and Nick; but she put no barb into Rosamund. And
+when Miss Ingate, who had never met Rosamund, asked
+what Rosamund amounted to in the esteem of Tommy,
+Tommy evaded the question. Miss Ingate remembered,
+however, what she had said in the café-restaurant.</p>
+
+<p>Then they turned into the Rue Delambre, and Tommy
+halted them in the deep obscurity in front of another of
+those huge black doors which throughout Paris seemed
+to guard the secrets of individual life. An automobile
+was waiting close by. A little door in the huge one
+clicked and yielded, and they climbed over a step into
+black darkness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thompkins!&#8221; called Miss Thompkins loudly to the
+black darkness, to reassure the drowsy concierge in his
+hidden den, shutting the door with a bang behind them;
+and, groping for the hands of the others, she dragged
+them forward stumbling.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I never have a match,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>They blundered up tenebrous stairs.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re just passing my door,&#8221; said Tommy. &#8220;Nick&#8217;s
+is higher up.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then a perpendicular slit of light showed itself&mdash;and
+a portal slightly open could be distinguished.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall quit here,&#8221; said Tommy. &#8220;You go right in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You aren&#8217;t leaving us?&#8221; exclaimed Miss Ingate in
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t go in,&#8221; Tommy persisted in a quiet satiric
+tone. &#8220;I&#8217;ll leave my door open below, and see you when
+you come down.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She could be heard descending.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why, I guess they&#8217;re here,&#8221; said a voice, Nick&#8217;s,
+within, and the door was pulled wide open.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My legs are all of a tremble!&#8221; muttered Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Nick&#8217;s studio seemed larger than reality because of its
+inadequate illumination. On a small paint-stained table
+in the centre was an oil-lamp beneath a round shade that
+had been decorated by some artist&#8217;s hand with a series
+of reclining women in many colours. This lamp made a
+moon in the midnight of the studio, but it was a moon
+almost without rays; the shade seemed to imprison the
+light, save that which escaped from its superior orifice.
+Against the table stood a tall thin woman in black. Her
+face was lit by the rays escaping upward; a pale, firm,
+bland face, with rather prominent cheeks, loose grey hair
+above, surmounted by a toque. The dress was dark, and
+the only noticeable feature of it was that the sleeves were
+finished in white linen; from these the hands emerged
+calm and veined under the lampshade; in one of them
+a pair of gloves were clasped. On the table lay a thin
+mantle.</p>
+
+<p>At the back of the studio there sat another woman, so
+engloomed that no detail of her could be distinguished.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As I was saying,&#8221; the tall upright woman resumed as
+soon as Miss Ingate and Audrey had been introduced.
+&#8220;Betty Burke is in prison. She got six weeks this morning.
+She may never come out again. Almost her last words from
+the dock were that you, Miss Nickall, should be asked to go
+to London to look after Mrs. Burke, and perhaps to take
+Betty&#8217;s place in other ways. She said that her mother preferred
+you to anybody else, and that she was sure you would
+come. Shall you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The accents were very clear, the face was delicately
+smiling, the little gestures had a quite tranquil quality.
+Rosamund did not seem to care whether Miss Nickall obeyed
+the summons or not. She did not seem to care about anything
+whatever except her own manner of existing. She was
+the centre of Paris, and Paris was naught but a circumference
+for her. All phenomena beyond the individuality of the
+woman were reduced to the irrelevant and the negligible. It
+would have been absurd to mention to her costume balls.
+The frost of her indifference would have wilted them into
+nothingness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, of course, I shall go,&#8221; Nick answered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When?&#8221; was the implacable question.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! By the first train,&#8221; said Nick eagerly. As she
+approached the lamp, the gleam of the devotee could be seen
+in her gaze. In one moment she had sacrificed Paris and art
+and Tommy and herself, and had risen to the sacred ardour
+of a vocation. Rosamund was well accustomed to watching
+the process, and she gave not the least sign of satisfaction or
+approval.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I ought to tell you,&#8221; she went on, &#8220;that I came over
+from London suddenly by the afternoon service in order to
+escape arrest. I am now a political refugee. Things have
+come to this pass. You will do well to leave by the first
+train. That is why I decided to call here before going to
+bed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s Tommy?&#8221; asked Nick, appealing wildly to
+Miss Ingate and Audrey. Upon being answered she said,
+still more wildly: &#8220;I must see her. Can you&mdash;No, I&#8217;ll run
+down myself.&#8221; In the doorway she turned round: &#8220;Mrs.
+Moncreiff, would you and Miss Ingate like to have my studio
+while I&#8217;m away? I should just love you to. There&#8217;s a very
+nice bed over there behind the screen, and a fair sort of couch
+over here. Do say you will! <em>Do</em>!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! We will!&#8221; Miss Ingate replied at once, reassuringly,
+as though in haste to grant the supreme request of
+some condemned victim. And indeed Miss Nickall appeared
+ready to burst into tears if she should be thwarted.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Nick had gone, Miss Ingate&#8217;s smiling face,
+nervous, intimidated, audacious, sardonic, and good
+humoured, moved out of the gloom nearer to Rosamund.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You knew I played the barrel organ all down Regent
+Street?&#8221; she ventured, blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; murmured Rosamund, unmoved. &#8220;It was you
+who played the barrel-organ? So it was.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;But I&#8217;m like you. I don&#8217;t
+care passionately for prison. Eh! Eh! I&#8217;m not so vehy,
+vehy fond of it. I don&#8217;t know Miss Burke, but what a pity
+she has got six weeks, isn&#8217;t it? Still, I was vehy much
+struck by what someone said to me to-day&mdash;that you&#8217;d be
+vehy sorry if women <em>did</em> get the vote. I think I should be
+sorry, too&mdash;you know what I mean.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perfectly,&#8221; ejaculated Rosamund, with a pleasant smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope I&#8217;m not skidding,&#8221; said Miss Ingate still more
+timidly, but also with a sardonic giggle, looking round into
+the gloom. &#8220;I do skid sometimes, you know, and we&#8217;ve just
+come away from a&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She could not finish.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And Mrs. Moncreiff, if I&#8217;ve got the name right, is she
+with us, too?&#8221; asked Rosamund, miraculously urbane. And
+added: &#8220;I hear she has wealth and is the mistress of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey jumped up, smiling, and lifting her veil. She
+could not help smiling. The studio, the lamp, Rosamund
+with her miraculous self-complacency, Nick with her soft,
+mad eyes and wistful voice, the blundering ruthless Miss
+Ingate, all seemed intensely absurd to her. Everything
+seemed absurd except dancing and revelry and coloured lights
+and strange disguises and sensuous contacts. She had the
+most careless contempt, stiffened by a slight loathing, for
+political movements and every melancholy effort to reform
+the world. The world did not need reforming and did not
+want to be reformed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps you don&#8217;t know my story,&#8221; Audrey began, not
+realising how she would continue. &#8220;I am a widow. I made
+an unhappy marriage. My husband on the day after our
+wedding-day began to eat peas with his knife. In a week
+I was forced to leave him. And a fortnight later I heard
+that he was dead of blood-poisoning. He had cut his
+mouth.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is the matter with me? I have ruined myself.&#8221;
+All her exultation had collapsed.</p>
+
+<p>But Rosamund remarked gravely:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is a common story.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly there was a movement in the obscure corner
+where sat the unnamed and unintroduced lady. This lady
+rose and came towards the table. She was very elegant in
+dress and manner, and she looked maturely young.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame Piriac,&#8221; announced Rosamund.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey recoiled.... Gazing hard at the face, she saw
+in it a vague but undeniable resemblance to certain admired
+photographs which had arrived at Moze from France.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pardon me!&#8221; said Madame Piriac in English with a
+strong French accent. &#8220;I shall like very much to hear the
+details of this story of <em>petits pois</em>.&#8221; The tone of Madame
+Piriac&#8217;s question was unexceptionable; it took account of
+Audrey&#8217;s mourning attire, and of her youthfulness; but
+Audrey could formulate no answer to it. Instead of speaking
+she gave a touch to her veil, and it dropped before her
+piquant, troubled, inscrutable face like a screen.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate said with noticeable calm, but also with
+the air of a conspirator who sees danger to a most secret
+machination:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m afraid Mrs. Moncreiff won&#8217;t care to go into details.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was neatly done. Madame Piriac brought the episode
+to a close with a sympathetic smile and an apposite gesture.
+And Audrey, safe behind her veil, glanced gratefully and
+admiringly at Miss Ingate, who, taken quite unawares, had
+been so surprisingly able thus to get her out of a scrape.
+She felt very young and callow among these three women,
+and the mere presence of Madame Piriac, of whom years
+ago she had created for herself a wondrous image, put her
+into a considerable flutter. On the whole she was ready to
+believe that the actual Madame Piriac was quite equal to the
+image of her founded on photographs and letters. She set
+her teeth, and decided that Madame Piriac should not
+learn her identity&mdash;yet! There was little risk of her discovering
+it for herself, for no photograph of Audrey had
+gone to Paris for a dozen years, and Miss Ingate&#8217;s loyalty
+was absolute.</p>
+
+<p>As Audrey sat down again, the illustrious Rosamund took
+a chair near her, and it could not be doubted that the woman
+had the mien and the carriage of a leader.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are very rich, are you not?&#8221; asked Rosamund, in
+a tone at once deferential and intimate, and she smiled very
+attractively in the gloom. Impossible not to reckon with
+that smile, as startling as it was seductive!</p>
+
+<p>Evidently Nick had been communicative.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose I am,&#8221; murmured Audrey, like a child, and
+feeling like a child. Yet at the same time she was asking
+herself with fierce curiosity: &#8220;What has Madame Piriac got
+to do with this woman?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hear you have eight or ten thousand a year and can
+do what you like with it. And you cannot be more than
+twenty-three.... What a responsibility it must be for you!
+You are a friend of Miss Ingate&#8217;s and therefore on our side.
+Indeed, if a woman such as you were not on our side, I
+wonder whom we <em>could</em> count on. Miss Ingate is, of course,
+a subscriber to the Union&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Only a very little one,&#8221; cried Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had never felt so abashed since an ex-parlourmaid
+at Flank Hall, who had left everything to join the Salvation
+Army, had asked her once in the streets of Colchester
+whether she had found salvation. She knew that she, if any
+one, ought to subscribe to the Suffragette Union, and to
+subscribe largely. For she was a convinced suffragette by
+faith, because Miss Ingate was a convinced suffragette. If
+Miss Ingate had been a Mormon, Audrey also would have
+been a Mormon. And, although she hated to subscribe, she
+knew also that if Rosamund demanded from her any subscription,
+however large&mdash;even a thousand pounds&mdash;she would
+not know how to refuse. She felt before Rosamund as
+hundreds of women, and not a few men, had felt.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I may be leaving for Germany to-morrow,&#8221; Rosamund
+proceeded. &#8220;I may not see you again&mdash;at any rate for many
+weeks. May I write to London that you mean to support
+us?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was giving herself up for lost, and not without
+reason. She foreshadowed a future of steely self-sacrifice,
+propaganda, hammers, riots, and prison; with no self-indulgence
+in it, no fine clothes, no art, and no young men
+save earnest young men. She saw herself in the iron clutch
+of her own conscience and sense of duty. And she was
+frightened. But at that moment Nick rushed into the room,
+and the spell was broken. Nick considered that she had the
+right to monopolise Rosamund, and she monopolised her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate prudently gathered Audrey to her side, and
+was off with her. Nick ran to kiss them, and told them that
+Tommy was waiting for them in the other studio. They
+groped downstairs, guided by a wisp of light from Tommy&#8217;s
+studio.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why didn&#8217;t you come up?&#8221; asked Miss Ingate of
+Tommy in Tommy&#8217;s antechamber. &#8220;Have you and <em>she</em>
+quarrelled?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh no!&#8221; said Tommy. &#8220;But I&#8217;m afraid of her. She&#8217;d
+grab me if she had the least chance, and I don&#8217;t want to be
+grabbed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Tommy was arranging to escort them home, and had
+already got out on the landing, when Rosamund and Madame
+Piriac, followed by Nick holding a candle aloft, came down
+the stairs. A few words of explanation, a little innocent
+blundering on the part of Nick, a polite suggestion by
+Madame Piriac, and an imperious affirmative by Rosamund&mdash;and
+the two strangers to Paris found themselves
+in Madame Piriac&#8217;s waiting automobile on the way to
+their rooms!</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness of the car the four women could not distinguish
+each other&#8217;s faces. But Rosamund&#8217;s voice was
+audible in a monologue, and Miss Ingate trembled for
+Audrey and for the future.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is the most important political movement in the
+history of the world,&#8221; Rosamund was saying, not at all in a
+speechifying manner, but quite intimately and naturally.
+&#8220;Everybody admits that, and that&#8217;s what makes it so extraordinarily
+interesting, and that is why we have had such
+magnificent help from women in the very highest positions
+who wouldn&#8217;t dream of touching ordinary politics. It&#8217;s a
+marvellous thing to be in the movement, if we can only
+realise it. Don&#8217;t you think so, Mrs. Moncreiff?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey made no response. The other two sat silent.
+Miss Ingate thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s the girl going to do next? Surely she could
+mumble something.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The car curved and stopped.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here we are,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, delighted. &#8220;And
+thank you so much. I suppose all we have to do is just
+to push the bell and the door opens. Now Audrey, dear.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey did not stir.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Mon Dieu!</em>&#8220; murmured Madame Piriac, &#8220;What has
+she, little one?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Rosamund said stiffly and curtly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She is asleep.... It is very late. Four o&#8217;clock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Excellent as was Audrey&#8217;s excuse for her lapse, Rosamund
+was not at all pleased. That slumber was one of
+Rosamund&#8217;s rare defeats.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_12" id="chapter_12" />CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey was in a white piqué coat and short skirt, with
+pale blue blouse and pale blue hat&mdash;and at the extremity
+blue stockings and white tennis shoes. She picked up a
+tennis racket in its press, and prepared to leave the studio.
+She had bought the coat, the skirt, the blouse, the hat, the
+tennis shoes, the racket, the press, and practically all she
+wore, visible and invisible, at that very convenient and immense
+shop, the Bon Marché, whose only drawback was
+that it was always full. Everybody in the Quarter, except
+a few dolls not in earnest, bought everything at the Bon
+Marché, because the Bon Marché was so comprehensive and
+so reliable. If you desired a toothbrush, the Bon Marché
+not only supplied it, but delivered it in a 30-h.p. motor-van
+manned by two officials in uniform. And if you desired a
+bedroom suite, a pair of corsets, a box of pastels, an anthracite
+stove, or a new wallpaper, the Bon Marché would never
+shake its head.</p>
+
+<p>And Audrey was now of the Quarter. Many simple
+sojourners in the Quarter tried to imply the Latin Quarter
+when they said the Quarter. But the Quarter was only the
+Montparnasse Quarter. Nevertheless, it sufficed. It had
+its own boulevards, restaurants, cafés, concerts, theatres,
+palaces, shops, gardens, museums, and churches. There
+was no need to leave it, and if you were a proper amateur
+of the Quarter, you never did leave it save to scoff at other
+Quarters. Sometimes you fringed the Latin Quarter in the
+big cafés of the Boulevard St. Michel, and sometimes you
+strolled northwards as far as the Seine, and occasionally
+even crossed the Seine in order to enter the Louvre, which
+lined the other bank, but you did not go any farther. Why
+should you?</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had become so acclimatised to the Quarter that
+Miss Nickall&#8217;s studio seemed her natural home. It was very
+typically a woman&#8217;s studio of the Quarter. About thirty feet
+each way and fourteen feet high, with certain irregularities
+of shape, it was divided into corners. There were the two
+bed-corners, which were lounge-corners during the day; the
+afternoon-tea corner, with a piece or two of antique furniture
+and some old silk hangings, where on high afternoons
+tea was given to droves of visitors; and there was the culinary
+corner, with spirit-lamps, gas-rings, kettles, and a bowl
+or two over which you might spend a couple of arduous hours
+in ineffectually whipping up a mayonnaise for an impromptu
+lunch. Artistic operations were carried out in the middle of
+the studio, not too far from the stove, which never went out
+from November to May. A large mirror hung paramount
+on one wall. The remaining spaces of the studio were filled
+with old easels, canvases, old frames, old costumes and
+multifarious other properties for pictures, trunks, lamps,
+boards, tables, and bric-à-brac bought at the Ham-and-Old-Iron
+Fair. There were a million objects in the studio, and
+their situations had to be, and were, learnt off by heart.
+The scene of the toilette was a small attached chamber.</p>
+
+<p>The housekeeping combined the simplicity of the early
+Christians with the efficient organising of the twentieth century.
+It began at about half-past seven, when unseen but
+heard beings left fresh rolls and the <em>New York Herald</em> or
+the <em>Daily Mail</em> at the studio door. You made your own bed,
+just as you cleaned your own boots or washed your own face.
+The larder consisted of tins of coffee, tea, sugar, and cakes,
+with an intermittent supply of butter and lemons. The infusing
+of tea and coffee was practised in perfection. It
+mattered not in the least whether toilette or breakfast came
+first, but it was exceedingly important that the care of the
+stove should precede both. Between ten and eleven the concierge&#8217;s
+wife arrived with tools and utensils; she swept and
+dusted under a considerable percentage of the million objects&mdash;and
+the responsibilities of housekeeping were finished until
+the next day, for afternoon tea, if it occurred, was a diversion
+and not a toil.</p>
+
+<p>A great expanse of twelve to fifteen hours lay in front
+of you. It was not uncomfortably and unchangeably cut
+into fixed portions by the incidence of lunch and dinner.
+You ate when you felt inclined to eat, and nearly always at
+restaurants where you met your acquaintances. Meals were
+the least important happenings of the day. You had no
+reliable watch, and you needed none, for you had no fixed
+programme. You worked till you had had enough of work.
+You went forth into the world exactly when the idea took
+you. If you were bored, you found a friend and went to
+sit in a café. You were ready for anything. The word
+&#8220;rule&#8221; had been omitted from your dictionary. You retired
+to bed when the still small voice within murmured
+that there was naught else to do. You woke up in the
+morning amid cups and saucers, lingerie, masterpieces, and
+boots. And the next day was the same. All the days were
+the same. Weeks passed with inexpressible rapidity, and
+all things beyond the Quarter had the quality of vague
+murmurings and noises behind the scenes.</p>
+
+<p>May had come. Audrey and Miss Ingate had lived in
+the studio for six months before they realised that they had
+settled down there and that habits had been formed. Still,
+they had accomplished something. Miss Ingate had gone
+back into oils and was attending life classes, and Audrey,
+by terrible application and by sitting daily at the feet of an
+oldish lady in black, and by refusing to speak English between
+breakfast and dinner, had acquired a good accent and
+much fluency in the French tongue. Now, when she spoke
+French, she thought in French, and she was extremely proud
+of the achievement. Also she was acquainted with the names
+and styles of all known modern painters from pointillistes to
+cubistes, and, indeed, with the latest eccentricities in all the
+arts. She could tell who was immortal, and she was fully
+aware that there was no real painting in England. In brief,
+she was perhaps more Parisian even than she had hoped. She
+had absorbed Paris into her system. It was still not the Paris
+of her early fancy; in particular, it lacked elegance; but it
+richly satisfied her.</p>
+
+<p>She had on this afternoon of young May an appointment
+with a young man. And the appointment seemed quite
+natural, causing no inward disturbance. Less than ever could
+she understand her father&#8217;s ukases against young men and
+against every form of self-indulgence. Now, when she had
+the idea of doing a thing, she merely did it. Her instincts
+were her only guide, and, though her instincts were often
+highly complex, they seldom puzzled her. The old instinct
+that the desire to do a thing was a sufficient reason against
+doing it, had expired. For many weeks she had lived with
+a secret fear that such unbridled conduct must lead to terrible
+catastrophes, but as nothing happened this fear also
+expired. She was constantly with young men, and often with
+men not young; she liked it, but just as much she liked being
+with women. She never had any difficulties with men. Miss
+Thompkins insinuated at intervals that she flirted, but she
+had the sharpest contempt for flirtation, and as a practice
+put it on a level with embezzlement or arson. Miss Thompkins,
+however, kept on insinuating. Audrey regarded herself
+as decidedly wiser than Miss Thompkins. Her opinions
+on vital matters changed almost weekly, but she was always
+absolutely sure that the new opinion was final and incontrovertible.
+Her scorn of the old English Audrey, though concealed,
+was terrific.</p>
+
+<p>And it is to be remembered that she was a widow. She was
+never half a second late, now, in replying when addressed
+as &#8220;Mrs. Moncreiff.&#8221; Frequently she thought that she in
+fact was a widow. Widowhood was a very advantageous
+state. It had a free pass to all affairs of interest. It opened
+wide the door of the world. It recked nothing of girlish
+codes. It abolished discussions concerning conventional propriety.
+Its chief defect, for Audrey, was that if she met
+another widow, or even a married woman, she had to take
+heed lest she stumbled. Fortunately, neither widows nor
+wives were very prevalent in the Quarter. And Audrey had
+attained skill in the use of the state of widowhood. She told
+no more infantile perilous tales about husbands who ate peas
+with a knife. In her thankfulness that the tyrannic Rosamund
+had gone to Germany, and that Madame Piriac had
+vanished back into unknown Paris, Audrey was at pains to
+take to heart the lesson of a semi-hysterical blunder.</p>
+
+<p>She descended the dark, dusty oak stairs utterly content.
+And at the door of the gloomy den of the concierge the concierge&#8217;s
+wife was standing. She was a new wife, the young
+mate of a middle-aged husband, and she had only been illuminating
+the den (which was kitchen, parlour, and bedroom
+in a space of ten feet by eight) for about a month. She was
+plump and pretty, and also she was fair, which was unusual
+for a Frenchwoman. She wore a striped frock and a little
+black apron, and her yellow hair was waved with art. Audrey
+offered her the key of the studio with a smile, and, as Audrey
+expected, the concierge&#8217;s wife began to chatter. The concierge&#8217;s
+wife loved to chatter with Anglo-Saxon tenants, and
+she specially enjoyed chattering with Audrey, because of the
+superior quality of Audrey&#8217;s French and of her tips. Audrey
+listened, proud because she could understand so well and
+answer so fluently.</p>
+
+<p>The sun, which in May shone on the courtyard for about
+forty minutes in the afternoon on clear days, caught these
+two creatures in the same beam. They made a delicious
+sight&mdash;Audrey dark, with her large forehead and negligible
+nose, and the concierge&#8217;s wife rather doll-like in the regularity
+of her features. They were delicious not only because
+of their varied charm, but because they were so absurdly
+wise and omniscient, and because they had come to settled
+conclusions about every kind of worldly problem. Youth and
+vitality equalised their ranks, and the fact that Audrey possessed
+many ascertained ancestors, and a part of the earth&#8217;s
+surface, and much money, and that the concierge&#8217;s wife possessed
+nothing but herself and a few bits of furniture, was
+not of the slightest importance.</p>
+
+<p>The concierge&#8217;s wife, after curiosity concerning tennis,
+grew confidential about herself, and more confidential. And
+at last she lowered her tones, and with sparkling eyes
+communicated information to Audrey in a voice that was
+little more than a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! truly? I must go,&#8221; hastily said Audrey, blushing,
+and off she ran, reduced in an instant to the schoolgirl.
+Her departure was a retreat. These occasional discomfitures
+made a faint blot on the excellence of being a
+widow.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_13" id="chapter_13" />CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SWOON</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the north-east corner of the Luxembourg Gardens,
+where the lawn-tennis courts were permitted by a public
+authority which was strangely impartial and cosmopolitan
+in the matter of games, Miss Ingate sat sketching a group
+of statuary with the Rue de Vaugirard behind it. She
+was sketching in the orthodox way, on the orthodox stool,
+with the orthodox combined paint-box and easel, and the
+orthodox police permit in the cover of the box.</p>
+
+<p>The bright and warm weather was tonic; it accounted
+for the whole temperament of Parisians. Under such a
+sky, with such a delicate pricking vitalisation in the air,
+it was impossible not to be Parisian. The trees, all
+arranged in beautiful perspectives, were coming into leaf,
+and through their screens could be seen everywhere children
+shouting as they played at ball and top, and both kinds
+of nurses, and scores of perambulators and mothers, and
+a few couples dallying with their sensations, and old men
+reading papers, and old women knitting and relating
+anecdotes or entire histories. And nobody was curious
+beyond his own group. The people were perfectly at home
+in this grandiose setting of gardens and fountains and
+grey palaces, with theatres, boulevards and the odour and
+roar of motor-buses just beyond the palisades. And Miss
+Ingate in the exciting sunshine gazed around with her
+subdued Essex grin, as if saying: &#8220;It&#8217;s the most topsy-turvy
+planet that I was ever on, and why am I, of all
+people, trying to make this canvas look like a piece of
+sculpture and a street?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, Miss Ingate,&#8221; said tall red-haired Tommy, who
+was standing over her. &#8220;Before you go any farther, do
+look at the line of roofs and see how interesting it is;
+it&#8217;s really full of interest. And you&#8217;ve simply not got on
+speaking terms with it yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No more I have! No more I have!&#8221; cried Miss
+Ingate, glancing round at Audrey, who was swinging her
+racket. &#8220;Thank you, Tommy. I ought to have thought
+of it for my own sake, because roofs are so much
+easier than statues, and I must get an effect somewhere,
+mustn&#8217;t I?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Tommy winked at Audrey. But Tommy&#8217;s wink was
+as naught to the great invisible wink of Miss Ingate,
+the everlasting wink that derided the universe and the sun
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>Then Musa appeared, with paraphernalia, at the end
+of a path. Accompanying him was a specimen of the
+creature known on tennis lawns as &#8220;a fourth.&#8221; He was
+almost nameless, tall, very young, with the seedlings of
+a moustache and a space of nude calf between his knickerbockers
+and his socks. He was very ceremonious, shy,
+ungainly and blushful. He played a fair-to-middling game;
+and nothing more need be said of him.</p>
+
+<p>Musa by contrast was an accomplished man of the
+world, and the fact that the fourth obviously regarded
+him as a hero helped Musa to behave in a manner satisfactory
+to himself in front of these English and American
+women, so strange, so exotic, so kind, and so disconcerting.
+Musa looked upon Britain as a romantic isle where people
+died for love. And as for America, in his mind it was
+as sinister, as wondrous, and as fatal as the Indies might
+seem to a bank clerk in Bradford. He had need of every
+moral assistance in this or any other social ordeal. For,
+though he was still the greatest violinist in Paris, and
+perhaps in the world, he could not yet prove this profound
+truth by the only demonstration which the world
+accepts.</p>
+
+<p>If he played in studios he was idolised. If he played
+at small concerts in unknown halls he was received with
+rapture. But he was never lionised. The great concert
+halls never saw him on their platforms; his name was
+never in the newspapers; and hospitable personages never
+fought together for his presence at their tables, even if
+occasionally they invited him to perform for charity in
+return for a glass of claret and a sandwich. Monsieur
+Dauphin had attempted to force the invisible barriers for
+him, but without success. All his admirers in the Quarter
+stuck to it that he was in the rank of Kreisler and Ysaye;
+at the same time they were annoyed with him inasmuch
+as he did not force the world to acknowledge the prophetic
+good taste of the Quarter. And Musa made mistakes.
+He ought to have arrived at studios in a magnificent
+automobile, and to have given superb and uproarious
+repasts, and to have rendered innumerable women exquisitely
+unhappy. Whereas he arrived by tube or bus, never
+offered hospitality of any sort, and was like a cat with
+women. Hence the attitude of the Quarter was patronising,
+as if the Quarter had said: &#8220;Yes, he is the greatest
+violinist in Paris and perhaps in the world; but that&#8217;s all,
+and it isn&#8217;t enough.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The young man and the boy made ready for the game
+as for a gladiatorial display. Their frowning seriousness
+proved that they had comprehended the true British idea
+of sport. Musa came round the net to Audrey&#8217;s side, but
+Audrey said in French:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Thompkins and I will play together. See, we
+are going to beat you and Gustave.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa retired. A few indifferent spectators had collected.
+Gustave, the fourth, had to serve.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Play!&#8221; he muttered, in a thick and threatening voice,
+whose depth was the measure of his nervousness.</p>
+
+<p>He served a double fault to Tommy, and then a fault
+to Audrey. The fourth ball he got over. Audrey played it.
+The two males rushed with appalling force together on
+the centre line in pursuit, and a terrible collision occurred.
+Musa fell away from Gustave as from a wall. When he
+arose out of the pebbly dust his right arm hung very
+limp from the shoulder. No sooner had he risen than he
+sank again, and the blood began to leave his face, and
+his eyes closed. The fourth, having recovered from the
+collision, knelt down by his side, and gazed earnestly at
+him. Tommy and Audrey hurried towards the statuesque
+group, and Audrey was thinking: &#8220;Why did I refuse to
+let him play with me? If he had played with me there
+would have been no accident.&#8221; She reproached herself
+because she well knew that only out of the most absurd
+contrariness had she repulsed Musa. Or was it that she
+had repulsed him from fear of something that Tommy
+might say or look?</p>
+
+<p>In a few seconds, strongly drawn by this marvellous
+piece of luck, promenaders were darting with joyous rapidity
+from north, south, east and west to witness the tragedy.
+There were nurses with coloured streamers six feet long,
+lusty children, errand boys, lads, and sundry nondescript
+men, some of whom carefully folded up their newspapers
+as they hurried to the cynosure. They beheld the body
+as though it were a corpse, and the corpse of an enemy;
+they formulated and discussed theories of the event; they
+examined minutely the rackets which had been thrown on
+the ground. They were exercising the immemorial rights
+of unmoved curiosity; they held themselves as indifferent
+as gods, and the murmur of their impartial voices floated
+soothingly over Musa, and the shadow of their active
+profiles covered him from the sparkling sunshine. Somebody
+mentioned policemen, in the plural, but none came.
+All remarked in turn that the ladies were English, as
+though that were a sufficient explanation of the whole
+affair.</p>
+
+<p>No one said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is Musa, the greatest violinist in Paris and perhaps
+in Europe.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Desperately Audrey stooped and seized Musa beneath
+the armpits to lift him to a sitting position.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better leave him alone,&#8221; said Tommy, with a
+kind of ironic warning and innuendo.</p>
+
+<p>But Audrey still struggled with the mass, convinced that
+she was showing initiative and firmness of character. The
+fourth with fierce vigour began to aid her, and another
+youth from the crowd was joining the enterprise when
+Miss Ingate arrived from her stool.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Drop him, you silly little thing!&#8221; adjured Miss
+Ingate. &#8220;Instead of lifting his head you ought to lift
+his feet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey stared uncertain for a moment, and then let
+the mass subside. Whereupon Miss Ingate with all her
+strength lifted both legs to the height of her waist, giving
+Musa the appearance of a wheelless barrow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You want to let the blood run <em>into</em> his head,&#8221; said
+Miss Ingate with a self-conscious grin at the increasing
+crowd. &#8220;People only faint because the blood leaves their
+heads&mdash;that&#8217;s why they go pale.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa&#8217;s cheeks showed a tinge of red. You could almost
+see the precious blood being decanted by Miss Ingate out
+of the man&#8217;s feet into his head. In a minute he opened
+his eyes. Miss Ingate lowered the legs.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was only the pain that made him feel queer,&#8221; she
+said.</p>
+
+<p>The episode was over, and the crowd very gradually
+and reluctantly scattered, disappointed at the lack of a
+fatal conclusion. Musa stood up, smiling apologetically,
+and Audrey supported him by the left arm, for the right
+could not be touched.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hadn&#8217;t you better take him home, Mrs. Moncreiff?&#8221;
+Tommy suggested. &#8220;You can get a taxi here in the
+Rue de Vaugirard.&#8221; She did not smile, but her green
+eyes glinted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I will,&#8221; said Audrey curtly.</p>
+
+<p>And Tommy&#8217;s eyes glinted still more.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And I shall get a doctor,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;His arm
+may be broken.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should,&#8221; Tommy concurred with gravity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, if it is, <em>I</em> can&#8217;t set it,&#8221; said Miss Ingate
+quizzically. &#8220;I was getting on so well with the high
+lights on that statue. I&#8217;ll come along back to the studio
+in about half an hour.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The fourth, who had been hovering near like a criminal
+magnetised by his crime, bounded off furiously at the
+suggestion that he should stop a taxi at the entrance to
+the gardens.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope he has broken his arm and he can never play
+any more,&#8221; thought Audrey, astoundingly, as she and
+the fourth helped pale Musa into the open taxi. &#8220;It will
+just serve those two right.&#8221; She meant Miss Ingate and
+Tommy.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner did the taxi start than Musa began to cry.
+He did not seem to care that he was in the midst of a
+busy street, with a piquant widow by his side.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_14" id="chapter_14" />CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>MISS INGATE POINTS OUT THE DOOR</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Why did you cry this afternoon, Musa?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was lighting the big lamp in the Moncreiff-Ingate
+studio. It made exactly the same moon as it had
+made on the night in the previous autumn when Audrey
+had first seen it. She had brought Musa to the studio
+because she did not care to take him to his own lodgings.
+(As a fact, nobody that she knew, except Musa, had ever
+seen Musa&#8217;s lodgings.) This was almost the first moment
+they had had to themselves since the visit of the little
+American doctor from the Rue Servandoni. The rumour
+of Musa&#8217;s misfortune had spread through the Quarter like
+the smell of a fire, and various persons of both sexes
+had called to inspect, to sympathise, and to take tea,
+which Audrey was continually making throughout the late
+afternoon. Musa had had an egg for his tea, and more
+than one girl had helped to spread the yolk and the
+white on pieces of bread-and-butter, for the victim of
+destiny had his right arm in a sling. Audrey had let
+them do it, as a mother patronisingly lets her friends
+amuse her baby.</p>
+
+<p>In the end they had all gone; Tommy had enigmatically
+looked in and gone, and Miss Ingate had gone to dine at
+the favourite restaurant of the hour in the Rue Léopold
+Robert. Audrey had refused to go, asserting that which
+was not true; namely, that she had had an enormous
+tea, including far too many <em>petits fours</em>. Miss Ingate in
+departing had given a glance at her sketch (fixed on the
+easel), and another at Audrey, and another at Musa, all
+equally ironic and kindly.</p>
+
+<p>Musa also had declined dinner, but he had done nothing
+to indicate that he meant to leave. He sat mournful and
+passive in a basket chair, his sling making a patch of
+white in the gloom. The truth was that he suffered from
+a disability not uncommon among certain natures: he did
+not know how to go. He could arrive with ease, but he
+was no expert at vanishing. Audrey was troubled. As
+suited her age and condition, she was apt to feel the
+responsibility of the whole universe. She knew that she
+was responsible for Musa&#8217;s accident, and now she was
+beginning to be aware that she was responsible for his
+future as well. She was sure that he needed encouragement
+and guidance. She pictured him with his fiddle under
+his chin, masterful, confident, miraculous, throwing a spell
+over everyone within earshot. But actually she saw him
+listless and vanquished in the basket chair, and she
+perceived that only a strongly influential and determined
+woman, such as herself, could save him from disaster.
+No man could do it. His tears had shaken her. She was
+willing to make allowances for a foreigner, but she had
+never seen a man cry before, and the spectacle was very
+disturbing. It inspired her with a fear that even she
+could not be the salvation of Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I demanded something of you,&#8221; she said, after lowering
+the wick of the lamp to exactly the right point, and
+staring at it for a greater length of time than was
+necessary or even seemly. She spoke French, and as she
+listened to her French accent she heard that it was good.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am done for!&#8221; came the mournful voice of Musa
+out of the obscurity behind the lamp.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What! You are done for? But you know what the
+doctor said. He said no bone was broken. Only a little
+strain, and the pain from your&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Admirable though
+her French accent was, she could not think of the French
+word for &#8220;funny-bone.&#8221; Indeed she had never learnt it.
+So she said it in English. Musa knew not what she
+meant, and thus a slight chasm was opened between them
+which neither could bridge. She finished: &#8220;In one week
+you are going to be able to play again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>Relieved as she was to discover that Musa had cried
+because he was done for, and not because he was hurt,
+she was still worried by his want of elasticity, of resiliency.
+Nevertheless she was agreeably worried. The doctor had
+disappointed her by his light optimism, but he could not
+smile away Musa&#8217;s moral indisposition. The large vagueness
+of the studio, the very faint twilight still showing
+through the great window, the silence and intimacy, the
+sounds of the French language, the gleam of the white
+sling, all combined to permeate her with delicious melancholy.
+And not for everlasting bliss would she have had Musa
+strong, obstinate, and certain of success.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A week!&#8221; he murmured. &#8220;It is for ever. A week
+of practice lost is eternally lost. And on Wednesday one
+had invited me to play at Foa&#8217;s. And I cannot.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Foa? Who is Foa?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What! You do not know Foa? In order to succeed
+it is necessary, it is essential, to play at Foa&#8217;s. That
+alone gives the <em>cachet</em>. Dauphin told me last week. He
+arranged it. After having played at Foa&#8217;s all is possible.
+Dauphin was about to abandon me when he met Foa.
+Now I am ruined. This afternoon after the tennis I was
+going to Durand&#8217;s to get the new Caprice of Roussel&mdash;he
+is an intimate friend of Foa. I should have studied
+it in five days. They would have been ravished by the
+attention .... But why talk I thus? No, I could not
+have played Caprice to please them. I am cursed. I will
+never again touch the violin, I swear it. What am I?
+Do I not live on the money <em>lent</em> to me regularly by
+Mademoiselle Thompkins and Mademoiselle Nickall?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t, Musa?&#8221; Audrey burst out in English.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, yes!&#8221; said Musa violently. &#8220;But last month,
+from Mademoiselle Nickall&mdash;nothing! She is in London;
+she forgets. It is better like that. Soon I shall be
+playing in the Opéra orchestra, fourth desk, one hundred
+francs a month. That will be the end. There can be
+no other.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Instead of admiring the secret charity of Tommy and
+Nick, which she had never suspected, Audrey was very
+annoyed by it. She detested it and resented it. And
+especially the charity of Miss Thompkins. She considered
+that from a woman with eyes and innuendoes like Tommy&#8217;s
+charity amounted to a sneer.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is extremely unsatisfactory,&#8221; she said, dropping on
+to Miss Ingate&#8217;s sofa.</p>
+
+<p>Not another word was spoken. Audrey tapped her foot.
+Musa creaked in the basket chair. He avoided her eyes,
+but occasionally she glared at him like a schoolmistress.
+Then her gaze softened&mdash;he looked so ill, so helpless, so
+hopeless. She wanted to light a cigarette for him, but she
+was somehow bound to the sofa. She wanted him
+to go&mdash;she hated the prospect of his going. He could not
+possibly go, alone, to his solitary room. Who would
+tend him, soothe him, put him to bed? He was an
+infant....</p>
+
+<p>Then, after a long while, Miss Ingate entered sharply.
+Audrey coughed and sprang up.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; ejaculated Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I think I shall just change my boots,&#8221; said Audrey,
+smoothing out the short white skirt. And she disappeared
+into the dressing-room that gave on to the studio.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as she was gone, Miss Ingate went close up
+to Musa&#8217;s chair. He had not moved.</p>
+
+<p>She said, smiling, with the corners of her mouth well
+down:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you see that door, young man?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she indicated the door.</p>
+
+<p>When Audrey came back into the studio.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey,&#8221; cried Miss Ingate shrilly. &#8220;What you been
+doing to Musa? As soon as you went out he up vehy
+quickly and ran away.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At this information Audrey was more obviously troubled
+and dashed than Miss Ingate had ever seen her, in Paris.
+She made no answer at all. Fortunately, lying on the table
+in front of the mirror was a letter for Miss Ingate which had
+arrived by the evening post. Audrey went for it, pretending
+to search, and then handed it over with a casual gesture.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It looks as if it was from Nick,&#8221; she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, as she was putting on her spectacles,
+remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope you weren&#8217;t hurt&mdash;me not coming with you and
+Musa in the taxi from the gardens this afternoon, dear.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Me? Oh no!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It wasn&#8217;t that I was so vehy interested in my sketch.
+But to my mind there&#8217;s nothing more ridiculous than
+several women all looking after one man. Miss Thompkins
+thought so, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Did she?... What does Nick say?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate had put the letter flat on the table in the full
+glare of the lamp, and was leaning over it, her grey hair
+brilliantly illuminated. Audrey kept in the shadow and in
+the distance. Miss Ingate had a habit of reading to herself
+under her breath. She read slowly, and turned pages over
+with a deliberate movement.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Miss Ingate twisting her head sideways so
+as to see Audrey standing like a ghost afar off. &#8220;Well, she
+<em>has</em> been going it! She&#8217;s broken a window in Oxford
+Street with a hammer; she had one night in the cells for
+that. And she&#8217;d have had to go to prison altogether only
+some unknown body paid the fine for her. She says:
+&#8217;There are some mean persons in the world, and he was
+one. I feel sure it was a man, and an American, too.
+The owners of the shops are going to bring a law action
+against me for the value of the plate-glass. It is such fun.
+And our leaders are splendid and so in earnest. They say
+we are doing a great historical work, and we are. The
+London correspondent of the <em>New York Times</em> interviewed
+me because I am American. I did not want to be interviewed,
+but our instructions are&mdash;never to avoid publicity.
+There is to be no more window breaking for the present.
+Something new is being arranged. The hammer is so
+heavy, and sometimes the first blow does not break the
+window. The situation is <em>very</em> serious, and the Government
+is at its wits&#8217; end. This we <em>know</em>. We have our
+agents everywhere. All the most thoughtful people are
+strongly in favour of votes for women; but of course some
+of them are afraid of our methods. This only shows that
+they have not learnt the lessons of history. I wonder that
+you and dear Mrs. Moncreiff do not come and help. Many
+women ask after you, and everybody at Kingsway is very
+curious to know Mrs. Moncreiff. Since Mrs. Burke&#8217;s
+death, Betty has taken rooms in this house, but perhaps
+Tommy has told you this already. If so, excuse. Betty&#8217;s
+health is very bad since they let her out last. With regard
+to the rent, will you pay the next quarter direct to the
+concierge yourselves? It will save so much trouble. I
+must tell you&mdash;&mdash;&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Slowly Audrey moved up to the table and leaned over the
+letter by Miss Ingate&#8217;s side.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So you see!&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;Well, we must
+show it to Tommy in the morning. &#8216;Not learnt the lessons
+of history,&#8217; eh? I know who&#8217;s been talking to Nick. <em>I</em>
+know as well as if I could hear them speaking.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you think we ought to go to London?&#8221; Audrey
+demanded bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; Miss Ingate answered, with impartial irony on
+her long upper lip. &#8220;I don&#8217;t know. Of course I played the
+organ all the way down Regent Street. I feel very strongly
+about votes for women, and once when I was helping in the
+night and day vigil at the House of Commons and some
+Ministers came out smoking their <em>cigahs</em> and asked us how
+we liked it, I was vehy, vehy angry. However, the next
+morning I had a cigarette myself and felt better. But I&#8217;m
+not a professional reformer, like a lot of them are at Kingsway.
+It isn&#8217;t my meat and drink. And I don&#8217;t think it
+matters much whether we get the vote next year or in ten
+years. I&#8217;m Winifred Ingate before I&#8217;m anything else. And
+so long as I&#8217;m pretty comfortable no one&#8217;s going to make
+me believe that the world&#8217;s coming to an end. I know one
+thing&mdash;if we did get the vote it would take me all my time
+to keep most of the women I know from, voting for something
+silly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;re very sensible sometimes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m always very sensible,&#8221; Winnie retorted, &#8220;until I
+get nervous. Then I&#8217;m apt to skid.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Without more words they transformed the studio, by a
+few magical strokes, from a drawing-room into a bedroom.
+Audrey, the last to retire, extinguished the lamp, and
+tripped to her bed behind her screen. Only a few slight
+movements disturbed the silence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; said Audrey suddenly. &#8220;I do believe you&#8217;re
+one of those awful people who compromise. You&#8217;re always
+right in the middle of the raft.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Miss Ingate, being fast asleep, offered no answer.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_15" id="chapter_15" />CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RIGHT BANK</h3>
+
+
+<p>The next day, after a studio lunch which contained too
+much starch and was deficient in nitrogen, Miss Ingate,
+putting on her hat and jacket, said with a caustic gesture:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I must be off to my life class. And much good
+may it do me!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The astonishing creature had apparently begun existence
+again, and begun it on the plane of art, but this did not prevent
+the observer within her from taking the same attitude
+towards her second career as she had taken towards her first.
+Nothing seemed more meet for Miss Ingate&#8217;s ironic contemplation
+than the daily struggle for style and beauty in
+the academies of the Quarter.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey made no reply. The morning had been unusually
+silent, giving considerable scope for Miss Ingate&#8217;s faculty
+for leaving well alone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose you aren&#8217;t coming out?&#8221; added Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. I went out a bit this morning. You know I have
+my French lesson in twenty minutes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate seized her apparatus and departed. The
+instant she was alone Audrey began in haste to change into
+all her best clothes, which were black, and which the
+Quarter seldom saw. Fashionably arrayed, she sat down
+and wrote a note to Madame Schmitt, her French instructress,
+to say that she had been suddenly called away on
+urgent business, and asking her nevertheless to count the
+time as a lesson given. This done, she put her credit notes
+and her cheque-book into her handbag, and, leaving the note
+with the concierge&#8217;s wife, who bristled with interesting
+suspicions, she vanished into Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The weather was even more superb than on the previous
+day. Paris glittered around her as she drove, slowly, in a
+horse-taxi, to the Place de l&#8217;Opéra on the right bank,
+where the <em>grand boulevard</em> meets the Avenue de l&#8217;Opéra and
+the Rue de la Paix. Here was the very centre of the
+fashionable and pleasure-ridden district which the Quarter
+held in noble scorn. She had seen it before, because she had
+started a banking account (under advice from Mr. Foulger),
+and the establishment of her bankers was situate at the
+corner of the Avenue de l&#8217;Opéra and the Rue de la Paix.
+But she knew little of the district, and such trifling information
+as she had acquired was tinged by the natural hostility
+of a young woman who for over six months, with no compulsion
+to do so, had toiled regularly and fiercely in the
+pursuit of knowledge. She paid off the cab, and went to
+test the soundness of her bankers. The place was full of
+tourists, and in one department of it young men in cages,
+who knew not the Quarter, were counting, and ladling, and
+pinning together, and engorging, and dealing forth, the
+currency and notes of all the great nations of the earth.
+The spectacle was inspiring.</p>
+
+<p>In half a year the restive but finally obedient Mr. Foulger
+had sent three thousand pounds to Paris in the unpoetic
+form of small oblong pieces of paper signed with his own
+dull signature. Audrey desired to experience the thrill of
+authentic money. She waited some time in front of a cage,
+with her cheque-book open on the counter, until a young
+man glanced at her interrogatively through the bars.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How much money have I got here, please?&#8221; she asked.
+She ought to have said: &#8220;What is my balance, please?&#8221;
+But nobody had taught her the sacred formula.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What name?&#8221; said the clerk.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Moze&mdash;Audrey Moze,&#8221; she answered, for she had not
+dared to acquaint Mr. Foulger with her widowhood, and his
+cheques were made out to herself.</p>
+
+<p>The clerk vanished, and in a moment reappeared,
+silently wrote something on a little form, and pushed it to
+her under the grille. She read:</p>
+
+<p>/*
+&#8220;73,065 frs. 50c.&#8221;
+*/</p>
+
+<p>The fact was that in six months she had spent little more
+than the amount which she had brought with her from
+London. Having begun in simplicity, in simplicity she had
+continued, partly because she had been too industrious and
+too earnest for luxurious caprices, partly because she had
+never been accustomed to anything else but simplicity, and
+partly from wilfulness. It had pleased her to think that she
+was piling tens of thousands upon tens of thousands&mdash;in
+francs.</p>
+
+<p>But in the night she had decided that the moment had
+arrived for a change in the great campaign of seeing life
+and tasting it.</p>
+
+<p>She timorously drew a cheque for eleven thousand
+francs, and asked for ten thousand in notes and a thousand
+in gold. The clerk showed no trace of either astonishment
+or alarm; but he insisted on her endorsing the cheque.
+When she saw the gold, she changed half of it for ten notes
+of fifty francs each.</p>
+
+<p>Emerging with false but fairly plausible nonchalance
+from the crowded establishment, where other clerks were
+selling tickets to Palestine, Timbuctoo, Bagdad, Berlin, and
+all the abodes of happiness in the world, she saw at the
+newspaper kiosk opposite the little blue poster of an
+English daily. It said: &#8220;More Suffragette Riots.&#8221; She
+had a qualm, for her conscience was apt to be tyrannic, and
+its empire over her had been strengthened by the long,
+steady course of hard work which she had accomplished.
+Miss Ingate&#8217;s arguments had not placated that conscience.
+It had said to her in the night: &#8220;If ever there was a girl
+who ought to assist heartily in the emancipation of women,
+that girl is you, Audrey Moze.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pooh!&#8221; she replied to her conscience, for she could
+always confute it with a sharp word&mdash;for a time.</p>
+
+<p>And she crossed to the <em>grand boulevard</em>, and turned
+westward along the splendid, humming, roaring thoroughfare
+gay with flags and gleaming with such plate-glass as
+Nick the militant would have loved to shatter. Certainly
+there was nothing like this street in the Quarter. The
+Quarter could equal it neither in shops, nor in cafés, nor in
+vehicles, nor in crowds. It was an exultant thoroughfare,
+and Audrey caught its buoyancy, which could be distinctly
+seen in the feather on her hat. At the end of it she passed
+into the cool shade of a music-shop with the name
+&#8220;Durand&#8221; on its façade. She had found the address, and
+another one, in the telephone book at the Café de Versailles
+that morning. It was an immense shop containing millions
+of pieces of music for all instruments and all tastes. Yet
+when she modestly asked for the Caprice for violin of
+Roussel, the <em>morceau</em> was brought to her without the slightest
+hesitation, together with the pianoforte accompaniment.
+The price was twelve francs.</p>
+
+<p>Her gloved hand closed round the slim roll with the
+delicate firmness which was actuating all her proceedings on
+that magnificent afternoon. She was determined to save
+Musa not merely from himself, but from Miss Thompkins
+and everybody. It was not that she was specially interested
+in Musa. No! She was interested in a clean, neat job&mdash;that
+was all. She had begun to take charge of Musa, and
+she intended to carry the affair through. He had the ability
+to succeed, and he should succeed. It would be ridiculous
+for him not to succeed. From certain hints, and from a
+deeply sagacious instinct, she had divined that money and
+management were the only ingredients lacking to Musa&#8217;s
+triumph. She could supply both these elements; and she
+would. And her reward would be the pride of the workman
+in his job.</p>
+
+<p>Now her firmness hesitated. She retraced the boulevard
+to the Place de l&#8217;Opéra, and then took the Rue de la Paix.
+In the first shop on the left-hand side, next to her bankers,
+she saw amid a dazzling collection of jewelled articles for
+travellers and letter-writers and diary-keepers, a sublime
+gold handbag, or, as the French say, hand-sack. Its clasp
+was set with a sapphire. Impulse sent her gliding right
+into the shop, with the words already on her lips: &#8220;How
+much is that gold hand-sack in the window?&#8221; But when
+she reached the hushed and shadowed interior, which was
+furnished like a drawing-room with soft carpets and
+tapestried chairs, she beheld dozens of gold hand-sacks
+glinting like secret treasure in a cave; and she was
+embarrassed by the number and variety of them. A well-dressed
+and affable lady and gentleman, with a quite remarkable
+similarity of prominent noses, welcomed her in general
+terms, and seemed surprised, and even a little pained, when
+she talked about buying and selling. She came out of the
+shop with a gold hand-sack which had cost twelve hundred
+francs, and all her money was in it.</p>
+
+<p>Fortified by the impressive bauble, she walked along the
+street to the Place Vendôme, where she descried in the distance
+the glittering signs and arms of the Hôtel du Danube.
+Then she walked up the opposite pavement of the Rue de la
+Paix, and down again and up again until she had grasped
+its significance.</p>
+
+<p>It was a street of jewellery, perfumes, antiques, gloves,
+hats, frocks, and furs. It was a street wherein the lily was
+painted and gold was gilded. Every window was a miracle
+of taste, refinement, and costliness. Every article in every
+window was so dear that no article was ticketed with its
+price, save a few wafer-like watches and jewelled rings that
+bore tiny figures, such as 12,500 francs, 40,000 francs.
+Despite her wealth, Audrey felt poor. The upper windows
+of nearly all the great buildings were arrayed with plants
+in full bloom. The roadway was covered with superb
+automobiles, some of them nearly as long as trains. About
+half of them stood in repose at the kerb, and Audrey as she
+strolled could see through their panes of bevelled glass the
+complex luxury within of toy dogs, clocks, writing-pads,
+mirrors, powder boxes, parasols, and the lounging arrogance
+of uniformed menials. At close intervals women passed
+rapidly across the pavements to or from these automobiles.
+If they were leaving a shop, the automobile sprang into life,
+dogs, menials, and all, the door was opened, the woman
+slipped in like a mechanical toy, the door banged, the
+menial jumped, and with trumpet tones the entire machine
+curved and swept away. The aspect of these women made
+Audrey feel glad that she was wearing her best clothes, and
+simultaneously made her feel that her best clothes were worse
+than useless.</p>
+
+<p>She saw an automobile shop with a card at the door:
+&#8220;Town and touring cars for hire by day, week, or month.&#8221;
+A gorgeous Mercédès, too spick, too span, altogether too
+celestial for earthly use, occupied most of the shop.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good afternoon, Madame,&#8221; said a man in bad English.
+For Audrey had misguided herself into the emporium. She
+did not care to be addressed in her own tongue; she even
+objected to the instant discovery of her nationality, of which
+at the moment she was ashamed. And so it was with
+frigidity that she inquired whether cars were to be hired.</p>
+
+<p>The shopman hesitated. Audrey knew that she had
+committed an indiscretion. It was impossible that cars
+should be handed out thus unceremoniously to anybody who
+had the fancy to enter the shop! Cars were naturally the
+subject of negotiations and references.... And then the
+shopman, espying the gold bag, and being by it and by the
+English frigidity humbled to his proper station, fawned and
+replied that he had cars for hire, and the best cars. Did the
+lady want a large car or a small car? She wanted a large
+car. Did she want a town or a touring car? She wanted a
+town car, and by the week. When did she want it? She
+wanted it at once&mdash;in half an hour.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can hire you a car in half an hour, with liveried
+chauffeur,&#8221; said the shopman, after telephoning. &#8220;But he
+cannot speak English.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Ça m&#8217;est égal</em>,&#8221; answered Audrey with grim satisfaction.
+&#8220;What kind of a car will it be?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mercédès, Madame.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The price was eight hundred francs a week, inclusive.
+As Audrey was paying for the first week the man murmured:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What address, Madame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hôtel du Danube,&#8221; she answered like lightning&mdash;indeed
+far quicker than thought. &#8220;But I shall call here for
+the car. It must be waiting outside.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The dispenser of cars bowed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can you get a taxi for me?&#8221; Audrey suggested. &#8220;I
+will leave this roll here and this bag,&#8221; producing her old
+handbag which she had concealed under her coat. And she
+thought: &#8220;All this is really very simple.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At the other address which she had found in the
+telephone book&mdash;a house in the Rue d&#8217;Aumale&mdash;she said to
+an aged concierge:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur Foa&mdash;which floor?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A very dark, rather short and negligently dressed man
+of nearly middle-age who was descending the staircase,
+raised his hat with grave ceremony:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pardon, Madame. Foa&mdash;it is I.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was not prepared for this encounter. She had
+intended to compose her face and her speech while mounting
+the staircase. She blushed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I come from Musa&mdash;the violinist,&#8221; she began hesitatingly.
+&#8220;You invited him to play at your flat on Friday
+night, Monsieur.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Foa gave a sudden enchanting smile:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Madame. I hear much good of him from my
+friend Dauphin, much good. And we long to hear him
+play. It appears he is a great artist.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He has had an accident,&#8221; said Audrey. Monsier Foa&#8217;s
+face grew serious. &#8220;It is nothing&mdash;a few days. The elbow&mdash;a
+trifle. He cannot play next Friday. But he will be
+desolated if he may not play to you later. He has so few
+friends.... I came.... I....&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame, every Friday we are at home, every Friday.
+My wife will be ravished. I shall be ravished. Believe
+me. Let him be reassured.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur, you are too amiable. I shall tell Musa.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa, he may have few friends&mdash;it is possible, Madame&mdash;but
+he is nevertheless fortunate. Madame is English,
+is it not so? My wife and I adore England and the
+English. For us there is only England. If Madame would
+do us the honour of coming when Musa plays.... My
+wife will send an invitation, to the end of remaining within
+the rules. You, Madame, and any of your friends.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur is too amiable, truly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the end they were standing together on the pavement
+by the waiting taxi. She gave him her card, and
+breathed the words &#8220;Hôtel du Danube.&#8221; He was enchanted.
+She offered her hand. He took it, raised it,
+and kissed the back of it. Then he stood with his hat
+off until she had passed from his sight.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was burning with excitement. She said to
+herself:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have discovered Paris.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the taxi turned again into the Rue de la Paix,
+she thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The car will not be waiting. It would be too lovely
+if it were.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But there the car was, huge, glistening, unreal, incredible.
+And a chauffeur gloved and liveried in brown,
+to match the car, stood by its side, and the shopman
+was at the door, holding the Caprice of Roussel and the
+old handbag ready in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here is Madame,&#8221; said he.</p>
+
+<p>The chauffeur saluted.</p>
+
+<p>The car was closed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will Madame have the carriage open or closed?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Closed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Having paid the taxi-driver, Audrey entered the car,
+and as she did so, she threw over her shoulder:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hôtel du Danube.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>While the chauffeur started the engine, the shopman
+with brilliant smiles delivered the music and the bag. The
+door clicked. Audrey noticed the clock, the rug, the powder-box,
+the speaking-tube, and the mirror. She gazed, and
+saw a face triumphant and delicious in the mirror. The
+car began to glide forward. She leaned back against the
+pale grey upholstery, but in her soul she was standing
+and crying with a wild wave of the hand, to the whole
+street:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is a miracle!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In a moment the gigantic car stopped in front of the
+Hôtel du Danube. Two attendants rushed out in uniforms
+of delicate blue. They did not touch their hats&mdash;they raised
+them. Audrey descended and penetrated into the portico,
+where a tall dandy saluted and inquired her will. She
+wanted rooms; she wanted a flat? Certainly. They had
+nothing but flats. A large flat on the ground-floor was at
+her disposal absolutely. Two bedrooms, sitting-room,
+bathroom. It had its own private entrance in the courtyard.
+She inspected it. The suite was furnished in the
+Empire style. Herself and maid? No. A friend! Well,
+the maids could sleep upstairs. It could arrange itself. She
+had no maid? Her friend had no maid? Ah! So much
+the better. Sixty francs a day.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is the dining-room?&#8221; demanded Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame,&#8221; said the dandy, shocked. &#8220;We have no
+dining-room. All meals are specially cooked to order and
+served in the private rooms. We have the reputation....&#8221;
+He opened his arms and bowed.</p>
+
+<p>Good! Good! She would return with her friend in one
+hour or so.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;106 Rue Delambre,&#8221; she bade the chauffeur, after being
+followed to the pavement by the dandy and a suite.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Rue de Londres?&#8221; said the chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. Rue Delambre.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It had to be looked out on the map, but the chauffeur,
+trained to the hour, did not blench. However, when he
+found the Rue Delambre, the success with which he
+repudiated it was complete.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie!&#8221; began Audrey in the studio, with assumed
+indifference. Miss Ingate was at tea.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! You are a swell. Where you been?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie! What do you say to going and living on the
+right bank for a bit?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, well!&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;So that&#8217;s it, is it?
+I&#8217;ve been ready to go for a long time. Of course you want
+to go first thing to-morrow morning. I know you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I don&#8217;t,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I want to go to-night.
+Now! Pack the trunks quick. I&#8217;ve got the finest auto you
+ever saw waiting at the door.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_16" id="chapter_16" />CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>ROBES</h3>
+
+
+<p>On the second following Friday evening, Audrey&#8217;s suite of
+rooms at the Hôtel du Danube glowed in every corner with
+pink-shaded electricity. According to what Audrey had
+everywhere observed to be the French custom, there was in
+this flat the minimum of corridor and the maximum of doors.
+Each room communicated directly with all the other rooms.
+The doors were open, and three women continually in a
+feverish elation passed to and fro. Empire chairs and sofas
+were covered with rich garments of every colour and form
+and material, from the transparent blue silk <em>matinée</em> to the
+dark heavy cloak of velvet ornamented with fur. The place
+was in fact very like the showrooms of a cosmopolitan dressmaker
+after a vast trying-on. Sundry cosmopolitan dressmakers
+had contributed to the rich confusion. None had
+hesitated for an instant to execute Audrey&#8217;s commands.
+They had all been waiting, apparently since the beginning
+of time, to serve her. All that district of Paris had been
+thus waiting. The flat had been waiting, the automobile
+had been waiting, the chauffeur had been waiting, and
+purveyors of every sort. A word from her seemed to have
+released them from an enchantment. For the most part
+they were strange people, these magical attendants, never
+mentioning money, but rather deprecating the sound of it,
+and content to supply nothing but the finest productions of
+their unquestionable genius. Still, Audrey reckoned that
+she owed about twenty-five thousand francs to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>The third woman was the maid, Elise. The hotel had
+invented and delivered Elise, and thereafter seemed easier
+in its mind. Elise was thirty years of age and not repellent
+of aspect. On a black dress she wore the smallest white
+muslin apron that either Audrey or Miss Ingate had ever
+seen. She kept pins in her mouth, but in other respects
+showed few eccentricities beyond an extreme excitability.
+When at eight o&#8217;clock Mademoiselle&#8217;s new gown, promised
+for seven, had not arrived, Elise begged permission to use
+Madame&#8217;s salts. When the bell rang at eight-thirty, and a
+lackey brought in an oval-shaped box with a long loop to it
+of leathern strap, she only just managed not to kiss the
+lackey. The rapid movement of Mademoiselle and Elise
+with the contents of the box from the drawing-room into
+Mademoiselle&#8217;s bedroom was the last rushing and swishing
+that preceded a considerable peace.</p>
+
+<p>Madame was absolutely ready, in her bedroom. In the
+large mirror of the dark wardrobe she surveyed her
+victoriously young face, the magnificent grey dress, the
+coiffure, the jewels, the spangled shoes, the fan; and the
+ensemble satisfied her. She was intensely and calmly happy.
+No thought of the past nor of the future, nor of what was
+going on in other parts of the earth&#8217;s surface could in the
+slightest degree impair her happiness. She had done
+nothing herself, she had neither earned money nor created
+any of the objects which adorned her; nor was she capable
+of doing the one or the other. Yet she felt proud as well as
+happy, because she was young and superbly healthy, and not
+unattractive. These were her high virtues. And her attitude
+was so right that nobody would have disagreed with her.</p>
+
+<p>Her left ear was listening for the sound, through the
+unlatched window, of the arrival of the automobile with
+Musa and his fiddle inside it.</p>
+
+<p>Then the door leading from Mademoiselle&#8217;s bedroom
+opened sharply, and Mademoiselle appeared, with her grey
+hair, her pale shining forehead, her sardonic grin, and the
+new dress of those Empire colours, magenta and green.
+Elise stood behind, trembling with satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Audrey began. But she heard the automobile,
+and told Elise to run and be ready to open the front
+door of the flat.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Rather showy, isn&#8217;t it? Rather daring?&#8221; said Miss
+Ingate, advancing self-consciously and self-deprecating.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; answered Audrey. &#8220;It&#8217;s a nice question
+between you and the Queen of Sheba.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Miss Ingate beheld in the mirror the masterpiece
+of an illustrious male dressmaker-a masterpiece in
+which no touch of the last fashion was abated-and little
+Essex Winnie grinning from within it.</p>
+
+<p>She screamed. And forthwith putting her hands behind
+her neck she began to unhook the corsage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What are you doing, Winnie?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m taking it off.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But why?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because I&#8217;m not going to wear it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you&#8217;ve nothing else to wear.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t help that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you can&#8217;t come. What on earth shall you do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I dare say I shall go to bed. Or I might shoot myself.
+But if you think that I&#8217;m going outside this room in this
+dress, you&#8217;re a perfect simpleton, Audrey. I don&#8217;t mind
+being a fool, but I won&#8217;t look one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey heard Musa enter the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>She pulled the door to, keeping her hand on the knob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very well, Winnie,&#8221; she said coldly, and swept into
+the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>As she and Musa left the pink rose-shaded flat, she heard
+a burst of tears from Elise in the bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;21 Rue d&#8217;Aumale,&#8221; she curtly ordered the chauffeur,
+who sat like a god obscurely in front of the illuminated
+interior of the carriage. Musa&#8217;s violin case lay amid the
+cushions therein.</p>
+
+<p>The chauffeur approvingly touched his hat. The Rue
+d&#8217;Aumale was a good street.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wonder what his surname is?&#8221; Audrey thought
+curiously. &#8220;And whether he&#8217;s in love or married, and has
+children.&#8221; She knew nothing of him save that his Christian
+name was Michel.</p>
+
+<p>She was taciturn and severe with Musa.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_17" id="chapter_17" />CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>SOIRÉE</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur Foa&mdash;which floor?&#8221; Audrey asked once again
+of the aged concierge in the Rue d&#8217;Aumale. This time she
+got an answer. It was the fifth or top floor. Musa said
+nothing, permitting himself to be taken about like a parcel,
+though with a more graceful passivity. There was no lift,
+but at each floor a cushioned seat for travellers to use and
+a palm in a coloured pot in a niche for travellers to gaze
+upon as they rested. The quality of the palms, however,
+deteriorated floor by floor, and on the fourth and fifth floors
+the niches were empty. A broad embroidered bell-pull,
+twitched, gave rise to one clanging sound within the abode
+of the Foas, and the clanging sound reacted upon a small
+dog which yapped loudly and continued to yap until the
+visitors had entered and the door been closed again.
+Monsieur came out of a room into the small entrance-hall,
+accompanied by a considerable noise of conversation. He
+beamed his ravishment; he kissed hands; he helped with the
+dark blue cloak.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I brought Monsieur Musa in my car,&#8221; said Audrey.
+&#8220;The weather&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Foa bowed low to Monsieur Musa, and
+Monsieur Musa bowed low to Monsieur Foa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Monsieur, your accident I hope....&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And so on.</p>
+
+<p>Cloak, overcoat, hat, stick&mdash;everything except the violin
+case&mdash;were thrown pell-mell on to a piece of furniture in
+the entrance-hall. Monsieur Foa, instead of being in evening
+dress, was in exactly the same clothes as he had worn
+at his first meeting with Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Foa appeared in the doorway. She was a slim
+blonde Italian of pure descent, whereas only the paternal
+grandfather of Monsieur Foa had been Italian. Madame
+Foa, who had called on Audrey at the Danube, exhibited the
+same symptoms of pleasure as her husband.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But your friend? But your friend?&#8221; cried she.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, being led gradually into the drawing-room, explained
+that Miss Ingate had been prevented at the last
+moment, etc., etc.</p>
+
+<p>The distinction of Madame Foa&#8217;s simple dress had
+reassured Audrey to a certain extent, but the size of the
+drawing-room disconcerted her again. She had understood
+that the house of the Foas was the real esoteric centre of
+musical Paris, and she had prepared herself for vast and
+luxurious salons, footmen, fountains of wine, rare flowers,
+dandies, and the divine shoulders of operatic sopranos who
+combined wit with the most seductive charm. The drawing-room
+of the Foas was not as large as her own drawing-room
+at the Danube. Still it was full, and double doors leading
+to an unseen dining-room at right angles to its length produced
+an illusion of space. Some of the men and some of
+the women were elegant, and even very elegant; others
+were not. Audrey instantly with her expert eye saw that
+the pictures on the walls were of the last correctness, and a
+few by illustrious painters. Here and there she could see
+scrawled on them &#8220;à mon ami, André Foa.&#8221; Such
+phenomena were balm. Everybody in the room was presented
+to her, and with the greatest particularity, and the
+host and hostess gazed on her as on an idol, a jewel, an
+exquisite and startling discovery. Musa found two men he
+knew. The conversation was resumed with energy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now,&#8221; said Madame Foa in English, sitting down
+intimately beside Audrey, with a loving gesture, &#8220;We will
+have a little talk, you and I. I find our friend Madame
+Piriac met you last year.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! Yes,&#8221; murmured Audrey, fatally struck, but
+admirably dissembling, for she was determined to achieve
+the evening successfully. &#8220;Madame Piriac, will she come
+to-night?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I fear not,&#8221; replied Madame Foa. &#8220;She would if she
+could.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should so like to have seen her again,&#8221; said Audrey
+eagerly. She was so relieved at Madame Piriac&#8217;s not
+coming that she felt she could afford to be eager.</p>
+
+<p>And Monsieur Foa, a little distance off, threw a sign into
+the duologue, and called:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You permit me? Your dress ... <em>Exquise! Exquise!</em>
+And these pigs of French persist in saying that the English
+lack taste!&#8221; He clapped his hand to his forehead in
+despair of the French.</p>
+
+<p>Then the clanging sound supervened, and the little fox-terrier
+yapped, and Monsieur Foa went out, ejaculating
+&#8220;Ah!&#8221; and Madame Foa went into the doorway. Audrey
+glanced round for Musa, but he was out of sight in the
+dining-room. Several people turned at once and spoke to
+her, including two composers who had probably composed
+more impossibilities for amateur pianists than any other two
+men who ever lived, and a musical critic with large dark
+eyes and an Eastern air, who had come from the Opera very
+sarcastic about the Opera. One of the composers asked the
+critic whether he had not heard Musa play.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said the critic. &#8220;I heard him in the Ternes
+Quarter&mdash;somewhere. He plays very agreeably. Madame,&#8221;
+he addressed Audrey. &#8220;I was discussing with these gentlemen
+whether it be not possible to define the principle of
+beauty in music. Once it is defined, my trade will be much
+simplified, you see. What say you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>How could she discourse on the principle of beauty in
+music when she had the whole weight of the evening on her
+shoulders? Musa was the whole weight of the evening.
+Would he succeed? She was his mother, his manager, his
+creator. He was her handiwork. If he failed she would
+have failed. That was her sole interest in him, but it was
+an overwhelming interest. When would he be asked to
+play? Useless for them to flatter her about her dress, to
+treat her like a rarity, if they offered callous, careless, off-hand
+remarks, such as &#8220;He plays very agreeably.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She stammered:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I only know what I like.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>One of the composers jumped up excitedly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Voilà</em> Madame has said the final word. You hear
+me, the final word, the most profound. Argue as you will,
+perfect the art of criticism to no matter what point, and you
+will never get beyond the final word of Madame.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The critic shrugged his shoulders, and with a smile bowed
+to the ravishing utterer of last words on the most baffling of
+subjects. This fluttered person soon perceived that she had
+been mistaken in supposing that the room was full. The
+clanging sound kept recurring, the dog kept barking, and
+new guests continually poured into the room, thereby proving
+that it was not full. All comers were introduced to Audrey,
+whose head was a dizzy riot of strange names. Then at last
+a girl sang, and was applauded. Madame Foa played for
+her. &#8220;Now,&#8221; thought Audrey, &#8220;they will ask Musa.&#8221;
+Then one of the composers played the piano, his themes
+punctuated by the clanging sound and by the dog. The
+room was asphyxiating, but no one except Audrey seemed
+to be inconvenienced. Then several guests rang in quick
+succession.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame!&#8221; the suave and ardent voice of Foa could
+be heard in the entrance-hall. &#8220;And thou, Roussel ...
+Ippolita, Ippolita!&#8221; he called to his wife. &#8220;It is Roussel.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey did not turn her head. She could not. But presently
+Roussel, in a blue suit with a wonderful flowing bow
+of a black necktie in <em>crêpe de Chine</em>, was led before her. And
+Musa was led before Roussel. Audrey, from nervousness, was
+moved to relate the history of Musa&#8217;s accident to Roussel.</p>
+
+<p>The moment had arrived. Roussel sat down to the piano.
+Musa tuned his fiddle.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;From what appears,&#8221; murmured Monsieur Foa to nobody
+in particular, with an ecstatic expectant smile on his
+face, &#8220;this Musa is all that is most amazing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then, in the silence, the clanging sound was renewed,
+and the fox-terrier reacted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;André, my friend,&#8221; cried Madame Foa, skipping into
+the hall. &#8220;Will you do me the pleasure of exterminating
+this dog?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Delicate osculatory explosions and pretty exclamations
+in the hall! The hostess was encountering an old friend.
+There was also a man&#8217;s deep English voice. Then a hush.
+The man&#8217;s voice produced a very strange effect upon Audrey.
+Roussel began to play. Musa held his bow aloft. Creeping
+steps in the doorway made Audrey look round. A lady
+smiled and bowed to her. It was Madame Piriac, resplendent
+and serene.</p>
+
+<p>Musa played the Caprice. Audrey did not hear him,
+partly because the vision of Madame Piriac, and the man&#8217;s
+deep voice, had extremely perturbed her, and partly because
+she was so desperately anxious for Musa&#8217;s triumph. She
+had decided that she could make his triumph here the
+prelude to tremendous things. When he had finished she
+held her breath....</p>
+
+<p>The applause, after an instant, was sudden and extremely
+cordial. Monsieur Foa loudly clapped, smiling at Audrey.
+Roussel patted Musa on the back and chattered to him
+fondly. On each side of her Audrey could catch murmured
+exclamations of delight. Musa himself was certainly
+pleased and happy.... He had played at Foa&#8217;s, where it
+was absolutely essential to play if one intended to conquer
+Paris and to prove one&#8217;s pretensions; and he had found
+favour with this satiated and fastidious audience.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Ouf!&#8221;</em> sighed the musical critic Orientally lounging on
+a chair. &#8220;André, has it occurred to you that we are
+expiring for want of air?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A window was opened, and a shiver went through the
+assembly.</p>
+
+<p>The clanging sounded again, but no dog, for the dog had
+been exterminated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dauphin, my old pig!&#8221; Foa&#8217;s greeting from the
+entrance floated into the drawing-room, and then a very impressed: &#8220;Mademoiselle&#8221; from Madame Foa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; cried Dauphin. &#8220;Musa has played? He
+played well? So much the better. What did I tell you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And he entered the drawing-room with the satisfied air
+of having fed Musa from infancy and also of having taught
+him all he knew about the violin.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Foa followed him, and with her was Miss Ingate,
+gorgeous and blushing. The whole company was now on its
+feet and moving about. Miss Ingate scuttered to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; she whispered. &#8220;Here I am. I came partly to
+satisfy that hysterical Elise, and Monsieur Dauphin met me
+on the stairs. But really I came because I&#8217;ve had another
+letter from Miss Nickall. She&#8217;s been and got her arm
+broken in a street row. I knew those policemen would do
+it one day. I always said they would.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Audrey seemed not to be listening. With a side-long
+gaze she saw Madame Piriac talking with a middle-aged
+Englishman, whose back alone was visible to her.
+Madame Piriac laughed and vanished out of sight into the
+dining-room. The Englishman turned and met Audrey&#8217;s
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly leaving Miss Ingate, Audrey walked straight
+up to the Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good evening,&#8221; she said in a low voice. &#8220;What is
+your name?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gilman,&#8221; he answered, with a laugh. &#8220;I only this
+instant recognised you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Mr. Gilman,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;will you oblige me
+very much by not recognising me? I want us to be introduced.
+I am most particularly anxious that no one should
+know I&#8217;m the same girl who helped you to jump off your
+yacht at Lousey Hard last year.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she moved quickly away.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_18" id="chapter_18" />CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>A DECISION</h3>
+
+
+<p>The entire company was sitting or standing round the table
+in the dining-room. It was a table at which eight might
+have sat down to dinner with a fair amount of comfort; and
+perhaps thirty-eight now were successfully claiming an
+interest in it. Not at the end, but about a third of the way
+down one side, Madame Foa brewed tea in a copper
+receptacle over a spirit lamp. At the other extremity was a
+battalion of glasses, some syphons and some lofty bottles.
+Except for a border of teacups and glasses the rest of the
+white expanse was empty, save that two silver biscuit boxes
+and a silver cigarette box wandered up and down it according
+to the needs of the community. Audrey was sitting next
+to the Oriental musical critic, on her left, and on her right
+she had a beautiful stout woman who could speak nothing
+but Polish, but who expressed herself very clearly in the
+language of smiles, nods, and shrugs; to Audrey she seemed
+to be extremely romantic; the musical critic could converse
+somewhat in Polish, and occasionally he talked across Audrey
+to the Pole. Several other languages were flying about.
+The subject of discussion was feminism, chiefly as practised
+in England. It was Miss Ingate who had begun it; her
+striking and peculiar appearance, and in particular her
+frock, had given importance to her lightest word. People
+who comprehended naught of English listened to her
+entranced. The host, who was among these, stood behind
+her in a state of ecstasy. Her pale forehead reddened; her
+sardonic grin became deliciously self-conscious. &#8220;I know
+I&#8217;m skidding,&#8221; she cried. &#8220;I know I&#8217;m skidding.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What does she say? Skeed&mdash;skeed?&#8221; demanded the
+host.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey interpreted. Shouts of laughter!</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! These English! These Englishwomen!&#8221; said
+the host. &#8220;I adore them. I adore them all. They alone
+exist.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s vehy serious!&#8221; protested Miss Ingate. &#8220;It&#8217;s vehy
+serious!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We shall go to London to-morrow, shan&#8217;t we,
+Winnie?&#8221; said Audrey across the table to her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; agreed Miss Ingate. &#8220;I think we ought. We&#8217;re
+as free as birds. When the police have broken our arms we
+can come back to Paris to recover. I shan&#8217;t feel comfortable
+until I&#8217;ve been and had my arm broken&mdash;it&#8217;s vehy
+serious.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What does she say? What is it that she says?&#8221; from
+the host.</p>
+
+<p>More interpretation. More laughter, but this time an
+impressed laughter. And Audrey perceived that just as she
+was regarding the Polish woman as romantic, so the whole
+company was regarding herself and Miss Ingate as romantic.
+She could feel the polite, curious eyes of twenty men upon
+her; and her mind seemed to stiffen into a formidable
+resolve. She grew conscious of the lifting of all depression,
+all anxiety. Her conscience was at rest. She had been
+thinking for more than a week past: &#8220;I ought to go to
+London.&#8221; How often had she not said to herself: &#8220;If any
+woman should be in this movement, I should be in this
+movement. I am a coward as long as I stay here, dallying
+my time away.&#8221; Now the decision was made, absolutely.</p>
+
+<p>The Oriental musical critic turned to glance upward
+behind his chair. Then he vacated it. The next instant
+Madame Piriac was sitting in his place.</p>
+
+<p>She said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you really going to London to-morrow, Madame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Madame, really!&#8221; answered Audrey firmly, without
+the least hesitation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How I regret it! For this reason. I wished so much
+to make your acquaintance. I mean&mdash;to know you a little.
+You go perhaps in the afternoon? Could you not do me
+the great pleasure of coming to lunch with me? I inhabit
+the Quai Voltaire. It is all that is most convenient.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was startled and suspicious, but she could not
+deny the persuasiveness of the invitation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! Madame!&#8221; she said. &#8220;I know not at what hour
+we go. But even if it should be in the afternoon there is
+the packing&mdash;you know&mdash;in a word....&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Listen,&#8221; Madame Piriac proceeded, bending even more
+intimately towards her. &#8220;Be very, very kind. Come to see
+me to-night. Come in my car. I will see that you reach
+the Rue Delambre afterwards.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But Madame, we are at the Hôtel du Danube. I have
+my own car. You are very amiable.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac was a little taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So much the better,&#8221; she said, in a new tone. &#8220;The
+Hôtel du Danube is nearer still. But come in my car.
+Mademoiselle Ingate can return in yours. Do not desolate
+me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Does she know who I am?&#8221; thought Audrey, and
+then: &#8220;What do I care if she does?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she said aloud:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame, it is I who would be desolated to deprive
+myself of this pleasure.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A considerable period elapsed before they could leave,
+because of the complex discussion concerning feminism
+which was delicately raging round the edge of the table.
+The animation was acute, but it was purely intellectual.
+The guests discussed the psychology of English suffragettes,
+sympathetically, admiringly; they were even wonderstruck;
+yet they might have been discussing the psychology of the
+ancient Babylonians, so perfect was their detachment, so
+completely unclouded by any prejudice was their desire to
+reach the truth. Many of the things which they imperturbably
+and politely said made Audrey feel glad that she
+was a widow. Had she not been a widow, possibly they
+would not have been uttered.</p>
+
+<p>And when Madame Piriac and Audrey did rise to go,
+both host and hostess began to upbraid. The host, indeed,
+barred the doorway with his urbane figure. They were not
+kind, they were not true friends, to leave so soon. The
+morrow had no sort of importance. The hour was scarcely
+one o&#8217;clock. Other guests were expected.... Madame
+Piriac alone knew how to handle the situation; she appealed
+privately to Madame Foa. Having appealed to Madame
+Foa, she disappeared with Madame Foa, and could not be
+found when Audrey and Miss Ingate were ready to leave.
+While these two waited in the antechamber, Monsieur Foa
+said suddenly in a confidential tone to Audrey:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is charming, Musa, quite charming.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you like his playing?&#8221; Audrey demanded boldly.</p>
+
+<p>She could not understand why it should be necessary for
+a violinist to play and to succeed at this house before he could
+capture Paris. She was delighted excessively with the
+home, but positively it bore no resemblance to what she had
+anticipated; nor did it seem to her to possess any of the
+attributes of influence; for one of her basic ideas about the
+world was that influential people must be dull and formal,
+moving about with deliberation in sombrely magnificent
+interiors.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Monsieur Foa. &#8220;I like it. He plays
+admirably.&#8221; And he spoke sincerely. Audrey, however,
+was a little disappointed because Monsieur Foa did not
+assert that Musa was the most marvellous genius he had
+ever listened to.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am very, very content to have heard him,&#8221; said
+Monsieur Foa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you think he will succeed in Paris?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! Madame! There is the Press. There are the
+snobs.... In fine....&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose if he had money?&#8221; Audrey murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! Madame! In Paris, if one has money, one has
+everything. Paris&mdash;it is not London, where to succeed one
+must be truly successful. But he is a player very highly
+accomplished. It is miraculous that he should have played
+so long in a café&mdash;Dauphin told me the history.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa appeared, and after him Madame Piriac. More
+appeals, more reproaches, more asseverations that friends
+who left so early as one o&#8217;clock in the morning were not
+friends&mdash;and the host at length consented to open the door.
+At that very instant the bell clanged. Another guest had
+arrived.</p>
+
+<p>When, after the long descent of the stairs (which, however,
+unlike the stairs of the Rue Delambre, were lighted),
+Audrey saw seven automobiles in the street, she veered again
+towards the possibility that the Foas might after all be
+influential. Musa and Mr. Gilman, the yachtsman, had
+left with the women. Audrey told Miss Ingate to drive
+Musa home. She said not a word to him about her
+departure the next afternoon, and he made no reference to
+it. As the most imposing automobile moved splendidly
+away, Mr. Gilman held open the door of Madame Piriac&#8217;s
+vehicle.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman sat down opposite to the women. In the
+enclosed space the rumour of his heavy breathing was
+noticeable. Madame Piriac began to speak in English&mdash;her
+own English&mdash;with a unique accent that Audrey at once
+loved.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You commence soon the yachting, my oncle?&#8221; said
+she, and turning to Audrey: &#8220;Mistair Gilman is no oncle
+to me. But he is a great friend of my husband. I call
+always him oncle. Do not I, oncle? Mistair Gilman lives
+only for the yachting. Every year in May we lose him, till
+September.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Really!&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Her heart was apprehensively beating. She even suspected
+for an instant that both of them knew who she was,
+and that Mr. Gilman, before she had addressed him in the
+drawing-room, had already related to Madame Piriac the
+episode of Mozewater. Then she said to herself that the
+idea was absurd; and lastly, repeating within her breast
+that she didn&#8217;t care, she became desperately bold.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should love to buy a yacht,&#8221; she said, after a pause.
+&#8220;We used to live far inland and I know nothing of the sea;
+in fact I scarcely saw it till I crossed the Channel, but I
+have always dreamed about it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You must come and have a look at my new yacht, Mrs.
+Moncreiff,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman in his solemn, thick voice. &#8220;I
+always say that no yacht is herself without ladies on board,
+a yacht being feminine, you see.&#8221; He gave a little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! My oncle!&#8221; Madame Piriac broke in. &#8220;I see
+in that no reason. If a yacht was masculine then I could
+see the reason in it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps not one of my happiest efforts,&#8221; said Mf.
+Gilman with resignation. &#8220;I am a dull man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, no!&#8221; Madame Piriac protested. &#8220;You are a dear.
+But why have you said nothing to-night at the Foas in the
+great discussion about feminism? Not one word have you
+said!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I really don&#8217;t understand it,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman.
+&#8220;Either everybody is mad, or I am mad. I dare say I am
+mad.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Madame Piriac. &#8220;I said not much myself,
+but I enjoyed it. It was better than the music, music, which
+they talk always there. People talk too much shops in
+these days. It is out-to-place and done over.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean overdone?&#8221; asked Mr. Gilman mildly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, overdone, if you like better that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean shop, Hortense?&#8221; asked Mr. Gilman
+further.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shop, shop! The English is impossible!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The automobile crossed the Seine and arrived in the
+deserted Quai Voltaire.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_19" id="chapter_19" />CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BOUDOIR</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the setting of her own boudoir Madame Piriac equalled,
+and in some ways surpassed, the finest pictures which
+Audrey had imagined of her. Her evening dress made
+Audrey doubt whether after all her own was the genuine
+triumph which she had supposed; in Madame Piriac&#8217;s
+boudoir, and close by Madame Piriac, it had disconcertingly
+the air of being an ingenious but unconvincing imitation of
+the real thing.</p>
+
+<p>But Madame Piriac&#8217;s dress had the advantage of being
+worn with the highest skill and assurance; Madame Piriac
+knew what the least fold of her dress was doing, in the way
+of effect, on the floor behind her back. And Madame
+Piriac was mistress, not only of her dress, but of herself
+and all her faculties. A handsome woman, rather more than
+slim, but not plump, she had an expression of confidence, of
+knowing exactly what she was about, of foreseeing all her
+effects, which Audrey envied more than she had ever envied
+anything.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Audrey came into the room she had said to
+herself: &#8220;I will have a boudoir like this.&#8221; It was an
+interior in which every piece of furniture was loaded with
+objects personal to its owner. So many signed photographs,
+so much remarkable bric-à-brac, so many intimate
+contrivances of ornamental comfort, Audrey had never
+before seen within four walls. The chandelier, comprising
+ten thousand crystals, sparkled down upon a
+complex aggregate of richness overwhelming to everybody
+except Madame Piriac, who subdued it, understood it, and
+had the key to it. Audrey wondered how many servants
+took how many hours to dust the room. She was sure,
+however, that whatever the number of servants required,
+Madame Piriac managed them all to perfection. She longed
+violently to be as old as Madame Piriac, whom she
+assessed at twenty-nine and a half, and to be French, and to
+know all about everything in life as Madame Piriac did.
+Yet at the same time she was extremely determined to be
+Audrey, and not to be intimidated by Madame Piriac or by
+anyone.</p>
+
+<p>Just as they were beginning to suck iced lemonade up
+straws&mdash;a delightful caprice of Madame Piriac&#8217;s, well suited
+to catch Audrey&#8217;s taste&mdash;the door opened softly, and a tall,
+very dark, bearded man, appreciably older than Madame
+Piriac, entered with a kind of soft energy, and Mr. Gilman
+followed him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! My friend!&#8221; murmured Madame Piriac. &#8220;You
+give me pleasure. This is Madame Moncreiff, of whom I
+have spoken to you. Madame&mdash;my husband. We have just
+come from the Foas.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Piriac bent over Audrey&#8217;s hand, and smiled
+with vivacity, and they talked a little of the evening, carelessly,
+as though time existed not. And then Monsieur
+Piriac said to his wife:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dear friend. I have to work with this old Gilman.
+We shall therefore ask you to excuse us. Till to-morrow,
+then. Good night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good night, my friend. Do not do harm to yourself.
+Good night, my oncle.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Piriac saluted with formality but with sincerity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; thought Audrey, as the men went away. &#8220;I
+should want to marry exactly him if I did want to marry.
+He doesn&#8217;t interfere; he isn&#8217;t curious; he doesn&#8217;t want to
+know. He leaves her alone. She leaves him alone. How
+clever they are!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My husband is now chief of the Cabinet of the Foreign
+Minister,&#8221; said Madame Piriac with modest pride. &#8220;They
+kill themselves, you know, in that office&mdash;especially in these
+times. But I watch. And I tell Monsieur Gilman to watch....
+How nice you are when you sit in a chair like that!
+Only Englishwomen know how to use an easy chair....
+To say nothing of the frock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madame Piriac,&#8221; Audrey brusquely demanded with an
+expression of ingenuous curiosity. &#8220;Why did you bring me
+here?&#8221; It was the cry of an animal at once rash and
+rather desperate, determined to unmask all the secret
+dangers that might be threatening.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I much desired to see you,&#8221; Madame Piriac answered
+very smoothly, &#8220;in order to apologise to you for my
+indiscreet question on the night when we first met. Your
+fairy tale about your late husband was a very proper reply to
+the attitude of Madame Rosamund&mdash;as you all call her. It
+was very clever&mdash;so clever that I myself did not appreciate
+it until after I had spoken. Ever since that moment I have
+wanted to explain, to know you more. Also your pretence
+of going to sleep in the automobile showed what in a woman
+I call distinguished talent.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, Madame, I assure you that I really was asleep.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So much the better. The fact proves that your
+instinct for the right thing is quite exceptional. It is not
+that I would criticise Madame Rosamund, who has genius.
+Nevertheless her genius causes her to commit errors of
+which others would be incapable.... So she has captured
+you, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Captured me!&#8221; Audrey protested&mdash;and she was
+made stronger by the flattering reference to her distinguished
+talent. &#8220;I&#8217;ve never seen her from that day to
+this!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. But she has captured you. You are going.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Going where?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To London, to take part in these riots.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shan&#8217;t have anything to do with riots.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Within a month you will have been in a riot, Madame ...
+and I shall regret it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And even if I am, Madame! You are a friend of
+Rosamund&#8217;s. You must be in sympathy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In sympathy with what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;With&mdash;with all this suffragism, feminism. I am anyway!&#8221;
+Audrey sat up straight. &#8220;It&#8217;s horrible that women
+don&#8217;t have the Vote. And it&#8217;s horrible the things they have
+to suffer in order to get it. But they <em>will</em> get it!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why do you say &#8216;they&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I mean &#8216;we.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Supposing you meant &#8216;they,&#8217; after all? And you did,
+Madame. Let me tell you. You ask me if I sympathise
+with suffragism. You might as well ask me if I sympathise
+with a storm or with an earthquake, or with a river running
+to the sea. Perhaps I do. But perhaps I do not. That
+has no importance. Feminism is a natural phenomenon; it
+was unavoidable. You Englishwomen will get your vote.
+Even we in France will get it one day. It cannot be denied....
+Sympathy is not required. But let us suppose that all
+women joined the struggle. What would happen to women?
+What would happen to the world? Just as nunneries were
+a necessity of other ages, so even in this age women must
+meditate. Far more than men they need to understand
+themselves. Until they understand themselves how can they
+understand men? The function of women is to understand.
+Their function is also to preserve. All the beautiful and
+luxurious things in the world are in the custody of women.
+Men would never of themselves keep a tradition. If there is
+anything on earth worth keeping, women must keep it.
+And the tradition will be lost if every woman listens to
+Madame Rosamund. That is what she cannot see. Her
+genius blinds her. You say I am a friend of Madame
+Rosamund. I am. Madame Rosamund was educated in
+Paris, at the same school as my aunt and myself. But I
+have never helped her in her mission. And I never will.
+My vocation is elsewhere. When she fled over here from
+the English police, she came to me. I received her. She
+asked me to drive her to certain addresses. I did so. She
+was my guest. I surrounded her with all that she had
+abandoned, all that her genius had forced her to abandon.
+But I never spoke to her of her work, nor she to me of it.
+Still, I dare to think that I was of some value to the woman
+in Madame Rosamund.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey felt very young and awkward and defiant. She
+felt defiant because Madame Piriac had impressed her,
+and she was determined not to be impressed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So you wanted to tell me all this,&#8221; said she, putting
+down her glass, with the straws in it, on a small round
+table laden with tiny figures in silver. &#8220;Why did you
+want to tell me, Madame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wanted to tell you because I want you to do nothing
+that you will regret. You greatly interested me the moment
+I saw you. And when I saw you in that studio, in that
+Quarter, I feared for you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Feared what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I feared that you might mistake your vocation&mdash;that
+vocation which is so clearly written on your face. I saw
+a woman young and free and rich, and I was afraid that
+she might waste everything.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But do you know anything about me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac paused before replying.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing but what I see. But I see that you are in
+a high degree what all women are to a greater extent
+than men&mdash;an individualist. You know the feeling that
+comes over a woman in hours of complete intimacy with
+a man? You know what I mean?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes!&#8221; Audrey agreed, blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In those moments we perceive that only the individual
+counts with us. And with you, above all, the individual
+should count. Unless you use your youth and your freedom
+and your money for some individual, you will never be
+content; you will eternally regret. All that is in your face.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey blushed more, thinking of certain plans formed
+in that head of hers. She said nothing. She was both
+very pleased and very exasperated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have a relative in England, a young girl,&#8221; Madame
+Piriac proceeded, &#8220;in some unpronounceable county. We
+write to each other. She is excessively English.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was scarlet. Several times during the sojourn
+in Paris she had sent letters (to Madame Piriac) to be
+posted in Essex by Mr. Foulger. These letters were full
+of quaint inventions about winter life in Essex, and other
+matters.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac, looking reflectively at the red embers
+of wood in the grate, went on:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She says she may come to Paris soon. I have often
+asked her to come, but she has refused. Perhaps next
+month I shall go to England to fetch her. I should like
+her to know you&mdash;very much. She is younger than you
+are, but only a little, I think.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall be delighted, if I am here,&#8221; Audrey stammered,
+and she rose. &#8220;You are a very kind woman. Very, very
+amiable. You do not know how much I admire you. I
+wish I was like you. But I am not. You have seen only
+one side of me. You should see the inside. It is very
+strange. I must go to London. I am forced to go to
+London. I should be a coward if I did not go to London.
+Tell me, is my dress really good? Or is it a deception?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac smiled, and kissed her on both cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is good,&#8221; said Madame Piriac. &#8220;But your maid is
+not all that she ought to be. However, it is good.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you had simply praised it, and only that, I should
+not have been content,&#8221; said Audrey, and kissed Madame
+Piriac in the English way, the youthful and direct way.</p>
+
+<p>Not another word about the male sex, the female sex,
+tradition or individualism, passed between them.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman was summoned to take Audrey across the
+river to the right bank. They went in a taxi. He was
+protective and very silent. But just as the cab was
+turning out of the Rue de Rivoli into the Rue Castiglione
+he said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall obey you absolutely, Mrs. Moncreiff. It is
+a great pleasure for an old, lonely man to keep a secret
+for a young and charming woman. A greater pleasure
+than you can possibly imagine. You may count on me.
+I am not a talker, but you have put me under an obligation,
+and I am very grateful.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She took care that her thanks should reward him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; she burst out in the rose-coloured secrecy
+of the bedroom, &#8220;has Elise gone to bed? ... All right.
+Well, I&#8217;m lost. Madame Piniac is going to England to
+fetch me.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_20" id="chapter_20" />CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<h3>PAGET GARDENS</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Has anything happened in this town?&#8221; asked Audrey
+of Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>It was the afternoon of the day following their arrival
+in London from Paris, and it was a fine afternoon. They
+were walking from the Charing Cross Hotel, where they
+had slept, to Paget Gardens.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Anything happened?&#8221; repeated Miss Ingate. &#8220;What
+you mean? I don&#8217;t see anything vehy particular on the
+posters.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Everybody looks so sad and worried, compared with
+people in Paris.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So they do! So they do!&#8221; cried Miss Ingate. &#8220;Oh,
+yes! So they do! I wondered what it was seemed so
+queer. That&#8217;s it. Well, of course you mustn&#8217;t forget we&#8217;re
+in England. I always did say it was a vehy peculiar place.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do <em>we</em> look like that?&#8221; Audrey suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I expect we do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m quite sure that I don&#8217;t, Winnie, anyway. I&#8217;m
+really very cheerful. I&#8217;m surprisingly cheerful.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was true. Also she both looked and felt more girlish
+than ever in Paris. Impossible to divine, watching her in
+her light clothes, and with her airy step, that she was the
+relict of a man who had so tragically died of blood-poisoning
+caused by bad table manners.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve a good mind to ask a policeman,&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better not,&#8221; Miss Ingate warned her.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey instantly turned into the roadway, treating the
+creosoted wood as though it had been rose-strewn velvet,
+and reached a refuge where a policeman was standing. The
+policeman bent with benevolence and politeness to listen to
+her tale.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Excuse me,&#8221; she said, smiling innocently up at him,
+&#8220;but is anything the matter?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>What</em> street, miss?&#8221; he questioned, bending lower.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is anything the matter? All the people round here are
+so gloomy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The policeman glanced at her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There will be something the matter,&#8221; he remarked
+calmly. &#8220;There will be something the matter pretty soon
+if I have much more of that suffragette sauce. I thought
+you was one of them the moment I saw you, but I wasn&#8217;t
+sure.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was the first time Audrey had ever spoken to a
+policeman, save Inspector Keeble, at Moze, who was a
+friendly human being. And she had a little pang of fear.
+The policeman was like a high wall of blue cloth, with a
+marvellous imitation of a human face at the top, and above
+the face a cupola.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank you,&#8221; she murmured reproachfully, and
+hastened back to Miss Ingate, who heard the tale with a
+grinning awe that was, nevertheless, sardonic. They
+pressed onwards to Piccadilly Circus, where the only normal
+and cheerful living creatures were the van horses and the
+flower-women; and up Regent Street, through crowds of
+rapt and mystical women and romantical men who had
+apparently wandered out of a play by Henrik Ibsen.</p>
+
+<p>They then took a motor-bus, which was full of the same
+enigmatic, far-gazing heroines and heroes. When they
+got off, the conductor pointed dreamily in a certain direction
+and murmured the words: &#8220;Paget Square.&#8221; Their desire
+was Paget Gardens, and, after finding Paget Square, Paget
+Mansions, Paget Houses, Paget Street, Paget Mews, and
+Upper Paget Street, they found Paget Gardens. It was a
+terrace of huge and fashionable houses fronting on an
+immense, blank brick wall. The houses were very lofty;
+so lofty that the architect, presumably afraid of hitting
+heaven with his patent chimney cowls, had sunk the lowest
+storey deep into the earth. Looking over the high palisades
+which protected the pavement from the precipice thus made,
+one could plainly see the lowest storey and all that was
+therein.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whoever can she be staying with?&#8221; exclaimed Miss
+Ingate. &#8220;It&#8217;s a marchioness at least. There&#8217;s no doubt
+the very best people are now in the movement.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey went first up massive steps, and, choosing with
+marked presence of mind the right bell, rang it, expecting
+to see either a butler or a footman.</p>
+
+<p>A young woman, however, answered the ring. She wore
+a rather shabby serge frock, but no apron, and she did not
+resemble any kind of servant. Her ruddy, heavy, and
+slightly resentful face fronted the visitors with a steady,
+challenging stare.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Does Miss Nickall live here?&#8221; asked Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aye! She does!&#8221; came the answer, with a northern
+accent.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve come to see how she is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Happen ye&#8217;d better step inside, then,&#8221; said the young
+woman.</p>
+
+<p>They stepped inside to an enormous and obscure interior;
+the guardian banged the door, and negligently led them
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is a large house,&#8221; Miss Ingate ventured, against the
+silent intimidation of the place.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One o&#8217; them rich uns,&#8221; said the guardian. &#8220;She
+lends it to the Cause when she doesn&#8217;t want it herself, to
+show her sympathy. Saves her a caretaker&mdash;they all know
+I&#8217;m one to look right well after a house.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Having passed two very spacious rooms and a wide
+staircase, she opened the door of a smaller but still a considerable
+room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here y&#8217;are,&#8221; she muttered.</p>
+
+<p>This room, like the others, was thoroughly sheeted, and
+thus presented a misty and spectral appearance. All the
+chairs, the chandelier, and all the pictures, were masked
+in close-fitting pale yellow. The curtains were down, the
+carpet was up, and a dust sheet was spread under the table
+in the middle of the floor.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s some friends of yours,&#8221; said the guardian,
+throwing her words across the room.</p>
+
+<p>In an easy chair near the fireplace sat Miss Nickall, her
+arm in splints and in a sling. She was very thin and very
+pallid, and her eyes brightly glittered. The customary kind
+expression of her face was modified, though not impaired,
+by a look of vague apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mind how ye handle her,&#8221; the guardian gave warning,
+when Nick yielded herself to be embraced.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re just a bit of my Paris come to see me,&#8221; said
+Nick, with her American accent. Then through her tears:
+&#8220;How&#8217;s Tommy, and how&#8217;s Musa, and how&#8217;s&mdash;how&#8217;s my
+studio? Oh! This is Miss Susan Foley, sister of Jane
+Foley. Jane will be here for tea. Susan&mdash;Miss Ingate and
+Mrs. Moncreiff.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Susan gave a grim bob.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is Jane Foley coming? Does she live here?&#8221; asked
+Miss Ingate, properly impressed by the name of her who
+was the St. George of Suffragism, and perhaps the most
+efficient of all militants. &#8220;Audrey, we are in luck!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Nick had gathered items of information about
+Paris, she burst out:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t believe I&#8217;ve only met you once before. You&#8217;re
+just like old friends.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So we are old friends,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;Your letters
+to Winnie have made us old friends.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And when did you come over?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Last night,&#8221; Miss Ingate replied. &#8220;We should have
+called this morning to see you, but Mrs. Moncreiff had so
+much business to do and people to see. I don&#8217;t know what
+it all was. She&#8217;s very mysterious.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As a fact, Audrey had had an interview with Mr.
+Foulger, who, with laudable obedience, had come up to
+town from Chelmsford in response to a telegram. Miss
+Ingate was aware of this, but she was not aware of other
+and more recondite interviews which Audrey had accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And how did this happen?&#8221; eagerly inquired Miss
+Ingate, at last, pointing to the bandaged arm.</p>
+
+<p>Nick&#8217;s face showed discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Please don&#8217;t let us talk about that,&#8221; said Nick. &#8220;It
+was a policeman. I don&#8217;t think he meant it. I had
+chained myself to the railings of St. Margaret&#8217;s Church.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Susan Foley put in laconically:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s not to be worried. I hope ye&#8217;ll stay for tea.
+We shall have tea at five sharp. Janey&#8217;ll be in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can&#8217;t they sleep here, Susan?&#8221; Nick whimpered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course they can, and welcome,&#8221; said Susan.
+&#8220;There&#8217;s more empty beds in this barracks than they could
+sleep in if they slept all day and all night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But we&#8217;re staying at an hotel. We can&#8217;t possibly put
+you to all this trouble,&#8221; Audrey protested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No trouble. It&#8217;s my business. It&#8217;s what I&#8217;m here
+for,&#8221; said Susan Foley. &#8220;I&#8217;d sooner have it than mill work
+any day o&#8217; the week.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re just going to be very mean if you don&#8217;t stay
+here,&#8221; Nick faltered. Tears stood in her eyes again. &#8220;You
+don&#8217;t know how I feel.&#8221; She murmured something about
+Betty Burke&#8217;s doings,</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We will stay! We will stay!&#8221; Miss Ingate agreed
+hastily. And, unperceived by Nick, she gave Audrey a
+glance in which irony and tenderness were mingled. It
+was as if she had whispered, &#8220;The nerves of this angel have
+all gone to pieces. We must humour the little sentimental
+simpleton.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_21" id="chapter_21" />CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>JANE</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve begun, ye see,&#8221; said Susan Foley.</p>
+
+<p>It was two minutes past five, and Miss Ingate and
+Audrey, followed by Nick with her slung arm, entered the
+sheeted living-room. Tremendous feats had been performed.
+All the Moncreiff and Ingate luggage, less than two hours
+earlier lying at the Charing Cross Hotel, was now in two
+adjoining rooms on the third floor of the great house in
+Paget Gardens. Drivers and loiterers had assisted, under
+the strict and taciturn control of Susan Foley. Also Nick,
+Miss Ingate, and Audrey had had a most intimate conversation,
+and the two latter had changed their attire to suit the
+station of campers in a palace.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s lovely to be quite free and independent,&#8221; Audrey
+had said, and the statement had been acclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley was seated opposite her sister at the small
+table plainly set for five. She rose vivaciously, and came
+forward with outstretched hand. She wore a blue skirt and
+a white blouse and brown boots. She was twenty-eight,
+but her rather small proportions and her plentiful golden,
+fluffy hair made her seem about twenty. Her face was less
+homely than Susan&#8217;s, and more mobile. She smiled somewhat
+shyly, with an extraordinary radiant cheerfulness. It
+was impossible for her to conceal the fact that she was very
+good-natured and very happy. Finally, she limped.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Susan <em>will</em> have the meals prompt,&#8221; she said, as they
+all sat down. &#8220;And as Susan left home on purpose to look
+after me, of course she&#8217;s the mistress. As far as that goes,
+she always was.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Susan was spreading jam on a slice of bread-and-butter
+for the one-armed Nick.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I dare say you don&#8217;t remember me playing the barrel
+organ all down Regent Street that day, do you?&#8221; said
+Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes; quite well. You were magnificent!&#8221; answered
+Jane, with blue eyes sparkling.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, though I only just saw you&mdash;I was so busy&mdash;I
+should remember you anywhere, Miss Foley,&#8221; said Miss
+Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you notice any difference in her?&#8221; questioned
+Susan Foley harshly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;N-o,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;Except, perhaps, she looks
+even younger.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t you notice she&#8217;s lame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, well&mdash;yes, I did. But you didn&#8217;t expect me to
+mention that, did you? I thought your sister had just
+sprained her ankle, or something.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Susan. &#8220;It&#8217;s for life. Tell them about it,
+Jenny. They don&#8217;t know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley laughed lightly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was all in the day&#8217;s work,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It was at
+my last visit to Holloway.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, gazing at her entranced, like a child, murmured
+with awe:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you been to prison, then?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Three times,&#8221; said Jane pleasantly. &#8220;And I shall be
+going again soon. I&#8217;m only out while they&#8217;re trying to
+think of some new way of dealing with me, poor things!
+I&#8217;m generally watched. It must cost them a fearful lot of
+money. But what are they to do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But how were you lamed? I can&#8217;t eat any tea if you
+don&#8217;t tell me&mdash;really I can&#8217;t!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, all right!&#8221; Jane laughed. &#8220;It was after that
+Liberal mass meeting in Peel Park, at Bradford. I&#8217;d begun
+to ask questions, as usual, you know&mdash;questions they can&#8217;t
+answer&mdash;and then some Liberal stewards, with lovely rosettes
+in their buttonholes, came round me and started cutting my
+coat with their penknives. They cut it all to pieces. You
+see that was the best argument they could think of in the
+excitement of the moment. I believe they&#8217;d have cut up
+every stitch I had, only perhaps it began to dawn on them
+that it might be awkward for them. Then two of them
+lifted me up, one by the feet and the other by the shoulders,
+and carried me off. They wouldn&#8217;t let me walk. I told
+them they&#8217;d hurt my leg, but they were too busy to listen.
+As soon as they came across a policeman they said they had
+done it all to save me from being thrown into the lake by
+a brutal and infuriated mob. I just had enough breath left
+to thank them. Of course, the police weren&#8217;t going to stand
+that, so I was taken that night to London. Everything was
+thought of except my tea. But I expect they forgot that on
+purpose so that I should be properly hungry when I got to
+Holloway. However, I said to myself, &#8216;If I can&#8217;t eat and
+drink when <em>I</em> want, I won&#8217;t eat and drink when <em>they</em> want!&#8217;
+And I didn&#8217;t.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;After I&#8217;d paid my respects at Bow Street, and was
+back at Holloway, I just stamped on everything they offered
+me, and wrote a petition to the Governor asking to be
+treated as a political prisoner. Instead of granting the petition
+he kept sending me more and more beautiful food, and
+I kept stamping on it. Then three magistrates arrived and
+sat on my case, and sentenced me to the punishment cells.
+They ran off as soon as they&#8217;d sentenced me. I said I
+wouldn&#8217;t go to their punishment cells. I told everybody
+again how lame I was. So five wardresses carried me there,
+but they dropped me twice on the way. It was a very
+interesting cell, the punishment cell was. If it had been
+in the Tower, everybody would go to look at it because of
+its quaintness. There were two pools of water near to the
+bed. I was three days in the cell, and those pools of water
+were always there; I could see them because from where I
+lay on the bed the light glinted on them. Just one gleam
+from the tiny cobwebby window high up. I hadn&#8217;t anything
+to read, of course, but even if I&#8217;d had something I
+couldn&#8217;t see to read. The bed was two planks, just raised
+an inch or two above the water, and the pillow was wooden.
+Never any trouble about making beds like that! The entire
+furniture of this cosy drawing-room was&mdash;you&#8217;ll never
+guess&mdash;a tree-stump, meant for a chair, I think. And on
+this tree-stump was an india-rubber cup. I could just see it
+across the cell.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At night the wardresses were struck with pity, or
+perhaps it was the Governor. Anyhow, they brought me
+a mattress and a rug. They told me to get up off the
+bed, and I told them I couldn&#8217;t get up, couldn&#8217;t even
+turn over. So they said, &#8216;Very well, then; you can do
+without these things,&#8217; and they took them away. The
+funny thing was that I really couldn&#8217;t get up. If I tried
+to move, my leg made me want to shriek.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;After three days they decided to take me to the prison
+hospital. I shrieked all the way&mdash;couldn&#8217;t help it. They
+laughed. So then I laughed. In the hospital, the doctor
+decided that my left ankle was sprained and my right
+thigh broken. So I had the best of them, after all. They
+had to admit they were wrong. It was most awkward
+for them. Then I thought I might as well begin to eat.
+But they had to be very careful what they gave me. I
+hadn&#8217;t had anything for nearly six days, you see. They
+were in a fearful stew. Doctor was there day and night.
+And it wasn&#8217;t his fault. I told him he had all my sympathies.
+He said he was very sorry I should be lame for life, but
+it couldn&#8217;t be helped, as the thigh had been left too long.
+I said, &#8216;Please don&#8217;t mention it.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But did they keep you after that?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Keep me! They implored my friends to take me away.
+No man was ever more relieved that the poor dear Governor
+of Holloway Prison, and the Home Secretary himself, too,
+when I left in a motor ambulance. The Governor raised
+his hat to two of my friends. He would have eaten out
+of my hand if I&#8217;d had a few more days to tame him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey&#8217;s childlike and intense gaze had become extremely
+noticeable. Jane Foley felt it upon herself, and grew a
+little self-conscious. Susan Foley noticed it with eager
+and grim pride, and she made a sharp movement instead
+of saying: &#8220;Yes, you do well to stare. You&#8217;ve got
+something worth staring at.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Nick noticed it, with moisture in her glittering, hysteric
+eyes. Miss Ingate noticed it ironically. &#8220;You, pretending
+to be a widow, and so knowing and so superior! Why,
+you&#8217;re a schoolgirl!&#8221; said the expressive curve of Miss
+Ingate&#8217;s shut lips.</p>
+
+<p>And, in fact, Audrey was now younger than she had
+ever been in Paris. She was the girl of six or seven
+years earlier, who, at night at school, used to insist upon
+hearing stories of real people, either from a sympathetic
+teacher or from the other member of the celebrated secret
+society. But she had never heard any tale to compare
+with Jane Foley&#8217;s. It was incredible that this straightforward,
+simple girl at the table should be the world-renowned
+Jane Foley. What most impressed Audrey in
+Jane was Jane&#8217;s happiness. Jane was happy, as Audrey
+had not imagined that anyone could be happy. She had
+within her a supply of happiness that was constantly
+bubbling up. The ridiculousness and the total futility of
+such matters as motor-cars, fine raiment, beautiful boudoirs
+and correctness smote Audrey severely. She saw that there
+was only one thing worth having, and that was the
+mysterious thing that Jane Foley had. This mysterious
+thing rendered innocuous cruelty, stupidity and injustice,
+and reduced them to rather pathetic trifles.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I never saw all this in the papers!&#8221; Audrey
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No paper&mdash;I mean no respectable paper&mdash;would print it.
+Of course, we printed it in our own weekly paper.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why wouldn&#8217;t any respectable paper print it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because it&#8217;s not nice. Don&#8217;t you see that I ought
+to have been at home mending stockings instead of gallivanting
+round with Liberal stewards and policemen and
+prison governors?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why aren&#8217;t you mending stockings?&#8221; asked Audrey,
+with a delicious quizzical smile that crept gradually through
+the wonder and admiration in her face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You pal!&#8221; cried Jane Foley impulsively. &#8220;I must
+hug you!&#8221; And she did. &#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you why I&#8217;m not
+mending stockings, and why Susan has had to leave off
+mending stockings in order to look after me. Susan and
+I worked in a mill when she was ten and I was eleven.
+We were &#8216;tenters.&#8217; We used to get up at four or five
+in the morning and help with the housework, and then
+put on our clogs and shawls and be at the mill at six.
+We worked till twelve, and then in the afternoon we went
+to school. The next day we went to school in the morning
+and to the mill in the afternoon. When we were thirteen
+we left school altogether, and worked twelve hours a day
+in the mill. In the evenings we had to do housework.
+In fact, all our housework was done before half-past five
+in the morning and after half-past six in the evening.
+We had to work just as hard as the men and boys in the
+mill. We got a great deal less money and a great deal
+less decent treatment; but to make up we had to slave
+in the early morning and late at night, while the men
+either snored or smoked. I was all right. But Susan
+wasn&#8217;t. And a lot of women weren&#8217;t, especially young
+mothers with babies. So I learnt typewriting on the quiet,
+and left it all to try and find out whether something couldn&#8217;t
+be done. I soon found out&mdash;after I&#8217;d heard Rosamund
+speak. That&#8217;s the reason I&#8217;m not mending stockings.
+I&#8217;m not blaming anybody. It&#8217;s no one&#8217;s fault, really. It
+certainly isn&#8217;t men&#8217;s fault. Only something has to be
+altered, and most people detest alterations. Still, they
+do get done somehow in the end. And so there you
+are!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should love to help,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I expect I&#8217;m
+not much good, but I should love to.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She dared not refer to her wealth, of which, in fact,
+she was rather ashamed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, you can help, all right,&#8221; said Jane Foley, rising.
+&#8220;Are you a member?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. But I will be to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They&#8217;ll give you something to do,&#8221; said Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh yes!&#8221; remarked Miss Ingate. &#8220;They&#8217;ll keep you
+busy enough&mdash;<em>and</em> charge you for it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Susan Foley began to clear the table.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Supper at nine,&#8221; said she curtly.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_22" id="chapter_22" />CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DETECTIVE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey and Miss Ingate were writing letters to Paris.
+Jane Foley had gone forth again to a committee meeting,
+which was understood to be closely connected with a great
+Liberal demonstration shortly to be held in a Midland
+fortress of Liberalism. Miss Nickall, in accordance with
+medical instructions, had been put to bed. Susan Foley
+was in the basement, either clearing up tea or preparing
+supper.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate, putting her pen between her teeth and
+looking up from a blotting-pad, said to Audrey across
+the table:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you writing to Musa?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly not!&#8221; said Audrey, with fire. &#8220;Why should
+I write to Musa?&#8221; She added: &#8220;But you can write to
+him, if you like.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Can I?&#8221; observed Miss Ingate, grinning.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey knew of no reason why she should blush before
+Miss Ingate, yet she began to blush. She resolved not to
+blush; she put all her individual force into the enterprise
+of resisting the tide of blood to her cheeks, but the tide
+absolutely ignored her, as the tide of ocean might have
+ignored her.</p>
+
+<p>She rose from the table, and, going into a corner,
+fidgeted with the electric switches, turning certain additional
+lights off and on.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All right,&#8221; said Miss Ingate; &#8220;I&#8217;ll write to him.
+I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;ll expect something. Have you finished your
+letters?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, what&#8217;s this one on the table, then?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shan&#8217;t go on with that one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Any message for Musa?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You might tell him,&#8221; said Audrey, carefully examining
+the drawn curtains of the window, &#8220;that I happened to
+meet a French concert agent this morning who was very
+interested in him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you?&#8221; cried Miss Ingate. &#8220;Where?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It was when I was out with Mr. Foulger. The agent
+asked me whether I&#8217;d heard a man named Musa play in
+Paris. Of course I said I had. He told me he meant
+to take him up and arrange a tour for him. So you might
+tell Musa he ought to be prepared for anything.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wonders will never cease!&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;Have
+I got enough stamps?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see anything wonderful in it,&#8221; Audrey sharply
+replied. &#8220;Lots of people in Paris know he&#8217;s a great
+player, and those Jew concert agents are always awfully
+keen&mdash;at least, so I&#8217;m told. Well, perhaps, after all, you&#8217;d
+better not tell him. It might make him conceited....
+Now, look here, Winnie, do hurry up, and let&#8217;s go out
+and post those letters. I can&#8217;t stand this huge house.
+I keep on imagining all the empty rooms in it. Hurry
+up and come along.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Shortly afterwards Miss Ingate shouted downstairs into
+the earth:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Foley, we&#8217;re both just going out to post some
+letters.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The faint reply came:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Supper at nine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At the farther corner of Paget Square they discovered
+a pillar-box standing solitary in the chill night among the
+vast and threatening architecture.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do let&#8217;s go to a café,&#8221; suggested Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A café?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. I want to be jolly. I must break loose somewhere
+to-night. I can&#8217;t wait till to-morrow. I was feeling
+splendid till Jane Foley went. Then the house began to
+get on my nerves, not to mention Susan Foley, with her
+supper at nine. Do all people in London fix their meals
+hours and hours beforehand? I suppose they do. We
+used to at Moze. But I&#8217;d forgotten. Come <em>along</em>, Winnie.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But there are no cafés in London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There must be some cafés somewhere.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Only public-houses and restaurants. Of course, we
+could go to a teashop, but they&#8217;re all shut up now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, what do people do in London when they
+want to be jolly? I always thought London was a
+terrific town.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They never want to be jolly,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;If
+they feel as if they couldn&#8217;t help being jolly, then they
+hire a private room somewhere and draw the blinds
+down.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>With no more words, Audrey seized Miss Ingate by
+the arm and they walked off, out of the square and into
+empty and silent streets where highly disciplined gas-lamps
+kept strict watch over the deportment of colossal houses.
+In their rapid stroll they seemed to cover miles, but they
+could not escape from the labyrinth of tremendous and
+correct houses, which in squares and in terraces and in
+crescents displayed the everlasting characteristics of comfort,
+propriety and self-satisfaction. Now and then a wayfarer
+passed them. Now and then a taxicab sped through the
+avenues of darkness like a criminal pursued by the impalpable.
+Now and then a red light flickered in a porch instead
+of a white one. But there was no surcease from the sinister
+spell until suddenly they emerged into a long, wide, illumined
+thoroughfare of shut shops that stretched to infinity on
+either hand. And a vermilion motor-bus meandered by,
+and this motor-bus was so sad, so inexpressibly wistful, in
+the solemn wilderness of the empty artery, that the two
+women fled from the strange scene and penetrated once
+more into the gigantic and fearful maze from which they
+had for an instant stood free. Soon they were quite lost.
+Till that day and night Audrey had had a notion that Miss
+Ingate, though bizarre, did indeed know every street in
+London. The delusion was destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never mind,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;If we keep on we&#8217;re
+bound to come to a cabstand, and then we can take a taxi
+and go wherever we like&mdash;Regent Street, Piccadilly, anywhere.
+That&#8217;s the convenience of London. As soon as
+you come to a cabstand you&#8217;re all right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And then, in the distance, Audrey saw a man apparently
+tampering with a gate that led to an area.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why,&#8221; she said excitedly, &#8220;that&#8217;s the house we&#8217;re
+staying in!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course it isn&#8217;t!&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;This isn&#8217;t
+Paget Gardens, because there are houses on both sides of it
+and there&#8217;s a big wall on one side of Paget Gardens. I&#8217;m
+sure we&#8217;re at least two miles off our beds.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, how is it Nick&#8217;s hairbrushes are on the
+window-sill there, where she put them when she went to
+bed? I can see them quite plain. This is the side street&mdash;what&#8217;s-its-name?
+There&#8217;s the wall over there at the end.
+Don&#8217;t you remember&mdash;it&#8217;s a corner house. This is the side
+of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I believe you&#8217;re right,&#8221; admitted Miss Ingate. &#8220;What
+can that man be doing there?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They plainly saw him open the gate and disappear down
+the area steps.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a burglar,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;This part must be a
+regular paradise for burglars.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;More likely a detective,&#8221; Miss Ingate suggested.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was thrilled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do hope it is!&#8221; she murmured. &#8220;How heavenly!
+Miss Foley said she was being watched, didn&#8217;t she?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What had we better do?&#8221; Miss Ingate faltered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do, Winnie?&#8221; Audrey whispered, tugging at her arm.
+&#8220;We must run in at the front door and tell Supper-at-nine-o&#8217;clock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They kept cautiously on the far side of the street until
+the end of it, when they crossed over, nipped into the dark
+porch of the house and rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>Susan Foley opened for them. There was no light in
+the hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, is there?&#8221; said Susan Foley, very calmly, when
+she heard the news. &#8220;I think I know who it is. I&#8217;ve seen
+him hanging round my scullery door before. How did he
+climb over those railings?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He didn&#8217;t. He opened the gate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I locked the gate myself this afternoon. So he&#8217;s
+got a key. I shall manage him all right. We&#8217;ll get the
+fire-extinguishers. There&#8217;s about a dozen of &#8217;em, I should
+think, in this house. They&#8217;re rather heavy, but we can
+do it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Turning on the light in the hall, she immediately lifted
+from its hook a red-coloured metal cone about twenty inches
+long and eight inches in diameter at the base. &#8220;In case of
+fire drive in knob by hard blow against floor, and let
+liquid play on flames,&#8221; she read the instructions on the
+side. &#8220;I know them things,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It spurts out
+like a fountain, and it&#8217;s a rather nasty chemistry sort of a
+fluid. I shall take one downstairs to the scullery, and the
+others we&#8217;ll have upstairs in the room over Miss Nickall&#8217;s.
+We can put &#8217;em in the housemaid&#8217;s lift.... I shall open
+the scullery door and leave it a bit open like, and when he
+comes in I&#8217;ll be ready for him behind the door with this.
+If he thinks he can come spying after our Janey like
+this&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Miss Ingate began.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You aren&#8217;t feeling very well, are ye, miss?&#8221; Susan
+Foley demanded, as she put two extinguishers into the
+housemaid&#8217;s lift. &#8220;Better go and sit down in the parlour.
+You won&#8217;t be wanted. Mrs. Moncreiff and me can
+manage.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, we can!&#8221; agreed Audrey enthusiastically. &#8220;Run
+along, Winnie.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After about two minutes of hard labour Susan ran away
+and brought a key to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You sneak out,&#8221; she said, &#8220;and lock the gate on him.
+I lay he&#8217;ll want a new suit of clothes when I done with
+him!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Ecstatically, joyfully, Audrey took the key and departed.
+Miss Ingate was sitting in the hall, staring about her like an
+undecided bird. Audrey crept round into the side street.
+Nobody was in sight. She could not see over the railings,
+but she could see between them into the abyss of the area.
+The man was there. She could distinguish his dark form
+against the inner wall. With every conspiratorial precaution,
+she pulled the gate to, inserted the key, and locked it.</p>
+
+<p>A light went up in the scullery window, of which the
+blind was drawn. The man peeped at the sides of the
+blind. Then the scullery door was opened. The man
+started. A piece of wood was thrown out on to the floor
+of the area, and the door swung outwards. Then the
+light in the scullery was extinguished. The man waited
+a few moments. He had noticed that the door was not
+quite closed, and the interstice irresistibly fascinated him.
+He approached and put his hand against the door. It
+yielded. He entered. The next instant there was a bang
+and a cry, and a strong spray of white liquid appeared, in
+the middle of which was the man&#8217;s head. The door slammed
+and a bolt was shot. The man, spluttering, coughing, and
+swearing, rubbed his eyes and wiped water from his face
+with his hands. His hat was on the ground. At first he
+could not see at all, but presently he felt his way towards
+the steps and began to climb them. Audrey ran off towards
+the corner. She could see and hear him shaking the gate and
+then trying to get a key into it. But as Audrey had left her
+key in the other side of the lock, he failed in the attempt.</p>
+
+<p>The next thing was that a window opened in the high
+wall-face of the house and an immense stream of liquid
+descended full on the man&#8217;s head. Susan Foley was at
+the window, but only the nozzle of the extinguisher could
+be seen. The man tried to climb over the railings; he did
+not succeed; they had been especially designed to prevent
+such feats. He ran down the steps. The shower faithfully
+followed him. In no corner of his hiding did the bountiful
+spray neglect him. As soon as one supply of liquid
+slackened another commenced. Sometimes there were two
+at once. The man ran up the steps again and made another
+effort to reach the safety of the street. Audrey could restrain
+herself no more. She came, palpitating with joyous
+vitality, towards the area gate with the innocent mien of
+a passer-by.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whatever is the matter?&#8221; she exclaimed, stopping as
+if thunderstruck. But in the gloom her eyes were dancing
+fires. She was elated as she had never been.</p>
+
+<p>The man only coughed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You oughtn&#8217;t to take shower-baths like this in the
+street,&#8221; she said, veiling the laughter in her voice. &#8220;It&#8217;s
+not allowed. But I suppose you&#8217;re doing it for a bet or
+something.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The downpour ceased.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here, miss,&#8221; said he, between coughs, &#8220;unlock this
+gate for me. Here&#8217;s the key.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall do no such thing,&#8221; Audrey replied. &#8220;I believe
+you&#8217;re a burglar. I shall fetch a policeman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she turned back.</p>
+
+<p>In the house, Miss Ingate was coming slowly down the
+stairs, a fire-extinguisher in her arms, like a red baby. She
+had a sardonic smile, but there was diffidence in it, which
+showed, perhaps, that it was directed within.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve saved one,&#8221; she said, pointing to an extinguisher,
+&#8220;in case there should be a fire in the night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A little later Susan Foley appeared at the door of the
+living-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nine o&#8217;clock,&#8221; she announced calmly. &#8220;Supper&#8217;s
+ready. We shan&#8217;t wait for Jane.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Jane Foley arrived, a reconnaissance proved that
+the martyrised detective had contrived to get away.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_23" id="chapter_23" />CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE BLUE CITY</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the following month, on a Saturday afternoon, Audrey,
+Miss Ingate, and Jane Foley were seated at an open-air
+café in the Blue City.</p>
+
+<p>The Blue City, now no more, was, as may be remembered,
+Birmingham&#8217;s reply to the White City of London,
+and the imitative White City of Manchester. Birmingham,
+in that year, was not imitative, and, with its chemical
+knowledge, it had discovered that certain shades of blue
+would resist the effects of smoke far more successfully than
+any shade of white. And experience even showed that these
+shades of blue were improved, made more delicate and
+romantic, by smoke. The total impression of the show&mdash;which
+it need hardly be said was situated in the polite
+Edgbaston district&mdash;was ethereal, especially when its
+minarets and towers, all in accordance with the taste of the
+period, were beheld from a distance. Nor was the exhibition
+entirely devoted to pleasure. It had a moral object, and
+that object was to demonstrate the progress of civilisation
+in our islands. Its official title, indeed, was &#8220;The National
+Progress Exhibition,&#8221; but the citizens of Birmingham and
+the vicinity never called it anything but the Blue City.</p>
+
+<p>On that Saturday afternoon a Cabinet Minister historically
+hostile to the idols of Birmingham was about to
+address a mass meeting in the Imperial Hall of the
+Exhibition, which held seven thousand people, in order to
+prove to Birmingham that the Government of which he was
+a member had done far more for national progress than any
+other Government had done for national progress in the same
+length of time. The presence of the Cabinet Minister
+accounted for the presence of Jane Foley; the presence of
+Jane Foley accounted for the presence of Audrey; and the
+presence of Audrey accounted for the presence of Miss
+Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Although she was one of the chief organisers of victory,
+and perhaps&mdash;next to Rosamund and the family trio whose
+Christian names were three sweet symphonies&mdash;the principal
+asset of the Suffragette Union, Jane Foley had not taken
+an active part in the Union&#8217;s arrangements for suitably
+welcoming the Cabinet Minister; partly because of her
+lameness, partly because she was writing a book, and partly
+for secret reasons which it would be unfair to divulge.
+Nearly at the last moment, however, in consequence of news
+that all was not well in the Midlands, she had been sent to
+Birmingham, and, after evading the watch of the police, she
+had arrived on the previous day in Audrey&#8217;s motor-car,
+which at that moment was waiting in the automobile park
+outside the principal gates of the Blue City.</p>
+
+<p>The motor-car had been chosen as a means of transit
+for the reason that the railway stations were being watched
+for notorious suffragettes by members of a police force
+whose reputations were at stake. Audrey owed her
+possession of a motor-car to the fact that the Union officials
+had seemed both startled and grieved when, in response to
+questions, she admitted that she had no car. It was communicated
+to her that members of the Union as rich as she
+reputedly was were expected to own cars for the general
+good. Audrey thereupon took measures to own a car.
+Having seen in many newspapers an advertisement in which
+a firm of middlemen implored the public thus: &#8220;Let us run
+your car for you. Let us take all the worry and responsibility,&#8221;
+she interviewed the firm, and by writing out a
+cheque disembarrassed herself at a stroke of every anxiety
+incident to defective magnetos, bad petrol, bad rubber,
+punctures, driving licences, bursts, collisions, damages, and
+human chauffeurs. She had all the satisfactions of owning
+a car without any of the cares. One of the evidences of
+progress in the Blue City was an exhibit of this very firm
+of middlemen.</p>
+
+<p>From the pale blue tripod table at which sat the three
+women could be plainly seen the vast Imperial Hall, flanked
+on one side by the great American Dragon Slide, a side-show
+loudly demonstrating progress, and on the other by
+the unique Joy Wheel side-show. At the doorway of the
+latter a man was bawling proofs of progress through a
+megaphone.</p>
+
+<p>Immense crowds had been gathering in the Imperial
+Hall, and the lines of political enthusiasts bound thither
+were now thinning. The Blue City was full of rumours, as
+that the Cabinet Minister was too afraid to come, as that
+he had been smuggled to the hall inside a tea-chest, and
+as that he had walked openly and unchallenged through the
+whole Exhibition. It was no rumour, but a sure fact, that
+two women had been caught hiding on the roof of the
+Imperial Hall, under natural shelters formed by the beams
+and boarding supporting the pediment of the eastern façade,
+and that they were ammunitioned with flags and leaflets and
+a silk ladder, and had made a hole in the roof exactly over
+the platform. These two women had been seen in charge
+of policemen at the Exhibition police-station. It was understood
+by many that they were the last hope of militancy
+that afternoon; many others, on the contrary, were convinced
+that they had been simply a feint.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Miss Ingate suddenly, glancing up at the
+Imperial clock, &#8220;I think I shall move outside and sit in the
+car. I think that&#8217;ll be the best place for me. I said that
+night in Paris that I&#8217;d get my arm broken, but I&#8217;ve changed
+my mind about that.&#8221; She rose.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; protested Audrey, &#8220;aren&#8217;t you going to see
+it out?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you afraid?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know that I&#8217;m afraid. I played the barrel
+organ all the way down Regent Street, and it was smashed
+to pieces. But I don&#8217;t want to go to prison. Really, I
+don&#8217;t <em>want</em> to. If me going to prison would bring the Vote
+a single year nearer, I should say: &#8216;Let it wait a year.&#8217; If
+me not going to prison meant no Vote for ever and ever, I
+should say: &#8216;Well, struggle on without the Vote.&#8217; I&#8217;ve no
+objection to other people going to prison, if it suits them,
+but it wouldn&#8217;t suit me. I know it wouldn&#8217;t. So I shall
+go outside and sit in the car. If you don&#8217;t come, I shall
+know what&#8217;s happened, and you needn&#8217;t worry about me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The dame duly departed, her lips and eyes equally ironic
+about her own prudence and about the rashness of others.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s have some more lemonade&mdash;shall we?&#8221; said
+Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, let&#8217;s!&#8221; agreed Audrey, with rapture. &#8220;And more
+sponge-cake, too! You do look lovely like that!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do I?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley had her profuse hair tightly bound round her
+head and powdered grey. It was very advisable for her
+to be disguised, and her bright hair was usually the chief
+symptom of her in those disturbances which so harassed
+the police. She now had the appearance of a neat old lady
+kept miraculously young by a pure and cheerful nature.
+Audrey, with a plain blue frock and hat which had cost
+more than Jane Foley would spend on clothes in twelve
+months, had a face dazzling by its ingenuous excitement
+and expectation. Her little nose was extraordinarily pert;
+her forehead superb; and all her gestures had the same
+vivacious charm as was in her eyes. The white-aproned,
+streamered girl who took the order for lemonade and
+sponge-cakes to a covered bar ornamented by advertisements
+of whisky, determined to adopt a composite of the
+styles of both the customers on her next ceremonious
+Sunday. And a large proportion of the other sippers and
+nibblers and of the endless promenading crowds regarded
+the pair with pleasure and curiosity, never suspecting that
+one of them was the most dangerous woman in England.</p>
+
+<p>The new refreshments, which had been delayed by
+reason of an altercation between the waitress and three
+extreme youths at a neighbouring table, at last arrived,
+and were plopped smartly down between Audrey and Miss
+Foley. Having received half a sovereign from Audrey, the
+girl returned to the bar for change. &#8220;None o&#8217; your sauce!&#8221;
+she threw out, as she passed the youths, who had
+apparently discovered new arguments in support of their
+case. Audrey was fired by the vigorous independence of the
+girl against three males.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care if we are caught!&#8221; she murmured low,
+looking for the future through the pellucid tumbler. She
+added, however: &#8220;But if we are, I shall pay my own fine.
+You know I promised that to Miss Ingate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all right, so long as you don&#8217;t pay mine, my
+dear,&#8221; said Jane Foley with an affectionate smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jenny!&#8221; Audrey protested, full of heroine-worship.
+&#8220;How could you think I would ever do such a mean thing!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There came a dull, vague, voluminous sound from the
+direction of the Imperial Hall. It lasted for quite a number
+of seconds.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s beginning,&#8221; said Jane Foley. &#8220;I do feel sorry
+for him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are we to start now?&#8221; Audrey asked deferentially.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no!&#8221; Jane laughed. &#8220;The great thing is to let
+them think everything&#8217;s all right. And then, when they&#8217;re
+getting careless, let go at them full bang with a beautiful
+surprise. There&#8217;ll be a chance of getting away like that.
+I believe there are a hundred and fifty stewards in the meeting,
+and they&#8217;ll every one be quite useless.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At intervals a muffled roar issued from the Imperial
+Hall, despite the fact that the windows were closely shut.</p>
+
+<p>In due time Jane Foley quietly rose from the table, and
+Audrey did likewise. All around them stretched the imposing
+blue architecture of the Exhibition, forming vistas
+that ended dimly either in the smoke of Birmingham or the
+rustic haze of Worcestershire. And, although the Imperial
+Hall was crammed, every vista was thickly powdered with
+pleasure-seekers and probably pleasure-finders. Bands
+played. Flags waved. Brass glinted. Even the sun
+feebly shone at intervals through the eternal canopy of
+soot. It was a great day in the annals of the Blue City
+and of Liberalism.</p>
+
+<p>And Jane Foley and Audrey turned their backs upon all
+that, and&mdash;Jane concealing her limp as much as possible&mdash;sauntered
+with affected nonchalance towards the precincts
+of the Joy Wheel enclosure. Audrey was inexpressibly uplifted.
+She felt as if she had stepped straight into romance.
+And she was right&mdash;she had stepped into the most vivid
+romance of the modern age, into a world of disguises,
+flights, pursuits, chicane, inconceivable adventures, ideals,
+martyrs and conquerors, which only the Renaissance or the
+twenty-first century could appreciate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lend me that, will you?&#8221; said Jane persuasively to
+the man with the megaphone at the entrance to the enclosure.</p>
+
+<p>He was, quite properly, a very loud man, with a loud
+thick voice, a loud purple face, and a loud grey suit. To
+Audrey&#8217;s astonishment, he smiled and winked, and gave up
+the megaphone at once.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey paid sixpence at the turnstile, admittance for two
+persons, and they were within the temple, which had a
+roof like an umbrella over the central, revolving portion of
+it, but which was somewhat open to the skies around the
+rim. There were two concentric enclosing walls, the inner
+one was unscalable, and the outer one about five feet six
+inches high. A second loud man was calling out:
+&#8220;Couples please. Ladies <em>and</em> gentlemen. Couples if <em>you</em> please.&#8221; Obediently, numbers of the crowd disposed themselves
+in pairs in the attitudes of close affection on the
+circling floor which had just come to rest, while the
+remainder of the numerous gathering gazed upon them with
+sarcastic ecstasy. Then the wheel began slowly to turn,
+and girls to shriek in the plenitude of happiness. And
+progress was proved geometrically.</p>
+
+<p>Jane, bearing the megaphone, slipped by an aperture
+into the space between the two walls, and Audrey followed.
+Nobody gave attention to them except the second loud man,
+who winked the wink of knowledge. The fact was that
+both the loud men, being unalterable Tories, had been very
+willing to connive at Jane Foley&#8217;s scheme for the affliction
+of a Radical Minister.</p>
+
+<p>The two girls over the wall had an excellent and
+appetising view of the upper part of the side of the Imperial
+Hall, and of its high windows, the nearest of which was
+scarcely thirty feet away.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hold this, will you?&#8221; said Jane, handing the megaphone
+to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Jane drew from its concealment in her dress a small
+piece of iron to which was attached a coloured streamer
+bearing certain words. She threw, with a strong movement
+of the left arm, because she was left-handed. She
+had practised throwing; throwing was one of her several
+specialties. The bit of iron, trailing its motto like a comet
+its tail, flew across space and plumped into the window
+with a pleasing crash and disappeared, having triumphed
+over uncounted police on the outskirts and a hundred and
+fifty stewards within. A roar from the interior of the hall
+supervened, and varied cries.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Give me the meg,&#8221; said Jane gently.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant she was shouting through the megaphone,
+an instrument which she had seriously studied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Votes for women. Why do you torture women?
+Votes for women. Why do you torture women?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The uproar increased and subsided. A masterful voice
+resounded within the interior. Many people rushed out of
+the hall. And there was a great scurry of important and
+puzzled feet within a radius of a score of yards.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think I&#8217;ll try the next window,&#8221; said Jane, handing
+over the megaphone. &#8220;You shout while I throw.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey&#8217;s heart was violently beating. She took the
+megaphone and put it to her lips, but no sound would come.
+Then, as though it were breaking through an obstacle, the
+sound shot forth, and to Audrey it was a gigantic voice
+that functioned quite independently of her will. Tremendously
+excited by the noise, she bawled louder and still
+louder.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve missed,&#8221; said Jane calmly in her ear. &#8220;That&#8217;s
+enough, I think. Come along.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But they can&#8217;t possibly see us,&#8221; said Audrey, breathless,
+lowering the instrument.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come along, dear,&#8221; Jane Foley insisted.</p>
+
+<p>People with open mouths were crowding at the aperture
+of the inner wall, but, Jane going first, both girls pushed
+safely through the throng. The wheel had stopped. The
+entire congregation was staring agog, and in two seconds
+everybody divined, or had been nudged to the effect, that
+Jane and Audrey were the authoresses of the pother.</p>
+
+<p>Jane still leading, they made for the exit. But the first
+loud man rushed chivalrously in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perlice!&#8221; he cried. &#8220;Two bobbies a-coming.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here!&#8221; said the second loud man. &#8220;Here, misses.
+Get on the wheel. They&#8217;ll never get ye if ye sit in the
+middle back to back.&#8221; He jumped on to the wheel himself,
+and indicated the mathematical centre. Jane took the suggestion
+in a flash; Audrey was obedient. They fixed themselves
+under directions, dropping the megaphone. The
+wheel started, and the megaphone rattled across its smooth
+surface till it was shot off. A policeman ran in, and hesitated;
+another man, in plain clothes, and wearing a rosette,
+ran in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s them,&#8221; said the rosette. &#8220;I saw her with the
+grey hair from the gallery.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The policeman sprang on to the wheel, and after terrific
+efforts fell sprawling and was thrown off. The rosette met
+the same destiny. A second policeman appeared, and with
+the fearless courage of his cloth, undeterred by the spectacle
+of prostrate forms, made a magnificent dash, and was
+equally floored.</p>
+
+<p>As Audrey sat very upright, pressing her back against
+the back of Jane Foley and clutching at Jane Foley&#8217;s skirts
+with her hands behind her&mdash;the locked pair were obliged thus
+to hold themselves exactly over the axis of the wheel, for
+the slightest change of position would have resulted in their
+being flung to the circumference and into the blue grip of
+the law&mdash;she had visions of all her life just as though she
+had been drowning. She admitted all her follies and
+wondered what madness could have prompted her remarkable
+escapades both in Paris and out of it. She remembered
+Madame Piriac&#8217;s prophecy. She was ready to wish
+the past year annihilated and herself back once more in
+parental captivity at Moze, the slave of an unalterable
+routine imposed by her father, without responsibility, without
+initiative and without joy. And she lived again through
+the scenes in which she had smiled at the customs official,
+fibbed to Rosamund, taken the wounded Musa home in the
+taxi, spoken privily with the ageing yacht-owner, and
+laughed at the drowned detective in the area of the palace
+in Paget Gardens.</p>
+
+<p>Everything happened in her mind while the wheel went
+round once, showing her in turn to the various portions
+of the audience, and bringing her at length to a second view
+of the sprawling policemen. Whereupon she thought
+queerly: &#8220;What do I care about the vote, really?&#8221; And
+finally she thought with anger and resentment: &#8220;What a
+shame it is that women haven&#8217;t got the vote!&#8221; And then
+she heard a gay, quiet sound. It was Jane Foley laughing
+gently behind her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can you see the big one now, darling?&#8221; asked Jane
+roguishly. &#8220;Has he picked himself up again?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey laughed.</p>
+
+<p>And at last the audience laughed also. It laughed
+because the big policeman, unconquerable, had made
+another intrepid dash for the centre of the wheel and fallen
+upon his stomach as upon a huge india-rubber ball. The
+audience did more than laugh&mdash;it shrieked, yelled, and
+guffawed. The performance to be witnessed was worth ten
+times the price of entry. Indeed no such performance had
+ever before been seen in the whole history of popular amusement.
+And in describing the affair the next morning as
+&#8220;unique&#8221; the <em>Birmingham Daily Post</em> for once used that
+adjective with absolute correctness. The policemen tried
+again and yet again. They got within feet, within inches,
+of their prey, only to be dragged away by the mysterious
+protector of militant maidens&mdash;centrifugal force. Probably
+never before in the annals of the struggle for political
+freedom had maidens found such a protection, invisible,
+sinister and complete. Had the education of policemen in
+England included a course of mechanics, these particular
+two policemen would have known that they were seeking
+the impossible and fighting against that which was stronger
+than ten thousand policemen. But they would not give up.
+At each fresh attempt they hoped by guile to overcome their
+unseen enemy, as the gambler hopes at each fresh throw to
+outwit chance. The jeers of the audience pricked them to
+desperation, for in encounters with females like Jane Foley
+and Audrey they had been accustomed to the active
+sympathy of the public. But centrifugal force had
+rendered them ridiculous, and the public never sympathises
+with those whom ridicule has covered. The strange and side-splitting
+effects of centrifugal force had transformed about a
+hundred indifferent young men and women into ardent and
+convinced supporters of feminism in its most advanced form.</p>
+
+<p>In the course of her slow revolution Audrey saw the
+rosetted steward arguing with the second loud man, no
+doubt to persuade him to stop the wheel. Then out of the
+tail of her eye she saw the steward run violently from the
+tent. And then while her back was towards the entrance
+she was deafened by a prodigious roar of delight from the
+mob. The two policemen had fled also&mdash;probably for reinforcements
+and appliances against centrifugal force. In
+their pardonable excitement they had, however, committed
+the imprudence of departing together. An elementary
+knowledge of strategy should have warned them against
+such a mistake. The wheel stopped immediately. The
+second loud man beckoned with laughter to Jane Foley and
+Audrey, who rose and hopefully skipped towards him.
+Audrey at any rate was as self-conscious as though she had
+been on the stage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s th&#8217; back way,&#8221; said the second loud man,
+pointing to a coarse curtain in the obscurity of the nether
+parts of the enclosure.</p>
+
+<p>They ran, Jane Foley first, and vanished from the
+regions of the Joy Wheel amid terrific acclamations given
+in a strong Midland accent.</p>
+
+<p>The next moment they found themselves in a part of
+the Blue City which nobody had taken the trouble to paint
+blue. The one blue object was a small patch of sky, amid
+clouds, overhead. On all sides were wooden flying
+buttresses, supporting the boundaries of the Joy Wheel
+enclosure to the south-east, of the Parade Restaurant and
+Bar to the south-west, and of a third establishment of good
+cheer to the north. Upon the ground were brick-ends,
+cinders, bits of wood, bits of corrugated iron, and all the
+litter and refuse cast out of sight of the eyes of visitors to
+the Exhibition of Progress.</p>
+
+<p>With the fear of the police behind them they stumbled
+forward a few yards, and then saw a small ramshackle
+door swinging slightly to and fro on one hinge. Jane Foley
+pulled it open. They both went into a narrow passage.
+On the mildewed wall of the passage was pinned up a notice
+in red ink: &#8220;Any waitress taking away any apron or cap
+from the Parade Restaurant and Bar will be fined one
+shilling.&#8221; Farther on was another door, also ajar. Jane
+Foley pushed against it, and a tiny room of irregular shape
+was disclosed. In this room a stout woman in grey was
+counting a pile of newly laundered caps and aprons, and
+putting them out of one hamper into another. Audrey
+remembered seeing the woman at the counter of the
+restaurant and bar.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The police are after us. They&#8217;ll be here in a minute,&#8221;
+said Jane Foley simply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; exclaimed the woman in grey, with the carelessness
+of fatigue. &#8220;Are you them stone-throwing lot?
+They&#8217;ve just been in to tell me about it. What d&#8217;ye do
+it for?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We do it for you&mdash;amongst others,&#8221; Jane Foley smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nay! That ye don&#8217;t!&#8221; said the woman positively.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve got a vote for the city council, and I want no more.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, you don&#8217;t want us to get caught, do you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I don&#8217;t know as I do. Ye look a couple o&#8217; bonny
+wenches.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let&#8217;s have two caps and aprons, then,&#8221; said Jane
+Foley smoothly. &#8220;We&#8217;ll pay the shilling fine.&#8221; She
+laughed lightly. &#8220;And a bit more. If the police get in
+here we shall have to struggle, you know, and they&#8217;ll break
+the place up.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey produced another half-sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But what shall ye do with yer hats and coats?&#8221; the
+woman demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Give them to you, of course.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The woman regarded the hats and coats.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t get near them coats,&#8221; she said. &#8220;And if I
+put on one o&#8217; them there hats my old man &#8217;ud rise from the
+grave&mdash;that he would. Still, I don&#8217;t wish ye any harm.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She shut and locked the door.</p>
+
+<p>In about a minute two waitresses in aprons and
+streamered caps of immaculate purity emerged from the
+secret places of the Parade Restaurant and Bar, slipped
+round the end of the counter, and started with easy indifference
+to saunter away into the grounds after the manner
+of restaurant girls who have been gifted with half an hour
+off. The tabled expanse in front of the Parade erection was
+busy with people, some sitting at the tables and supporting
+the establishment, but many more merely taking advantage
+of the pitch to observe all possible exciting developments of
+the suffragette shindy.</p>
+
+<p>And as the criminals were modestly getting clear, a loud
+and imperious voice called:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hey!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, lacking experience, hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hey there!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They both turned, for the voice would not be denied.
+It belonged to a man sitting with another man at a table
+on the outskirts of the group of tables. It was the voice
+of the rosetted steward, who beckoned in a not unfriendly
+style.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bring us two liqueur brandies, miss,&#8221; he cried. &#8220;And
+look slippy, if ye please.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The sharp tone, so sure of obedience, gave Audrey a
+queer sensation of being in reality a waitress doomed to
+tolerate the rough bullying of gentlemen urgently desiring
+alcohol. And the fierce thought that women&mdash;especially
+restaurant waitresses&mdash;must and should possess the Vote
+surged through her mind more powerfully than ever.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll never have the chance again,&#8221; she muttered to herself.
+And marched to the counter.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Two liqueur brandies, please,&#8221; she said to the woman
+in grey, who had left her apron calculations. &#8220;That&#8217;s all
+right,&#8221; she murmured, as the woman stared a question at
+her. Then the woman smiled to herself, and poured out
+the liqueur brandies from a labelled bottle with startling
+adroitness, and dashed the full glasses on to a brass tray.</p>
+
+<p>As Audrey walked across the gravel carefully balancing
+the tray, she speculated whether the public eye would notice
+the shape of her small handbag, which was attached by a
+safety pin to her dress beneath the apron, and whether her
+streamers were streaming out far behind her head.</p>
+
+<p>Before she could put the tray down on the table, the
+rosetted steward, who looked pale, snatched one of the
+glasses and gulped down its entire contents.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wanted it!&#8221; said he, smacking his lips. &#8220;I wanted
+it bad. They&#8217;ll catch &#8217;em all right. I should know the
+young &#8217;un again anywhere. I&#8217;ll swear to identify her in
+any court. And I will. Tasty little piece o&#8217; goods, too! ...
+But not so good-looking as you,&#8221; he added, gazing
+suddenly at Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;None o&#8217; your sauce,&#8221; snapped Audrey, and walked off,
+leaving the tray behind.</p>
+
+<p>The two men exploded into coarse but amiable laughter,
+and called to her to return, but she would not. &#8220;You can
+pay the other young lady,&#8221; she said over her shoulder,
+pointing vaguely to the counter where there was now a
+bevy of other young ladies.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later Miss Ingate, and the chauffeur also,
+received a very appreciable shock. Half an hour later the
+car, having called at the telegraph office, and also at the
+aghast lodgings of the waitresses to enable them to reattire
+and to pack, had quitted Birmingham.</p>
+
+<p>That night they reached Northampton. At the post
+office there Jane Foley got a telegram. And when the three
+were seated in a corner of the curtained and stuffy dining-room
+of the small hotel, Jane said, addressing herself
+specially to Audrey:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It won&#8217;t be safe for us to return to Paget Gardens
+to-morrow. And perhaps not to any of our places in
+London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That won&#8217;t matter,&#8221; said Audrey, who was now
+becoming accustomed to the world of conspiracy and
+chicane in which Jane Foley carried on her existence with
+such a deceiving air of the matter-of-fact. &#8220;We&#8217;ll go anywhere,
+won&#8217;t we, Winnie?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Miss Ingate assented.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Jane Foley. &#8220;I&#8217;ve just had a telegram
+arranging for us to go to Frinton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t mean Frinton-on-Sea?&#8221; exclaimed Miss
+Ingate, suddenly excited.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It <em>is</em> on the sea,&#8221; said Jane. &#8220;We have to go
+through Colchester. Do you know it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do I know it!&#8221; repeated Miss Ingate. &#8220;I know
+everybody in Frinton, except the Germans. When I&#8217;m at
+home I buy my bacon at Frinton. Are you going to an
+hotel there?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Jane. &#8220;To some people named Spatt.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s nobody that is anybody named Spatt living at
+Frinton,&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They haven&#8217;t been there long.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; murmured Miss Ingate. &#8220;Of course if that&#8217;s
+it...! I can&#8217;t guarantee what&#8217;s happened since I began
+my pilgrimages. But I think I shall wriggle off home
+quietly as soon as we get to Colchester. This afternoon&#8217;s
+business has been too feverish for me. When the policeman
+held up his hand as we came through Ellsworth I thought
+you were caught. I shall just go home.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t care much about going to Frinton, Jenny,&#8221; said
+Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, Moze lay within not many miles of Frinton-on-Sea.</p>
+
+<p>Then Audrey and Miss Ingate observed a phenomenon
+that was both novel and extremely disturbing. Tears came
+into the eyes of Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t say it, Audrey, don&#8217;t say it!&#8221; she appealed in
+a wet voice. &#8220;I shall have to go myself. And you simply
+can&#8217;t imagine how I hate going all alone into these houses
+that we&#8217;re invited to. I&#8217;d much sooner be in lodgings, as
+we were last night. But these homes in quiet places here
+and there are very useful sometimes. They all belong to
+members of the Union, you know; and we have to use them.
+But I wish we hadn&#8217;t. I&#8217;ve met Mrs. Spatt once. I didn&#8217;t
+think you&#8217;d throw me over just at the worst part. The
+Spatts will take all of us and be glad.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>("They won&#8217;t take me,&#8221; said Miss Ingate under her
+breath.)</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall come with you,&#8221; said Audrey, caressing the
+recreant who, while equal to trifles such as policemen, magistrates,
+and prisons, was miserably afraid of a strange
+home. In fact Audrey now liked Jane much more than
+ever, liked her completely&mdash;and perhaps admired her rather
+less, though her admiration was still intense. And the
+thought in Audrey&#8217;s mind was: &#8220;Never will I desert this
+girl! I&#8217;m a militant, too, now, and I shall stick by her.&#8221;
+And she was full of a happiness which she could not understand
+and which she did not want to understand.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning all the newspaper posters in Northhampton
+bore the words: &#8220;Policemen and suffragettes on
+Joy Wheel,&#8221; or some variation of these words. And they
+bore nothing else. And in all the towns and many of the
+villages through which they passed on the way to Colchester,
+the same legend greeted their flying eyes. Audrey
+and Miss Ingate, in the motor-car, read with great care all
+the papers. Audrey blushed at the descriptions of herself,
+which were flattering. It seemed that the Cabinet Minister&#8217;s
+political meeting had been seriously damaged by the episode,
+for the reason that rumours of the performance on the Joy
+Wheel had impaired the spell of eloquence and partially
+emptied the hall. And this was the more disappointing in
+that the police had been sure that nothing untoward would
+occur. It seemed also that the police were on the track of
+the criminals.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are they!&#8221; exclaimed Jane Foley with a beautiful
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>Then the car approached a city of towers on a hill, and
+as it passed by the station, which was in the valley, Miss
+Ingate demanded a halt. She got out in the station yard
+and transferred her belongings to a cab.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall drive home from here,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;ve often
+done it before. After all, I did play the barrel organ all
+the way down Regent Street. Surely I can rest on the
+barrel organ, can&#8217;t I, Miss Foley&mdash;at my age? ... What
+a business I shall have when I <em>do</em> get home, and nobody
+expecting me!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And when certain minor arrangements had been made,
+the car mounted the hill into Colchester and took the
+Frinton road, leaving Miss Ingate&#8217;s fly far behind.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_24" id="chapter_24" />CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SPATTS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The house of the Spatts was large, imposing and variegated.
+It had turrets, balconies, and architectural nooks in such
+quantity that the unaided individual eye could not embrace
+it all at once. It overlooked, from a height, the grounds
+of the Frinton Sports Club, and a new member of this club,
+upon first beholding the residence, had made the immortal
+remark: &#8220;It wants at least fourteen people to look at it.&#8221;
+The house stood in the middle of an unfinished garden,
+which promised ultimately to be as heterogeneous as itself,
+but which at present was merely an expanse of sorely
+wounded earth.</p>
+
+<p>The time was early summer, and therefore the summer
+dining-room of the Spatts was in use. This dining-room
+consisted of one white, windowed wall, a tiled floor, and a
+roof of wood. The windows gave into the winter dining-room,
+which was a white apartment, sparsely curtained and
+cushioned with chintz, and containing very few pieces of
+furniture or pictures. The Spatts considered, rightly, that
+furniture and pictures were unhygienic and the secret lairs
+of noxious germs. Had the Spatts flourished twenty-five years
+earlier their dining-room would have been covered with
+brown paper upon which would have hung permanent photographs
+of European masterpieces of graphic art, and there
+would have been a multiplicity of draperies and specimens
+of battered antique furniture, with a warming-pan or so
+suspended here and there in place of sporting trophies. But
+the Spatts had not begun to flourish twenty-five years ago.
+They flourished very few years ago and they still flourish.</p>
+
+<p>As the summer dining-room had only one wall, it follows
+that it was open to the powers of the air. This result had
+been foreseen by the Spatts&mdash;had indeed been expressly
+arranged, for they believed strongly in the powers of the
+air, as being beneficent powers. It is true that they generally
+had sniffling colds, but their argument was that these
+maladies had no connection whatever with the powers of the
+air, which, according to their theory, saved them from
+much worse.</p>
+
+<p>They and their guests were now seated at dinner.
+Twilight was almost lost in night. The table was
+illuminated by four candles at the corners, and flames of
+these candles flickered in the healthful evening breeze,
+dropping pink wax on the candlesticks. They were surrounded
+by the mortal remains of tiny moths, but other
+tiny moths would not heed the warning and continually shot
+themselves into the flames. On the outskirts of the table
+moved with silent stealth the forms of two middle-aged and
+ugly servants.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Spatt was very tall and very thin, and the
+simplicity of her pale green dress&mdash;sole reminder of the
+brown-paper past&mdash;was calculated to draw attention to these
+attributes. She had an important reddish nose, and a
+mysterious look of secret confidence, which never left her
+even in the most trying crises. Mr. Spatt also was very
+tall and very thin. His head was several sizes too small,
+and part of his insignificant face, which one was apt to miss
+altogether in contemplating his body, was hidden under a
+short grey beard. Siegfried Spatt, the sole child of the
+union, though but seventeen, was as tall and as thin as his
+father and his mother; he had a pale face and red hands.</p>
+
+<p>The guests were Audrey, Jane Foley, and a young
+rubicund gentleman, beautifully clothed, and with fair
+curly locks, named Ziegler. Mr. Ziegler was far more perfectly
+at ease than anybody else at the table, which indeed
+as a whole was rendered haggard and nervous by the precarious
+state of the conversation, expecting its total
+decease at any moment. At intervals someone lifted the
+limp dying body&mdash;it sank back&mdash;was lifted again&mdash;struggled
+feebly&mdash;relapsed. Young Siegfried was excessively tongue-tied
+and self-conscious, and his demeanour frankly admitted
+it. Jane Foley, acknowledged heroine in certain fields, sat
+like a schoolgirl at her first dinner-party. Audrey maintained
+her widowhood, but scarcely with credit. Mr. and
+Mrs. Spatt were as usual too deeply concerned about the
+awful condition of the universe to display that elasticity of
+mood which continuous chatter about nothing in particular
+demands. And they were too worshipful of the best London
+conventions not to regard silence at table as appalling. In
+the part of the country from which Jane Foley sprang, hosts
+will sit mute through a meal and think naught of it. But
+Mr. and Mrs. Spatt were of different stuff. All these five
+appeared to be in serious need of conversation pills. Only
+Mr. Ziegler beheld his companions with a satisfied equanimity
+that was insensible to spiritual suffering. Happily at the
+most acute moments the gentle night wind, meandering
+slowly from the east across leagues of North Sea, would
+induce in one or another a sneeze which gave some semblance
+of vitality and vigour to the scene.</p>
+
+<p>After one of these sneezes it was that Jane Foley,
+conscience-stricken, tried to stimulate the exchanges by an
+effort of her own.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what are the folks like in Frinton?&#8221; she demanded,
+blushing, and looking up. As she looked up young Siegfried
+looked down, lest he might encounter her glance and be
+utterly discountenanced.</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley&#8217;s question was unfortunate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We know nothing of them,&#8221; said Mrs. Spatt, pained.
+&#8220;Of course I have received and paid a few purely formal
+calls. But as regards friends and acquaintances, we prefer
+to import them from London. As for the holiday-makers,
+one sees them, naturally. They appear to lead an exclusively
+physical existence.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear,&#8221; put in Mr. Spatt stiffly. &#8220;The residents
+are no better. The women play golf all day on that
+appalling golf course, and then after tea they go into the
+town to change their library books. But I do not believe
+that they ever read their library books. The mentality of
+the town is truly remarkable. However, I am informed
+that there are many towns like it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You bet!&#8221; murmured Siegfried Spatt, and then tried,
+vainly, to suck back the awful remark whence it had come.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ziegler, speaking without passion or sorrow, added
+his views about Frinton. He asserted that it was the worst
+example of stupid waste of opportunities he had ever encountered,
+even in England. He pointed out that there
+was no band, no pier, no casino, no shelters&mdash;and not even
+a tree; and that there were no rules to govern the place.
+He finished by remarking that no German state would
+tolerate such a pleasure resort. In this judgment he
+employed an excellent English accent, with a scarcely perceptible
+thickening of the t&#8217;s and thinning of the d&#8217;s.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Ziegler left nothing to be said.</p>
+
+<p>Then the conversation sighed and really did expire. It
+might have survived had not the Spatts had a rule, explained
+previously to those whom it concerned, against
+talking shop. Their attachment to this rule was heroic.
+In the present instance shop was suffragism. The Spatts
+had developed into supporters of militancy in a very
+curious way. Mrs. Spatt&#8217;s sister, a widow, had been
+mixed up with the Union for years. One day she was fined
+forty shillings or a week&#8217;s imprisonment for a political
+peccadillo involving a hatpin and a policeman. It was useless
+for her to remind the magistrate that she, like Mrs.
+Spatt, was the daughter of the celebrated statesman B&mdash;&mdash;,
+who in the fifties had done so much for Britain. (Lo!
+The source of that mysterious confidence that always supported
+Mrs. Spatt!) The magistrate had no historic sense.
+She went to prison. At least she was on the way thither
+when Mr. Spatt paid the fine in spite of her. The same
+night Mr. Spatt wrote to his favourite evening paper to
+point out the despicable ingratitude of a country which would
+have imprisoned a daughter of the celebrated B&mdash;&mdash;, and
+announced that henceforward he would be an active supporter
+of suffragism, which hitherto had interested him only
+academically. He was a wealthy man, and his money and
+his house and his pen were at the service of the Union&mdash;but
+always with discretion.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey and Jane Foley had learnt all this privately from
+Mrs. Spatt on their arrival, after they had told such part
+of their tale as Jane Foley had deemed suitable, and they
+had further learnt that suffragism would not be a welcome
+topic at their table, partly on account of the servants and
+partly on account of Mr. Ziegler, whose opinions were quite
+clearly opposed to the movement, but whom they admired
+for true and rare culture. He was a cousin of German
+residents in First Avenue and, visiting them often,
+had been discovered by Mr. Spatt in the afternoon-tea
+train.</p>
+
+<p>And just as the ices came to compete with the night
+wind, the postman arrived like a deliverer. The postman
+had to pass the dining-room <em>en route</em> by the circuitous drive
+to the front door, and when dinner was afoot he would
+hand the letters to the parlourmaid, who would divide
+them into two portions, and, putting both on a salver,
+offer the salver first to Mrs. and then to Mr. Spatt, while
+Mr. or Mrs. Spatt begged guests, if there were any, to
+excuse the quaint and indeed unusual custom, pardonable
+only on the plea that any tidings from London ought to be
+savoured instantly in such a place as Frinton.</p>
+
+<p>After leaving his little pile untouched for some time,
+Mr. Spatt took advantage of the diversion caused by the
+brushing of the cloth and the distribution of finger-bowls to
+glance at the topmost letter, which was addressed in a
+woman&#8217;s hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s coming!&#8221; he exclaimed, forgetting to apologise
+in the sudden excitement of news, &#8220;Good heavens!&#8221; He
+looked at his watch. &#8220;She&#8217;s here. I heard the train
+several minutes ago! She must be here! The letter&#8217;s
+been delayed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who, Alroy?&#8221; demanded Mrs. Spatt earnestly. &#8220;Not
+that Miss Nickall you mentioned?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, my dove.&#8221; And then in a grave tone to the
+parlourmaid: &#8220;Give this letter to your mistress.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spatt, cheered by the new opportunity for conversation,
+and in his eagerness abrogating all rules, explained
+how he had been in London on the previous day for a performance
+of Strauss&#8217;s <em>Elektra</em>, and according to his custom
+had called at the offices of the Suffragette Union to see
+whether he could in any manner aid the cause. He had
+been told that a house in Paget Gardens lent to the Union
+had been basely withdrawn from service by its owner on
+account of some embroilment with the supreme police
+authorities at Scotland Yard, and that one of the inmates,
+a Miss Nickall, the poor young lady who had had her arm
+broken and was scarcely convalescent, had need of quietude
+and sea air. Mr. Spatt had instantly offered the hospitality
+of his home to Miss Nickall, whom he had seen in a cab
+and who was very sweet. Miss Nickall had said that she
+must consult her companion. It now appeared that the companion
+was gone to the Midlands. This episode had
+occurred immediately before the receipt of the telegram from
+head-quarters asking for shelter for Miss Jane Foley and
+Mrs. Moncreiff.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spatt&#8217;s excitement had now communicated itself
+to everybody except Mr. Ziegler and Siegfried Spatt. Jane
+Foley almost recovered her presence of mind, and Mrs.
+Spatt was extraordinarily interested to learn that Miss
+Nickall was an American painter who had lived long in
+Paris, and that Audrey had first made her acquaintance in
+Paris, and knew Paris well. Audrey&#8217;s motor-car had produced
+a considerable impression on Aurora Spatt, and this
+impression was deepened by the touch about Paris. After
+breathing mysterious orders into the ear of the parlourmaid
+Mrs. Spatt began to talk at large about music in
+Paris, and Mr. Spatt made comparisons between the principal
+opera houses in Europe. He proclaimed for the Scala at
+Milan; but Mr. Ziegler, who had methodically according to
+a fixed plan lived in all European capitals except Paris&mdash;whither
+he was soon going, said that Mr. Spatt was quite
+wrong, and that Milan could not hold a candle to Munich.
+Mrs. Spatt inquired whether Audrey had heard Strauss&#8217;s
+<em>Elektra</em> at the Paris Opera House. Audrey replied that
+Strauss&#8217;s <em>Elektra</em> had not been given at the Paris Opera
+House.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; said Mrs. Spatt. &#8220;This prejudice against the
+greatest modern masterpieces because they are German is
+a very sad sign in Paris. I have noticed it for a long
+time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, who most irrationally had begun to be annoyed
+by the blandness of Mr. Ziegler&#8217;s smile, answered with a
+rival blandness:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In Paris they do not reproach Strauss because he is
+German, but because he is vulgar.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Spatt had a martyrised expression. In her heart
+she felt a sick trembling of her religious belief that <em>Elektra</em>
+was the greatest opera ever composed. For Audrey had the
+prestige of Paris and of the automobile. Mrs. Spatt, however,
+said not a word. Mr. Ziegler, on the other hand,
+after shuffling some seconds for utterance, ejaculated with
+sublime anger:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Vulgar!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His rubicundity had increased and his blandness was
+dissolved. A terrible sequel might have occurred, had not
+the crunch of wheels on the drive been heard at that very
+instant. The huge, dim form of a coach drawn by a ghostly
+horse passed along towards the front door, just below the
+diners. Almost simultaneously the electric light above the
+front door was turned on, casting a glare across a section
+of the inchoate garden, where no flower grew save the
+dandelion. Everybody sprang up. Host and hostess,
+urged by hospitality, spun first into the drive, and came
+level with the vehicle precisely as the vehicle opened its
+invisible interior. Jane Foley and Audrey saw Miss Nickall
+emerge from it rather slowly and cautiously, with her white
+kind face and her arm all swathed in white.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Mr. Spatt,&#8221; came the American benevolent
+voice of Nick. &#8220;How glad I am to see you. And this is
+Mrs. Spatt? Mrs. Spatt! Delighted. Your husband is
+the kindest, sweetest man, Mrs. Spatt, that I&#8217;ve met in
+years. It is perfectly sweet of you to have me. I shouldn&#8217;t
+have inflicted myself on you&mdash;no, I shouldn&#8217;t&mdash;only you
+know we have to obey orders. I was told to come here,
+and here I&#8217;ve come, with a glad heart.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was touched by the sight and voice of grey-haired
+Nick, with her trick of seeing nothing but the best
+in everybody, transforming everybody into saints, angels,
+and geniuses. Her smiles and her tones were irresistible.
+They were like the wand of some magical princess come to
+break a sinister thrall. They nearly humanised the gaunt
+parlourmaid, who stood grimly and primly waiting until
+these tedious sentimental preliminaries should cease from
+interfering with her duties in regard to the luggage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We have friends of yours here, Miss Nickall,&#8221;
+simpered Mrs. Spatt, after she had given a welcome. She
+had seen Jane Foley and Audrey standing expectant just
+behind Mr. Spatt, and outside the field of the electric beam.</p>
+
+<p>Nick glanced round, hesitated, and then with a sudden
+change of all her features rushed at the girls regardless
+of her arm. Her joy was enchanting.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was afraid&mdash;I was afraid&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; she murmured as she
+kissed them. Her eyes softly glistened.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; she exclaimed, after a moment. &#8220;And I <em>have</em>
+got a surprise for you! I have just! You may say it&#8217;s
+some surprise.&#8221; She turned towards the cab. &#8220;Musa,
+now do come out of that wagon.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And from the blackness of the cab&#8217;s interior gingerly
+stepped Musa, holding a violin case in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Spatt,&#8221; said Nick. &#8220;Let me introduce Mr. Musa.
+Mr. Musa is perhaps the greatest violinist in Paris&mdash;or
+in Europe. Very old friend of ours. He came over to
+London unexpectedly just as I was starting for Liverpool
+Street station this afternoon. So I did the only thing
+I could do. I couldn&#8217;t leave him there&mdash;I brought him
+along, and we want Mr. Spatt to recommend us an hotel
+in Frinton for him.&#8221; And while Musa was shyly in his
+imperfect English greeting Mr. and Mrs. Spatt, she whispered
+to Audrey: &#8220;You don&#8217;t know. You&#8217;d never guess.
+A big concert agent in Paris has taken him up at last.
+He&#8217;s going to play at a lot of concerts, and they actually
+paid him two thousand five hundred francs in advance.
+Isn&#8217;t it a perfect dream?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, who had seen Musa&#8217;s trustful glance at Nick
+as he descended from the cab, was suddenly aware of
+a fierce pang of hate for the benignant Nick, and a
+wave of fury against Musa. The thing was very disconcerting.</p>
+
+<p>After self-conscious greetings, Musa almost dragged
+Audrey away from the others.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s you I came to London to see,&#8221; he muttered in
+an unusual voice.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_25" id="chapter_25" />CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MUTE</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was upon this evening that Audrey began alarmingly
+to develop the quality of being incomprehensible&mdash;even to
+herself. Like most young women and men, she had been
+convinced from an early age that she was mysteriously
+unlike all other created beings, and&mdash;again like most young
+men and women&mdash;she could find, in the secrecy of her
+own heart, plenty of proof of a unique strangeness. But
+now her unreason became formidable. There she sat with
+her striking forehead and her quite unimportant nose, in
+the large austere drawing-room of the Spatts, which was
+so pervaded by artistic chintz that the slightest movement
+in it produced a crackle&mdash;and wondered why she was so
+much queerer than other girls could possibly be.</p>
+
+<p>Neither the crackling of chintz nor the aspect of the
+faces in the drawing-room was conducive to clear psychological
+analysis. Mr. Ziegler, with a glass of Pilsener
+by his side on a small table and a cigar in his richly
+jewelled hand, reposed with crossed legs in an easy chair.
+He had utterly recovered from the momentary irritation
+caused by Audrey&#8217;s attack on Strauss, and his perfect
+beaming satisfaction with himself made a spectacle which
+would have distracted an Indian saint from the contemplation
+of eternity and nothingness. Mr. and Mrs. Spatt,
+seated as far as was convenient from one another on a
+long sofa, their emaciated bodies very upright and alert,
+gazed with intense expectation at Musa. Musa stood in
+the middle of the room, tuning his violin with little twangs
+and listening to the twangs as to a secret message.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Nickall, being an invalid, had excusably gone to
+bed, and Jane Foley, sharer of her bedroom, had followed.
+The happy relief on Jane&#8217;s face as she said good night
+to her hosts had testified to the severity of the ordeal of
+hospitality through which she had so heroically passed.
+She might have been going out of prison instead of going
+out of the most intellectual drawing-room in Frinton.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, too, would have liked to retire, for automobiles
+and sensations had exhausted her; but just at this point
+her unreason had begun to operate. She would not leave
+Musa alone, because Miss Nickall was leaving him alone.
+Yet she did not feel at all benevolent towards Musa. She
+was angry with him for having quitted Paris. She was
+angry with him for having said to her, in such a peculiar
+tone: &#8220;It&#8217;s you I came to London to see.&#8221; She was angry
+with him for not having found an opportunity, during the
+picnic meal provided for the two new-comers after the
+regular dinner, to explain why he had come to London
+to see her. She was angry with him for that dark hostility
+which he had at once displayed towards Mr. Ziegler,
+though she herself hated the innocent Mr. Ziegler with
+the ferocity of a woman of the Revolution. And further,
+she was glad, ridiculously glad, that Musa had come to
+London to see her. Lastly she was aware of a most
+irrational objection to the manner in which Miss Nickall
+and Musa said good night to one another, and the obvious
+fact that Musa in less than an hour had reached terms of
+familiarity with Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>She thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I haven&#8217;t the faintest idea why he has given up his
+practising in Paris to come to see me. But if it is what
+I feel sure it is, there will be trouble.... Why do I
+stay in this ghastly drawing-room? I am dying to go to
+sleep, and I simply detest everybody in the room. I detest
+Musa more than all, because as usual he has been acting
+like a child.... Why can&#8217;t you smile at him, Audrey
+Moze? Why frown and pretend you&#8217;re cross when you
+know you aren&#8217;t, Audrey Moze? ... I am cross, and
+he shall suffer. Was this a time to leave his practising&mdash;and
+the concerts soon coming on? I positively prefer this
+Ziegler man to him. Yes, I do.&#8221; So ran her reflections,
+and they annoyed her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What would you wish me to play?&#8221; asked Musa,
+when he had definitely finished twanging. Audrey noticed
+that his English accent was getting a little less French.
+She had to admit that, though his appearance was extravagantly
+un-British, it was distinguished. The immensity
+of his black silk cravat made the black cravat of Mr. Spatt
+seem like a bootlace round his thin neck.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whatever you like, Mr. Musa,&#8221; replied Aurora Spatt.
+&#8220;<em>Please!</em>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And as a fact the excellent woman, majestic now in
+spite of her red nose and her excessive thinness, did not
+care what Musa played. He had merely to play. She
+had decided for herself, from the conversation, that he
+was a very celebrated performer, and she had ascertained,
+by direct questioning, that he had never performed in
+England. She was determined to be able to say to all
+comers till death took her that &#8220;Musa&mdash;the great Musa,
+you know&mdash;first played in England in my own humble
+drawing-room.&#8221; The thing itself was actually about to
+occur; nothing could stop it from occurring; and the thought
+of the immediate realisation of her desire and ambition
+gave Mrs. Spatt greater and more real pleasure than she
+had had for years; it even fortified her against the possible
+resentment of her cherished Mr. Ziegler.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;French music&mdash;would you wish?&#8221; Musa suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is there any French music? That is to say, of artistic
+importance?&#8221; asked Mr. Ziegler calmly. &#8220;I have never
+heard of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He was not consciously being rude. Nor was he trying
+to be funny. His question implied an honest belief. His
+assertion was sincere. He glanced, blinking slightly, round
+the room, with a self-confidence that was either terrible
+or pathetic, according to the degree of your own self-confidence.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said to herself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m glad this isn&#8217;t my drawing-room.&#8221; And she was
+almost frightened by the thought that that skull opposite
+to her was absolutely impenetrable, and that it would
+go down to the grave unpierced with all its collection of
+ideas intact and braggart.</p>
+
+<p>As for Mr. and Mrs. Spatt they were both in the
+state of not knowing where to look. Immediately their
+gaze met another gaze it leapt away as from something
+dangerous or obscene.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will play Debussy&#8217;s Toccata for violin solo,&#8221; Musa
+announced tersely. He had blushed; his great eyes were
+sparkling. And he began to play.</p>
+
+<p>And as soon as he had played a few bars, Audrey
+gave a start, fortunately not a physical start, and she
+blushed also. Musa sternly winked at her. Frenchmen
+do not make a practice of winking, but he had learnt the
+accomplishment for fun from Miss Thompkins in Paris.
+The wink caused Audrey surreptitiously to observe Mr.
+and Mrs. Spatt. It was no relief to her to perceive that
+these two were listening to Debussy&#8217;s Toccata for solo
+violin with the trained and appreciative attention of people
+who had heard it often before in the various capitals of
+Europe, who knew it by heart, and who knew at just what
+passages to raise the head, to give a nod of recognition
+or a gesture of ecstasy. The bare room was filled with
+the sound of Musa&#8217;s fiddle and with the high musical
+culture of Mr. and Mrs. Spatt. When the piece was over
+they clapped discreetly, and looked with soft intensity at
+Audrey, as if murmuring: &#8220;You, too, are a cultured
+cosmopolitan. You share our emotion.&#8221; And across the
+face of Mrs. Spatt spread a glow triumphant, for Musa
+now positively had played for the first time in England in
+her drawing-room, and she foresaw hundreds of occasions
+on which she could refer to the matter with a fitting air of
+casualness. The glow triumphant, however, paled somewhat
+as she felt upon herself the eye of Mr. Ziegler.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is Siegfried, Alroy?&#8221; she demanded, after
+having thanked Musa. &#8220;I wouldn&#8217;t have had him miss
+that Debussy for anything, but I hadn&#8217;t noticed that he
+was gone. He adores Debussy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think it is like bad Bach,&#8221; Mr. Ziegler put in
+suddenly. Then he raised his glass and imbibed a good
+portion of the beer specially obtained and provided for
+him by his hostess and admirer, Mrs. Spatt.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you <em>really</em>?&#8221; murmured Mrs. Spatt, with deprecation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s something in the comparison,&#8221; Mr. Spatt
+admitted thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why not like good Bach?&#8221; Musa asked, glaring in
+a very strange manner at Mr. Ziegler.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bosh!&#8221; ejaculated Mr. Ziegler with a most notable
+imperturbability. &#8220;Only Bach himself could com-pose good
+Bach.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa&#8217;s breathing could be heard across the drawing-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Eh bien!</em>&#8220; said Musa. &#8220;Now I will play for you
+Debussy&#8217;s Toccata. I was not playing it before. I was
+playing the Chaconne of Bach, the most famous composition
+for the violin in the world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He did not embroider the statement. He left it in its
+nakedness. Nor did he permit anybody else to embroider
+it. Before a word of any kind could be uttered he had
+begun to play again. Probably in all the annals of artistic
+snobbery, no cultured cosmopolitan had ever been made
+to suffer a more exquisite moral torture of humiliation
+than Musa had contrived to inflict upon Mr. and Mrs.
+Spatt in return for their hospitality. Their sneaped
+squirmings upon the sofa were terrible to witness. But
+Mr. Ziegler&#8217;s sensibility was apparently quite unaffected.
+He continued to smile, to drink, and to smoke. He seemed
+to be saying to himself: &#8220;What does it matter to me that
+this miserable Frenchman has caught me in a mistake?
+I could eat him, and one day I shall eat him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After a little while Musa snatched out of his right-hand
+lower waistcoat pocket the tiny wooden &#8220;mute&#8221;
+which all violinists carry without fail upon all occasions
+in all their waistcoats; and, sticking it with marvellous
+rapidity upon the bridge of the violin, he entered upon a
+pianissimo, but still lively, episode of the Toccata. And
+simultaneously another melody faint and clear could be
+heard in the room. It was Mr. Ziegler humming &#8220;The
+Watch on the Rhine&#8221; against the Toccata of Debussy.
+Thus did it occur to Mr. Ziegler to take revenge on Musa
+for having attempted to humiliate him. Not unsurprisingly,
+Musa detected at once the competitive air. He continued
+to play, gazing hard at his violin and apparently entranced,
+but edging little by little towards Mr. Ziegler. Audrey
+desired either to give a cry or to run out of the room.
+She did neither, being held to inaction by the spell of Mr.
+Ziegler&#8217;s perfect unconcern as, with the beer glass lifted
+towards his mouth, he proceeded steadily to work through
+&#8220;The Watch on the Rhine,&#8221; while Musa lilted out the
+delicate, gay phrases of Debussy. The enchantment upon
+the whole room was sinister and painful. Musa got closer
+to Mr. Ziegler, who did not blench nor cease from his
+humming. Then suddenly Musa, lowering his fiddle and
+interrupting the scene, snatched the mute from the bridge
+of the violin.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have put it on the wrong instrument,&#8221; he said thickly,
+with a very French intonation, and simultaneously he
+shoved the mute with violence into the mouth of Mr.
+Ziegler. In doing so, he jerked up Mr. Ziegler&#8217;s elbow,
+and the remains of the beer flew up and baptised Mr.
+Ziegler&#8217;s face and vesture. Then he jammed the violin
+into its case, and ran out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Barbare! Imbécile! Sauvage!</em>&#8220; he muttered ferociously
+on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>The enchantment was broken. Everybody rose, and not
+the least precipitately the streaming Mr. Ziegler, who, ejecting
+the mute with much spluttering, and pitching away his
+empty glass, sprang towards the door, with justifiable
+homicide in every movement.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Ziegler!&#8221; Audrey appealed to him, snatching at
+his dress-coat and sticking to it.</p>
+
+<p>He turned, furious, his face still dripping the finest
+Pilsener beer.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If your dress-coat is not wiped instantly, it will be
+ruined,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Ach! Meiner Frack!</em>&#8220; exclaimed Mr. Ziegler, forgetting
+his deep knowledge of English. His economic
+instincts had been swiftly aroused, and they dominated all
+the other instincts. &#8220;<em>Meiner Frack!</em> Vill you vipe it?&#8221;
+His glance was imploring.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Mrs. Spatt will attend to it,&#8221; said Audrey with
+solemnity, and walked out of the room into the hall. There
+was not a sign of Musa; the disappearance of the violinist
+was disquieting; and yet it made her glad&mdash;so much so
+that she laughed aloud. A few moments later Mr. Ziegler
+stalked forth from the house which he was never to enter
+again, and his silent scorn and the grandeur of his displeasure
+were terrific. He entirely ignored Audrey, who had
+nevertheless been the means of saving his <em>Frack</em> for him.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_26" id="chapter_26" />CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>NOCTURNE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Soon afterwards Audrey, who had put on a hat, went out
+with Mr. Spatt to look for Musa. Not until shortly before
+the musical performance had the Spatts succeeded in persuading
+Musa to &#8220;accept their hospitality for the night.&#8221;
+(The phrase was their own. They were incapable of saying
+&#8220;Let us put you up.") Meanwhile his bag had been left in
+the hall. This bag had now vanished. The parlourmaid,
+questioned, said frigidly that she had not touched it because
+she had received no orders to touch it. Musa himself must
+therefore have removed it. With bag in one hand and
+fiddle case in the other, he must have fled, relinquishing
+nothing but the mute in his flight. He knew naught of
+England, naught of Frinton, and he was the least practical
+creature alive. Hence Audrey, who was in essence his
+mother, and who knew Frinton as some people know London,
+had said that she would go and look for him. Mr.
+Spatt, ever chivalrous, had impulsively offered to accompany
+her. He could indeed do no less. Mrs. Spatt, overwhelmed
+by the tragic sequel to her innocent triumphant, had retired
+to the first floor.</p>
+
+<p>The wind blew, and it was very dark, as Audrey and
+her squire passed along Third Avenue to the front. They
+did not converse&mdash;they were both too shy, too impressed by
+the peculiarity of the predicament. They simply peered.
+They peered everywhere for the truant form of Musa
+balanced on one side by a bag and on the other by a fiddle
+case. From the trim houses, each without exception new,
+twinkled discreet lights, with glimpses of surpassingly
+correct domesticity, and the wind rustled loudly through the
+foliage of the prim gardens, ruffling them as it might have
+ruffled the unwilling hair of the daughters of an arch-deacon.
+Nobody was abroad. Absurd thoughts ran
+through Audrey&#8217;s head. A letter from Mr. Foulger had
+followed her to Birmingham, and in the letter Mr. Foulger
+had acquainted her with the fact that Great Mexican Oil
+shares had just risen to £2 3s. apiece. She knew that she
+had 180,000 of them, and now under the thin protection of
+Mr. Spatt she tried to reckon 180,000 times £2 3s. She
+could not do the sum. At any rate she could not be sure
+that she did it correctly. However, she was fairly well convinced
+beneath the dark, impenetrable sky that the answer
+totalled nearly £400,000, that was, ten million francs.
+And the ridiculousness of an heiress who owned over ten
+million francs wandering about a place like Frinton with a
+man like Mr. Spatt, searching for another man like Musa,
+struck her as exceeding the bounds of the permissible. She
+considered that she ought to have been in a magnificent
+drawing-room of her own in Park Lane or the Avenue du
+Bois de Boulogne, welcoming counts, princes, duchesses,
+diplomats and self-possessed geniuses of finished manners,
+with witty phrase that displayed familiarity with all that
+was profoundest and most brilliant in European civilisation.
+Life seemed to be disappointing her, and assuredly money
+was not the thing that she had imagined it to be.</p>
+
+<p>She thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If this walking lamp-post does not say something soon
+I shall scream.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Spatt said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It seems to be blowing up for rain.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She screamed in the silent solitude of Frinton.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so sorry,&#8221; she apologised quickly. &#8220;I thought I
+saw something move.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One does,&#8221; faltered Mr. Spatt.</p>
+
+<p>They were now in the shopping street, where in the
+mornings the elect encounter each other on expeditions to
+purchase bridge-markers, chocolate, bathing costumes and
+tennis balls. It was a black and empty canyon through
+which the wind raced.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He may be down&mdash;down on the shore,&#8221; Mr. Spatt
+timidly suggested. He seemed to be suggesting suicide.</p>
+
+<p>They turned and descended across the Greensward to
+the shore, which was lined with hundreds of bathing huts,
+each christened with a name, and each deserted, for the
+by-laws of the Frinton Urban District Council judiciously
+forbade that the huts should be used as sleeping-chambers.
+The tide was very low. They walked over the wide flat
+sands, and came at length to the sea&#8217;s roar, the white
+tumbling of foamy breakers, and the full force of the south-east
+wind. Across the invisible expanse of water could be
+discerned the beam of a lightship. And Audrey was aware
+of mysterious sensations such as she had not had since she
+inhabited Flank Hall and used to steal out at nights to
+watch the estuary. And she thought solemnly: &#8220;Musa is
+somewhere near, existing.&#8221; And then she thought: &#8220;What
+a silly thought! Of course he is!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see somebody coming!&#8221; Mr. Spatt burst out in a
+dramatic whisper. But the precaution of whispering was
+useless, because the next instant, in spite of himself, he
+loudly sneezed.</p>
+
+<p>And about two hundred yards off on the sands Audrey
+made out a moving figure, which at that distance did in
+fact seem to have vague appendages that might have resembled
+a bag and a fiddle case. But the atmosphere of
+the night was deceptive, and the figure as it approached
+resolved itself into three figures&mdash;a black one in the middle
+of two white ones. A girl&#8217;s coarse laugh came down the
+wind. It could not conceivably have been the laugh of any
+girl who went into the shopping street to buy bridge-markers,
+chocolate, bathing costumes or tennis balls. But
+it might have been&mdash;it not improbably was&mdash;the laugh of
+some girl whose mission was to sell such things. The trio
+meandered past, heedless. Mr. Spatt said no word, but he
+appreciably winced. The black figure in the midst of the
+two white ones was that of his son Siegfried, reputedly so
+fond of Debussy. As the group receded and faded, a fragment
+of a music-hall song floated away from it into the
+firmament.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m afraid it&#8217;s not much use looking any longer,&#8221; said
+Mr. Spatt weakly. &#8220;He&mdash;he may have gone back to the
+house. Let us hope so.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At the chief garden gate of the Spatt residence they
+came upon Miss Nickall, trying to open it. The sling
+round her arm made her unmistakable. And Miss Nickall
+having allowed them to recover from a pardonable astonishment
+at the sight of her who was supposed to be exhausted
+and in bed, said cheerfully:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve found him, and I&#8217;ve put him up at the Excelsior
+Hotel.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Spatt had related the terrible episode to her guest,
+who had wilfully risen at once. Miss Nickall had had luck,
+but Audrey had to admit that these American girls were
+stupendously equal to an emergency. And she hated the
+angelic Nick for having found Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We tried first to find a café,&#8221; said Nick. &#8220;But there
+aren&#8217;t any in this city. What do you call them in England&mdash;public-houses,
+isn&#8217;t it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; agreed Mr. Spatt in a shaking voice. &#8220;Public-houses
+are not permitted in Frinton, I am glad to say.&#8221; And
+he began to form an intention, subject to Aurora&#8217;s approval,
+to withdraw altogether from the suffrage movement, which
+appeared to him to be getting out of hand.</p>
+
+<p>As they were all separating for the night Audrey and
+Nick hesitated for a moment in front of each other, and
+then they kissed with a quite unusual effusiveness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever really liked her,&#8221; said Audrey
+to herself.</p>
+
+<p>What Nick said to herself is lost to history.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_27" id="chapter_27" />CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE GARDEN</h3>
+
+
+<p>The next morning, after a night spent chiefly in thought,
+Audrey issued forth rather early. Indeed she was probably
+the first person afoot in the house of the Spatts, the parlour-maid
+entering the hall just as Audrey had managed to open
+the front door. As the parlour-maid was obviously not yet
+in that fullness and spruceness of attire which parlour-maids
+affect when performing their mission in life, Audrey decided
+to offer no remark, explanatory or otherwise, and passed
+into the garden with nonchalance as though her invariable
+habit when staying in strange houses was to get up before
+anybody else and spy out the whole property while the
+helpless hosts were yet in bed and asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Now it was a magnificent morning: no wind, no cloud,
+and the sun rising over the sea; not a trace of the previous
+evening&#8217;s weather. Audrey had not been in the leafy street
+more than a moment when she forgot that she was tired
+and short of sleep, and also very worried by affairs both
+private and public. Her body responded to the sun, and
+her mind also. She felt almost magically healthy, strong
+and mettlesome, and, further, she began to feel happy; she
+rather blamed herself for this tendency to feel happy, calling
+herself heedless and indifferent. She did not understand
+what it is to be young. She had risen partly because of the
+futility of bed, but more because of a desire to inspect again
+her own part of the world after the unprecedented absence
+from it.</p>
+
+<p>Frinton was within the borders of her own part of the
+world, and, though she now regarded it with the condescending
+eyes of a Parisian and Londoner, she found pleasure in
+looking upon it and in recognising old landmarks and recent
+innovations. She saw, on the Greensward separating the
+promenade from the beach, that a rustic seat had been
+elaborately built by the Council round the great trunk of the
+only tree in Frinton; and she decided that there had been
+questionable changes since her time. And in this way she
+went on. However, the splendour and reality of the sun,
+making such an overwhelming contrast with the insubstantial
+phenomena of the gloomy night, prevented undue
+cerebral activity. She reflected that Frinton on a dark night
+and Frinton on a bright morning were not like the same
+place, and she left it at that, and gazed at the façade of the
+Excelsior Hotel, wondering for an instant why she should be
+interested in it, and then looking swiftly away.</p>
+
+<p>She had to glance at all the shops, though none of
+them was open except the dairy-shop; and in the shopping
+street, which had a sunrise at one end and the
+railway station at the other, she lit on the new palatial
+garage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My car may be in there,&#8221; she thought.</p>
+
+<p>After the manner of most car-owners on tour, she had
+allowed the chauffeur to disappear with the car in the
+evening where he listed, confident that the next morning
+he and it would reappear cleansed and in good running
+order.</p>
+
+<p>The car was in the garage, almost solitary on a floor
+of asphalt under a glass roof. An untidy youth, with the
+end of a cigarette clinging to his upper lip in a way to
+suggest that it had clung there throughout the night and
+was the last vestige of a jollification, seemed to be dragging
+a length of hose from a hydrant towards the car, the while
+his eyes rested on a large notice: &#8220;Smoking absolutely
+prohibited. By order.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then from the other extremity of the garage came a
+jaunty, dapper, quasi-martial figure, in a new grey uniform,
+with a peaked grey cap, bright brown leggings, and bright
+brown boots to match&mdash;the whole highly brushed, polished,
+smooth and glittering. This being pulled out of his pocket
+a superb pair of kid gloves, then a silver cigarette-case, and
+then a silver match-box, and he ignited a cigarette&mdash;the
+unrivalled, wondrous first cigarette of the day&mdash;casting down
+the match with a large, free gesture. At sight of him the
+untidy youth grew more active.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look &#8217;ere,&#8221; said the being to the youth, &#8220;what the &#8217;ell
+time did I tell you to have that car cleaned by, and you
+not begun it!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Pointing to the clock, he lounged magnificently to and
+fro, spreading smoke around the intimidated and now industrious
+youth. The next second he caught sight of
+Audrey, and transformed himself instantaneously into what
+she had hitherto imagined a chauffeur always was; but in
+those few moments she had learnt that the essence of a
+chauffeur is godlike, and that he toils not, neither does
+he swab.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning, madam,&#8221; in a soft, courtly voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Were you wanting the car, madam?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was not, but the suggestion gave her an idea.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can we take it as it is?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, madam. I&#8217;ll just look at the petrol gauge ...
+But ... I haven&#8217;t had my breakfast, madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What time do you have it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, madam, when you have yours.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all right, then. You&#8217;ve got hours yet. I want
+you to take me to Flank Hall.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Flank Hall, madam?&#8221; His tone expressed the fact
+that his mind was a blank as to Flank Hall.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Audrey had comprehended that the situation
+of Flank Hall was not necessarily known to every chauffeur
+in England, and that a stay of one night in Frinton might
+not have been enough to familiarise this particular one with
+the geography of the entire district, she replied that she
+would direct him.</p>
+
+<p>They were held up by a train at the railway crossing,
+and a milk-cart and a young pedestrian were also held up.
+When Audrey identified the pedestrian she wished momentarily
+that she had not set out on the expedition. Then
+she said to herself that really it did not matter, and why
+should she be afraid ... etc., etc. The pedestrian was
+Musa. In French they greeted each other stiffly, like
+distant acquaintances, and the train thundered past.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was taking the air, simply, Madame,&#8221; said Musa,
+with his ingenuous shy smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Take it in my car,&#8221; said Audrey with a sudden resolve.
+&#8220;In one hour at the latest we shall have returned.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She had a great deal to say to him and a great deal
+to listen to, and there could not possibly be any occasion
+equal to the present, which was ideal.</p>
+
+<p>He got in; the chauffeur manoeuvred to oust the milk-cart
+from its rightful precedence, the gates opened, and the
+car swung at gathering speed into the well-remembered road
+to Moze. And the two passengers said nothing to each
+other of the slightest import. Musa&#8217;s escape from Paris
+was between them; the unimaginable episode at the Spatts
+was between them; the sleepless night was between them.
+(And had she not saved him by her presence of mind from
+the murderous hand of Mr. Ziegler?) They had a million
+things to impart. And yet naught was uttered save a few
+banalities about the weather and about the healthfulness of
+being up early. They were bashful, constrained, altogether
+too young and inexperienced. They wanted to behave in
+the grand, social, easeful manner of a celebrated public performer
+and an heiress worth ten million francs. And they
+could only succeed in being a boy and a girl. The chauffeur
+alone, at from thirty to forty miles an hour, was worthy of
+himself and his high vocation. Both the passengers regretted
+that they had left their beds. Happily the car
+laughed at the alleged distance between Frinton and Moze.
+In a few minutes, as it seemed, with but one false turning,
+due to the impetuosity of the chauffeur, the vehicle drew
+up before the gates of Flank Hall. Audrey had avoided
+the village of Moze. The passengers descended.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is my house,&#8221; Audrey murmured.</p>
+
+<p>The gates were shut but not locked. They creaked as
+Audrey pushed against them. The drive was covered with
+a soft film of green, as though it were gradually being
+entombed in the past. The young roses, however, belonged
+emphatically to the present. Dewdrops hung from them
+like jewels, and their odour filled the air. Audrey turned
+off the main drive towards the garden front of the house,
+which had always been the aspect that she preferred, and
+at the same moment she saw the house windows and the
+thrilling perspective of Mozewater. One of the windows
+was open. She was glad, because this proved that the
+perfect Aguilar, gardener and caretaker, was after all
+imperfect. It was his crusty perfection that had ever set
+Audrey, and others, against Aguilar. But he had gone to
+bed and forgotten a window&mdash;and it was the French
+window. While, in her suddenly revived character of a
+harsh Essex inhabitant, she was thinking of some sarcastic
+word to say to Aguilar about the window, another window
+slowly opened from within, and Aguilar&#8217;s head became
+visible. Once more he had exasperatingly proved his perfection.
+He had not gone to bed and forgotten a window.
+But he had risen with exemplary earliness to give air to
+the house.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;d mornin&#8217;, miss,&#8221; mumbled the unsmiling Aguilar,
+impassively, as though Audrey had never been away from
+Moze.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Aguilar.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t expect ye so early, miss.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But how could you be expecting me at all?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Ingate come home yesterday. She said you
+couldn&#8217;t be far off, miss.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not Miss ... <em>Mrs.</em>&mdash;Moncreiff,&#8221; said Audrey firmly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I beg your pardon, madam,&#8221; Aguilar responded with absolute
+imperturbability. &#8220;She never said nothing about that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And he proceeded mechanically to the next window.</p>
+
+<p>The yard-dog began to bark. Audrey, ignoring Musa,
+went round the shrubbery towards the kennel. The
+chained dog continued to bark, furiously, until Audrey was
+within six feet of him, and then he crouched and squirmed
+and gave low whines and his tail wagged with extreme
+rapidity. Audrey bent down, trembling.... She could
+scarcely see.... There was something about the green
+film on the drive, about the look of the house, about the
+sheeted drawing-room glimpsed through the open window,
+about the view of Mozewater...! She felt acutely and
+painfully sorry for, and yet envious of, the young girl in a
+plain blue frock who used to haunt the house and the
+garden, and who had somehow made the house and the
+garden holy for evermore by her unhappiness and her longings....
+Audrey was crying.... She heard a step and
+stood upright. It was Musa&#8217;s step.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have never seen you so exquisite,&#8221; said Musa in a
+murmur subdued and yet enthusiastic. All his faculties
+seemed to be dwelling reflectively upon her with passionate
+appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>They had at last begun to talk, really&mdash;he in French, and
+she partly in French and partly in English. It was her
+tears, or perhaps her gesture in trying to master them, that
+had loosed their tongues. The ancient dog was forgotten,
+and could not understand why. Audrey was excusably
+startled by Musa&#8217;s words and tone, and by the sudden change
+in his attitude. She thought that his personal distinction
+at the moment was different from and superior to any other
+in her experience. She had a comfortable feeling of condescension
+towards Nick and towards Jane Foley. And
+at the same time she blamed Musa, perceiving that as usual
+he was behaving like a child who cannot grasp the great
+fact that life is very serious.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; she said. &#8220;That&#8217;s all very fine, that is. You
+pretend this, that, and the other. But why are you here?
+Why aren&#8217;t you at work in Paris? You&#8217;ve got the chance
+of a lifetime, and instead of staying at home and
+practising hard and preparing yourself, you come gadding
+over to England simply because there&#8217;s a bit of money in
+your pocket!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was very young, and in the splendour of the
+magnificent morning she looked the emblem of simplicity;
+but in her heart she was his mother, his sole fount of
+wisdom and energy and shrewdness.</p>
+
+<p>Pain showed in his sensitive features, and then appeal,
+and then a hot determination.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I came because I could not work,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because you couldn&#8217;t work? Why couldn&#8217;t you
+work?&#8221; There was no yielding in her hard voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know! I don&#8217;t know! I suppose it is because
+you are not there, because you have made yourself
+necessary to me; or,&#8221; he corrected quickly, &#8220;because <em>I</em>
+have made you necessary to myself. Oh! I can practise
+for so many hours per day. But it is useless. It is not
+authentic practice. I think not of the music. It is as if
+some other person was playing, with my arm, on my violin.
+I am not there. I am with you, where you are. It is the
+same day after day, every day, every day. I am done for.
+I am convinced that I am done for. These concerts will
+infallibly be my ruin, and I shall be shamed before all Paris.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And did you come to England to tell me this?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was relieved, for she had thought of another explanation
+of his escapade, and had that explanation proved
+to be the true one, she was very ready to make unpleasantness
+to the best of her ability. Nevertheless, though
+relieved in one direction, she was gravely worried in another.
+She had undertaken the job of setting Musa grandiosely
+on his artistic career, and the difficulties of it were growing
+more and more complex and redoubtable.</p>
+
+<p>She said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you seemed so jolly when you arrived last night.
+Nobody would have guessed you had a care in the world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I had not,&#8221; he replied eagerly, &#8220;as soon as I saw you.
+The surprise of seeing you&mdash;it was that.... And you left
+Paris without saying good-bye! Why did you leave Paris
+without saying good-bye? Never since the moment when
+I learnt that you had gone have I had the soul to practise.
+My violin became a wooden box; my fingers, too, were of
+wood.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped. The dog sniffed round.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was melting in bliss. She could feel herself
+dissolving. Her pleasure was terrible. It was true that
+she had left Paris without saying good-bye to Musa. She
+had done it on purpose. Why? She did not know.
+Perhaps out of naughtiness, perhaps.... She was aware
+that she could be hard, like her father. But she was glad,
+intensely glad, that she had left Paris so, because the result
+had been this avowal. She, Audrey, little Audrey, scarcely
+yet convinced that she was grown up, was necessary to the
+genius whom all the Quarter worshipped! Miss Thompkins
+was not necessary to him, Miss Nickall was not necessary
+to him, though both had helped to provide the means to
+keep him alive. She herself alone was necessary to him.
+And she had not guessed it. She had not even hoped for
+it. The effect of her personality upon Musa was mysterious&mdash;she
+did not affect to understand it&mdash;but it was obviously
+real and it was vital. If anything in the world could surpass
+the pleasure, her pride surpassed it. All tears were forgotten.
+She was the proudest young woman in the world;
+and she was the wisest, and the most harassed, too. But the
+anxieties were delicious to her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am essential to him,&#8221; she thought ecstatically. &#8220;I
+stand between him and disaster. When he has succeeded
+his success will be my work and nobody else&#8217;s. I have a
+mission. I must live for it.... If anyone had told me
+a year ago that a great French genius would be absolutely
+dependent upon me, and that I meant for him all the
+difference between failure and triumph, I should have
+laughed.... And yet!...&#8221; She looked at him surreptitiously.
+&#8220;He&#8217;s an angel. But he&#8217;s also a baby.&#8221; The
+feelings of motherhood were as naught compared to hers.</p>
+
+<p>Then she remarked harshly, icily:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I shall be much obliged if you will go back to
+Paris at once&mdash;to-day. <em>Somebody</em> must have a little sense.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Just at this point Aguilar interrupted. He came slouching
+round the corner of the clipped bushes, untidy, shabby,
+implacable, with some set purpose in his hard blue eyes.
+She could have annihilated him with satisfaction, but the
+fellow was indestructible as well as implacable.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Could I have a word with ye, madam?&#8221; he mumbled,
+putting on his well-known air of chicane.</p>
+
+<p>With the unexplained Musa close by her she could not
+answer: &#8220;Wait a little. I&#8217;m engaged.&#8221; She had to be
+careful. She had to make out especially that she and the
+young man were up to nothing in particular, nothing that
+had the slightest importance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is it, Aguilar?&#8221; she questioned, inimically.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s down here,&#8221; said Aguilar, who recked not of the
+implications of a tone. And by the mere force of his glance
+he drew his mistress away, out of sight of Musa and the
+dog.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is that your motor-car at the gates, madam?&#8221; he
+demanded gloomily and confidentially, his gaze now fixed
+on the ground or on his patched boots.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course it is,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;Why, what&#8217;s the
+matter?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s all right then,&#8221; said he. &#8220;But I thought it
+might belong to another person, and I had to make sure.
+Now if ye&#8217;ll just step along a bit farther, I&#8217;ve a little thing
+as I want to point out to ye, madam. It&#8217;s my duty to point
+it out, let others say <em>what</em> they will.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He walked ahead doggedly, and Audrey crossly came
+after, until they arrived nearly at the end of the hedge
+which, separating the upper from the lower garden, hid
+from those immediately behind it all view of the estuary.
+Here, still sheltered by the hedge, he stopped and Audrey
+stopped, and Aguilar absently plucked up a young plantain
+from the turf and dropped it into his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s been a man a-hanging round this place since
+yesterday mornin&#8217;,&#8221; said Aguilar intimately. &#8220;I call him a
+suspicious character&mdash;at least, I <em>did</em>, till last night. He
+ain&#8217;t slept in the village, that I do know, but he&#8217;s about
+again this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey with impatience. &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you
+tell Inspector Keeble? Or have you quarrelled with
+Inspector Keeble again?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not that as would ha&#8217; stopped me from acquainting
+Inspector Keeble with the circumstances if I thought
+it my duty so to do,&#8221; replied Aguilar. &#8220;But the fact is I
+saw the chap talking to Inspector Keeble yesterday evening.
+He don&#8217;t know as I saw him. It was that as made me
+think; now is he a suspicious character or ain&#8217;t he? Of
+course Keeble&#8217;s a rare simple-minded &#8217;un, as we all know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what do you want me to do?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought you might like to have a look at him yeself,
+madam. And if you&#8217;ll just peep round the end of this hedge
+casual-like, ye&#8217;ll see him walking across the salting from
+Lousey Hard. He&#8217;s a-comin&#8217; this way. Casual-like now&mdash;and
+he won&#8217;t see ye.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had to obey. She peeped casual-like, and she
+did in fact see a man on the salting, and this man was
+getting nearer. She could see him very plainly in the
+brilliant clearness of the summer morning. After the
+shortest instant of hesitation she recognised him beyond
+any doubt. It was the detective who had been so
+plenteously baptised by Susan Foley in the area of the house
+at Paget Gardens. Aguilar looked at Audrey, and Audrey
+annoyed herself somewhat by blushing. However, an agreeable
+elation quickly overcame the blush.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_28" id="chapter_28" />CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>ENCOUNTER</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning,&#8221; Audrey cried, very gaily, to the still
+advancing detective, who, after the slightest hesitation in
+the world, responded gaily:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The man&#8217;s accent struck her. She said to herself, with
+amusement:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s Irish!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had left the astonished but dispassionate gardener
+at the hedge, and was now emerging from the scanty and
+dishevelled plantation close to the boundary wall of the
+estate. She supposed that the police must have been on her
+track and on the track of Jane Foley, and that by some
+mysterious skill they had hunted her down. But she did
+not care. She was not in the least afraid. The sudden
+vision of a jail did not affright her. On the contrary her
+chief sensation was one of joyous self-confidence, which
+sensation had been produced in her by the remarks and the
+attitude of Musa. She had always known that she was both
+shy and adventurous, and that the two qualities were
+mutually contradictory; but now it appeared to her that
+diffidence had been destroyed, and that that change which
+she had ever longed for in her constitution had at least
+really come to pass.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t seem very surprised to see me,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, madam,&#8221; said the detective, &#8220;I&#8217;m not paid to
+be surprised&mdash;in my business.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He had raised his hat. He was standing on the dyke,
+and from that height he looked somewhat down upon
+Audrey leaning against the wall. The watercourse and the
+strip of eternally emerald-green grass separated them.
+Though neither tall nor particularly handsome, he was a
+personable man, with a ready smile and alert, agile movements.
+Audrey was too far off to judge of his eyes, but
+she was quite sure that they twinkled. The contrast
+between this smart, cheerful fellow and the half-drowned
+victim in the area of the house in Paget Gardens was quite
+acute.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now I&#8217;ve a good mind to hold a meeting for your
+benefit,&#8221; said Audrey, striving to recall the proper phrases
+of propaganda which she had heard in the proper quarters
+in London during her brief connection with the cause.
+However, she could not recall them, &#8220;But there&#8217;s no need
+to,&#8221; she added. &#8220;A gentleman of your intelligence must be
+of our way of thinking.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About the vote, of course. And so your conduct is all
+the more shocking.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why!&#8221; he exclaimed, laughing. &#8220;If it comes to that,
+your own sex is against you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had heard this argument before, and it had the
+same effect on her as on most other stalwarts of the new
+political creed. It annoyed her, because there was something
+in it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The vast majority of women are with us,&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My wife isn&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But your wife isn&#8217;t the vast majority of women,&#8221;
+Audrey protested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh yes, she is,&#8221; said the detective, &#8220;so far as I&#8217;m
+concerned. Every wife is, so far as her husband is concerned.
+Sure, you ought to know that!&#8221; In his Irish
+way he doubled the &#8220;r&#8221; of the word &#8220;sure,&#8221; and somehow
+this trick made Audrey like him still more. &#8220;My wife
+believes,&#8221; he concluded, &#8220;that woman&#8217;s sphere is the
+home.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>("His wife is stout,&#8221; Audrey decided within herself, on
+no grounds whatever. &#8220;If she wasn&#8217;t, she couldn&#8217;t be a
+vast majority.")</p>
+
+<p>Aloud she said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, why can&#8217;t you leave them alone in their
+sphere, instead of worrying them and spying on them down
+areas?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;D&#8217;ye mean at Paget Gardens?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; he laughed. &#8220;That wasn&#8217;t professional&mdash;if
+you&#8217;ll excuse me being so frank. That was just due to
+human admiration. It&#8217;s not illegal to admire a young
+woman, I suppose, even if she is a suffragette.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What young woman are you talking about?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Susan Foley, of course. I won&#8217;t tell you what
+I think of her, in spite of all she did, because I&#8217;ve learnt
+that it&#8217;s a mistake to praise one woman to another. But
+I don&#8217;t mind admitting that her going off to the north has
+made me life a blank. If I&#8217;d thought she&#8217;d go, I should
+never have reported the affair at the Yard. But I was
+annoyed, and I&#8217;m rather hasty.&#8221; He paused, and ended
+reflectively: &#8220;I committed follies to get a word with the
+young lady, and I didn&#8217;t get it, but I&#8217;d do the same again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And you a married man!&#8221; Audrey burst out, startled,
+and diverted, at the explanation, but at the same time outraged
+by a confession so cynical.</p>
+
+<p>The detective pulled a silky moustache.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When a wife is very strongly convinced that her
+sphere is the home,&#8221; he retorted slowly and seriously,
+&#8220;you&#8217;re tempted at times to let her have the sphere all
+to herself. That&#8217;s the universal experience of married men,
+and ye may believe me, miss&mdash;madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now Miss Foley&#8217;s gone north, you&#8217;ve decided to
+come and admire <em>me</em> in <em>my</em> home!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So it is your home!&#8221; murmured the detective with
+an uncontrolled quickness which wakened Audrey&#8217;s old
+suspicions afresh&mdash;and which created a new suspicion, the
+suspicion that the fellow was simply playing with her.
+&#8220;I assure you I came here to recover; I&#8217;d heard it was
+the finest climate in England.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Recover?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, from fire-extinguishers. D&#8217;ye know I coughed
+for twenty-four hours after that reception?... And you
+should have seen my clothes! The doctor says my lungs
+may never get over it.... That&#8217;s what comes of
+admiration.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s what comes of behaving as no married man ought
+to behave.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did I say I was married?&#8221; asked the detective with
+an ingenuous air. &#8220;Well, I may be. But I dare say I&#8217;m
+only married just about as much as you are yourself,
+madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Upon this remark he raised his hat and departed along
+the grassy summit of the sea-wall.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey flushed for the second time that morning, and
+more strikingly than before. She was extremely discontented
+with, and ashamed of, herself, for she had meant
+to be the equal of the detective, and she had not been.
+It was blazingly clear that he had indeed played with her&mdash;or,
+as she put it in her own mind: &#8220;He just stuffed
+me up all through.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She tried to think logically. Had he been pursuing
+the motor-car all the way from Birmingham? Obviously
+he had not, since according to Aguilar he had been in the
+vicinity of Moze since the previous morning. Hence he
+did not know that Audrey was involved in the Blue City
+affair, and he did not know that Jane Foley was at
+Frinton. How he had learnt that Audrey belonged to
+Moze, and why and what he had come to investigate at
+Moze, she could not guess. Nor did these problems appear
+to her to have an importance at all equal to the importance
+of hiding from the detective that she had been staying
+at Frinton. If he followed her to Frinton he would inevitably
+discover that Jane Foley was at Frinton, and the
+sequel would be more imprisonment for Jane. Therefore
+Audrey must not return to Frinton. Having by a masterly
+process of ratiocination reached this conclusion, she began
+to think rather better of herself, and ceased blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar,&#8221; she demanded excitedly, having gone back
+through the plantation. &#8220;Did Miss Ingate happen to say
+where I was staying last night?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must run into the house and write a note to her,
+and you must take it down instantly.&#8221; In her mind she
+framed the note, which was to condemn Miss Ingate to
+the torture of complete and everlasting silence about the
+episode at the Blue City and the flight eastwards.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_29" id="chapter_29" />CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>FLIGHT</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8221;Fast, madam, did you say?&#8221; asked the chauffeur, bending
+his head back from the wheel as the car left the gates
+of Flank Hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Fast.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Colchester road?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s really just as quick to take the Frinton road for
+Colchester&mdash;it&#8217;s so much straighter.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, no, no! On no account. Don&#8217;t go near Frinton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey leaned back in the car. And as speed increased
+the magnificence of the morning again had its effect on
+her. The adventure pleased her far more than the perils
+of it, either for herself or for other people, frightened
+her. She knew that she was doing a very strange thing
+in thus leaving the Spatts and her luggage without a
+word of explanation before breakfast; but she did not
+care. She knew that for some reason which she did not
+comprehend the police were after her, as they had been
+after nearly all the great ones of the movement; but she
+did not care. She was alive in the rushing car amid the
+magnificence of the morning. Musa sat next to her. She
+had more or less incompletely explained the situation to
+him&mdash;it was not necessary to tell everything to a boy who
+depended upon you absolutely for his highest welfare&mdash;such
+boys must accept, thankfully, what they received.
+And Musa had indeed done so. He appeared to be quite
+happy and without anxieties. That was the worst
+He had wanted to be with her, and he was with her, and
+he cared for nothing else. He had no interest in what
+might happen next. He yielded himself utterly to the enjoyment
+of her presence and of the magnificent morning.</p>
+
+<p>And yet Musa, whom Audrey considered that she understood
+as profoundly as any mother had ever understood
+any child&mdash;even Musa could surprise.</p>
+
+<p>He said, without any preparation:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I calculate that I shall have 3,040 francs in hand after
+the concerts, assuming that I receive only the minimum.
+That is, after paying the expenses of my living.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But do you know how much it costs you to live?&#8221;
+Audrey demanded, with careless superiority.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Assuredly. I write all my payments down in a little
+book. I have done so since some years.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Every sou?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. Every sou.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But do you save, Musa?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Save!&#8221; he repeated the word ingenuously. &#8220;Till
+now to save has been impossible for me. But I have
+always kept in hand one month&#8217;s subsistence. I could not
+do more. Now I shall save. You reproached me with
+having spent money in order to come to see you in
+England. But I regarded the money so spent as part of
+the finance of the concerts. Without seeing you I could
+not practise. Without practice I could not play. Without
+playing I could not earn money. Therefore I spent money
+in order to get money. Such, Madame, was the commercial
+side. What a beautiful lawn for tennis you have
+in your garden!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was more than surprised, she was staggered
+by the revelation of the attitude of genius towards money.
+She had not suspected it. Then she remembered the simple
+natural tome in which Musa had once told her that both
+Tommy and Nick contributed to his income. She ought
+to have comprehended from that avowal more than she,
+in fact, had comprehended. And now the first hopes of
+worldly success were strongly developing that unsuspected
+trait in the young man&#8217;s character. Audrey was aware
+of a great fear. Could he be a genius, after all? Was
+it conceivable that an authentic musical genius should enter
+up daily in a little book every sou he spent?</p>
+
+<p>A rapid, spitting, explosive sound, close behind the
+car and a little to the right, took her mind away from
+Musa and back to the adventure. She looked round, half
+expecting what she should see&mdash;and she saw it, namely,
+the detective on a motor-cycle. It was an &#8220;Indian&#8221; machine
+and painted red. And as she looked, the car, after taking
+a corner, got into a straight bit of the splendid road and
+the motor-bicycle dropped away from it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can&#8217;t you shake off that motor-bicycle thing?&#8221; Audrey
+rather superciliously asked the chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>Having first looked at his mirror, the chauffeur, who,
+like a horse, could see in two directions at once, gazed
+cautiously at the road in front and at the motor-bicycle
+behind, simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I doubt it, madam,&#8221; he said. And yet his tone and
+glance expressed deep scorn of the motor-bicycle. &#8220;As
+a general rule you can&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should have thought you could beat a little thing
+like that,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Them things can do sixty when they&#8217;ve a mind to,&#8221;
+said the chauffeur, with finality, and gave all his attention
+to the road.</p>
+
+<p>At intervals he looked at his mirror. The motor-bicycle
+had vanished into the past, and as it failed to reappear he
+gradually grew confident and disdainful. But just as the
+car was going down the short hill into the outskirts of
+Colchester the motor-bicycle came into view once more.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where to, madam?&#8221; inquired the chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is Colchester, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221; she demanded nervously,
+though she knew perfectly well that it was Colchester.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Straight through! Straight through!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The London road?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. The London road,&#8221; she agreed. London was,
+of course, the only possible destination.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But breakfast, madam?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! The usual thing,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;ll have
+yours when I have mine.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But we shall run out of petrol, madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never mind,&#8221; said Audrey sublimely.</p>
+
+<p>The chauffeur, with characteristic skill, arranged that
+the car should run out of petrol precisely in front of the
+best hotel in Chelmsford, which was about half-way to
+London. The motor-bicycle had not been seen for several
+miles. But scarcely had they resumed the journey, by
+the Epping road, when it came again into view&mdash;in front
+of them. How had the fellow guessed that they would
+take the longer Epping road instead of the shorter
+Romford road?</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;When shall we be arriving in Frinton?&#8221; Musa inquired,
+beatific.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We shan&#8217;t be arriving in Frinton any more,&#8221; said
+Audrey. &#8220;We must go straight to London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is like a dream,&#8221; Musa murmured, as it were
+in ecstasy. Then his features changed and he almost
+screamed: &#8220;But my violin! My violin! We must go
+back for it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Violin!&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;That&#8217;s nothing! I&#8217;ve even
+come without gloves.&#8221; And she had.</p>
+
+<p>She reassured Musa as to the violin, and the chauffeur
+as to the abandoned Gladstone bag containing the chauffeur&#8217;s
+personal effects, and herself as to many things. An
+hour and twenty minutes later the car, with three people
+in it, thickly dusted even to the eyebrows, drew up in
+the courtyard of Charing Cross railway station, and the
+motor-cycle was visible, its glaring red somewhat paled,
+in the Strand outside. The time was ten-fifteen.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We shall take the eleven o&#8217;clock boat train for Paris,&#8221;
+she said to Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You also?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. He was in heaven. He could even do
+without his violin.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How nice it is not to be bothered with luggage,&#8221;
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>The chauffeur was pacified with money, of which Audrey
+had a sufficiency.</p>
+
+<p>And all the time Audrey kept saying to herself:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to Paris to please Musa, so don&#8217;t let
+him think it! I&#8217;m only going so as to put the detective
+off and keep Jane Foley out of his clutches, because if I
+stay in London he&#8217;ll be bound to find everything out.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>While Musa kept watch for the detective at the door
+of the telegraph office Audrey telegraphed, as laconically
+as possible, to Frinton concerning clothes and the violin,
+and then they descended to subterranean marble chambers
+in order to get rid of dust, and they came up to earth
+again, each out of a separate cellar, renewed. And, lastly,
+Audrey slipped into the Strand and bought a pair of gloves,
+and thereafter felt herself to be completely equipped against
+the world&#8217;s gaze.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_30" id="chapter_30" />CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>ARIADNE</h3>
+
+
+<p>A few days later an automobile&mdash;not Audrey&#8217;s but a large
+limousine&mdash;bumped, with slow and soft dignity, across the
+railway lines which diversify the quays of Boulogne harbour
+and, having hooted in a peculiar manner, came to a stop
+opposite nothing in particular.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here we are,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, reaching to open
+the door. &#8220;You can see her masthead light.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was getting dark. Behind, over the station, a very
+faint flush lightened the west, and in front, across the
+water, and reflected in the water, the thousand lamps of
+the town rose in tiers to the lofty church which stood out
+a dark mass against the summer sky. On the quays the
+forms of men moved vaguely among crates and packages,
+and on the water, tugs and boats flitted about, puffing,
+or with the plash of oars, or with no sound whatever.
+And from the distance arrived the reverberation of electric
+trams running their courses in the maze of the town.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac and Audrey descended, after Mr. Gilman,
+from the car and Mr. Gilman turned off the electric light
+in the interior and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do not trouble about the luggage, I beg you,&#8221; said
+Mr. Gilman, breathing, as usual, rather noticeably. &#8220;<em>Bon
+soir</em>, Leroux. Don&#8217;t forget to meet the nine-thirty-five.&#8221;
+This last to the white-clad chauffeur, who saluted sharply.</p>
+
+<p>At the same moment two sailors appeared over the edge
+of the quay, and a Maltese cross of light burst into radiance
+at the end of a sloping gangway, whose summit was
+just perched on the solid masonry of the port. The sailors
+were clothed in blue, with white caps, and on their breasts
+they bore the white-embroidered sign: &#8220;<em>Ariadne, R.T.Y.C.</em>&#8220;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look lively, lads, with the luggage,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then another figure appeared under the Maltese cross.
+It was clad in white ducks, with a blue reefer ornamented
+in gold, and a yachting cap crowned in white: a stoutish
+and middle-aged figure, much like Mr. Gilman himself in
+bearing and costume, except that Mr. Gilman had no gold
+on his jacket.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, skipper!&#8221; greeted Mr. Gilman, jauntily and
+spryly. In one moment, in one second, Mr. Gilman had
+grown at least twenty years younger.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Captain Wyatt,&#8221; he presented the skipper to the
+ladies. &#8220;And this is Mr. Price, my secretary, and Doctor
+Cromarty,&#8221; as two youths, clothed exactly to match Mr.
+Gilman, followed the skipper up the steep incline of the
+gangway.</p>
+
+<p>And now Audrey could see the <em>Ariadne</em> lying below, for
+it was only just past low water and the tide was scarcely
+making. At the next berth higher up, with lights gleaming
+at her innumerable portholes and two cranes hard at work
+producing a mighty racket on her, lay a Channel steamer,
+which, by comparison with the yacht, loomed enormous, like
+an Atlantic liner. Indeed, the yacht seemed a very little and
+a very lowly and a very flimsy flotation on the dark water,
+and her illuminated deck-house was no better than a toy.
+On the other hand, her two masts rose out of the deep high
+overhead and had a certain impressiveness, though not
+quite enough.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is this what we&#8217;re going on? I thought it was a big
+yacht.&#8221; And she had a qualm.</p>
+
+<p>And then a bell rang twice, extremely sweet and mellow,
+somewhere on the yacht. And Audrey was touched by the
+beauty of its tone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Two bells. Nine o&#8217;clock,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman. &#8220;Will
+you come aboard? I&#8217;ll show you the way.&#8221; He tripped
+down the gangway like a boy. Behind could be heard the
+sailors giving one another directions about the true method
+of handling luggage.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had met Madame Piriac by sheer hazard in a
+corset shop in the Rue de la Chaussée-d&#8217;Antin. The fugitive
+from justice had been obliged, in the matter of wardrobe,
+to begin life again on her arrival trunkless in Paris, and
+the business of doing so was not disagreeable. Madame
+Piriac had greeted her with most affectionate warmth. One
+of her first suggestions had been that Audrey should accompany
+her on a short yachting trip projected by Mr. Gilman.
+She had said that though the excellent Gilman was her
+uncle, and her adored uncle, he was not her real uncle, and
+that therefore, of course, she was incapable of going unaccompanied,
+though she would hate to disappoint the dear
+man. As for Monsieur Piriac, the destiny of France was in
+his hands, and the moment being somewhat critical, he
+would not quit the Ministry of Foreign Affairs without
+leaving a fixed telegraphic address.</p>
+
+<p>On the next day Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac had
+called on Audrey at the Hôtel du Danube, and the invitation
+became formal. It was pressing and flattering. Why
+refuse it? Mr. Gilman was obviously prepared to be her
+slave. She accepted, with enthusiasm. And she said to
+herself that in doing so she was putting yet another spoke
+in the wheel of the British police. Immediately afterwards
+she learnt that Musa also had been asked. Madame Piriac
+informed her, in reply to a sort of protest, that Musa&#8217;s first
+concert was postponed by the concert agency until the
+autumn. &#8220;I never heard of that!&#8221; Audrey had cried.
+&#8220;And why should you have heard of it? Have you not
+been in England?&#8221; Madame Piriac had answered, a little
+surprised at Audrey&#8217;s tone. Whereupon Audrey had said
+naught. The chief point was that Musa could take a holiday
+without detriment to his career. Moreover, Mr. Gilman,
+who possessed everything, possessed a marvellous violin,
+which he would put at the disposal of Musa on the yacht if
+Musa&#8217;s own violin had not been found in the meantime.
+The official story was that Musa&#8217;s violin had been mislaid or
+lost on the Métropolitain Railway, and the fact that he had
+been to England somehow did not transpire at all.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman had gone forward in advance to make sure
+that his yacht was in a state worthy to receive two such
+ladies, and he had insisted on meeting them in his car
+at Abbeville on the way to Boulogne. He had not insisted
+on meeting Musa similarly. He was a peculiar and in
+some respects a stiff-necked man. He had decided, in his
+own mind, that he would have the two women to himself
+in the car, and so indeed it fell out. Nevertheless his attitude
+to Musa, and Madame Piriac&#8217;s attitude to Musa, and
+everybody&#8217;s attitude to Musa, had shown that the mere
+prospect of star-concerts in a first-class hall had very
+quickly transformed Musa into a genuine Parisian lion. He
+was positively courted. His presence on the yacht was
+deemed an honour, and that was why Mr. Gilman had asked
+him. Audrey both resented the remarkable change and was
+proud of it&mdash;as a mother perhaps naturally would do and
+be. The admitted genius was to arrive the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>On boarding the <em>Ariadne</em> in the wake of Mr. Gilman and
+Madame Piriac, the first thing that impressed Audrey was
+the long gangway itself. It was made of thin resilient steel,
+and the handrails were of soft white rope, almost like silk,
+and finished off with fancy knots; and at the beginning of
+the gangway, on the dirty quay, lay a beautiful mat bearing
+the name of the goddess, while at the end, on the pale,
+smooth deck, was another similar mat. The obvious costliness
+of that gangway and those superlative mats made
+Audrey feel poor, in spite of her ten million francs. And
+the next thing that impressed her was that immediately she
+got down on deck the yacht, in a very mysterious manner,
+had grown larger, and much larger. At the forward extremity
+of the deck certain blue figures lounging about
+seemed to be quite a long way off, indeed in another world.
+Here and there on the deck were circles of yellow or white
+rope, coiled as precisely and perfectly as Audrey could coil
+her own hair. Mr. Gilman led them to the door of the deck-house
+and they gazed within. The sight of the interior
+drew out of the ravished Audrey an ecstatic exclamation:
+&#8220;What a darling!&#8221; And at the words she saw that Mr.
+Gilman, for all his assumed nonchalant spryness, almost
+trembled with pleasure. The deck-house was a drawing-room
+whose walls were of carved and inlaid wood. Orange-shaded
+electric bulbs hung on short, silk cords from the
+ceiling, and flowers in sconces showed brilliantly between
+the windows, which were draped with curtains of silk matching
+the thick carpet. Several lounge chairs and a table of
+bird&#8217;s-eye maple completed the place, and over the table
+were scattered newspapers and illustrated weeklies. Everything,
+except the literature, was somewhat diminished in
+size, but the smallness of the scale only intensified the
+pleasure derived from the spectacle.</p>
+
+<p>Then they went &#8220;downstairs,&#8221; as Audrey said; but Mr.
+Gilman corrected her and said &#8220;below,&#8221; whereupon Audrey
+retorted that she should call it the &#8220;ground floor,&#8221; and Mr.
+Gilman laughed as she had never heard a man of his age
+laugh. The sight of the ground floor still further increased
+Audrey&#8217;s notion of the dimensions of the yacht, whose corridors
+and compartments appeared to stretch away endlessly
+in two directions. At the foot of the curving staircase Mr.
+Gilman, pulling aside a curtain, announced: &#8220;This is the
+saloon.&#8221; When she heard the word Audrey expected a
+poky cubicle, but found a vast drawing-room with more
+books than she had ever seen in any other drawing-room,
+many pictures, an open piano, with music on it; sofas in
+every quarter, and about a thousand cupboards and drawers,
+each with a silver knob or handle. Above all was a dome of
+multi-coloured glass, and exactly beneath the dome a table
+set for supper, with the finest napery, cutlery and crystal.
+The apartment was dazzlingly lighted, and yet not a single
+lamp could be detected in the act of illumination. A real
+parlourmaid suddenly appeared at the far end of the room,
+and behind her two stewards in gilt-buttoned white Eton
+jackets and black trousers. Mr. Gilman, with seriousness,
+bade the parlourmaid take charge of the ladies and show
+them the sleeping-cabins.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Choose any cabins you like,&#8221; said he, as Madame
+Piriac and Audrey rustled off.</p>
+
+<p>There might have been hundreds of sleeping-cabins. And
+there did, in fact, appear to be quite a number of them,
+to say nothing of two bathrooms. They inspected all of
+them save one, which was locked. In an awed voice the
+parlourmaid said, &#8220;That is the owner&#8217;s cabin.&#8221; At another
+door she said, in a different, disdainful voice, &#8220;That only
+leads to the galley and the crew&#8217;s quarters.&#8221; Audrey
+wondered what a galley could be, and the mystery of that
+name, and the mystery of the two closed doors, merely made
+the whole yacht perfect. The sleeping-cabins surpassed all
+else&mdash;they were so compact, so complex, so utterly complete.
+No large bedchamber, within Audrey&#8217;s knowledge, held so
+much apparatus, and offered so much comfort and so much
+wardrobe room as even the least of these cabins. It was
+impossible, to be sure, that in one&#8217;s amused researches one
+had not missed a cupboard ingeniously disguised somewhere.
+And the multiplicity of mirrors, and the message of the
+laconic monosyllable &#8220;Hot&#8221; on silver taps, and the discretion
+of the lighting, all indicated that the architect and
+creator of these marvellous microcosms had &#8220;understood.&#8221;
+The cosy virtue of littleness, and the entire absurdity of
+space for the sake of space, were strikingly proved, and
+the demonstration amounted, in Audrey&#8217;s mind, to a new and
+delicious discovery.</p>
+
+<p>The largest of the cabins had two berths at right angles
+to one another, each a lovely little bed with a running screen
+of cashmere. Having admired it once, they returned to it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you know, my dear,&#8221; said Madame Piriac in
+French, &#8220;I have an idea. You will tell me if it is not
+good.... If we shared this cabin ...! In this so curious
+machine one feels a satisfaction, somehow, in being very
+near the one to the other. The ceiling is so low.... That
+gives you sensations&mdash;human sensations.... I know not
+if you experience the same....&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Let&#8217;s!&#8221; Audrey exclaimed impulsively in
+English. &#8220;Do let&#8217;s!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the parlourmaid had gone, and before the luggage
+had come down, Madame Piriac caught Audrey to her and
+kissed her fervently on both cheeks, amid the glinting confusion
+of polished woods and draperies and silver mountings
+and bevelled glass.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am so content that you came, my little one!&#8221;
+murmured Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>The next minute the cabin and the corridor outside were
+full of open trunks and bags, over which bent the forms of
+Madame Piriac, Audrey and the parlourmaid. And all the
+drawers were gaping, and the doors of all the cupboards
+swinging, and the narrow beds were hidden under piles of
+variegated garments. And while they were engaged in the
+breathless business of installing themselves in the celestial
+domain, strange new thoughts flitted about like mice in
+Audrey&#8217;s head. She felt as though she were in a refuge
+from the world, and as though her conscience was being
+narcotised. In that cabin, firm as solid land and yet floating
+on the water, with Mr. Gilman at hand her absolute slave&mdash;in
+that cabin the propaganda of women&#8217;s suffrage presented
+itself as a very odd and very remote phenomenon, a phenomenon
+scarcely real. She had positively everything she
+wanted without fighting for it. The lion&#8217;s share of life was
+hers. Comfort and luxury were desirable and beautiful
+things, not to be cast aside nor scorned. Madame Piriac
+was a wise woman and a good woman. She was a happy
+woman.... There was a great deal of ugliness in sitting
+on Joy Wheels and being chased by policemen. True, as she
+had heard, a crew of nineteen human beings was necessary
+to the existence of Mr. Gilman and his guests on board the
+yacht. Well, what then? The nineteen were undoubtedly
+well treated and in clover. And the world was the world;
+you had to take it as you found it.... And then in her
+mind she had a glimpse of the blissful face of Jane Foley&mdash;blissful
+in a different way from any other face she had met
+in all her life. Disconcerting, this glimpse, for an instant,
+but only for an instant! She, Audrey, was blissful, too.
+The intense desire for joy and pleasure surged up in her....
+The bell which she had previously heard struck three;
+its delicate note vibrated long through the yacht, unwilling
+to expire. Half-past nine, and supper and the chivalry of
+Mr. Gilman waiting for them in the elegance of the saloon!</p>
+
+<p>As the two women approached the <em>portière</em> which
+screened the forward entrance to the saloon, they heard
+Mr. Gilman say, in a weary and resigned voice:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I suppose there&#8217;s nothing better than a whisky
+and soda.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And the vivacious reply of a steward:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very good, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The owner was lounging in a corner, with a gloomy,
+bored look on his face. But as soon as the <em>portière</em> stirred
+and he saw the smiles of Madame Piriac and Audrey upon
+him, his whole demeanour changed in an instant. He
+sprang up, laughed, furtively smoothed his waistcoat, and
+managed to convey the general idea that he had a keen
+interest in life, and that the keenest part of that interest
+was due to a profound instinctive desire to serve these two
+beautiful benefactors of mankind&mdash;the idea apparently being
+that the charming creatures had conferred a favour on the
+human race by consenting to exist. He cooed round them,
+he offered them cushions, he inquired after their physical
+condition, he expressed his fear lest the cabins had not
+contained every convenience that caprice might expect. He
+was excited; surely he was happy! Audrey persuaded herself
+that this must, after all, be his true normal condition
+while aboard the yacht, and that the ennui visible on his
+features a moment earlier could only have been transient and
+accidental.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am sure the piano is as wonderful as all else on
+board,&#8221; said Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do play!&#8221; he entreated. &#8220;I love to hear music here.
+My secretary plays for me when I am alone.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I, who do not adore music!&#8221; Madame Piriac protested
+against the invitation. But she sat down on the clamped
+music stool and began a waltz.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, dropping into a seat by Audrey.
+&#8220;I wish I danced!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you don&#8217;t mean to say you don&#8217;t,&#8221; said Audrey,
+with fascination. She felt that she could fascinate him, and
+that it was her duty to fascinate him.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman responded to the challenge.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose I do,&#8221; he said modestly. &#8220;We must have a
+dance on deck one night. I&#8217;ll tell my secretary to get the
+gramophone into order. I have a pretty good one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How lovely!&#8221; Audrey agreed. &#8220;I do think the
+<em>Ariadne&#8217;s</em> the most heavenly thing, Mr. Gilman! I&#8217;d no
+idea what a yacht was! I hope you&#8217;ll tell me the proper
+names for all the various parts&mdash;you know what I mean.
+I hate to use the wrong words. It&#8217;s not polite on a yacht,
+is it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His smile was entranced.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You and I will go round by ourselves to-morrow morning,
+Mrs. Moncreiff,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the steward appeared with the whisky and
+soda, but Mr. Gilman dismissed him with a sharp gesture,
+and he vanished back into the unexplored parts of the
+vessel. The implication was that the society of Audrey
+made whisky and soda a superfluity for Mr. Gilman.
+Although she was so young, he treated her with exactly
+the same deference as he lavished on Madame Piriac,
+indeed with perhaps a little more. If Madame Piriac was
+for him the incarnation of sweetness and balm and majesty,
+so also was Audrey, and Audrey had the advantage of
+novelty. She was growing, morally, every minute. The
+confession of Musa had filled her with a good notion of
+herself. The impulsive flattery of Madame Piriac in the
+joint cabin, and now the sincere, grave homage of Mr. Gilman,
+caused her to brim over with consciousness that she
+was at last somebody.</p>
+
+<p>An automobile hooted on the quay, and at the disturbing
+sound Madame Piriac ceased to play and swung round on
+the stool.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&mdash;that must be our other lady guest,&#8221; said Mr.
+Gilman, who had developed nervousness; his cheeks flushed
+darkly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah?&#8221; cautiously smiled Madame Piriac, who was
+plainly taken aback.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman. &#8220;Miss Thompkins. Before I
+knew for certain that Mrs. Moncreiff could come with you,
+Hortense, I asked Miss Thompkins if she would care to
+come. I only got her answer this morning&mdash;it was delayed.
+I meant to tell you.... You are a friend of Miss Thompkins,
+aren&#8217;t you?&#8221; He turned to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey replied gaily that she knew Tommy very well.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;d better go up,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, and he departed,
+and his back, though a nervous back, seemed to be defying
+Madame Piriac and Audrey to question in the slightest
+degree his absolute right to choose his own guests on his
+own yacht.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Strange man!&#8221; muttered Madame Piriac. It was a
+confidence to Audrey, who eagerly accepted it as such.
+&#8220;Imagine him inviting Mees Thompkins without a word to
+us, without a word! But, you know, my dear uncle was
+always bizarre, mysterious. Yet&mdash;is he mysterious, or is
+he ingenuous?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But how did he come to know Miss Thompkins?&#8221;
+Audrey demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! You have not heard that? Miss Thompkins gave
+a&mdash;a musical tea in her studio, to celebrate these concerts
+which are to occur. Musa asked the Foas to come. They
+consented. It was understood they should bring friends.
+Thus I went also, and Monsieur Gilman being at my orders
+that afternoon, he went too. Never have I seen so strange
+a multitude! But it was amusing. And all Paris has begun
+to talk of Musa. Miss Thompkins and my uncle became
+friends on the instant. I assume that it was her eyes. Also
+those Americans have vivacity, if not always distinction.
+Do you not think so?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes! And do you mean to say that on the strength
+of that he asked her to go yachting?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, he had called several times.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aren&#8217;t you surprised she accepted?&#8221; asked Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Madame Piriac. &#8220;It is another code, that
+is all. It is a surprise, but she will be amusing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure she will,&#8221; Audrey concurred. &#8220;I&#8217;m frightfully
+fond of her myself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They glanced at each other very intimately, like long-established
+allies who fear an aggression&mdash;and are ready
+for it.</p>
+
+<p>Then steps were heard. Miss Thompkins entered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; drawled Miss Thompkins, gazing first at
+Audrey and then at Madame Piriac. &#8220;Of all the loveliest
+shocks&mdash;&mdash;Say, Musa&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Behind her stood Musa. It appeared that he had been
+able to get away by the same train as Tommy.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_31" id="chapter_31" />CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NOSTRUM</h3>
+
+
+<p>The hemisphere of heaven was drenched in moonlight, and&mdash;rare
+happening either on British earth or on the waters
+surrounding it, in mid-summer&mdash;the night was warm. In
+the midst of the glittering sea the yacht moved without the
+appearance of motion; only by leaning over the rail and
+watching the bubbles glide away from her could you detect
+her progress. There were no waves, no ripples, nothing
+but a scarcely perceptible swell. The gentle breeze, unnoticeable
+on deck, was abaft; all the sails had been
+lowered and stowed except the large square sail bent on a
+yard to the mainmast and never used except with such a
+wind. The <em>Ariadne</em> had a strong flood tide under her, and
+her 200-h.p. twin motors were stopped. Hence there
+was no tremor in the ship and no odour of paraffin in the
+nostrils of those who chanced to wander aft of the engine-room.
+The deck awning had been rolled up to the centre,
+and at the four corners of its frame had been hung four
+temporary electric lights within Chinese lanterns. A
+radiance ascended from the saloon skylight; the windows
+of the deck-house blazed as usual, but the deck-house was
+empty; a very subdued glow indicated where the binnacle
+was. And, answering these signs of existence, could be
+distinguished the red and green lights of steamers, the firm
+rays of lighthouses, and the red or white warnings of gas-buoys
+run by clockwork.</p>
+
+<p>The figures of men and women&mdash;the women in pale
+gowns, the men in blue-and-white&mdash;lounged or strolled on
+the spotless deck which unseen hands swabbed and stoned
+every morning at 6 o&#8217;clock; and among these figures passed
+the figure of a steward with a salver, staying them with
+flagons, comforting them with the finest exotic fruit.
+Occasionally the huge square sail gave an idle flap. &#8220;Get
+that lead out, &#8217;Orace,&#8221; commanded a grim voice from the
+wheel. A splash followed, as a man straddled himself over
+the starboard bow, swung a weighted line to and fro and
+threw it from him. &#8220;Four.&#8221; Another splash. &#8220;Four.&#8221;
+Another splash. &#8220;Four.&#8221; Another splash. &#8220;Three-half.&#8221;
+Another splash. &#8220;Three-half.&#8221; Another splash. &#8220;Three.&#8221;
+Another splash. &#8220;Two-half.&#8221; Another splash. &#8220;Three.&#8221;
+Another splash. &#8220;Five.&#8221; &#8220;That&#8217;ll do, &#8217;Orace,&#8221; came the
+voice from the wheel. Then an entranced silence.</p>
+
+<p>The scene had the air of being ideal. And yet it was
+not. Something lacked. That something was the owner.
+The owner lay indisposed in the sacred owner&#8217;s cabin. And
+this was a pity because a dance had been planned for that
+night. It might have taken place without the owner, but
+the strains of the gramophone and especially the shuffling
+of feet on the deck would have disturbed him. True, he
+had sent up word by Doctor Cromarty that he was not to
+be considered. But the doctor had delivered the message
+without any conviction, and the unanimous decision was
+that the owner must, at all costs, be considered.</p>
+
+<p>It was Ostend, on top of the owner&#8217;s original offer to
+Audrey, that had brought about the suggestion of a dance.
+They had coasted up round Gris-Nez from Boulogne to
+Ostend, and had reached the harbour there barely in time
+to escape from the worst of a tempest that had already
+begun to produce in the minds of sundry passengers a grave
+doubt whether yachting was, after all, the most delightful
+of pursuits. Some miles before the white dome of the
+Kursaal was sighted the process of moral decadence had set
+in, and passengers were lying freely to each other, and
+boastfully lying, just as though somebody had been accusing
+them of some dreadful crime of cowardice or bad breeding
+instead of merely inquiring about the existence of physical
+symptoms over which they admittedly had no control whatever.
+The security of a harbour, with a railway station not
+fifty yards from the yacht&#8217;s bowsprit, had restored them,
+by dint of calming secret fears, to their customary condition
+of righteousness and rectitude. Several days of
+gusty rainstorms had elapsed at Ostend, and the passengers
+had had the opportunity to study the method of managing
+a yacht, and to visit the neighbourhood. The one was as
+wondrous as the other. They found letters and British and
+French newspapers on their plates at breakfast. And the
+first object they had seen on the quay, and the last object
+they saw there, was the identical large limousine which they
+had left on the quay at Boulogne. It would have taken
+them to Ghent but for the owner&#8217;s powerful objection to
+their eating any meal off the yacht. Seemingly he had a
+great and sincere horror of local viands and particularly of
+local water. He was their slave; they might demand anything
+from him; he was the very symbol of hospitality and
+chivalry, but somehow they could not compass a meal
+away from the yacht. Similarly, he would have them leave
+the Kursaal not later than ten o&#8217;clock, when the evening had
+not veritably begun. They did not clearly understand by
+what means he imposed his will, but he imposed it.</p>
+
+<p>The departure from Ostend was accomplished after the
+glass had begun to rise, but before it had finished rising, and
+there were apprehensions in the saloon and out of it, when
+the spectacle of the open sea, and the feel of it under the
+feet, showed that, as of old, water was still unstable. The
+process of moral decadence would have set in once more
+but for the prudence and presence of mind of Audrey, who
+had laid in a large stock of the specific which had been of
+such notable use to herself and Miss Ingate on previous
+occasions. Praising openly its virtues, confessing frankly
+her own weakness and preaching persuasively her own
+faith, she had distributed the nostrum, and in about a
+quarter of an hour had established a justifiable confidence.
+Mr. Gilman alone would not partake, and indeed she had
+hardly dared to offer the thing to so experienced a sailor.
+The day had favoured her. The sea grew steadily more
+tranquil, and after skirting the Belgian and French coasts
+for some little distance the <em>Ariadne</em>, under orders, had
+turned her nose boldly northward for the estuary of the
+Thames. The <em>Ariadne</em> was now in the midst of that very
+complicated puzzle of deeps and shallows. The passengers,
+in fact, knew that they were in the region of the North
+Edinburgh, but what or where the North Edinburgh was
+they had only the vaguest idea. The blot on the voyage
+had been the indisposition of Mr. Gilman, who had taken
+to his berth early, and who saw nobody but his doctor,
+through whom he benignantly administered the world of the
+yacht. Doctor Cromarty had a face which imparted nothing
+and yet implied everything. He said less and meant more
+than even the average pure-blooded Scotsman. It was
+imparted that Mr. Gilman had a chronic complaint. The
+implications were vast and baffling.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We shall dance after all,&#8221; said Miss Thompkins, bending
+with a mysterious gesture over Audrey, who reclined in
+a deck-chair near the companion leading to the deserted
+engine-room. Miss Thompkins was dressed in lacy white,
+with a string of many tinted beads round her slim neck.
+Her tawny hair was arranged in a large fluffiness, and the
+ensemble showed to a surprised Audrey what Miss
+Thompkins could accomplish when she deemed the occasion
+to be worthy of an effort.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shall we? What makes you think so, dear?&#8221; absently
+asked Audrey, in whom the scene had induced profound
+reflections upon life and the universe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;ll come up on deck,&#8221; said Miss Thompkins, disclosing
+her teeth in an inscrutable smile that the moonbeams
+made more strange than it actually was. &#8220;Like to know
+how I know? Sure you&#8217;d like to know, Mrs. Simplicity?&#8221;
+Her beads rattled above Audrey&#8217;s insignificant upturned
+nose. &#8220;Isn&#8217;t a yacht the queerest little self-contained state
+you ever visited? It&#8217;s as full of party politics as
+Massachusetts; and that&#8217;s some. Well, I didn&#8217;t use all my
+medicine you gave me. Didn&#8217;t need it. So I&#8217;ve shared it
+with <em>him</em>. I got the empty packet with all the instructions
+on it, and I put two of my tablets in it, and if he hasn&#8217;t
+swallowed them by this time my name isn&#8217;t Anne Tuckett
+Thompkins.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you don&#8217;t mean he&#8217;s been&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey, you&#8217;re making a noise like a goose. &#8217;Course
+I do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But how did you manage to&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I gave them to Mr. Price, with instructions to leave
+them by the&mdash;er&mdash;bedside. Mr. Price is a friend. I hope
+I&#8217;ve made that plain these days to everybody, including Mr.
+Gilman. Mr. Price is a good sample of what painters are
+liable to come to after they&#8217;ve found out they don&#8217;t care
+for the smell of oil-tubes. I knew him when he always
+said &#8216;Puvis&#8217; instead of &#8216;Puvis de Chavannes.&#8217; He&#8217;s cured
+now. If I hadn&#8217;t happened to know he&#8217;d be on board I
+shouldn&#8217;t have dared to come. He&#8217;s my lifebuoy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I assure you, Tommy, Mr. Gilman refused the
+stuff from me. He did.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Dove! Wood-pigeon! Of course he refused it.
+He was bound to. Owner of a two-hundred-and-fifty-ton
+yacht taking a remedy for sea-sickness in public on the
+two-hundred-and-fifty-ton yacht! The very idea makes you
+shiver. But he&#8217;ll take it down there. And he won&#8217;t ask
+any questions. And he&#8217;ll hide it from the doctor. And
+he&#8217;ll pretend, and he&#8217;ll expect everybody else to pretend,
+that he&#8217;s never been within a mile of the stuff.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tommy, I don&#8217;t believe you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And he&#8217;s a lovely man, all the same.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tommy, I don&#8217;t believe you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you do. You&#8217;d like not to, but you can&#8217;t help it.
+I sometimes do bruise people badly in their organ of
+illusions-about-human-nature, but it is fun, after all,
+isn&#8217;t it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Getting down to the facts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Accompanied by the tattoo of her necklace, Miss
+Thompkins moved away in the direction of Madame Piriac,
+who was engaged with Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Admit I&#8217;m rather brilliant to-night,&#8221; she threw over
+her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>The dice seem to be always loaded in favour of the
+Misses Thompkins of society. Less than a quarter of an
+hour later Doctor Cromarty, showing his head just above
+the level of the deck, called out:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Price, ye can wind up that box o&#8217; yours. Mr. Gilman
+is coming on deck. He&#8217;s wonderful better.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_32" id="chapter_32" />CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+<h3>BY THE BINNACLE</h3>
+
+
+<p>The owner was at the wheel. But he had not got there
+at once. This singular man, who strangely enough was
+wearing one of his most effulgent and heterogeneous club
+neckties, had begun by dancing. He danced with all three
+ladies, one after the other; and he did not merely dance&mdash;he
+danced modernly, he danced the new dances to the new
+tunes, given off like intoxicating gas from the latest of
+gramophones. He knew how to hold the arm of a woman
+above her head, while coiling his own around it in the
+manner of a snake, and he knew how to make his very
+body a vast syncopation. The effect of his arrival was as
+singular as himself. Captain Wyatt, Doctor Cromarty and
+Mr. Price withdrew to that portion of the deck about the
+wheel which convention had always roped off for them with
+invisible ropes. The captain, by custom, messed by himself,
+whereas the other two had their meals in the saloon,
+entering and leaving quickly and saying little while at table.
+But apart from meals the three formed a separate clan on
+the yacht. The indisposition of the owner had dissolved
+this clan into the general population of the saloon. The
+recovery of the owner re-created it. Mr. Price had suddenly
+begun to live arduously for the gramophone alone.
+And when summoned by the owner to come and form half
+of the third couple for dancing, Doctor Cromarty had the
+air of arousing himself from a meditation upon medicine.
+Also, the passengers themselves danced with conscientiousness,
+with elaborate gusto and with an earnest desire to
+reach a high standard. And between dances everybody
+went up to Mr. Gilman and said how lovely it all was. And
+it really was lovely.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman had taken the wheel after about the sixth
+dance. Approaching Audrey, who owed him the next dance,
+he had said that the skipper had hinted something about his
+taking the wheel and he thought he had better oblige the
+old fellow, if Audrey was quite, quite sure she didn&#8217;t mind,
+and would she come and sit by him instead&mdash;for one dance?
+... As soon as two sailors had fixed cushions for Audrey,
+and the skipper had given the owner the course, all persons
+seemed to withdraw respectfully from the pair, who were
+in the shadow of a great spar, with the glimmer of the
+binnacle just in front of them. The square sail had been
+lowered, and the engines started, and a steady, faint throb
+kept the yacht mysteriously alive in every plank of her.
+The gramophone and the shuffle of feet continued, because
+Mr. Gilman had expressly desired that his momentary
+defection with a lady and in obedience to duty should not
+bring the ball to an end. Laughter and even giggles came
+from the ballroom. Males were dancing together. The
+power of the moon had increased. The binnacle-light, however,
+threw up a radiance of its own on to Mr. Gilman&#8217;s
+lowered face, the face of a kind, a good, and a dependably
+expert individuality who was watching over the
+safety, the welfare and the highest interests of every soul
+on board.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was very sorry to be laid up to-day,&#8221; Mr. Gilman
+began suddenly, in a very quiet voice, frowning benevolently
+at the black pointer on the compass. &#8220;But, of
+course, you know my great enemy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I don&#8217;t,&#8221; said Audrey gently.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hasn&#8217;t Doc told you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Doctor Cromarty? No, he doesn&#8217;t tell much.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, looking round quickly and
+shyly, rather in the manner of a boy, &#8220;it&#8217;s liver.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey seemed to read in his face, first, that Doctor
+Cromarty had received secret orders never to tell anybody
+anything, and, second, that the great enemy was not liver.
+And she thought: &#8220;So this is human nature! Mature
+men, wise men, dignified men, do descend to these paltry
+deceits just in order to keep up appearances, though they
+must know quite well that they don&#8217;t deceive anyone who
+is worth deceiving.&#8221; The remarkable fact was that she
+did not feel in the least shocked or disdainful. She merely
+decided&mdash;and found a certain queer pleasure in the decision&mdash;that
+human nature was a curious phenomenon, and that
+there must be a lot of it on earth. And she felt kindly
+towards Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;d said gout&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; she remarked. &#8220;I always
+understood that men generally had gout.&#8221; And she consciously,
+with intention, employed a simple, innocent tone,
+knowing that it misled Mr. Gilman, and wanting it to
+mislead him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No!&#8221; he went on. &#8220;Liver. All sailors suffer from
+it, more or less. It&#8217;s the bugbear of the sea. I have a
+doctor on board because, with a score or so of crew, it&#8217;s
+really a duty to have a doctor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I quite see that,&#8221; Audrey agreed, thinking mildly:
+&#8220;You only have a doctor on board because you&#8217;re always
+worrying about your own health.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;However,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, &#8220;he&#8217;s not much use to
+me personally. He doesn&#8217;t understand liver. Scotsmen
+never do. Fortunately, I have a very good doctor in Paris.
+I prefer French doctors. And I&#8217;m sure they&#8217;re right on the
+great liver question. All English doctors tell you to take
+plenty of violent exercise if you want to shake off a liver
+attack. Quite wrong. Too much exercise tires the body
+and so it tires the liver as well&mdash;obviously. What&#8217;s the
+result? You can see, can&#8217;t you? The liver works worse
+than ever. Now, a French doctor will advise complete rest
+until the attack is over. <em>Then</em> exercise, if you like; but not
+before. Of course, <em>you</em> don&#8217;t know you&#8217;ve got a liver, and
+I dare say you think it&#8217;s very odd of me to talk about my
+liver. I&#8217;m sure you do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t, honestly. I like you to talk like that. It&#8217;s
+very interesting.&#8221; And she thought: &#8220;Suppose Tommy
+was wrong, after all! ... She&#8217;s very spiteful.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s you all over, Mrs. Moncreiff. You understand
+men far better than any other woman I ever saw, unless,
+perhaps, it&#8217;s Madame Piriac.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, Mr. Gilman! How can you say such a thing?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not the first time you&#8217;ve heard it, I wager!&#8221; said
+Mr. Gilman. &#8220;And it won&#8217;t be the last! Any man who
+knows women can see at once that you are one of the
+women who understand. Otherwise, do you imagine I
+should have begun upon my troubles?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Now, at any rate, he was sincere&mdash;she was convinced
+of that. And he looked very smart as he spied the horizon
+for lights and peered at the compass, and moved the wheel
+at intervals with a strong, accustomed gesture. And,
+assuredly, he looked very experienced. Audrey blushed.
+She just had to believe that there must be something in
+what he said concerning her talent. She had noticed it herself
+several times.</p>
+
+<p>In an interval of the music the sea washed with a long
+sound against the bow of the yacht; then silence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do love that sudden wash against the yacht,&#8221; said
+Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; agreed Mr. Gilman, &#8220;so do I. All doctors tell
+me that I should be better if I gave up yachting. But I
+won&#8217;t. I couldn&#8217;t. Whatever it costs in health, yachting&#8217;s
+worth it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! It must be!&#8221; cried Audrey, with enthusiasm.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve never been on a yacht before, but I quite agree with
+you. I feel as if I could live on a yacht for ever&mdash;always
+going to new places, you know; that&#8217;s how I feel.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You do?&#8221; Mr. Gilman exclaimed and gazed at her for
+a moment with a sort of ecstasy. Audrey instinctively
+checked herself. &#8220;There&#8217;s a freemasonry among those
+who like yachting.&#8221; His eyes returned to the compass.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve kept your secret. I&#8217;ve kept it like something precious.
+I&#8217;ve enjoyed keeping it. It&#8217;s been a comfort to me. Now
+I wonder if you&#8217;ll do the same for me, Mrs. Moncreiff?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do what?&#8221; Audrey asked weakly, intimidated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Keep a secret. I shouldn&#8217;t dream of telling it to
+Madame Piriac. Will you? May I tell you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, if you think you can trust me,&#8221; said Audrey, concealing,
+with amazing ease and skill, her excitement and
+her mighty pleasure in the scene.... &#8220;He wouldn&#8217;t dream
+of telling it to Madame Piriac.&#8221; ... It is doubtful whether
+she had ever enjoyed anything so much, and yet she was
+as prim as a nun.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not a happy man, Mrs. Moncreiff. Materially, I&#8217;ve
+everything a man can want, I suppose. But I&#8217;m not happy.
+You may laugh and say it&#8217;s my liver. But it isn&#8217;t. You&#8217;re
+a woman of the world; you know what life is; and yet
+experience hasn&#8217;t spoilt you. I could say anything
+to you; anything! And you wouldn&#8217;t be shocked, would
+you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Audrey, hoping, nevertheless, that he would
+not say &#8220;anything, anything,&#8221; but somehow simultaneously
+hoping that he would. It was a disconcerting sensation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I want you always to remember that I&#8217;m unhappy and
+never to tell anybody,&#8221; Mr. Gilman resumed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But why?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It will be a kindness to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I mean, why are you unhappy?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My opinions have all changed. I used to think I could
+be independent of women. Not that I didn&#8217;t like women!
+I did. But when I&#8217;d left them I was quite happy. You
+know what the facts of life are, Mrs. Moncreiff. Young as
+you are you are older than me in some respects, though I
+have a long life before me. It&#8217;s just because I have a long
+life before me&mdash;dyspeptics are always long-lived&mdash;that I&#8217;m
+afraid for the future. It wouldn&#8217;t matter so much if I was
+an old man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; asked Audrey adventurously, &#8220;why should you
+be unhappy because your opinions have changed? What
+opinions?&#8221; She endeavoured to be perfectly judicial and
+indifferent, and yet kind.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What opinions? Well, about Woman Suffrage, for
+instance. You remember that night at the Foas&#8217;, and
+what I remarked afterwards about what you all said?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I remember,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;But can <em>you</em>
+remember it? Fancy you remembering a thing like that!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I remember every word that was said. It changed me....
+Not at first. Oh, no! Not for several days, perhaps
+weeks. I fought against it. Then I said to myself, &#8216;How
+absurd to fight against it!&#8217; ... Well, I&#8217;ve come to believe
+in women having the vote. You&#8217;ve no more stanch supporter
+than I am. I <em>want</em> women to have the vote. And
+you&#8217;re the first person I&#8217;ve ever said that to. I want <em>you</em>
+to have the vote.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He smiled at her, and she saw scores and scores of
+excellent qualities in his smile; she could not believe that
+he had any defect whatever. His secret was precious to
+her. She considered that he had confided it to her in a
+manner both distinguished and poetical. He had shown a
+quality which no youth could have shown. Youths were
+inferior, crude, incomplete. Not that Mr. Gilman was not
+young! Emphatically he was young, but her conception
+of the number of years comprised in youthfulness had been
+enlarged. She saw, as in a magical enlightenment, that
+forty was young, fifty was young, any age was young provided
+it had the right gestures. As for herself, she was
+without age. The obvious fact that Mr. Gilman was her
+slave touched her; it saddened her, but sweetly; it gave her
+a new sense of responsibility.</p>
+
+<p>She said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I still don&#8217;t see why this change of view should make
+you unhappy. I should have thought it would have just the
+opposite effect.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It has altered all my desires,&#8221; he replied. &#8220;Do you
+know, I&#8217;m not really interested in this new yacht now! And
+that&#8217;s the truth.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Gilman!&#8221; she checked him. &#8220;How can you say
+such a thing?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It now appeared that she was not a nice girl. If she
+had been a nice girl she would not have comprehended
+what Mr. Gilman was ultimately driving at. The word
+&#8220;marriage&#8221; would never have sounded in her brain. And
+she would have been startled and shocked had Mr. Gilman
+even hinted that there was such a word in the dictionary.
+But not being, after all, a nice girl, she actually dwelt on
+the notion of marriage with somebody exactly like Mr.
+Gilman. She imagined how fine and comfortable and final
+it would be. She admitted that despite her riches and her
+independence she would be and could be simply naught until
+she possessed a man and could show him to the world as
+her own. Strange attitude for a wealthy feminist, but she
+had the attitude! And, moreover, she enjoyed having it;
+she revelled in it. She desired, impatiently, that Mr.
+Gilman should proceed further. She thirsted for his next
+remark. And her extremely deceptive features displayed
+only a blend of simplicity and soft pity. Those features did
+not actually lie, for she was ingenuous without being aware
+of it and her pity for the fellow-creature whose lot she could
+assuage with a glance was real enough. But they did
+suppress about nine-tenths of the truth.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I tell you,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, &#8220;there is nothing I could
+not say to you. And&mdash;and&mdash;of course, you&#8217;ll say I scarcely
+know you&mdash;yet&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Clearly he was proceeding further. She waited as
+in a theatre one waits for a gun to go off on the stage.
+And then the gun did go off, but not the gun she was
+expecting.</p>
+
+<p>Skipper Wyatt&#8217;s head popped up like a cannon shot out
+of a hole in the forward deck, and it gazed sharply and
+apprehensively around the calm, moonlit sea. Mr. Gilman
+was, beyond question, perturbed by the movements of that
+head, though he could not see the expression of the eyes.
+This was the first phenomenon. The second phenomenon
+was a swirling of water round the after part of the ship, and
+this swirling went on until the water was white with a thin
+foam.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Reverse those d&mdash;&mdash;d engines!&#8221; shouted Captain
+Wyatt, quite regardless of the proximity of refined women.
+He had now sprung clear of the hole and was running aft.
+The whole world of the yacht could not but see that he was
+coatless and that his white shirtsleeves, being rather long,
+were kept in position by red elastic rings round his arms.
+&#8220;Is that blithering engineer asleep?&#8221; continued Captain
+Wyatt, ignoring the whole system of yacht etiquette.
+&#8220;She&#8217;s getting harder on every second!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ay, ay, skipper!&#8221; came a muffled voice from the engine-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And not too soon either!&#8221; snapped the captain.</p>
+
+<p>The yacht throbbed more violently; the swirling increased
+furiously. The captain stared over the rail. Then,
+after an interval, he stamped on the deck in disgust.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Shut off!&#8221; he yelled. &#8220;It&#8217;s no good.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The yacht ceased to throb. The swirling came to an
+end, and the thin white foam faded into flat sombre water.
+Whereupon Captain Wyatt turned back to the wheel, which,
+in his extreme haste, he had passed by.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve run her on to the sand, sir,&#8221; said he to Mr.
+Gilman, respectfully but still accusingly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no! Impossible!&#8221; Mr. Gilman defended himself,
+pained by the charge.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s hard on, anyhow, sir. And many a good yacht&#8217;s
+left her bones on this Buxey.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you gave me the course,&#8221; protested Mr. Gilman,
+with haughtiness.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Wyatt bent down and looked at the binnacle.
+He was contentedly aware that the compass of a yacht hard
+aground cannot lie and cannot be made to lie. The camera
+can lie; the speedometer of an automobile after an accident
+can lie&mdash;or can conceal the truth and often does, but the
+compass of a yacht aground is insusceptible to any
+blandishment; it shows the course at the moment of striking
+and nothing will persuade it to alter its evidence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What course did I give you, sir?&#8221; asked Captain
+Wyatt.</p>
+
+<p>And as Mr. Gilman hesitated in his reply, the skipper
+pointed silently to the compass.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where&#8217;s the chart? Let me see the chart,&#8221; said Mr.
+Gilman with sudden majesty.</p>
+
+<p>The chart in its little brass frame was handy. Mr.
+Gilman examined it in a hostile manner; one might say that
+he cross-examined it, and with it the horizon. &#8220;Ah!&#8221; he
+muttered at length, peering at the print under the chart,
+&#8220;&#8216;Corrected 1906.&#8217; Out of date. Pity they don&#8217;t re-issue
+these charts oftener.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His observations had no relation whatever to the matter
+in hand; considered as a contribution to the unravelling of
+the matter in hand they were merely idiotic. Nevertheless,
+such were the exact words he uttered, and he appeared to
+get great benefit and solace from them. They somehow
+enabled him to meet, quite satisfactorily, the gaze of his
+guests who had now gathered in the vicinity of the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey alone showed a desire to move away from the
+wheel. The fact was that the skipper had glanced at her
+in a peculiar way and his eyes had seemed to say, with
+disdain: &#8220;Women! Women again!&#8221; Nothing but that!
+The implications, however, were plain. Audrey may have
+been discountenanced by the look in the captain&#8217;s eyes, but
+at the same time she had an inward pride, because it was
+undeniable that Mr. Gilman, owing to his extreme and
+agitated interest in herself, had put the yacht off the course
+and was thereby imperilling numerous lives. Audrey liked
+that. And she exonerated Mr. Gilman, and she hated the
+captain for daring to accuse him, and she mysteriously
+nursed the wounded dignity of Mr. Gilman far better than
+he could nurse it himself.</p>
+
+<p>Her feelings were assuredly complex, and they grew
+more complex when the sense of danger began to dominate
+them. The sense of danger came to her out of the
+demeanour of her companions and out of the swift appearance
+on deck of every member of the crew, including the
+parlourmaid, and including three men who were incompletely
+clothed. The yacht was no longer a floating hotel,
+automobile and dancing-saloon; it was a stranded wreck.
+Not a passenger on board knew whether the tide was
+making or ebbing, but, secretly, all were convinced that it
+was ebbing and that they would be left on the treacherous
+sand and ultimately swallowed up therein, even if a storm
+did not supervene and smash the craft to bits in the classical
+manner. The skipper&#8217;s words about the bones of many a
+good yacht had escaped no ear.</p>
+
+<p>Further, not a passenger knew where the yacht was or
+whither, exactly, she was bound or whether the glass was
+rising or falling, for guests on yachts seldom concern themselves
+about details. Of course, signals might be made to
+passing ships, but signals were often, according to maritime
+history, unheeded, and the ocean was very large and empty,
+though it was only the German Ocean.... Musa was
+nervous and angry. Audrey knew from her intimate knowledge
+of him that he was angry and she wondered why he
+should be angry. Madame Piriac, on the other hand, was
+entirely calm. Her calmness seemed to say to those
+responsible, and even to the not-responsible passenger:
+&#8220;You got me into this and it is inconceivable that you should
+not get me out of it. I have always been looked after and
+protected, and I must be looked after and protected now.
+I absolutely decline to be worried.&#8221; But Miss Thompkins
+was worried, she was very seriously alarmed; fear was in
+her face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do think it&#8217;s a shame!&#8221; she broke out almost loudly,
+in a trembling voice, to Audrey. &#8220;I do think it&#8217;s a shame
+you should go flirting with poor Mr. Gilman when he&#8217;s steering.&#8221;
+And she meant all she said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Me flirting!&#8221; Audrey exclaimed, passionately resentful.</p>
+
+<p>Withal, the sense of danger continued to increase. Still
+there were the boats. There were the motor-launch, the
+cutter and the dinghy. The sea was&mdash;for the present&mdash;calm
+and the moon encouraging.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lower the dinghy there and look lively now!&#8221; cried
+the captain.</p>
+
+<p>This command more than ever frightened all the
+passengers who, in their nervousness and alarm, had tried
+to pretend to themselves that nervousness and alarm were
+absurd, and that first-class yachts never did, and could not,
+get wrecked. The command was a thunderstroke. It
+proved that the danger was immediate and intense. And
+the thought of all the beautiful food and drink on board,
+and all the soft cushions and the electric hair-curlers and the
+hot-water supply and the ice gave no consolation whatever.
+The idea of the futility and wickedness of luxury desolated
+the guests and made them austere, and yet even in that
+moment they speculated upon what goods they might take
+with them.</p>
+
+<p>And why the dinghy, though it was a dinghy of large
+size? Why not the launch?</p>
+
+<p>After the dinghy had been dropped into the sea an old
+sail was carefully spread amidships over her bottom and she
+was lugged, by her painter, towards the bow of the yacht
+where, with much grating of windlasses and of temperaments
+and voices, an anchor was very gently lowered into her and
+rested on the old sail. The anchor was so immense that it
+sank the dinghy up to Her gunwale, and then she was
+rowed away to a considerable distance, a chain grinding
+after her, and in due time the anchor was pitched with a
+great splash into the water. The sound of orders and of
+replies vibrated romantically over the surface of the water.
+Then a windlass was connected with the engine, and the
+passengers comprehended that the intention was to drag
+the yacht off the sand by main force. The chain clacked
+and strained horribly. The shouting multiplied, as though
+the vessel had been a great beast that could be bullied into
+obedience. The muscles of all passengers were drawn taut
+in sympathy with the chain, and at length there was a lurch
+and the chain gradually slackened.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s off!&#8221; breathed the captain. &#8220;We&#8217;ve saved a
+good half-hour.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;d have floated off by herself,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman
+grandly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, sir,&#8221; said the captain. &#8220;But if it had happened
+to be the ebb, sir&mdash;&#8221; He left it at that and began on a
+new series of orders, embracing the dinghy, the engines, the
+anchor and another anchor.</p>
+
+<p>And all the passengers resumed their courage and their
+ancient notions about the excellence of luxury, and came to
+the conclusion that navigation was a very simple affair, and
+in less than five minutes were sincerely convinced that they
+had never known fear.</p>
+
+<p>Later, the impressive sight was witnessed of Madame
+Piriac, on her shoulders such a cloak as certainly had never
+been seen on a yacht before, bearing Mr. Gilman&#8217;s valuable
+violin like a jewel casket. She had found it below and
+brought it up on deck.</p>
+
+<p>The <em>Ariadne</em>, was now passing to port those twinkling
+cities of delight, Clacton and Frinton, and the long pier of
+Walton stretched out towards it, a string of topazes. The
+moon was higher and brighter than ever, but clouds had
+heaped themselves up to windward, and the surface of the
+water was rippled. Moreover, the yacht was now working
+over a strong, foul tide. The company, with the exception
+of Mr. Gilman, who had gone below&mdash;apparently in order
+to avoid being on the same deck with Captain Wyatt&mdash;had
+decided that Musa should be asked to play. Although the
+sound of his practising had escaped occasionally through
+the porthole of a locked cabin, he had not once during
+the cruise performed for the public benefit. Dancing was
+finished. Why should not the yacht profit by the presence
+of a great genius on board? The doctor and the
+secretary were of one mind with the women that there
+was no good answer to this question, and even the crew
+obviously felt that the genius ought to show what he was
+made of.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dare we ask you?&#8221; said Madame Piriac to the youth,
+offering him the violin case. Her supplicatory tone and
+attitude, though they were somewhat assumed, proved to
+what a height Musa had recently risen as a personage.</p>
+
+<p>He hesitated, leaning against the rail and nervously
+fingering it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know it is a great deal to ask. But you would give
+us so much pleasure,&#8221; said Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>Musa replied in a dry, curt voice:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should prefer not to play.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! But Musa&mdash;&#8221; There was a general protest.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I cannot play,&#8221; Musa exclaimed with impatience, and
+moved almost savagely away.</p>
+
+<p>The experience was novel for Madame Piriac, left
+standing there, as it were, respectfully presenting the
+violin case to the rail. This beautiful and not unpampered
+lady was accustomed to see her commands received as an
+honour; and when she condescended to implore, the effect
+usually was to produce a blissful and deprecatory confusion
+in the person besought. Her husband and Mr. Gilman had
+for a number of years been teaching her that whatever
+she desired was the highest good and the most complete
+felicity to everybody concerned in the fulfilment of the
+desire. She bore the blow from Musa admirably, keeping
+both her smile and her dignity, and with one gesture
+excusing Musa to all beholders as a capricious and a
+sensitive artist in whom moodiness was lawful. It was
+exquisitely done. It could not have been better done. But
+not even Madame Piriac&#8217;s extreme skill could save the
+episode from having the air of a social disaster. The
+gaiety which had been too feverishly resumed after the
+salvage of the yacht from the sandbank expired like a
+pricked balloon. People silently vanished, and only Audrey
+was left on the after deck.</p>
+
+<p>It was after a long interval that she became aware
+of the reappearance of Musa. Seemingly, he had been in
+the engine-room; since the beginning of the cruise he had
+shown a fancy for both the engine-room and the engineer.
+To her surprise, he marched straight towards her deckchair.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must speak to you,&#8221; he said with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Must you?&#8221; Audrey replied, full of hot resentment.
+&#8220;I think you&#8217;ve been horrid, Musa. Perfectly horrid! But
+I suppose you have your own notions of politeness now.
+Everything has been done for you, and&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is that?&#8221; he stopped her. &#8220;Everything has
+been done for me. What is it that has been done for
+me? I play for years, I am ignored. Then I succeed.
+I am noticed. Men of affairs offer me immense sums.
+But am I surprised? Not the least in the world. It is
+the contrary which would have surprised me. It was
+inevitable that I should succeed. But note well&mdash;it is I
+myself who succeed. It is not my friends. It is not
+the concert agent. Do I regard the concert agent as a
+benefactor? Again, not the least in the world. You say
+everything has been done for me. Nothing has been done
+for me, Madame.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, yes,&#8221; faltered Audrey, who was in a dilemma,
+and therefore more resentful than ever. &#8220;I&mdash;I only mean
+your friends have always stood by you.&#8221; She gathered
+courage, sat up erect in her deck-chair, and finished
+haughtily: &#8220;And now you&#8217;re conceited. You&#8217;re insufferably
+conceited.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because I refused to play?&#8221; He laughed stridently
+and grimly. &#8220;No. I refused to play because I could
+not, because I was outside myself with jealousy. Yes,
+jealousy. You do not know jealousy. Perhaps you
+are incapable of it. But permit me to tell you, Madame,
+that jealousy is one of the finest and most terrible emotions.
+And that is why I must speak to you. I cannot live
+and see you flirt so seriously with that old idiot. I
+cannot live.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey jumped up from the chair.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa! I shall never speak to you again.... Me ...
+flirt.... And you call Mr. Gilman an old idiot!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What words would you employ, Madame? He was
+so agitated by your intimate conversation that he brought
+us all near to death, in any case. Moreover, it jumps
+to the eyes that the decrepit satyr is mad about you.
+Mad!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Musa&#8217;s voice broke. In the midst of all her fury
+Audrey was relieved that it did break, for the reason that
+it was getting very loud, and the wheel, with Captain
+Wyatt thereat, was not far off.</p>
+
+<p>There was one thing to do, and Audrey did it. She
+walked away rapidly. And, as she did so, she was startled
+to discover a sob in her throat. The drawn, highly
+emotionalised face of Musa remained with her. She was
+angry, indignant, infuriated, and yet her feelings were
+not utterly unpleasant, though she wanted them to be so.
+In the first place, they were exciting. And in the second
+place&mdash;what was it?&mdash;well, she had the strange, sweet
+sensation of being, somehow, the mainspring of the universe,
+of being immensely important in the scheme of things.</p>
+
+<p>She thought her cup was full. It was not. Staring
+blankly over the side of the ship she saw a buoy float
+slowly by. She saw it with the utmost clearness, and on
+its round black surface was painted in white letters the
+word &#8220;Flank.&#8221; There could not be two Flank buoys. It
+was the Flank buoy of the Mozewater navigable channel.
+... She glanced around. The well-remembered shores of
+Mozewater were plainly visible under the moon. In the
+distance, over the bowsprit, she could discern the mass
+of the tower of Mozewater church. She could not distinguish
+Flank Hall, but she knew it was there. Why
+were they threading the Mozewater channel? It had been
+distinctly given out that the yacht would make Harwich
+harbour. Almost unconsciously she turned in the direction
+of the wheel, where Captain Wyatt was. Then, controlling
+herself, she moved away. She knew that she could not
+speak to the captain. She went below, and, before she
+could escape, found the saloon populated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Mrs. Moncreiff!&#8221; cried Madame Piriac. &#8220;It is
+a miraculous coincidence. You will never guess. One tells
+me we are going to the village of Moze for the night;
+it is because of the tide. You remember, I told you. It
+is where lives my little friend, Audrey Moze. To-morrow
+I visit her, and you must come with me. I insist that
+you come with me. I have never seen her. It will be
+all that is most palpitating.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_33" id="chapter_33" />CHAPTER XXXIII</h2>
+
+
+<h3>AGUILAR&#8217;S DOUBLE LIFE</h3>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac came down into the saloon the next
+afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! You are still hiding yourself here!&#8221; she murmured
+gaily to Audrey, who was alone among the cushions.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was just resting,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;Remember what
+a night we had!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was true that the yacht had not been berthed at
+Lousey Hard until between two and three o&#8217;clock in the
+morning, and that no guest had slept until after the job
+was done, though more than one had tried to sleep. It
+was also true that in consequence the saloon breakfast
+had been abrogated, that even the saloon lunch lacked
+vicacity, and that at least one passenger was at that
+moment dozing in his cabin. But not on account of fatigue
+and somnolence was Audrey remaining in the saloon instead
+of taking the splendid summer afternoon on deck under
+the awning. She felt neither tired nor sleepy. The true
+secret was that she feared the crowd of village idlers,
+quidnuncs, tattlers and newsmongers who all day gazed
+from Lousey Hard at the wonder-yacht.</p>
+
+<p>Examining the line of faces as well as she could through
+portholes, she recognised nearly every one of them, and
+was quite sure that every one of them would recognise her
+face. To go ashore or to stay prominently on deck would,
+therefore, be to give away her identity and to be forced,
+sooner or later, to admit that she had practised a long
+and naughty deception. She could conceive some of those
+villagers greeting her loudly from the Hard if she should
+appear; for Essex manners were marked by strange freedoms.
+Her situation would be terrible. It, in fact, was terrible.
+Risks surrounded her like angry dogs. Musa, for example,
+ought surely to have noticed that the estuary in which
+the yacht lay was the same estuary which he had seen
+not long before from the garden of the house stated by
+Audrey to be her own, and he ought to have commented
+eagerly on the marvellous coincidence. Happily, he had
+not yet done so&mdash;no doubt because he had spent most of
+the time in bed. If and when he did so there would naturally
+be an excited outcry and a heavy rain of amazed questions
+which simply could not be answered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am going almost at once to call on my little friend
+Audrey Moze, at Flank Hall,&#8221; said Madame Piriac. &#8220;The
+house looks delicious from the deck. If you will come
+up I will show it to you. It is precisely like the picture
+post card which the dear little one sent to me last year.
+Are you ready to come with me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, darling, hadn&#8217;t you better go alone?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But certainly not, darling! You are not serious.
+The meeting will be very agitating. With a third person,
+however, it will be less so. I count on you absolutely,
+as I have said already. Nay, I insist. I invoke your
+friendship.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She may be out. She may be away altogether.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In that case we shall return,&#8221; said Madame Piriac
+briefly, and, not giving Audrey time to reply further, she
+vanished, with a firm carriage and an obstinate look in
+her eyes, towards the sleeping-cabins.</p>
+
+<p>The next instant Mr. Gilman himself entered the saloon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Moncreiff,&#8221; he started nervously, in a confidential
+and deprecating tone, &#8220;this is the first chance I have had
+to tell you. We came into Mozewater without my orders.
+I won&#8217;t say against my orders, but certainly not with them.
+On the plea that I had retired, Captain Wyatt changed
+our destination last night without going through the formality
+of consulting me. We ought to have made Harwich,
+but I am now told that we were running short of paraffin,
+and that if we had continued to Harwich we should have
+had the worst of the tide against us, whereas in coming
+up Mozewater the tide helped us; also that Captain Wyatt
+did not care about trying to get into Harwich harbour at
+night with the wind in its present quarter, and rising as
+it was then. Of course, Wyatt is responsible for the
+safety of the ship, and it is true that I had her designed
+with a very light draught on purpose for such waters as
+Mozewater; but he ought to have consulted me. We might
+get away again on this tide, but Hortense will not hear
+of it. She has a call to pay, she says. I can only tell you
+how sorry I am. And I do hope you will forgive me.&#8221; The
+sincerity and alarm of his manly apology were touching.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, Mr. Gilman,&#8221; said Audrey, with the simplicity
+which more and more she employed in talking to her host,
+&#8220;there is nothing to forgive. What can it matter to me
+whether we come here or go to Harwich?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought, I was afraid&mdash;&#8221; Mr. Gilman hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In short ... your secret, Mrs. Moncreiff, which you
+asked me to keep, and which I have kept. It was here,
+at this very spot, with my old barge-yacht, that I first
+had the pleasure of meeting you. And I thought ...
+perhaps you had reasons.... However, your secret is
+safe.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How nice you are, Mr. Gilman!&#8221; Audrey said, with
+a gentle smile. &#8220;You&#8217;re kindness itself. But there is
+nothing to trouble about, really. Keep my little secret by
+all means, if you don&#8217;t mind. As for anything else&mdash;that&#8217;s
+perfectly all right.... Shall we go on deck?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He thanked her without words.</p>
+
+<p>She was saying to herself, rather desperately:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;After all, what do I care? I haven&#8217;t committed a
+crime. It&#8217;s nobody&#8217;s business but my own. And I&#8217;m
+worth ten million francs. And if the fat&#8217;s in the fire, and
+anything is found out, and people don&#8217;t like it&mdash;well, they
+must do the other thing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Thus she went on deck, and her courage was rewarded
+by the discovery of a chair on the starboard side of the
+deck-house, from which she could not possibly be seen by
+any persons on the Hard. She took this chair like a gift
+from heaven. The deck was busy enough. Mr. Price,
+the secretary, was making entries in an account book.
+Dr. Cromarty was pacing to and fro, expectant. Captain
+Wyatt was arguing with the chauffeur of a vast motor-van
+from Clacton, and another motor-van from Colchester was
+also present on the Hard. Rows of paraffin cans were
+ranged against the engine-room hatchway, and the odour
+of paraffin was powerfully conflicting with the odour of
+ozone and possibly ammonia from the marshes. Parcels
+kept coming down by hand from the village of Moze. Fresh
+water also came in barrels on a lorry, and lumps of ice
+in a dog-cart. The arrival of six bottles of aspirin, brought
+by a heated boy on a bicycle, from Clacton, and seized
+with gusto by Dr. Cromarty, completed the proof that
+money will not only buy anything, but will infallibly draw
+it to any desired spot, however out of the way the spot
+may be. The probability was that neither paraffin nor ice
+nor aspirin had ever found itself on Lousey Hard before
+in the annals of the world. Yet now these things forgathered
+with ease and naturalness owing to the magic
+of the word &#8220;yacht&#8221; in telegrams.</p>
+
+<p>And over the scene floated the wavy, inspiring folds of
+the yacht&#8217;s immense blue ensign, with the Union Jack in
+the top inside corner.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Price went into the deck-house and began to count
+money.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Price,&#8221; demanded Mr. Gilman urgently, &#8220;did you
+look up the facts about this village?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was just looking up the place in &#8216;East Coast Tours,&#8217;
+sir, when the paraffin arrived,&#8221; replied Mr. Price. &#8220;It says
+that Moze is mentioned in &#8216;Green&#8217;s Short History of the
+English People.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! Very interesting. That work is a classic. It
+really treats of the English people, and not solely of their
+kings and queens. Dr. Cromarty, Mr. Price is busy, will
+you mind bringing me the catalogue of the library up here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Cromarty obeyed, and Mr. Gilman examined the
+typewritten, calf-bound volume.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said he. &#8220;Yes. I thought we had Green on
+board, and we have. I should like extremely to know what
+Green says about Moze. It must have been in the Anglo-Saxon
+or Norman period. Dr. Cromarty, will you mind
+bringing me up the first three volumes of Green? You
+will find them on shelf Z8. Also the last volume, for the
+index.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later Mr. Gilman, with three volumes of
+Green on his knees and one in his hand, said reproachfully
+to Mr. Price:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Price, I requested you to see that the leaves of
+all our books were cut. These volumes are absolutely
+uncut.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, sir, I&#8217;m working through them as fast as I can.
+But I haven&#8217;t got to shelf Z8 yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I cannot stop to cut them now,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman,
+politely displeased. &#8220;What a pity! It would have been
+highly instructive to know what Green says about Moze.
+I always like to learn everything I can about the places we
+stop at. And this place must be full of historic interest.
+Wyatt, have you had that paraffin counted properly?&#8221; He
+spoke very coldly to the captain.</p>
+
+<p>It thus occurred that what John Richard Green
+said about Moze was never known on board the yacht
+<em>Ariadne</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey listened to the episode in a reverie. She was
+thinking about Musa&#8217;s intractability and inexcusable rudeness,
+and about what she should do in the matter of Madame
+Piriac&#8217;s impending visit to Audrey Moze at Flank Hall, and
+through the texture of these difficult topics she could see,
+as it were, shining the sprightly simplicity, the utter ingenuousness,
+the entirely reliable fidelity of Mr. Gilman.
+She felt, rather than consciously realised, that he was a dull
+man. But she liked his dullness; it reassured her; it was
+tranquillising; it was even adorable. She liked also his
+attitude towards Moze. She had never suspected, no one
+had ever hinted to her, that Moze was full of historic interest.
+But looking at it now from the yacht which had miraculously
+wafted her past the Flank buoy at dead of night, she perceived
+Moze in a quite new aspect&mdash;a pleasure which she
+owed to Mr. Gilman&#8217;s artless interest in things. (Not that
+he was artless in all affairs! No; in the great masculine
+affairs he must be far from artless, for had he not made all
+his money himself?)</p>
+
+<p>Then Madame Piriac appeared on deck, armed and determined.
+Audrey found, as hundreds of persons had found,
+that it was impossible to deny Madame Piriac. Beautiful,
+gracious, elegant, kind, when she would have a thing she
+would have it. Audrey had to descend and prepare herself.
+She had to reascend ready for the visit. But at the critical
+and dreadful moment of going ashore to affront the crowd
+she had a saving idea. She pointed to Flank Hall and its
+sloping garden, and to the sea-wall against which the high
+spring tide was already washing, and she suggested that
+they should be rowed thither in the dinghy instead of
+walking around by the sea-wall or through&#8217; the village.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But we cannot climb over that dyke,&#8221; Madame Piriac
+protested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, we can,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I can see steps in
+it from here, and I can see a gate at the bottom of the
+garden.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What a vision you have, darling!&#8221; murmured Madame
+Piriac. &#8220;As you wish, provided we get there.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The dinghy, at Audrey&#8217;s request, was brought round
+to the side of the yacht opposite from the Hard, and,
+screening her face as well as she could with an open
+parasol, she tripped down by the steps into it. If only
+Aguilar was away from the premises she might be saved,
+for the place would be shut up, and there would be nothing
+to do but return. Should Madame Piriac suggest going into
+the village to inquire&mdash;well, Audrey would positively refuse
+to go into the village. Yes, she would refuse!</p>
+
+<p>As the boat moved away from the yacht, Musa showed
+himself on deck. Madame Piriac signalled to him a salutation
+of the finest good humour. She had forgotten his
+pettishness. By absolutely ignoring it she had made it as
+though it had never existed. This was her art. Audrey,
+observing the gesture, and Musa&#8217;s smiling reply to it,
+acquired wisdom. She saw that she must treat Musa as
+Madame Piriac treated him. She had undertaken the enterprise
+of launching him on a tremendous artistic career, and
+she must carry it through. She wanted to make a neat,
+clean job of the launching, and she would do it dispassionately,
+like a good workwoman. He had admitted&mdash;nay, he
+had insisted&mdash;that she was necessary to him. Her pride in
+that fact had a somewhat superior air. He might be the
+most marvellous of violinists, but he was also a child, helpless
+without her moral support. She would act accordingly.
+It was absurd to be angry with a child, no matter what his
+vagaries.... At this juncture of her reflections she noticed
+that Mr. Gilman and Miss Thompkins had quitted the yacht
+together and were walking seawards. They seemed very
+intimate, impregnated with mutual understanding. And
+Audrey was sorry that Mr. Gilman was quite so simple,
+quite so straightforward and honest.</p>
+
+<p>When the dinghy arrived at the sea-wall Audrey won
+the stalled admiration of the sailor in charge of the boat by
+pointing at once to the best&mdash;if not the only&mdash;place fit for a
+landing. The sailor was by no means accustomed to such
+<em>flair</em> in a yacht&#8217;s guests. Indeed, it had often astonished him
+that people who, as a class, had so little notion of how to
+get into or out of a dinghy could have succeeded, as they
+all apparently had, in any department of life.</p>
+
+<p>With continuing skill, Audrey guided Madame Piriac
+over the dyke and past sundry other obstacles, including a
+watercourse, to a gate in the wall which formed the frontier
+of the grounds of Flank Hall. The gate seemed at first to
+be unopenably fastened, but Audrey showed that she
+possessed a genius with gates, and opened it with a twist
+of the hand. They wandered through a plantation and then
+through an orchard, and at length saw the house. There
+was not a sign of Aguilar, but the unseen yard-dog began
+to bark, hearing which, Madame Piriac observed in French:
+&#8220;The property seems a little neglected, but there must
+be someone at home.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar is bound to come now!&#8221; thought Audrey.
+&#8220;And I am lost!&#8221; Then she added to herself: &#8220;And I
+don&#8217;t care if I <em>am</em> lost. What an unheard-of lark!&#8221;
+And to Madame Piriac she said lightly:
+&#8220;Well, we must explore.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The blinds were nearly all up on the garden front. And
+one window&mdash;the French window of the drawing-room&mdash;was
+wide open.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The crisis will be here in one minute at the latest,&#8221;
+thought Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Evidently Miss Moze is at home,&#8221; said Madame Piriac,
+gazing at the house. &#8220;Yes, it is distinguished. It is what
+I had expected.... But ought we not to go to the front
+door?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think we ought,&#8221; Audrey agreed.</p>
+
+<p>They went round the side of the house, into the main
+drive, and without hesitation Madame Piriac rang the front
+door bell, which they could plainly hear. &#8220;I must have my
+cards ready,&#8221; said she, opening her bag. &#8220;One always
+hears how exigent you are in England about such details,
+even in the provinces. And, indeed, why not?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer to the bell. Madame Piriac rang
+again, and there was still no answer. And the dog had
+ceased to bark.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Mon Dieu!</em>&#8220; she muttered. &#8220;Have you observed,
+darling, that all the blinds are down on this façade?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She rang a third time. Then, without a word, they
+returned slowly to the garden front.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How mysterious! <em>Mon Dieu!</em> How English it all
+is!&#8221; muttered Madame Piriac. &#8220;It gives me fear.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had almost decided definitely that she was saved
+when she happened to glance through the open window of
+the drawing-room. She thought she saw a flicker within.
+She looked again. She could not be mistaken. Then she
+noticed that all the dust sheets had been removed from the
+furniture, that the carpet had been laid, that a table had
+been set for tea, that there were flowers and china and a
+teapot and bread-and-butter and a kettle and a spirit-lamp
+on the table. The flicker was the flicker of the blue flame
+of the spirit-lamp. The kettle over it was puffing out steam.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey exclaimed, within herself:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She had caught him at last. There were two cups and
+saucers&mdash;the best ancient blue-and-white china, out of the
+glass-fronted china cupboard in that very room! The
+celibate Aguilar, never known to consort with anybody at
+all, was clearly about to entertain someone to tea, and the
+aspect of things showed that he meant to do it very well.
+True, there was no cake, but the bread-and-butter was
+expertly cut and attractively arranged. Audrey felt sure
+that she was on the track of Aguilar&#8217;s double life, and that
+a woman was concerned therein. She was angry, but she
+was also enormously amused and uplifted. She no longer
+cared the least bit about the imminent danger threatening
+her incognito. Her sole desire was to entrap Aguilar, and
+with deep joy she pictured his face when he should come into
+the room with his friend and find the mistress of the house
+already installed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think we had better go in here, darling,&#8221; she said to
+Madame Piriac, with her hand on the French window.
+&#8220;There is no other entrance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac looked at her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Eh bien!</em> It is your country, not mine. You know
+the habits. I follow you,&#8221; said Madame Piriac calmly.
+&#8220;After all, my dear little Audrey ought to be delighted to
+see me. I have several times told her that I should come.
+All the same, I expected to announce myself.... What a
+charming room! So this is the English provinces!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The room was certainly agreeable to the eye. And
+Audrey seemed to see it afresh, to see it for the first time
+in her life. And she thought: &#8220;Can this be the shabby old
+drawing-room that I hated so?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The kettle continued to puff vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If they don&#8217;t come soon,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;the water will
+be all boiled away and the kettle burnt. Suppose we make
+the tea?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac raised her eyebrows.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is your country,&#8221; she repeated. &#8220;That appears to
+be singular, but I have not the English habits.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And she sat down, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey opened the tea caddy, put three spoonfuls of tea
+into the pot, and made the tea.</p>
+
+<p>The clock struck on the mantelpiece. The clock was
+actually going. Aguilar was ever thorough in his actions.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Four minutes to brew, and if they don&#8217;t come we&#8217;ll
+have tea,&#8221; said Audrey, tranquil in the assurance that the
+advent of Aguilar could not now be long delayed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you take milk and sugar, darling?&#8221; she asked
+Madame Piriac at the end of the four minutes, which they
+had spent mainly in a curious silence. &#8220;I believe you do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac nodded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A little bread-and-butter? I&#8217;m sorry there&#8217;s no cake
+or jam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was while Madame Piriac was stirring her first cup
+that the drawing-room door opened, and at once there was
+a terrific shriek.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Audrey!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The invader was Miss Ingate. Close behind Miss Ingate
+came Jane Foley.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_34" id="chapter_34" />CHAPTER XXXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE TANK-ROOM</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8221;Did you get my letter?&#8221; breathed Miss Ingate weakly,
+after she had a little recovered from the shock, which had
+the appearance of being terrific.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;How could I? We&#8217;re yachting.
+Madame Piriac, you know Miss Ingate, don&#8217;t you? And
+this is my friend Jane Foley.&#8221; She spoke quite easily and
+naturally, though Miss Ingate in her intense agitation had
+addressed her as Audrey, whereas the Christian name of
+Mrs. Moncreiff, on the rare occasions when a Christian name
+became necessary or advisable, had been Olivia&mdash;or, infrequently,
+Olive.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yachting!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. Haven&#8217;t you seen the yacht at the Hard?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No! I did hear something about it, but I&#8217;ve been too
+busy to run after yachts. We&#8217;ve been too busy, haven&#8217;t we,
+Miss Foley? I even have to keep my dog locked up. I
+don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;ll say. Aud&mdash;Mrs. Moncreiff! I
+really don&#8217;t! But we acted for the best. Oh! How
+dreadfully exciting my life does get at times! Never since
+I played the barrel organ all the way down Regent Street
+have I&mdash;! Oh! dear!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have my tea, and do sit down, Winnie, and remember
+you&#8217;re an Essex woman!&#8221; Audrey adjured her, going to
+the china cupboard to get more cups.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>I&#8217;ll</em> just tell you all about it, Mrs. Moncreiff, if you&#8217;ll
+let me,&#8221; Jane Foley began with a serene and happy smile,
+as she limped to a chair. &#8220;I&#8217;m quite ready to take all the
+consequences. It&#8217;s the police again, that&#8217;s all. I don&#8217;t
+know how exactly they got on the track of the Spatts at
+Frinton. But I dare say you&#8217;ve seen that the police have
+seized a lot of documents at our head-quarters. Perhaps
+that explains it. Anyway I caught sight of our old friend
+at Paget Gardens nosing about, and so as soon as it was
+dark I left the Spatts. It&#8217;s a horrid thing to say, but I
+never was so glad about anything as I was at leaving the
+Spatts. I didn&#8217;t tell them where I was going, and they
+didn&#8217;t ask. I&#8217;m sure the poor things were very relieved to
+have me go. Miss Ingate tells me to-day she&#8217;s heard they&#8217;ve
+both resigned from the Union. Mr. Spatt went up to
+London on purpose to do it. And can you be surprised?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you can, and yet you can&#8217;t!&#8221; exclaimed Miss
+Ingate. &#8220;You can, and yet you can&#8217;t!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I met Miss Ingate on Frinton front,&#8221; Jane Foley proceeded.
+&#8220;She was just getting into her carriage. I had
+my bag and I asked her to drive me to the station. &#8216;To the
+station?&#8217; she said. &#8216;What for? There&#8217;s no train to-night.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No more there wasn&#8217;t!&#8221; Miss Ingate put in, &#8220;I&#8217;d been
+dining at the Proctors&#8217; and it was after ten, I know it was
+after ten because they never let me leave until after ten, in
+spite of the long drive I have. Fancy there being a train
+from Frinton after ten! So of course I brought Miss Foley
+along. Oh! It was vehy interesting. Vehy interesting.
+You see we had to think of the police. I didn&#8217;t want the
+police coming poking round my house. It would never do,
+in a little place like Moze. I should never hear the last of
+it. So I&mdash;I thought of Flank Hall. I&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley went on:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Ingate was sure you wouldn&#8217;t mind, Mrs. Moncreiff.
+And personally I was quite certain you wouldn&#8217;t
+mind. We left the carriage at Miss Ingate&#8217;s, and carried
+the bag in turns. And I stood outside while Miss Ingate
+woke up Mr. Aguilar. It was soon all right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must say Aguilar was vehy reasonable,&#8221; said Miss
+Ingate. &#8220;Vehy reasonable. And he&#8217;s got a great spite
+against my dear Inspector Keeble. He suggested everything.
+He never asked any questions, so I told him. You
+do, you know. He suggested Miss Foley should have a
+bed in the tank-room, so that if there was any trouble all
+the bedrooms should look innocent.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did he tell you I&#8217;d come here to see him not long
+since?&#8221; Audrey demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why didn&#8217;t you pop in to see <em>me?</em> I was hurt
+when I got your note.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did he tell you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course he didn&#8217;t. He never tells anybody anything.
+That sort of thing&#8217;s very useful at times, especially when
+it&#8217;s combined with a total lack of curiosity. He fixed every,
+thing up. And he keeps the gates locked, so that people
+can&#8217;t wander in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He didn&#8217;t lock the gate at the bottom of the garden,
+because it won&#8217;t lock,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;And so he didn&#8217;t
+keep me from wandering in.&#8221; She felt rather disappointed
+that Aguilar should once more have escaped her reproof and
+that the dream of his double life should have vanished away,
+but she was determined to prove that he was not perfect.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I don&#8217;t know about that,&#8221; said Miss Ingate.
+&#8220;It wouldn&#8217;t startle me to hear that he knew you were intending
+to come. All I know is that Miss Foley&#8217;s been
+here for several days. Not a soul knows except me and
+Aguilar. And it seems to get safer every day. She does
+venture about the house now, though she never goes into
+the garden while it&#8217;s light. It was Aguilar had the idea
+of putting this room straight for her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And it was he who cut the bread-and-butter,&#8221; added
+Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And this was to be our first tea-party!&#8221; Miss Ingate
+half shrieked. &#8220;I&#8217;d come&mdash;I do come, you know, to keep
+an eye on things as you asked me&mdash;I&#8217;d come, and we were
+just having a cosy little chat in the tank-room. Aguilar&#8217;s
+gone to Colchester to get a duplicate key of the front gates.
+He left me his, so I could get in and lock up after myself,
+and he put the water on to boil before leaving. I said to
+Miss Foley, I said, up in the tank-room: &#8216;Was that a ring
+at the door?&#8217; But she said it wasn&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been a little deaf since I was in prison,&#8221; said
+Jane Foley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now we come down and find you here! I&mdash;I hope
+I&#8217;ve done right.&#8221; This, falteringly, from Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course you have, you silly old thing,&#8221; Audrey
+reassured her. &#8220;It&#8217;s splendid!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whenever I think of the police I laugh,&#8221; said Miss
+Ingate in an unsettled voice. &#8220;I can&#8217;t help it. They can&#8217;t
+possibly suspect. And they&#8217;re looking everywhere, everywhere!
+I can&#8217;t help laughing.&#8221; And suddenly she burst
+into tears.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Now! Winnie, dear. Don&#8217;t spoil it all!&#8221;
+Audrey protested, jumping up.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac, who had hitherto maintained the most
+complete passivity, restrained her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Leave her tranquil!&#8221; murmured Madame Piriac in
+French. &#8220;She is not spoiling it. On the contrary! One is
+content to see that she is a woman!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And then Miss Ingate laughed, and blushed, and called
+herself names.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And so you haven&#8217;t had my letter,&#8221; said she. &#8220;I wish
+you had had it. But what is this yachting business? I
+never heard of such goings-on. Is it your yacht? This
+world is getting a bit too wonderful for me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The answer to these questions was cut short by rather
+heavy masculine footsteps approaching the door of the
+drawing-room. Miss Ingate grew instantly serious. Audrey
+and Jane looked at each other, and Jane Foley went quickly
+but calmly to the door and opened it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! It&#8217;s Mr. Aguilar&mdash;returned!&#8221; she said, quietly.
+&#8220;Is anything the matter, Mr. Aguilar?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar, hat in hand, entered the room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good afternoon, Aguilar,&#8221; Audrey greeted him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;Noon, madam,&#8221; he responded, exactly as though he
+had been expecting to find the mistress there. &#8220;It&#8217;s like
+this. I&#8217;ve just seen Inspector Keeble and that there detective
+as was here afore&mdash;<em>you</em> know, madam&#8221; (nodding to
+Audrey) &#8220;and I fancy they&#8217;re a-coming this way, so I
+thought I&#8217;d better cut back and warn ye. I don&#8217;t think they
+saw me. I was too quick for &#8217;em. Was the bread-and-butter
+all right, Miss Ingate? Thank ye.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate had risen.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I ought to go home,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I feel sure it would
+be wiser for me to go home. I never could talk to
+detectives.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jane Foley snatched at one of the four cups and saucers
+on the table, and put it back, all unwashed, into the china
+cupboard.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Three cups will be enough for them to see, if they
+come,&#8221; she said, with a bright, happy smile to Audrey.
+&#8220;Yes, Miss Ingate, you go home. I&#8217;m ever so much
+obliged to you. Now, I&#8217;ll go upstairs and Aguilar shall
+lock me in the tank-room and push the key under the door.
+We are causing you a lot of trouble, Mrs. Moncreiff, but
+you won&#8217;t mind. It might have been so much worse.&#8221; She
+laughed as she went.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And suppose I meet those police on the way out, what
+am I to say to them?&#8221; asked Miss Ingate when Jane Foley
+and Aguilar had departed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If they&#8217;re very curious, tell them you&#8217;ve been here to
+have tea with me and that Aguilar cut the bread-and-butter,&#8221;
+Audrey replied. &#8220;The detective will be interested to see me.
+He chased me all the way to London not long since. Au
+revoir, Winnie.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dear friend,&#8221; said Madame Piriac, with admirable
+though false calm. &#8220;Would it not be more prudent to
+fly back at once to the yacht&mdash;if in truth this is the same
+police agent of whom you recounted to me with such
+drollness the exploits? It is not that I am afraid&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nor I,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;There is no danger except to
+Jane Foley.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! You cannot abandon her. That is true. Nevertheless
+I regret ...&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, darling,&#8221; Audrey exclaimed. &#8220;You would insist
+on my coming!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The continuing presence of Miss Ingate, who had lost one
+glove and her purse, rendered this brief conversation somewhat
+artificial. And no sooner had Miss Ingate got away&mdash;by
+the window, for the sake of dispatch&mdash;than a bell made
+itself heard, and Aguilar came back to the drawing-room in
+the rôle of butler.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Inspector Keeble and a gentleman to see you, madam.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Bring them in,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar&#8217;s secret glance at Inspector Keeble as he brought
+in the visitors showed that his lifelong and harmless enemy
+had very little to hope from his goodwill.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wait a moment, you!&#8221; called the detective as Aguilar,
+like a perfect butler, was vanishing. &#8220;Good afternoon,
+ladies. Excuse me, I wish to question this man.&#8221; He
+indicated Aguilar with a gesture of apologising for Aguilar.</p>
+
+<p>Inspector Keeble, an overgrown mass of rectitude and
+kindliness, greeted Audrey with that constraint which
+always afflicted him when he was beneath any roof more
+splendid than that of his own police-station.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, Aguilar,&#8221; said the detective, &#8220;it&#8217;s you that&#8217;ll be
+telling me. Ye&#8217;ve got a woman concealed in the house.
+Where is she?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He knew, then, this ferreting and divinatory Irishman!
+Of course Miss Ingate must have committed some indiscretion,
+or was it that Aguilar was less astute than he
+gave the impression of being? Audrey considered that all
+was lost, and she was aware of a most unpleasant feeling
+of helplessness and inefficiency. Then she seemed to receive
+inspiration and optimism from somewhere. She knew not
+exactly from where, but perhaps it was from the shy stiffness
+of the demeanour of her old acquaintance, Inspector Keeble.
+Moreover, the Irishman&#8217;s twinkling eyes were a challenge
+to her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Aguilar!&#8221; she exclaimed. &#8220;I&#8217;m very sorry to
+hear this. I knew women were always your danger, but
+I never dreamt you would start carrying on in my
+absence.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar fronted her, and their eyes met. Audrey gazed
+at him steadily. There was no smile in Audrey&#8217;s eyes,
+but there was a smile glimmering mysteriously behind
+them, and after a couple of seconds this phenomenon
+aroused a similar phenomenon behind the eyes of Aguilar.
+Audrey had the terrible and god-like sensation of lifting
+a hired servant to equality with herself. She imagined
+that she would never again be able to treat him as Aguilar,
+and she even feared that she would soon begin to cease
+to hate him. At the same time she observed slight signs
+of incertitude in the demeanour of the detective.</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar replied coldly, not to Audrey, but to the
+police:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If Inspector Keeble or anybody else has been mixing
+my name up with any scandal about females, I&#8217;ll have
+him up for slander and libel and damages as sure as I
+stand here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Inspector Keeble looked away, and then looked at the
+detective&mdash;as if for support in peril.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean to say, Aguilar, that you haven&#8217;t got
+a woman hidden in the house at this very moment?&#8221; the
+detective demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll thank ye to keep a civil tongue in your head,&#8221;
+said Aguilar. &#8220;Or I&#8217;ll take ye outside and knock yer face
+sideways. Pardon me, madam. Of course I ain&#8217;t got no
+woman concealed on the premises. And mark ye, if I
+lose my place through this ye&#8217;ll hear of it. And I shall
+put a letter in the <em>Gardeners&#8217; Chronicle</em>, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, ye can go,&#8221; the detective responded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; sneered Aguilar. &#8220;I can go. Yes, and I shall
+go. But not so far but what I can protect my interests.
+And I&#8217;ll make this village too hot for Keeble before I&#8217;ve
+done, police or no police.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And with a look at Audrey like the look of a knight
+at his lady after a joust, Aguilar turned to leave the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar,&#8221; Audrey rewarded him. &#8220;You needn&#8217;t be
+afraid about your place.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank ye, m&#8217;m.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;May I ask what your name is?&#8221; Audrey inquired of
+the detective as soon as Aguilar had shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hurley,&#8221; replied the detective.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought it might be,&#8221; said Audrey, sitting down,
+but not offering seats. &#8220;Well, Mr. Hurley, after all your
+running after Miss Susan Foley, don&#8217;t you think it&#8217;s rather
+unfair to say horrid things about a respectable man like
+Aguilar? You were funny about that stout wife of
+yours last time I saw you, but you must remember that
+Aguilar can&#8217;t be funny about his wife, because he hasn&#8217;t
+got one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I really don&#8217;t know what you&#8217;re driving at, miss,&#8221;
+said Mr. Hurley simply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, what were you driving at when you followed
+me all the way to London the other day?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madam,&#8221; said Mr. Hurley, &#8220;I didn&#8217;t follow you to
+London. I only happened to arrive at Charing Cross about
+twenty seconds after you, that was all. As a matter of
+fact, nearly half of the way you were following me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I hope you were satisfied.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I only want to know one thing,&#8221; the detective retorted.
+&#8220;Am I speaking to Mrs. Olivia Moncreiff?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey hesitated, glancing at Madame Piriac, who, in
+company with the vast Inspector Keeble, was carefully
+inspecting the floor. She invoked wisdom and sagacity
+from heaven, and came to a decision.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not that I know of,&#8221; she answered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then, if you please, who are you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What!&#8221; exclaimed Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;re in the village
+of Moze itself and you ask who I am. Everybody knows
+me. My name is Audrey Moze, of Flank Hall, Moze,
+Essex. Any child in Moze Street will tell you that. Inspector
+Keeble knows as well as anybody.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac proceeded steadily with the inquiry into
+the carpet. Audrey felt her heart beating.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Unmarried?&#8221; pursued the detective.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Most decidedly,&#8221; said Audrey with conviction.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then what&#8217;s the meaning of that ring on your finger,
+if you don&#8217;t mind my asking?&#8221; the detective continued.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly Audrey was flustered, but only for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Hurley,&#8221; said she; &#8220;I wear it as a protection
+from men of all ages who are too enterprising.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She spoke archly, with humour; but now there was no
+answering humour in the features of Mr. Hurley, who
+seemed to be a changed man, to be indeed no longer even
+an Irishman. And Audrey grew afraid. Did he, after all,
+know of her share in the Blue City enterprise? She had
+long since persuaded herself that the police had absolutely
+failed to connect her with that affair, but now uncertainty
+was born in her mind.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I must search the house,&#8221; said the detective.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What for?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have to arrest a woman named Jane Foley,&#8221; answered
+Mr. Hurley, adding somewhat grimly: &#8220;The name will be
+known to ye, I&#8217;m thinking.... And I have reason to
+believe that she is now concealed on these premises.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The directness of the blow was terrific. It was almost
+worse than the blow itself. And Audrey now believed
+everything that she had ever heard or read about the
+miraculous ingenuity of detectives. Still, she did not
+regard herself as beaten, and the thought of the yacht
+lying close by gave her a dim feeling of security. If she
+could only procure delay!...</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to let you search my house,&#8221; she said
+angrily. &#8220;I never heard of such a thing! You&#8217;ve got
+no right to search my house.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh yes, I have!&#8221; Mr. Hurley insisted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, let me see your paper&mdash;I don&#8217;t know what you
+call it. But I know you can&#8217;t do anything-without a
+paper. Otherwise any bright young-man might walk into
+my house and tell me he meant to search it. Keeble, I&#8217;m
+really surprised at <em>you</em>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Inspector Keeble blushed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m very sorry, miss,&#8221; said he contritely. &#8220;But the
+law&#8217;s the law. Show the lady your search-warrant, Mr.
+Hurley.&#8221; His voice resembled himself.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hurley coughed. &#8220;I haven&#8217;t got a search-warrant
+yet,&#8221; he remarked. &#8220;I didn&#8217;t expect&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better go and get one, then,&#8221; said Audrey,
+calculating how long it would take three women to transport
+themselves from the house to the yacht, and perpending
+upon the probable behaviour of Mr. Gilman under a given
+set of circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will,&#8221; said Mr. Hurley. &#8220;And I shan&#8217;t be long.
+Keeble, where is the nearest justice of the peace?...
+You&#8217;d better stay here or hereabouts.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I got to go to the station to sign on my three constables,&#8221;
+Inspector Keeble protested awkwardly, looking
+at his watch, which also resembled himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better stay here or hereabouts,&#8221; repeated Mr.
+Hurley, and he moved towards the door. Inspector Keeble,
+too, moved towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey let them get into the passage, and then she
+was vouchsafed a new access of inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Hurley,&#8221; she called, in a bright, unoffended tone.
+&#8220;After all, I see no reason why you shouldn&#8217;t search the
+house. I don&#8217;t really want to put you to any unnecessary
+trouble. It is annoying, but I&#8217;m not going to be annoyed.&#8221;
+The ingenuous young creature expected Mr. Hurley to be
+at once disarmed and ashamed by this kind offer. She
+was wrong. He was evidently surprised, but he gave no
+evidence of shame or of the sudden death in his brain of
+all suspicions.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s better,&#8221; he said calmly. &#8220;And I&#8217;m much
+obliged.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll come with you,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;Madame Piriac,&#8221;
+she addressed Hortense with averted eyes. &#8220;Will you
+excuse me for a minute or two while I show these gentlemen
+the house?&#8221; The fact was that she did not care just
+then to be left alone with Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I beg you, darling! &#8220;Madame Piriac granted
+the permission with overpowering sweetness.</p>
+
+<p>The procedure of Mr. Hurley was astonishing to Audrey;
+nay, it was unnerving. First he locked the front door
+and the garden door and pocketed the keys. Then he
+locked the drawing-room on the passage side and pocketed
+that key. He instructed Inspector Keeble to remain in
+the hall at the foot of the stairs. He next went into the
+kitchen and the sculleries and locked the outer doors in
+that quarter. Then he descended to the cellars, with Audrey
+always in his wake. Having searched the cellars and the
+ground floor, he went upstairs, and examined in turn all
+the bedrooms with a thoroughness and particularity which
+caused Audrey to blush. He left nothing whatever to
+chance, and no dust sheet was undisturbed. Audrey said
+no word. The detective said no word. But Audrey kept
+thinking: &#8220;He is getting nearer to the tank-room.&#8221; A
+small staircase led to the attic floor, upon which were only
+servants&#8217; bedrooms and the tank-room. After he had
+mounted this staircase and gone a little way along the
+passage he swiftly and without warning dashed back and
+down the staircase. But nothing seemed to happen, and
+he returned. The three doors of the three servants&#8217;
+bedrooms were all ajar. Mr. Hurley passed each of them
+with a careless glance within. At the end of the corridor,
+in obscurity, was the door of the tank-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s this?&#8221; he asked abruptly. And he knocked
+nonchalantly on the door of the tank-room.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was acutely alarmed lest Jane Foley should
+respond, thinking the knock was that of a friend. She
+saw how idiotic she had been not to warn Jane by means
+of loud conversation with the detective.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s the tank-room,&#8221; she said loudly. &#8220;I&#8217;m afraid
+it&#8217;s locked.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; murmured Mr. Hurley negligently, and he turned
+the searchlight of his gaze upon the three bedrooms, which
+he examined as carefully as he had examined anything in
+the house. The failure to discover in any cupboard or
+corner even the shadow of a human being did not appear
+to discourage him in the slightest degree. In the third
+bedroom&mdash;that is to say, the one nearest the head of
+the stairs and farthest from the tank-room&mdash;he suddenly
+beckoned to Audrey, who was standing in the doorway.
+She went within the room and he pushed the door to,
+without, however, quite shutting it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now about the tank-room, Miss Moze,&#8221; he began
+quietly. &#8220;You say it&#8217;s locked?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said the quaking Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As a matter of form I&#8217;d better just look in. Will
+you kindly let me have the key?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why not?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey acquired tranquillity as she went on: &#8220;It&#8217;s at
+Frinton. Friends of mine there keep a punt on Mozewater,
+and I let them store the sail and things in
+the tank-room. There&#8217;s plenty of room. I give them
+the key because that&#8217;s more satisfactory. The tank-room
+isn&#8217;t wanted at all, you see, while I&#8217;m away from
+home.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who are these friends?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. and Mrs. Spatt,&#8221; said Audrey at a venture.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see,&#8221; said the detective.</p>
+
+<p>They came downstairs, and the detective made it known
+that he would re-visit the drawing-room. Inspector Keeble
+followed them. In that room Audrey remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now I hope you&#8217;re satisfied.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hurley merely said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you please ring for Aguilar?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey complied. But she had to ring three times before
+the gardener&#8217;s footsteps were heard on the uncarpeted stone
+floor of the hall.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar,&#8221; Mr. Hurley demanded. &#8220;Where is the key
+of the tank-room?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey sank into a chair, knowing profoundly that
+all was lost.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s at Mrs. Spatt&#8217;s at Frinton,&#8221; replied Aguilar glibly.
+&#8220;Mistress lets her have that room to store some boat-gear
+in. I expected she&#8217;d ha&#8217; been over before this to get it
+out. But the yachting season seems to start later and
+later every year these times.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey gazed at the man as at a miracle-worker.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I think that&#8217;s all,&#8221; said Mr. Hurley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, it isn&#8217;t,&#8221; Audrey corrected him. &#8220;You&#8217;ve got all
+my keys in your pocket&mdash;except one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the police had gone Audrey said to Aguilar in
+the hall:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar, how on earth did you&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But she was in such a state of emotion at the realisation
+of dangers affronted and past that she could not finish.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m sorry I was so long answering the bell, m&#8217;m,&#8221;
+replied Aguilar strangely. &#8220;But I&#8217;d put my list slippers
+on&mdash;them as your father made me wear when I come into
+the house, mornings, to change the plants, and I thought
+it better to put my boots on again before I come....
+Shall I put the keys back in the doors, madam?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So saying he touched his front hair, after his manner,
+and took the keys and retired. Audrey was as full of
+fear as of gratitude. Aguilar daunted her.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_35" id="chapter_35" />CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE THIRD SORT OF WOMAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;It was quite true what I told the detective. So I
+suppose you&#8217;ve finished with me for evermore!&#8221; Audrey
+burst out recklessly, as soon as she and Madame Piriac
+were alone together. The supreme moment had come, and
+she tried to grasp it like a nettle. Her adventurous
+rashness was, she admitted, undeniable. She had spoken
+the truth to the police officer about her identity and her
+spinsterhood because with unusual wisdom she judged that
+fibs or even prevarication on such a subject to such an
+audience might entangle her in far more serious difficulties
+later on. Moreover, with Inspector Keeble present, she
+could not successfully have gone very far from the truth.
+It was a pity that Madame Piriac had witnessed the scene,
+for really, when Audrey came to face it, the deception
+which she had practised upon Madame Piriac was of a
+monstrous and inexcusable kind. And now that Madame
+Piriac knew the facts, many other people would have
+to know the facts&mdash;including probably Mr. Gilman. The
+prospect of explanations was terrible. In vain Audrey
+said to herself that the thing was naught, that she had
+acted within her rights, and that anyhow she had long
+ago ceased to be diffident and shy!... She was intimidated
+by her own enormities. And she also thought: &#8220;How
+could I have been silly enough to tell that silly tale about
+the Spatts? More complications. And poor dear Inspector
+Keeble will be so shocked.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>After a short pause Madame Piriac replied, in a grave
+but kind tone:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why would you that I should have finished with you
+for ever? You had the right to call yourself by any name
+you wished, and to wear any ring-that pleased your caprice.
+It is the affair of nobody but yourself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I&#8217;m so glad you take it like that,&#8221; said Audrey
+with eager relief. &#8220;That&#8217;s just what <em>I</em> thought all along!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But it <em>is</em> your affair!&#8221; Madame Piriac finished, with
+a peculiar inflection of her well-controlled voice. &#8220;I mean,&#8221;
+she added, &#8220;you cannot afford to neglect it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No&mdash;of course not,&#8221; Audrey agreed, rather dashed, and
+with a vague new apprehension. &#8220;Naturally I shall tell you
+everything, darling. I had my reasons. I&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The principal question is, darling,&#8221; Madame Piriac
+stopped her. &#8220;What are you going to do now? Ought we
+not to return to the yacht?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I must look after Jane Foley!&#8221; cried Audrey. &#8220;I
+can&#8217;t leave her here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And why not? She has Miss Ingate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, worse luck for her! Winnie would make the most
+dreadful mess of things if she wasn&#8217;t stopped. If Winnie
+was right out of it, and Jane Foley had only herself and
+Aguilar to count on, there might be a chance. But not else.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is by pure hazard that you are here. Nobody expected
+you. What would this young girl Mees Foley have
+done if you had not been here?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s no good wasting time about that, darling, because
+I <em>am</em> here, don&#8217;t you see?&#8221; Audrey straightened her
+shoulders and put her hands behind her back.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My little one,&#8221; said Madame Piriac with a certain
+solemnity. &#8220;You remember our conversation in my boudoir.
+I then told you that you would find yourself in a riot within
+a month, if you continued your course. Was I right?
+Happily you have escaped from that horrible complication.
+Go no farther. Listen to me. You were not created for
+these adventures. It is impossible that you should be
+happy in them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But look at Jane Foley,&#8221; said Audrey eagerly. &#8220;Is she
+not happy? Did you ever see anybody as happy as Jane?
+I never did.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That is not happiness,&#8221; replied Madame Piriac. &#8220;That
+is exaltation. It is morbid. I do not say that it is not right
+for her. I do not say that she is not justified, and that that
+which she represents is not justified. But I say that a rôle
+such as hers is not your rôle. To commence, she does not
+interest herself in men. For her there are no men in the
+world&mdash;there are only political enemies. Do you think I
+do not know the type? We have it, <em>chez nous</em>. It is full of
+admirable qualities&mdash;but it is not your type. For you,
+darling, the world is inhabited principally by men, and the
+time will come&mdash;perhaps soon&mdash;when for you it will be inhabited
+principally by one man. If you remain obdurate,
+there must inevitably arrive a quarrel between that man and
+these&mdash;these riotous adventures.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No man that I could possibly care for,&#8221; Audrey retorted,
+&#8220;would ever object to me having an active interest
+in&mdash;er&mdash;politics.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I agree, darling,&#8221; said Madame Piriac. &#8220;He would
+not object. It is you who would object. The quarrel would
+occur within your own heart. There are two sorts of women&mdash;individualists
+and fanatics. It was always so. I am a
+woman, and I know what I&#8217;m saying. So do you. Well,
+you belong to the first sort of woman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t,&#8221; Audrey protested. Nevertheless she recollected
+her thoughts on the previous night, near the
+binnacle and Mr. Gilman, about the indispensability of a
+man and about the futility of the state of not owning and
+possessing a man. The memory of these thoughts only
+rendered her more obstinate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you will not have the courage to tell me that you
+are a fanatic?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There is a third sort of woman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Darling, believe me, there is not.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s going to be, anyhow!&#8221; said Audrey with
+decision, and in English. &#8220;And I won&#8217;t leave Jane
+Foley in the lurch, either!... Now I&#8217;ll just run up
+and have a talk with her, if you don&#8217;t mind waiting a
+minute or two.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But what are you going to do?&#8221; Madame Piriac
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;It is obvious that there is only
+one safe thing to do. I shall take Jane on board the yacht.
+We shall sail off, and she&#8217;ll be safe.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;On the yacht!&#8221; repeated Madame Piriac, truly
+astounded. &#8220;But my poor oncle will never agree. You do
+not know him. You do not know how peculiar he is. Never
+will he agree! Besides&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Darling,&#8221; said Audrey quietly and confidently. &#8220;If he
+does not agree, I undertake to go into a convent for the rest
+of my days.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac was silent.</p>
+
+<p>Just as she was opening the door to go upstairs, Audrey
+suddenly turned back into the room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Darling,&#8221; she said, kissing Madame Piriac. &#8220;How
+calmly you&#8217;ve taken it!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Taken what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About me not being Mrs. Moncreiff nor a widow nor
+anything of that kind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, darling,&#8221; answered Madame Piriac with exquisite
+tranquillity. &#8220;Of course I knew it before.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You knew it before!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly. I knew it the first time I saw you, in the
+studio of Mademoiselle Nickall. You were the image of
+your father! The image, I repeat&mdash;except perhaps the nose.
+Recollect that as a child I saw your father. I was left with
+my mother&#8217;s relatives, until matters should be arranged;
+but he came to Paris. Then before matters could be
+arranged my mother died, and I never saw him again. But
+I could never forget him.... Then also, in my boudoir that
+night, you blushed&mdash;it was very amusing&mdash;when I mentioned
+Essex and Audrey Moze. And there were other
+things.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For instance?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Darling, you were never quite convincing as a widow&mdash;at
+any rate to a Frenchwoman. You may have deceived
+American and English women. But not myself. You did
+not say the convincing things when the conversation took
+certain turns. That is all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You knew who I was, and you never told me!&#8221;
+Audrey pouted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Had I the right, darling? You had decided upon your
+identity. It would have been inexcusable on my part to
+inform you that you were mistaken in so essential a detail.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Madame Piriac gently returned Audrey&#8217;s kiss.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So that was why you insisted on me coming with you
+to-day!&#8221; murmured Audrey, crestfallen. &#8220;You are a
+marvellous actress, darling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have several times been told so,&#8221; Madame Piriac
+admitted simply.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What on earth did you expect would happen?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not that which has happened,&#8221; said Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, if you ask me,&#8221; said Audrey with gaiety and a
+renewal of self-confidence.&#8221; I think it&#8217;s all happened
+splendidly.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_36" id="chapter_36" />CHAPTER XXXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE DINGHY</h3>
+
+
+<p>When the pair got back to the sea-wall the tide had considerably
+ebbed, and where the dinghy had floated there
+was nothing more liquid than exquisitely coloured mud.
+Nevertheless water still lapped the yacht, whereas on the
+shore side of the yacht was now no crowd. The vans and
+carts had all departed, and the quidnuncs and observers of
+human nature, having gazed steadily at the yacht for some
+ten hours, had thought fit to depart also. The two women
+looked about rather anxiously, as though Mr. Gilman had
+basely marooned them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But what must we do?&#8221; demanded Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! We can walk round on the dyke,&#8221; said Audrey
+superiorly. &#8220;Unless the stiles frighten you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is about to rain,&#8221; said Madame Piriac, glancing at
+the high curved heels of her shoes.</p>
+
+<p>The sky, which was very wide and variegated over
+Mozewater, did indeed seem to threaten.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the dinghy appeared round the forefoot
+of the <em>Ariadne</em>. Mr. Gilman and Miss Thompkins were in
+it, and Mr. Gilman was rowing with gentleness and dignity.
+They had, even afar off, a tremendous air of intimacy; each
+leaned towards the other, face to face, and Tommy had
+her chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees. And
+in addition to an air of intimacy they had an air of mystery.
+It was surprising, and perhaps a little annoying, to Audrey
+that those two should have gone on living to themselves, in
+their own self-absorbed way, while such singular events had
+been happening to herself in Flank Hall. She put several
+fingers in her mouth and produced a piercing long-distance
+whistle which effectively reached the dinghy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My poor little one!&#8221; exclaimed Madame Piriac,
+shocked in spite of her broadmindedness by both the sound
+and the manner of its production.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I learnt that when I was twelve,&#8221; said Audrey.
+&#8220;It took me four months, but I did it. And nobody except
+Miss Ingate knows that I can do it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The occupants of the dinghy were signalling their
+intention to rescue, and Mr. Gilman used his back nobly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But we cannot embark here!&#8221; Madame Piriac complained.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes!&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You see those white stones? ...
+It&#8217;s quite easy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the dinghy had done about half the journey
+Madame Piriac murmured:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;By the way, who are you, precisely, for the present?
+It would be prudent to decide, darling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey hesitated an instant.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who am I? ... Oh! I see. Well, I&#8217;d better keep
+on being Mrs. Moncreiff for a bit, hadn&#8217;t I?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is as you please, darling.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The fact was that Audrey recoiled from a general confession,
+though admitting it to be ultimately inevitable.
+Moreover, she had a slight fear that each of her friends in
+turn might make a confession ridiculous by saying: &#8220;We
+knew all along, of course.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The dinghy was close in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My!&#8221; cried Tommy. &#8220;Who did that whistle? It was
+enough to beat the cars.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wouldn&#8217;t you like to know!&#8221; Audrey retorted.</p>
+
+<p>The embarkation, under Audrey&#8217;s direction, was accomplished
+in safety, and, save for one tiny French scream, in
+silence. The silence, which persisted, was peculiar. Each
+pair should have had something to tell the other, yet nothing
+was told, or even asked. Mr. Gilman rowed with careful
+science, and brought the dinghy alongside the yacht in an
+unexceptionable manner. Musa stood on deck apart, acting
+indifference. Madame Piriac, having climbed into the
+<em>Ariadne</em>, went below at once. Miss Thompkins, seeing her
+friend Mr. Price half-way down the saloon companion,
+moved to speak to him, and they vanished together. Mr.
+Gilman was respectfully informed by the engineer that the
+skipper and Dr. Cromarty were ashore.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How nice it is on the water!&#8221; said Audrey to Mr.
+Gilman in a low, gentle voice. &#8220;There is a channel round
+there with three feet of water in it at low tide.&#8221; She
+sketched a curve in the air with her finger.
+&#8220;Of course you know this part,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman
+cautiously and even apprehensively. His glance seemed to
+be saying: &#8220;And it was you who gave that fearful whistle,
+too! Are you, can you be, all that I dreamed?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do,&#8221; Audrey answered. &#8220;Would you like me to show
+it you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should be more than delighted,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>With a gesture he summoned a man to untie the dinghy
+again and hold it, and the man slid down into the dinghy
+like a monkey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll pull,&#8221; said Audrey, in the boat.</p>
+
+<p>The man sprang out of the dinghy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One instant!&#8221; Mr. Gilman begged her, standing up in
+the sternsheets, and popping his head through a porthole
+of the saloon. &#8220;Mr. Price!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sir?&#8221; From the interior.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you be good enough to play that air with thirty-six
+variations, of Beethoven&#8217;s? We shall hear splendidly
+from the dinghy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly, sir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Audrey said to herself: &#8220;You don&#8217;t want him to
+flirt with Tommy while you&#8217;re away, so you&#8217;ve given him
+something to keep him busy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman remarked under his breath to Audrey:
+&#8220;I think there is nothing finer than to hear Beethoven
+on the water.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! There isn&#8217;t!&#8221; she eagerly concurred.</p>
+
+<p>Ignoring the thirty-six variations of Beethoven, Audrey
+rowed slowly away, and after about a hundred yards the
+boat had rounded a little knoll which marked the beginning
+of a narrow channel known as the Lander Creek. The
+thirty-six variations, however, would not be denied; they
+softly impregnated the whole beautiful watery scene.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman suddenly, &#8220;perhaps your
+ladyship was not quite pleased at me rowing-about with
+Miss Thompkins&mdash;especially after I had taken her for a
+walk.&#8221; He smiled, but his voice was rather wistful.
+Audrey liked him prodigiously in that moment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Foolish man!&#8221; she replied, with a smile far surpassing
+his, and she rested on her oars, taking care to keep the
+boat in the middle of the channel. &#8220;Do you know why I
+asked you to come out? I wanted to talk to you quite
+privately. It is easier here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m so glad!&#8221; he said simply and sincerely. And
+Audrey thought: &#8220;Is it possible to give so much
+pleasure to an important and wealthy man with so little
+trouble?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Of course you know who I really am,
+don&#8217;t you, Mr. Gilman?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I only know you&#8217;re Mrs. Moncreiff,&#8221; he answered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I&#8217;m not! Surely you&#8217;ve heard something? Surely
+it&#8217;s been hinted in front of you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never!&#8221; said he.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But haven&#8217;t you asked&mdash;about my marriage, for
+instance?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To ask might have been to endanger your secret,&#8221; he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I see!&#8221; she murmured. &#8220;How frightfully loyal you
+are, Mr. Gilman! I do admire loyalty. Well, I dare say
+very, very few people do know. So I&#8217;ll tell you. That&#8217;s
+my home over there.&#8221; And she pointed to Flank Hall,
+whose chimneys could just be seen over the bank.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I admit that I had thought so,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But naturally that was your home as a girl, before your
+marriage.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve never been married, Mr. Gilman,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I&#8217;m
+only what the French call a <em>jeune fille</em>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His face changed; he seemed to be withdrawing alarmed
+into himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never&mdash;been married?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! You <em>must</em> understand me!&#8221; she went on, with
+an appealing vivacity. &#8220;I was all alone. I was in mourning
+for my father and mother. I wanted to see the world.
+I just had to see it! I expect I was very foolish, but it
+was so easy to put a ring on my finger and call myself Mrs.
+And it gave me such advantages. And Miss Ingate agreed.
+She was my mother&#8217;s oldest friend.... You&#8217;re vexed
+with me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You always seemed so wise,&#8221; Mr. Gilman faltered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! That&#8217;s only the effect of my forehead!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And yet, you know, I always thought there was something
+very innocent about you, too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know what <em>that</em> was,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;But
+honestly I acted for the best. You see I&#8217;m rather rich.
+Supposing I&#8217;d only gone about as a young marriageable
+girl&mdash;what frightful risks I should have run, shouldn&#8217;t I?
+Somebody would be bound to have married me for my
+money. And look at all I should have missed&mdash;without this
+ring! I should never have met you in Paris, for instance,
+and we should never have had those talks.... And&mdash;and
+there&#8217;s a lot more reasons&mdash;I shall tell you another time&mdash;about
+Madame Piriac and so on. Now do say you aren&#8217;t
+vexed!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8221;I think you&#8217;ve been splendid,&#8221; he said, with enthusiasm.
+&#8220;I think the girls of to-day <em>are</em> splendid! I&#8217;ve
+been a regular old fogey, that&#8217;s what it is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now there&#8217;s one thing I want you not to do,&#8221; Audrey
+proceeded. &#8220;I want you not to alter the way you talk to
+me. Because I&#8217;m really just the same girl I was last night.
+And I couldn&#8217;t bear you to change.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t! I won&#8217;t! But of course&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, no! No buts. I won&#8217;t have it. Do you know
+why I told you just this afternoon? Well, partly because
+you were so perfectly sweet last night. And partly because
+I&#8217;ve got a favour to ask you, and I wouldn&#8217;t ask it until
+I&#8217;d told you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t ask me a favour,&#8221; he replied, &#8220;because it
+wouldn&#8217;t be a favour. It would be my privilege.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But if you put it like that I can&#8217;t ask you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You must!&#8221; he said firmly.</p>
+
+<p>Then she told him something of the predicament of
+Jane Foley. He listened with an expression of trouble.
+Audrey finished bluntly: &#8220;She&#8217;s my friend. And I want
+you to take her on the yacht to-night after it&#8217;s dark.
+Nobody but you can save her. There! I&#8217;ve asked
+you!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane Foley!&#8221; he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>She could see that he was aghast. The syllables of that
+name were notorious throughout Britain. They stood for
+revolt, damage to property, defiance of law, injured policemen,
+forcible feeding, and all sorts of phenomena that
+horrified respectable pillars of society.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s the dearest thing!&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;ve no
+idea. You&#8217;d love her. And she&#8217;s done as much for
+Women&#8217;s Suffrage as anybody in the world. She&#8217;s a real
+heroine, if you like. You couldn&#8217;t help the cause better
+than by helping her. And I know how keen you are to
+help.&#8221; And Audrey said to herself: &#8220;He&#8217;s as timid as a
+girl about it. How queer men are, after all!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But what are we to do with her afterwards?&#8221; asked
+Mr. Gilman. There was perspiration on his brow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sail straight to France, of course. They couldn&#8217;t
+touch her there, you see, because it&#8217;s political. It <em>is</em>
+political, you know,&#8221; Audrey insisted proudly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And give up all our cruise?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey bent forward, as she had seen Tommy do. She
+smiled enchantingly. &#8220;I quite understand,&#8221; she said, with
+a sort of tenderness. &#8220;You don&#8217;t want to do it. And it
+was a shame of me even to suggest it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I do want to do it,&#8221; he protested with splendid
+despairful resolve. &#8220;I was only thinking of you&mdash;and the
+cruise. I do want to do it. I&#8217;m absolutely at your disposal.
+When you ask me to do a thing, I&#8217;m only too
+proud. To do it is the greatest happiness I could have.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey replied softly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You deserve the Victoria Cross.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Whatever do you mean?&#8221; he demanded nervously.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know exactly what I mean,&#8221; she said. &#8220;But
+you&#8217;re the nicest man I ever knew.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He blushed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You mustn&#8217;t say that to me,&#8221; he deprecated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall, and I shall.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The sound of the thirty-six variations still came very
+faintly over the water. The sun sent cataracts of warm
+light across all the estuary. The water lapped against the
+boat, and Audrey was overwhelmed by the inexplicable
+marvel of being alive in the gorgeous universe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall have to back water,&#8221; she said, low. &#8220;There&#8217;s
+no room to turn round here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I suppose we&#8217;d better say as little about it as possible,&#8221;
+he ventured.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Not a word! Not a word till it&#8217;s done.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, of course.&#8221; He was drenched in an agitating
+satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Five bells rang clear from the yacht, overmastering the
+thirty-six variations.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So he&#8217;d never agree, wouldn&#8217;t he, Madame Piriac!&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_37" id="chapter_37" />CHAPTER XXXVII</h2>
+
+
+<h3>AFLOAT</h3>
+
+
+<p>That night, which was an unusually dark night for the time
+of year, Audrey left the yacht, alone, to fetch Jane Foley.
+She had made a provisional plan with Jane and Aguilar, and
+the arrangement with Mr. Gilman had been of the simplest,
+necessitating nothing save a brief order from the owner to
+the woman whom Audrey could always amuse Mr. Gilman by
+calling the &#8220;parlourmaid,&#8221; but who was more commonly
+known as the stewardess. This young married creature had
+prepared a cabin. For the rest little had been said. The
+understanding between Mr. Gilman and Audrey was that
+Mrs. Moncreiff should continue to exist, and that not a
+word as to the arrival of Jane Foley should escape either of
+them until the deed was accomplished. It is true that
+Madame Piriac knew of the probable imminence of the
+affair, but Madame Piriac was discretion elegantly attired,
+and from the moment they had left Flank Hall together she
+had been wise enough not even to mention Jane Foley
+to Audrey. Madame Piriac appreciated the value of
+ignorance in a questionable crisis. Mr. Gilman had been
+less guarded. Indeed he had shown a tendency to discuss
+the coming adventure with Audrey in remote corners&mdash;a
+tendency which had to be discouraged because it gave to
+both of them a too obvious air of being tremendous conspirators,
+Also Audrey had had to dissuade him from
+accompanying her to the Hall. He had rather conventional
+ideas about women being abroad alone after dark, and he
+abandoned them with difficulty even now.</p>
+
+<p>As there were no street lamps alight in summer in the
+village of Moze, Audrey had no fear of being recognised;
+moreover, recognition by her former fellow-citizens could
+now have no sinister importance; she did not much care
+who recognised her. The principal gates of Flank Hall were
+slightly ajar, as arranged with Aguilar, and she passed with
+a suddenly aroused heart up the drive towards the front
+entrance of the house. In spite of herself she could not get
+rid of an absurd fear that either Mr. Hurley or Inspector
+Keeble or both would jump out of the dark bushes and slip
+handcuffs upon her wrists. And the baffling invisibility of
+the sky further affected her nerves. There ought to have
+been a lamp in the front hall, but no ray showed through
+the eighteenth century fanlight over the door. She rang
+the bell cautiously. She heard the distant ting. Aguilar,
+according to the plan, ought to have opened; but he did not
+open; nobody opened. She was instantly sure that she knew
+what had happened. Mr. Hurley had been to Frinton and
+ascertained that the Spatt story as to the tank-room was
+an invention, and had returned with a search warrant and
+some tools. But in another ten seconds she was equally sure
+that nothing of the sort could have happened, for it was an
+axiom with her that Aguilar&#8217;s masterly lying, based on
+masterly listening at an attic door, had convinced Mr.
+Hurley of the truth of the story about the tank-room.</p>
+
+<p>Accidentally pushing against the front door with an
+elbow in the deep obscurity, she discovered that it was not
+latched. This was quite contrary to the plan. She stepped
+into the house. The unforeseeing simpleton had actually
+come on the excursion without a box of matches! She felt
+her way, aided by the swift returning memories of childhood,
+to the foot of the stairs, and past the stairs into the
+kitchen, for in ancient days a candlestick with a box of
+matches in it had always been kept on the ledge of the
+small square window that gave light to the passage between
+the hall and the kitchen. Her father had been most severely
+particular about that candlestick (with matches) being-always
+ready on that ledge in case of his need. Ridiculous,
+of course, to expect a candlestick to be still there! Times
+change so. But she felt for it, and there it was, and the
+matches too! She lit the candle. The dim scene thus
+revealed seemed strange enough to her after the electricity
+of the Hôtel du Danube and of the yacht. It made her
+want to cry....</p>
+
+<p>She was one of those people who have room in their
+minds for all sorts of things at once. And thus she could
+simultaneously be worried to an extreme about Jane Foley,
+foolish and sad about her immensely distant childhood, and
+even regretful that she had admitted the fraudulence of the
+wedding-ring on her hand. On the last point she had a
+very strong sense of failure and disillusion. When she had
+first donned a widow&#8217;s bonnet she had meant to have wondrous
+adventures and to hear marvellous conversations as a
+widow. And what had she done with her widowhood after
+all? Nothing. She could not but think that she ought to
+have kept it a little longer, on the chance....</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar made a practice of sleeping in the kitchen; he
+considered that a house could only be well guarded at night
+from the ground floor. There was his bed, in the corner
+against the brush and besom cupboard, all made up. Its
+creaselessness, so characteristic of Aguilar, had not been
+disturbed. The sight of the narrow bed made Audrey think
+what a strange existence was the existence of Aguilar.
+... Then, with a boldness that was half bluster, she went
+upstairs, and the creaking of the woodwork was affrighting.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane! Jane, dear!&#8221; she called out, as she arrived
+at the second-storey landing. The sound of her voice was
+uncanny in the haunted stillness. All Audrey&#8217;s infancy
+floated up the well of the stairs and wrapped itself round
+her and tightened her throat. She went along the passage
+to the door of the tank-room.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane, Jane!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>No answer! The door was locked. She listened. She
+put her ear against the door in order to catch the faintest
+sound of life within. But she could only hear the crude,
+sharp ticking of the cheap clock which, as she knew,
+Aguilar had supplied to Jane Foley. The vision of Jane
+lying unconscious or dead obsessed her. Then she thrust
+it away and laughed at it. Assuredly Aguilar and Jane
+must have received some alarm as to a reappearance of
+the police; they must have fled while there had yet been
+time. Where could they have gone? Of course, through
+the garden and plantation and down to the sea-wall,
+whence Jane might steal to the yacht. Audrey turned
+back towards the stairs, and the vast intimidating emptiness
+of the gloomy house, lit by a single flickering candle,
+assaulted her. She had to fight it before she could descend.
+The garden door was latched, but not locked. Extinguishing
+the candle, she went forth. The gusty breeze from the
+estuary was now damp on her cheek with the presage
+of rain. She hurried, fumbling as it were, through the
+garden. When she achieved the hedge the spectacle of
+the yacht, gleaming from stem to stern with electricity,
+burst upon her; it shone like something desired and unattainable.
+Carefully she issued from the grounds by the
+little gate and crossed the intervening space to the dyke.
+A dark figure moved in front of her, and her heart violently
+jumped.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is that you, madam?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It was the cold, imperturbable voice of Aguilar. At
+once she felt reassured.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where is Miss Foley?&#8221; she demanded in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got her down here, ma&#8217;am,&#8221; said Aguilar. &#8220;I
+presume as you&#8217;ve been to the house. We had to leave
+it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But the door of the tank-room was locked!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, ma&#8217;am. I locked it a-purpose.... I thought
+as it would keep the police employed a bit when they
+come. I seen my cousin Sarah when I went to tell Miss
+Ingate as you instructed me. My cousin Sarah seen
+Keeble. They been to Frinton to Mrs. Spatt&#8217;s, and they
+found out about <em>that</em>. And now the &#8217;tec&#8217;s back, or nearly.
+I reckon it was the warrant as was delaying him. So I
+out with Miss Foley. I thought I could take her across
+to the yacht from here. It wouldn&#8217;t hardly be safe for
+her to walk round by the dyke. Hurley may have several
+of his chaps about by this time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But there&#8217;s not water enough, Aguilar.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, madam. I dragged the old punt down. She
+don&#8217;t draw three inches. She&#8217;s afloat now, and Miss
+Foley&#8217;s in her. I was just a-going off. If you don&#8217;t mind
+wetting your feet&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In one minute Audrey had splashed into the punt.
+Jane Foley took her hand in silence, and she heard Jane&#8217;s
+low, happy laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it funny?&#8221; Jane whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey squeezed her hand.</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar pushed off with an oar, and he continued to
+use the oar as a punt-pole, so that no sound of their
+movement should reach the bank. Water was pouring into
+the old sieve, and they touched ground once. But Aguilar
+knew precisely what he was about and got her off again.
+They approached the yacht with the slow, sure inexorability
+of Aguilar&#8217;s character. A beam from the portholes of
+the saloon caught Aguilar&#8217;s erect figure. He sat down,
+poling as well as he could from the new position. When
+they were a little nearer he stopped dead, holding the
+punt firm by means of the pole fixed in the mud.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s there afore us!&#8221; he murmured, pointing.</p>
+
+<p>Under the Maltese cross of electric lights at the inner
+end of the gangway could clearly be seen the form of
+Mr. Hurley, engaged in conversation with Mr. Gilman.
+Mr. Hurley was fairly on board.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_38" id="chapter_38" />CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2>
+
+
+<h3>IN THE UNIVERSE</h3>
+
+<p>When Audrey, having been put ashore in execution of
+a plan arranged with those naturally endowed strategists,
+Aguilar and Jane Foley, arrived at the Hard by way of
+the sea-wall, Mr. Hurley was still in parley with Mr.
+Gilman under the Maltese cross of electric lights. From
+the distance Mr. Gilman had an air of being somewhat
+intimidated by the Irishman, but as soon as he distinguished
+the figure of Audrey at the shore end of the
+gangway his muscles became mysteriously taut, and his
+voice charged with defiance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have already told you, sir,&#8221; Audrey heard him say,
+&#8220;there is no such person aboard the yacht. And I most
+certainly will not allow you to search. You have no right
+whatever to search, and you know it. You have my word.
+My name is Gilman. You may have heard of me. I&#8217;m
+chairman of the Board of Foodstuffs, Limited. Gilman, sir.
+And I shall feel obliged if you will leave my decks.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you sailing to-night?&#8221; asked Mr. Hurley placidly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What the devil has that got to do with you, sir?&#8221;
+replied Mr. Gilman gloriously.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, standing behind the detective and unseen by
+him, observed the gloriousness of Mr. Gilman&#8217;s demeanour
+and also Mr. Gilman&#8217;s desire that she should note the
+same and appreciate it. She nodded violently several times
+to Mr. Gilman, to urge him to answer the detective in
+the affirmative.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ye-es, sir. Since you are so confoundedly inquisitive,
+I am sailing to-night. I shall sail as soon as the tide
+serves,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman hurriedly and fiercely, and then
+glanced again at Audrey for further approval.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where for?&#8221; Mr. Hurley demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where I please, sir,&#8221; Mr. Gilman snorted. By this
+time he evidently imagined that he was furious, and was
+taking pleasure in his fury.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hurley, having given a little ironic bow, turned
+to leave and found himself fronting Audrey, who stiffly
+ignored his salute. The detective gone, Mr. Gilman walked
+to and fro, breathing more loudly than ever, and unsuccessfully
+pretending to a scattered audience, which consisted
+of the skipper, Mr. Price, Dr. Cromarty, and sundry deck-hands,
+that he had done nothing in particular and was
+not a hero. As Audrey approached him he seemed to lay
+all his glory with humble pride at her feet.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, he brought that on himself!&#8221; said Audrey,
+smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He did,&#8221; Mr. Gilman concurred, gazing at the Hard
+with inimical scorn.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She can&#8217;t come&mdash;now,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;It wouldn&#8217;t
+be safe. He means to stay on the Hard till we&#8217;re gone.
+He&#8217;s a very suspicious man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Hurley was indeed lingering just beyond the immediate
+range of the <em>Ariadne&#8217;s</em> lamps.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can&#8217;t come! What a pity! What a pity!&#8221; murmured
+Mr. Gilman, with an accent that was not a bit
+sincere. The news was the best he had heard for hours.
+&#8220;But I suppose,&#8221; he added, &#8220;we&#8217;d better sail just the
+same, as I&#8217;ve said we should?&#8221; He did not want to run
+the risk of getting Jane Foley after all.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Do!&#8221; Audrey exclaimed. &#8220;It will be lovely! If it
+doesn&#8217;t rain&mdash;and even if it does rain! We all like sailing at
+night.... Are the others in the saloon? I&#8217;ll run down.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Wyatt,&#8221; the owner sternly accosted the captain.
+&#8220;When can we get off?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! About midnight,&#8221; Audrey answered quickly,
+before Mr. Wyatt could compose his lips.</p>
+
+<p>The men gazed at each other surprised by this show of
+technical knowledge in a young widow. By the time Mr.
+Wyatt had replied, Audrey was descending into the saloon.
+It was Aguilar who, having ascertained the <em>Ariadne&#8217;s</em>
+draught, had made the calculation as to the earliest possible
+hour of departure.</p>
+
+<p>And in the saloon Musa was, as it were, being enveloped
+and kept comfortable in the admiring sympathy of Madame
+Piriac and Miss Thompkins. Mr. Gilman&#8217;s violin lay
+across his knees&mdash;perhaps he had been tuning it&mdash;and the
+women inclined towards him, one on either side. It was
+a sight that somewhat annoyed Audrey, who told herself
+that she considered it silly. Admitting that Musa had
+genius, she could not understand this soft flattery of
+genius. She never flattered genius herself, and she did
+not approve of others doing so. Certainly Musa was now
+being treated on the yacht as a celebrity of the first
+order, and Audrey could find no explanation of the steady
+growth in the height and splendour of his throne.
+Her arrival dissolved the spectacle. Within one minute,
+somehow, the saloon was empty and everybody on deck
+again.</p>
+
+<p>And then, drawing her away, Musa murmured to Audrey
+in a disconcerting tone that he must speak to her on a
+matter of urgency, and that in order that he might do
+so, they must go ashore and walk seawards, far from
+interruption. She consented, for she was determined to
+prove to him at close quarters that she was a different
+creature from the other two. They moved to the gangway
+amid discreet manifestations from the doctor and the
+secretary&mdash;manifestations directed chiefly to Musa and
+indicative of his importance as a notability. Audrey was
+puzzled. For her, Musa was more than ever just Musa,
+and less than ever a personage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall not return to the yacht,&#8221; he said, with an
+excited bitterness, after they had walked some distance
+along one of the paths leading past low bushes into the
+wilderness of the marsh land that bounded the estuary
+to the south. The sky was still invisible, but there was
+now a certain amount of diffused light, and the pale path
+could easily be distinguished amid the sombreness of
+green. The yacht was hidden behind one of the knolls.
+No sound could be heard. The breeze had died. That
+which was around them&mdash;on either hand, above, below&mdash;was
+the universe. They knew that they stood still in the
+universe, and this idea gave their youth the sensation of
+being very important.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is that which you say?&#8221; Audrey demanded
+sharply in French, as Musa had begun in French. She
+was aware, not for the first time with Musa, of the
+sudden possibilities of drama in a human being. She
+could scarcely make out his face, but she knew that he
+was in a mood for high follies; she knew that danger was
+gathering; she knew that the shape of the future was
+immediately to be moulded by her and him, and chiefly
+by herself. She liked it. The sensation of her importance
+was reinforced.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I say I shall never return to the yacht,&#8221; he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>She thought compassionately:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Poor foolish thing!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was incalculably older and wiser than this irrational
+boy. She was the essence of wisdom.</p>
+
+<p>She said, with acid detachment:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But your luggage, your belongings? What an idea to
+leave in this manner! It is so polite, so sensible!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall not return.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; she said, &#8220;I do not at all understand
+why you are going. But what does that matter? You
+are going.&#8221; Her indifference was superb. It was so
+superb that it might have driven some men to destroy
+her on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you understand! I told you last night,&#8221; said
+Musa, overflowing with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! You told me? I forget.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Naturally Monsieur Gilman is rich. I am not rich,
+though I shall be. But you can&#8217;t wait,&#8221; Musa sneered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do not know what you mean,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; said Musa. &#8220;Once I told you that Tommy
+and Nick lent me the money with which to live. For me,
+since then, you have never been the same being. How
+stupid I was to tell you! You could not comprehend
+such a thing. Your soul is too low to comprehend it.
+Permit me to say that I have already repaid Nick. And
+at the first moment I shall repay Tommy. My position
+is secure. I have only to wait. But you will not wait.
+You are a bourgeoise of the most terrible sort. Opulence
+fascinates you. Mr. Gilman has opulence. He has nothing
+else. But he has opulence, and for you that is all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In an instant her indifference, self-control, wisdom
+vanished. It was a sad exhibition of frailty; but she
+enjoyed it, she revelled in it, giving play to everything
+in herself that was barbaric. The marsh around them
+was probably as it had been before the vikings had sailed
+into it, and Audrey rushed back with inconceivable speed
+into the past and became the primeval woman of twenty
+centuries earlier. Like almost all women she possessed
+this wondrous and affrighting faculty.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are telling a wicked untruth!&#8221; she exploded in
+English. &#8220;And what&#8217;s more, you know you are. You
+disgust me. You know as well as I do I don&#8217;t care anything
+for money&mdash;anything. Only you&#8217;re a horrid, spoilt
+beast. You think you can upset me, but you can&#8217;t. I
+won&#8217;t have it, either from you or from anybody else. It&#8217;s
+a shame, that&#8217;s what it is. Now you&#8217;ve got to apologise
+to me. I absolutely insist on it. You aren&#8217;t going to
+bully me, even if you think you are. I&#8217;ll soon show you
+the sort of girl I am, and you make no mistake! Are
+you going to apologise or aren&#8217;t you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The indecorous creature was breathing as loudly as Mr.
+Gilman himself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I admit it,&#8221; said Musa yielding.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I demand your pardon. I knew that what I said was
+not true. I am outside myself. But what would you? It
+is stronger than I. This existence is terrible, on the yacht.
+I cannot support it. I shall become mad. I am ruined.
+My jealousy is intolerable.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is!&#8221; said Audrey, using French again, more calmly,
+having returned to the twentieth century.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is intolerable to me.&#8221; Then Musa&#8217;s voice changed
+and grew persuasive, rather like a child&#8217;s. &#8220;I cannot live
+without you. That is the truth. I am an artist, and you
+are necessary to me and to my career.&#8221; He lifted his head.
+&#8220;And I can offer you everything that is most brilliant.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what about my career?&#8221; Audrey questioned
+inimically.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your career?&#8221; He seemed at a loss.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. My career. It has possibly not occurred to you
+that I also may have a career.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa became appealing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You understand me,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I told you you do not
+comprehend, but you comprehend everything. It is that
+which enrages me. You have had experience. You know
+what men are. You could teach me so much. I hate young
+girls. I have always hated them. They are so tasteless, so
+insufferably innocent. I could not talk to a young girl as I
+talk to you. It would be absurd. Now as to my career&mdash;what
+I said&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa,&#8221; she interrupted him, with a sinister quietude,
+&#8220;I want to tell you something. But you must promise to
+keep it secret. Will you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He assented, impatient.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is not possible!&#8221; he exclaimed, when she had told
+him that she belonged to precisely the category of human
+beings whom he hated and despised.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it?&#8221; said she. &#8220;Now I hope you see how little
+you know, really, about women.&#8221; She laughed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is not possible!&#8221; he repeated. And then he said
+with deliberate ingenuousness: &#8220;I am so content. I am so
+happy. I could not have hoped for it. It is overwhelming.
+I am everything you like of the most idiotic, blind, stupid.
+But now I am happy. Could I ever have borne that you
+had loved before I knew you? I doubt if I could have borne
+it. Your innocence is exquisite. It is intoxicating to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa,&#8221; she remarked dryly; &#8220;I wish you would remember
+that you are in England. People do not talk in that
+way in England. It simply is not done. And I will not
+listen to it.&#8221; Her voice grew a little tender. &#8220;Why can
+we not just be friends?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is folly,&#8221; said he, with sudden disgust. &#8220;And it
+would kill me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then,&#8221; she replied, receding. &#8220;You&#8217;re entitled
+to die.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He advanced towards her. She kept him away with a
+gesture.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You want me to marry you?&#8221; she questioned.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is essential,&#8221; he said, very seriously. &#8220;I adore you.
+I can&#8217;t do anything because of you. I can&#8217;t think of anything
+but you. You are more marvellous than anyone can
+be. You cannot appreciate what you are to me!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And suppose you are nothing to me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But it is necessary that you should love me!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why? I see no necessity. You want me&mdash;because you
+want me. That&#8217;s all. I can&#8217;t help it if you&#8217;re mad. Your
+attitude is insulting. You have not given one thought to
+my feelings. And if I said &#8216;yes&#8217; to you, you&#8217;d marry
+me whatever my feelings were. You think only of yourself.
+It is the old attitude. And when I offer you my friendship,
+you instantly decline it. That shows how horribly French
+you are. Frenchmen can&#8217;t understand the idea of friendship
+between a man and a girl. They sneer at it. It shows
+what brutes you all are. Why should I marry you? I
+should have nothing to gain by it. You&#8217;ll be famous. Well,
+what do I care? Do you think it would be very amusing
+for me to be the wife of a famous man that was run after
+by every silly creature in Paris or London or New York?
+Not quite! And I don&#8217;t see myself. You don&#8217;t like young
+girls. I don&#8217;t like young men. They&#8217;re rude and selfish
+and conceited. They&#8217;re like babies.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The fact is,&#8221; Musa broke in, &#8220;you are in love with
+the old Gilman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is not old!&#8221; cried Audrey. &#8220;In some ways he is
+much less worn out than you are. And supposing I am in
+love with Mr. Gilman? Does it regard you? Do not be
+rude. Mr. Gilman is at any rate polite. He is not capricious.
+He is reliable. You aren&#8217;t reliable. You want someone
+upon whom you can rely. How nice for your wife! You
+play the violin. True. You are a genius. But you cannot
+always be on the platform. And when you are not on the
+platform...! Heavens! If I wish to hear you play I
+can buy a seat and come and hear you and go away again.
+But your wife, responsible for your career&mdash;she will never
+be free. Her life will be unbearable. What anxiety!
+Misery, I should say rather! You would have the lion&#8217;s
+share of everything. Now for myself I intend to have the
+lion&#8217;s share. And why shouldn&#8217;t I? Isn&#8217;t it about time
+some woman had it? You can&#8217;t have the lion&#8217;s share if you
+are not free. I mean to be free. If I marry I shall want
+a husband that is not a prison.... Thank goodness I&#8217;ve
+got money.... Without that&mdash;&mdash;!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then,&#8221; said Musa, &#8220;you have no feeling for me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Love?&#8221; she laughed exasperatingly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not that much!&#8221; She snapped her fingers. &#8220;But"&mdash;in
+a changed tone&mdash;"I <em>should</em> like to like you. I shall be
+very disgusted if your concerts are not a tremendous success.
+And they will not be if you don&#8217;t keep control over yourself
+and practise properly. And it will be your fault.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then, good-bye!&#8221; he said, coldly ignoring all her
+maternal suggestions. And turned away.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where are you going to?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He stopped.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do not know. But if I do not deceive myself I have
+already informed you that in certain circumstances I should
+not return to the yacht.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are worse than a schoolboy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is possible.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Anyway, <em>I</em> shan&#8217;t explain on the yacht. I shall tell
+them that I know nothing about it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But no one will believe you,&#8221; he retorted maliciously
+over his shoulder. And then he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>She at any rate was no longer surrounded by the largeness
+of the universe. He might still be, but she was not.
+She was in mind already on the yacht trying to act a
+surprise equal to the surprise of the others when Musa
+failed to reappear. She was very angry with him, not
+because he had been a rude schoolboy and was entirely impossible
+as a human being, but because she had allowed
+herself to leave the yacht with him and would therefore be
+compelled sooner or later to answer questions about him.
+She seriously feared that Mr. Gilman might refuse to sail
+unless she confessed to him her positive knowledge that
+Musa would not be seen again, and that thus she might
+have to choose between the failure of her plans for Jane
+Foley and her own personal discomfiture.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of being in the mighty universe she was
+struggling amid the tiresome littleness of society on a yacht.
+She hated yachts for their very cosiness and their quality
+of keeping people close together who wanted to be far
+apart. And as she watched the figure of Musa growing
+fainter she was more than ever impressed by the queerness of
+men. Women seemed to be so logical, so realistic, so
+understandable, so calculable, whereas men were enigmas
+of waywardness and unreason. At just that moment her
+feet reminded her that they had been wetted by the adventure
+in the punt, and she said to herself sagely that she
+must take precautions against a chill.</p>
+
+<p>And then she thought she detected some unusual phenomenon
+behind a clump of bushes to the right which hid a
+plank-bridge across a waterway. She would have been
+frightened if she had not been very excited. And in her
+excitement she marched straight up to the clump, and
+found Mr. Hurley in a crouching posture. She started, and
+recovered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I might have known!&#8221; she said disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We all make mistakes,&#8221; said Mr. Hurley defensively.
+&#8220;We all make mistakes. I knew I&#8217;d made a mistake as
+soon as I got here, but I couldn&#8217;t get away quietly enough.
+And you talked so loud. Ye&#8217;ll admit I had just cause for
+suspicion. And being a very agreeable lady ye&#8217;ll pardon
+me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She blushed, and then ceased blushing because it was
+too dark for him to perceive the blush, and she passed on
+without a word. When, across the waste, she had come
+within sight of the yacht again, she heard footsteps behind
+her, and turned to withstand the detective. But the
+overtaker was Musa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is necessary that I should return to the yacht,&#8221; he
+said savagely. &#8220;The thought of you and Monsieur Gilman
+together, without me.... No! I did not know myself.
+ ... I did not know myself.... It is impossible for me
+to leave.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She made no answer. They boarded the yacht as though
+they had been for a stroll. Few could have guessed that
+they had come back from the universe terribly scathed.
+Accepting deferential greetings as a right, Musa vanished
+rapidly to his cabin.</p>
+
+<p>Several hours later Audrey and Mr. Gilman, alone among
+the passengers, were standing together, both tarpaulined,
+on the starboard bow, gazing seaward as the yacht cautiously
+felt her way down Mozewater. Captain Wyatt, and not
+Mr. Gilman, was at the binnacle. A little rain was falling
+and the night was rather thick but not impenetrable.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s the light!&#8221; said Audrey excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What sharp eyes you have!&#8221; said Mr. Gilman. &#8220;I
+can see it, too.&#8221; He spoke a word to the skipper, and
+the skipper spoke, and then the engine went still more
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>The yacht approached the Flank buoy dead slow,
+scarcely stemming the tide. The Moze punt was tied up
+to the buoy, and Aguilar held a lantern on a boathook,
+while Jane Foley, very wet, was doing a spell of baling.
+Aguilar dropped the boathook and, casting off, brought
+the punt alongside the yacht. The steps were lowered and
+Jane Foley, with laughing, rain-sprinkled face, climbed up.
+Aguilar handed her bag which contained nearly everything
+she possessed on earth. She and Audrey kissed calmly, and
+Audrey presented Mr. Gilman to a suddenly shy Jane. In
+the punt Miss Foley had been seen to take an affectionate
+leave of Aguilar. She now leaned over the rail.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good-bye!&#8221; she said, with warmth. &#8220;Thanks ever so
+much. It&#8217;s been splendid. I do hope you won&#8217;t be too
+wet. Can you row all the way home?&#8221; She shivered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall go back on the tide, Miss Foley,&#8221; answered
+Aguilar.</p>
+
+<p>He touched his cap to Audrey, mumbled gloomily a
+salutation, and loosed his hold on the yacht; and at once the
+punt felt the tide and began to glide away in the darkness
+towards Moze. The yacht&#8217;s engine quickened. Flank
+buoy faded.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman and the two girls made a group.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re wonderful! You really are!&#8221; said Mr. Gilman,
+addressing apparently the pair of them. He was enthusiastic.
+... He added with grandeur, &#8220;And now for
+France!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do hope Mr. Hurley is still hanging about Moze,&#8221;
+said Audrey. &#8220;Mr. Gilman, shall I show Miss Foley her
+cabin? She&#8217;s rather wet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, do! Oh, do, please! But don&#8217;t forget that we
+are to have supper together. I insist on supper.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Audrey thought: &#8220;How agreeable he is! How
+kind-hearted! He hasn&#8217;t got any &#8216;career&#8217; to worry about,
+and I adore him, and he&#8217;s as simple as knitting.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_39" id="chapter_39" />CHAPTER XXXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE IMMINENT DRIVE</h3>
+
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; cried Miss Thompkins. &#8220;You can see it from
+here. It&#8217;s funny how unreal it seems, isn&#8217;t it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She pointed at one of the large white-curtained windows
+of the restaurant, through which was visible a round
+column covered with advertisements of theatres, music-halls,
+and concert-halls, printed in many colours and announcing
+superlative delights. Names famous wherever
+pleasure is understood gave to their variegated posters a
+pleasant air of distinguished familiarity&mdash;names of theatres
+such as &#8220;Variétés,&#8221; &#8220;Vaudeville,&#8221; &#8220;Châtelet,&#8221; &#8220;Théâtre
+Français,&#8221; &#8220;Folies-Bergère,&#8221; and names of persons such as
+&#8220;Sarah Bernhardt,&#8221; &#8220;Huegenet,&#8221; &#8220;Le Bargy,&#8221; &#8220;Litvinne,&#8221;
+&#8220;Lavallière.&#8221; But the name in the largest type&mdash;dark
+crimson letters on rose paper&mdash;the name dominating all the
+rest, was the name of Musa. The ingenuous stranger to
+Paris was compelled to think that as an artist Musa was
+far more important than anybody else. Along the length of
+all the principal boulevards, and in many of the lesser
+streets, the ingenuous stranger encountered, at regular distances
+of a couple of hundred yards or so, one of these
+columns planted on the kerb; and all the scores of them
+bore exactly the same legend; they all spoke of nothing but
+blissful diversions, and they all put Musa ahead of anybody
+else in the world of the stage and the platform. Sarah
+Bernhardt herself, dark blue upon pale, was a trifle compared
+to Musa on the columns. And it had been so for
+days. Other posters were changed daily&mdash;changed by
+mysterious hands before even bread-girls were afoot with
+their yards of bread&mdash;but the space given to Musa repeated
+always the same tidings, namely that Musa ("the great
+violinist") was to give an orchestral concert at the Salle
+Xavier, assisted by the Xavier orchestra, on Thursday,
+September 24, at 9 P.M. Particulars of the programme
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>Paris was being familiarised with Musa. His four
+letters looked down upon the fever of the thoroughfares;
+they were perused by tens of thousands of sitters in cafés
+and in front of cafés; they caught the eye of men and
+women fleeing from the wrath to come in taxicabs; they
+competed successfully with newspaper placards; and on that
+Thursday&mdash;for the Thursday in question had already run
+more than half its course&mdash;they had so entered into the
+sub-conscious brain of Paris that no habitué of the streets,
+whatever his ignorant indifference to the art of music,
+could have failed to reply with knowledge, on hearing Musa
+mentioned, &#8220;Oh, yes!&#8221; implying that he was fully acquainted
+with the existence of the said Musa.</p>
+
+<p>Tommy was right: there did seem to be a certain unreality
+about the thing, yet it was utterly real.</p>
+
+<p>All the women turned to glance at the name through the
+window, and some of them murmured sympathetic and interested
+exclamations and bright hopes. There were five
+women: Miss Thompkins, Miss Nickall, Madame Piriac,
+Miss Ingate and Audrey. And there was one man&mdash;Mr.
+Gilman. And the six were seated at a round table in the
+historic Parisian restaurant. Mr. Gilman had the air
+triumphant, and he was entitled to it. The supreme moment
+of his triumph had come. Having given a luncheon to these
+ladies, he had just asked, with due high negligence, for the
+bill. If there was one matter in which Mr. Gilman was a
+truly great expert, it was the matter of giving a meal in a
+restaurant. He knew how to dress for such an affair&mdash;with
+strict conventionality but a touch of devil-may-care youthfulness
+in the necktie. He knew how to choose the
+restaurant; he had about half a dozen in his répertoire&mdash;all
+of the first order and for the most part combining the
+exclusive with the amusing&mdash;entirely different in kind from
+the pandemonium where Audrey had eaten on the night of
+her first arrival in Paris; he knew how to get the best out
+of head-waiters and waiters, who in these restaurants were
+not head-waiters and waiters but worldly priests and
+acolytes; his profound knowledge of cookery sprang from
+a genuine interest in his stomach, and he could compose a
+menu in a fashion to command the respect of head-waiters
+and to excite the envy of musicians composing a sonata; he
+had the wit to look in early and see to the flowers; above all
+he was aware what women liked in the way of wine, and
+since this was never what he liked in the way of wine, he
+would always command a half-bottle of the extra dry for
+himself, but would have it manipulated with such discretion
+that not a guest could notice it. He paid lavishly and
+willingly, convinced by hard experience that the best is
+inestimable, but he felt too that the best was really quite
+cheap, for he knew that there were imperfectly educated
+people in the world who thought nothing of paying the price
+of a good meal for a mere engraving or a bit of china.
+Withal, he never expected his guests truly to appreciate the
+marvels he offered them. They could not, or very rarely.
+Their twittering ecstatic praise, which was without understanding,
+sufficed for him, though sometimes he would give
+gentle diffident instruction. This trait in him was very
+attractive, proving the genuineness of his modesty.</p>
+
+<p>The luncheon was partly to celebrate the return of various
+persons to Paris, but chiefly in honour of Musa&#8217;s concert.
+Musa could not be present, for distinguished public performers
+do not show themselves on the day of an appearance.
+Mr. Gilman had learnt this from Madame Piriac, whom he
+had consulted as to the list of guests. It is to be said that
+he bore the absence of Musa from his table with stoicism.
+For the rest, Madame Piriac knew that he wanted no other
+men, and she had suggested none. She had assumed that
+he desired Audrey, and had pointed out that Audrey could
+not well be invited without Miss Ingate, who, sick of her
+old Moze, had rejoined Audrey in the splendour of the Hôtel
+du Danube. Mr. Gilman had somehow mentioned Miss
+Thompkins, whereupon Madame Piriac had declared that
+Miss Thompkins involved Miss Nickall, who after a complete
+recovery from the broken arm had returned for a while to
+her studio. And then Mr. Gilman had closed the list, saying
+that six was enough, and exactly the right number.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At what o&#8217;clock are you going for the drive?&#8221; asked
+Madame Piriac in her improved, precise English. She
+looked equally at her self-styled uncle and at Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I ordered the car for three o&#8217;clock,&#8221; answered Mr.
+Gilman. &#8220;It is not yet quite three.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The table with its litter of ash-trays, empty cups, empty
+small glasses, and ravaged sweets, and the half-deserted
+restaurant, and the polite expectant weariness of the priests
+and acolytes, all showed that the hour was in fact not quite
+three&mdash;an hour at which such interiors have invariably the
+aspect of roses overblown and about to tumble to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>And immediately upon the reference to the drive everybody
+at the table displayed a little constraint, avoiding the
+gaze of everybody else, thus demonstrating that the imminent
+drive was a delicate, without being a disagreeable, topic.
+Which requires explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman had not been seen by any of his guests
+during the summer. He had landed them at Boulogne from
+the <em>Ariadne</em>&mdash;sound but for one casualty. That casualty
+was Jane Foley, suffering from pneumonia, which had presumably
+developed during the evening of exposure spent
+with Aguilar in the leaking punt and in rain showers.
+Madame Piriac and Audrey took her to Wimereux and there
+nursed her through a long and sometimes dangerous illness.
+Jane possessed no constitution, but she had obstinacy, which
+saved her. In her convalescence, part of which she spent
+alone with Audrey (Madame Piriac having to pay visits to
+Monsieur Piriac), she had proceeded with the writing of a
+book, and she had also received in conclave the rarely seen
+Rosamund, who like herself was still a fugitive from British
+justice. These two had been elaborating a new plan of
+campaign, which was to include an incursion by themselves
+into England, and which had in part been confided by Jane
+to Audrey, who, having other notions in her head, had been
+somewhat troubled thereby. Audrey&#8217;s conscience had
+occasionally told her to throw herself heartily into the campaign,
+but her individualistic instincts had in the end kept
+her safely on a fence between the campaign and something
+else. The something else was connected with Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman had written to her regularly; he had sent
+dazzling subscriptions to the Suffragette Union; and
+Audrey had replied regularly. His letters were very simple,
+very modest, and quite touching. They were dated from
+various coastal places. However, he never came near
+Wimereux, though it was a coastal place. Audrey had
+excusably deemed this odd; but Madame Piriac having once
+said with marked casualness, &#8220;I hinted to him that he might
+with advantage stay away,&#8221; Audrey had concealed her
+thoughts on the point. And one of her thoughts was that
+Madame Piriac was keeping them apart so as to try them,
+so as to test their mutual feelings. The policy, if it was
+a policy, was very like Madame Piriac; it had the effect
+of investing Mr. Gilman in Audrey&#8217;s mind with a peculiar
+romantic and wistful charm, as of a sighing and obedient
+victim. Then Jane Foley and Rosamund had gone off somewhere,
+and Madame Piriac and Audrey had returned to
+Paris, and had found that practically all Paris had returned
+to Paris too. And on the first meeting with Mr. Gilman it
+had been at once established that his feelings and those of
+Audrey had surmounted the Piriac test. Within forty-eight
+hours all persons interested had mysteriously assumed
+that Mr. Gilman and Audrey were coupled together by fate
+and that a delicious crisis was about to supervene in their
+earthly progress. And they had become objects of exquisite
+solicitude. They had also become perfect. A circle of
+friends and acquaintances waited in excited silence for a
+palpitating event, as a populace waits for the booming gunfire
+which is to inaugurate a national rejoicing. And when
+the news exuded that he was taking her for a drive to
+Meudon, which she had never seen, alone, all decided beyond
+any doubt that <em>he would do it during the drive</em>.</p>
+
+<p>Hence the nice constraint at the table when the drive
+grew publicly and avowedly imminent.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey, as the phrase is, &#8220;felt her position keenly,&#8221; but
+not unpleasantly, nor with understanding. Not a word had
+passed of late between herself and Mr. Gilman that any
+acquaintance might not have listened to. Indeed, Mr.
+Gilman had become slightly more formal. She liked him
+for that, as she liked him for a large number of qualities.
+She did not know whether she loved him. And strange to
+say, the question did not passionately interest her. The
+only really interesting questions were: Would he propose
+to her? And would she accept him? She had no logical
+ground for assuming that he would propose to her. None
+of her friends had informed her of the general expectation
+that he would propose to her. Yet she knew that everybody
+expected him to propose to her quite soon&mdash;indeed within
+the next couple of hours. And she felt that everybody was
+right. The universe was full of mysteries for Audrey. As
+regards her answer to any proposal, she foresaw&mdash;another
+mystery&mdash;that it would not depend upon self-examination or
+upon reason, or upon anything that could be defined. It
+would depend upon an instinct over which her mind&mdash;nay,
+even her heart&mdash;had no control. She was quite certainly
+aware that this instinct would instruct her brain to instruct
+her lips to say &#8220;Yes.&#8221; The idea of saying &#8220;No&#8221; simply
+could not be conceived. All the forces in the universe would
+combine to prevent her from saying &#8220;No.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The one thing that might have countered that enigmatic
+and powerful instinct was a consideration based upon the
+difference between her age and that of Mr. Gilman. It is
+true that she did not know what the difference was, because
+she did not know Mr. Gilman&#8217;s age. And she could not ask
+him. No! Such is the structure of society that she could
+not say to Mr. Gilman, &#8220;By the way, Mr. Gilman, how old
+are you?&#8221; She could properly ascertain his tastes about
+all manner of fundamental points, such as the shape of chair-legs,
+the correct hour for dining, or the comparative merits
+of diamonds and emeralds; but this trifle of information
+about his age could not be asked for. And he did not make
+her a present of it. She might have questioned Madame
+Piriac, but she could not persuade herself to question Madame
+Piriac either. However, what did it matter? Even if she
+learnt his age to a day, he would still be precisely the same
+Mr. Gilman. And let him be as old or as young as he might,
+she was still his equal in age. She was far more than six
+months older than she had been six months ago.</p>
+
+<p>The influence of Madame Piriac through the summer had
+indirectly matured her. For above all Madame Piriac had
+imperceptibly taught her the everlasting joy and duty of
+exciting the sympathy, admiration and gratitude of the other
+sex. Hence Audrey had aged at a miraculous rate because
+in order to please Mr. Gilman she wished&mdash;possibly without
+knowing it&mdash;to undo the disparity between herself and him.
+This may be strange, but it is assuredly more true than
+strange. To the same ends she had concealed her own age.
+Nobody except Miss Ingate knew how old she was. She
+only made it clear, when doubts seemed to exist, that she
+had passed her majority long before. Further, her wealth,
+magnified by legend, assisted her age. Not that she was so
+impressed by her wealth as she had been. She had met
+American women in Paris compared to whom she was at
+destitution&#8217;s door. She knew one woman who had kept a
+2,000-ton yacht lying all summer in the outer harbour at
+Boulogne, and had used it during that period for exactly
+eleven hours.</p>
+
+<p>Few of these people had an establishment. They would
+rent floors in hotels, or châteaux in Touraine, or yachts, but
+they had no home, and yet they seemed very content and
+beyond doubt they were very free. And so Audrey did not
+trouble about having a home. She had Moze, which was
+more than many of her acquaintances had. She would not
+use it, but she had it. And she was content in the knowledge
+of the power to create a home when she felt inclined
+to create one. Not that it would not have been absurd to set
+about creating a home with Mr. Gilman hanging over her
+like a destiny. It would have been rude to him to do so;
+it would have been to transgress against the inter-sexual
+code as promulgated by Madame Piriac.... She wondered
+what sort of a place Meudon was, and whether he
+would propose to her while they were looking at the view
+together.... She trembled with the sense of adventure,
+which had little to do with happiness or unhappiness....
+But <em>would</em> he propose to her? Not improbably the whole
+conception of the situation was false and she was being
+ridiculous!</p>
+
+<p>Still the nice constraint persisted as the women began
+to put on their gloves, while Mr. Gilman had a word with
+the chief priest. And Audrey had the illusion of being a
+dedicated victim. As she self-consciously and yet proudly
+handled her gloves she could not help but notice the simple
+gold wedding-ring on a certain finger. She had never
+removed it. She had never formally renounced her claim
+to the status of a widow. That she was not a widow, that
+she had been guilty of a fraud on a gullible public, was
+somehow generally known; but the facts were not referred
+to, save perhaps in rare hints by Tommy, and she had continued
+to be known as Mrs. Moncreiff. Ignominious close
+to a daring enterprise! And in the circumstances nothing
+was more out of place than the ring, bought in cold, wilful,
+calculating naughtiness at Colchester.</p>
+
+<p>Just when Miss Ingate was beginning to discuss her own
+plans for the afternoon, Mr. Price entered the restaurant,
+and as he did so Miss Thompkins, saying something about
+the small type on the poster outside, went to the window to
+examine it. Mr. Price, disguised as a discreet dandy-about-town,
+bore a parcel of music. He removed a most glossy
+hat; he bowed to the whole company of ladies, who
+responded with smiles in which was acknowledge that
+he was a dandy in addition to being a secretary; and
+lastly with deference he handed the parcel of music to
+Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So you did get it! What did I tell you?&#8221; said Mr.
+Gilman with negligent condescension. &#8220;A minute later,
+and we should have been gone.... Has Mr. Price got this
+right?&#8221; he asked Audrey, putting the music respectfully in
+front of her.</p>
+
+<p>It included the reduced score of the Beethoven violin
+concerto, and other items to be performed that night at the
+Salle Xavier.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Thank you, Mr. Price!&#8221; said Audrey. The
+music was so fresh and glossy and luscious to the eye that
+it was like a gift of fruit.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;ll do, then, Price,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman. &#8220;Don&#8217;t forget
+about those things for to-night, will you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, sir. I have a note of all of them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Price bowed and turned away, assuming his perfect
+hat. As he approached the door Tommy intercepted him;
+and said something to him in a low voice, to which he uncomfortably
+mumbled a reply. As they had admittedly been
+friends in Mr. Price&#8217;s artistic days, exception could not be
+taken to this colloquy. Nevertheless Audrey, being as
+suspicious as a real widow, regarded it ill, thinking all
+manner of things. And when Tommy, humming, came
+back to her seat on Mr. Gilman&#8217;s left hand, Audrey
+thought: &#8220;And why, after all, should she be on his left
+hand? It is of course proper that I should be on his right,
+but why should Tommy be on his left? Why not Madame
+Piriac or Miss Ingate?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what am <em>I</em> going to do this afternoon?&#8221; demanded
+Miss Ingate, lengthening the space between her nose and her
+upper lip, and turning down the corners of her lower lip.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You have to try that new dress on, Winnie,&#8221; said
+Audrey rather reprovingly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Alone? Me go alone there? I wouldn&#8217;t do it. It&#8217;s
+not respectable the way they look at you and add you up
+and question you in those trying-on rooms, when they&#8217;ve
+<em>got</em> you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, take Elise with you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Me take Elise? I won&#8217;t do it, not unless I could keep
+her mouth full of pins all the time. Whenever we&#8217;re alone,
+and her mouth isn&#8217;t full of pins, she always talks to me as
+if I was an actress. And I&#8217;m not.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then,&#8221; said Miss Nickall kindly, &#8220;come with me
+and Tommy. We haven&#8217;t anything to do, and I&#8217;m taking
+Tommy to see Jane Foley. Jane would love to see you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She might,&#8221; replied Miss Ingate. &#8220;Oh! She might.
+But I think I&#8217;ll walk across to the hotel and just go to bed
+and sleep it off.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sleep what off?&#8221; asked Tommy, with necklace rattling
+and orchidaceous eyes glittering.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! Everything! Everything!&#8221; shrieked Miss
+Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>There was one other customer left in the restaurant, a
+solitary fair, fat man, and as Mr. Gilman&#8217;s party was leaving,
+Audrey last, this solitary fair, fat man caught her eye,
+bowed, and rose. It was Mr. Cowl, secretary of the
+National Reformation Society. He greeted her with the
+assurance of an old and valued friend, and he called her
+neither Miss nor Mrs.; he called her nothing at all. Audrey
+accepted his lead.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And is your Society still alive?&#8221; she asked with casual
+polite disdain.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Going strong!&#8221; said Mr. Cowl. &#8220;More flourishing
+than ever&mdash;in spite of our bad luck.&#8221; He lifted his sandy-coloured
+eyebrows. &#8220;Of course I&#8217;m here on Society business.
+In fact, I often have to come to Paris on Society
+business.&#8221; His glance deprecated the appearance of the
+table over which his rounded form was protruding.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;m glad to have seen you again,&#8221; said Audrey,
+holding out her hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wonder,&#8221; said Mr. Cowl, drawing some tickets from
+his pocket. &#8220;I wonder whether you&mdash;and your friends&mdash;would
+care to go to a concert to-night at the Salle Xavier.
+The concierge at my hotel is giving tickets away, and I
+took some&mdash;rather to oblige him than anything else. For
+one never knows when a concierge may not be useful. I
+don&#8217;t suppose it will be anything great, but it will pass the
+time, and&mdash;er&mdash;strangers in Paris&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank you, Mr. Cowl, but I&#8217;m not a stranger in Paris.
+I live here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I beg your pardon,&#8221; said Mr. Cowl. &#8220;Excuse
+me. Then you won&#8217;t take them? Pity! I hate to see
+anything wasted.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was both desolated and infuriated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Remember me respectfully to Miss Ingate, please,&#8221;
+finished Mr. Cowl. &#8220;She didn&#8217;t see me as she passed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He returned the tickets to his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, Madame Piriac, standing by her automobile,
+which had rolled up with the silence of an hallucination,
+took leave of Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Eh bien! Au revoir!</em>&#8220; said she shortly, with a peculiar
+challenging half-smile, which seemed to be saying, &#8220;Are you
+going to be worthy of my education? Let us hope so.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And Miss Nickall, with her grey hair growing fluffier
+under a somewhat rakish hat, said with a smile of sheer
+intense watchful benevolence:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, good-bye!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>While Nick was ecstatically thanking Mr. Gilman for
+his hospitality, Tommy called Audrey aside. Madame
+Piriac&#8217;s car had vanished.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you heard about the rehearsal this morning?&#8221;
+she asked, in a confidential tone, anxious and yet quizzical.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No! What about it?&#8221; Audrey demanded. Various
+apprehensions were competing for attention in her brain.
+The episode of Mr. Cowl had agitated her considerably.
+And now she was standing right against the column
+bearing Musa&#8217;s name in those large letters, and other
+columns up and down the gay, busy street echoed clear
+the name. And how unreal it was!... Tickets being
+given away in half-dozens!... She ought to have been
+profoundly disturbed by such a revelation, and she was.
+But here was the drive with Mr. Gilman insisting on a
+monopoly of all her faculties. And on the top of everything&mdash;Tommy
+with her strange gaze and tone! Tommy
+carefully hesitated before replying.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He lost his temper and left it in the middle&mdash;orchestra
+and conductor and Xavier and all! And he swore he
+wouldn&#8217;t play to-night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nonsense!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, he did.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who told you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Already the two women were addressing each other
+as foes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A man I know in the orchestra.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why didn&#8217;t you tell us at once&mdash;when you came?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I didn&#8217;t want to spoil the luncheon. But of
+course I ought to have done. You, at any rate, seeing
+your interest in the concert! I&#8217;m sorry.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My interest in the concert?&#8221; Audrey objected.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, my girl,&#8221; said Tommy, half cajolingly and half
+threateningly, &#8220;you aren&#8217;t going to stand there and tell
+me to my face that you haven&#8217;t put up that concert
+for him?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Put up the concert! Put up the&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Audrey knew
+she was blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Paid for it! Paid for it!&#8221; said Tommy, with
+impatience.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_40" id="chapter_40" />CHAPTER XL</h2>
+
+
+<h3>GENIUS AT BAY</h3>
+
+<p>Audrey got away from the group in front of the restaurant
+with stammering words and crimson confusion. She ran.
+She stopped a taxi and stumbled into it. There remained
+with her vividly the vision of the startled, entirely puzzled
+face of Mr. Gilman, who in an instant had been transformed
+from a happy, dignified and excusably self-satisfied
+human male into an outraged rebel whose grievance had
+overwhelmed his dignity. She had said hurriedly: &#8220;Please
+excuse me not coming with you. But Tommy says something&#8217;s
+happened to Musa, and I must go and see. It&#8217;s
+very important.&#8221; And that was all she had said. Had
+she asked him to drive her to Musa&#8217;s, Mr. Gilman would
+have been very pleased to do so; but she did not think
+of that till it was too late. Her precipitancy had been
+terrible, and had staggered even Tommy. She had no
+idea how the group would arrange itself. And she had
+no very clear idea as to what was wrong with Musa or
+how matters stood in regard to the concert. Tommy had
+asserted that she did not know whether the orchestra and
+its conductor meant to be at their desks in the evening
+just as though nothing whatever had occurred at the
+rehearsal. All was vague, and all was disturbing. She
+had asked Tommy the authority for her assertion that
+she, Audrey, was financing the concert. To which Tommy
+had replied that she had &#8220;guessed, of course.&#8221; And seeing
+that Audrey had only interviewed a concert agent once&mdash;and
+he a London concert agent with relations in Paris
+&mdash;and that she had never uttered a word about the affair
+to anybody except Mr. Foulger, who had been keeping
+an eye on the expenditure, it was not improbable that
+Tommy had just guessed. But she had guessed right.
+She was an uncanny woman. &#8220;Have you ever spoken
+to Musa about&mdash;it?&#8221; Audrey had passionately demanded;
+and Tommy had answered also passionately: &#8220;Of course
+not. I&#8217;m a white woman all through. Haven&#8217;t you learnt
+that yet?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The taxi, although it was a horse-taxi and incapable of
+moving at more than five miles an hour, reached the Rue
+Cassette, which was on the other side of the river and
+quite a long way off, in no time. That is to say, Audrey
+was not aware that any time had passed. She had
+received the address from Tommy, for it was a new
+address, Musa having admittedly risen in the world. The
+house was an old one; it had a curious staircase, with
+china knobs on the principal banisters of the rail, and
+crimson-tasselled bell cords at all the doors of the flats.
+Musa lived at the summit of it. Audrey arrived there
+short of breath, took the crimson-tasselled cord in her
+hand to pull, and then hesitated in order to think.</p>
+
+<p>Why had she come? The response was clear. She
+had come solely because she hated to see a job botched,
+and there was not a moment to lose if it was not to be
+botched. She had come, not because she had the slightest
+sympathetic interest in Musa&mdash;on the contrary, she was
+coldly angry with him&mdash;but because she had a horror of
+fiascos. She had found a genius who needed financing,
+and she, possessing some tons of money, had financed
+him, and she did not mean to see an ounce of her money
+wasted if she could help it. Her interest in the affair
+was artistic and impersonal, and none other. It was the
+duty of wealthy magnates to foster art, and she was
+fostering art, and she would have the thing done neatly
+and completely, or she would know the reason. Fancy
+a rational creature making a scene at a final rehearsal
+and swearing that he would not play, and then bolting!
+It was monstrous! People really did not do such things.
+Assuredly no artist had ever done such a thing before.
+Artists who had a concert all to themselves invariably
+appeared according to advertised promise. An artist who
+was only one among several in a programme might fall
+ill and fail to appear, for such artists are liable to the
+accidents of earthly existence. But an artist who shared
+the programme with nobody else was above the accidents
+of earthly existence and magically protected against colds,
+coughs, influenza, orange peel, automobiles, and all the
+other enemies of mankind. But, of course, Musa was
+peculiar, erratic and unpredictable beyond even the wide
+range granted by society to genius. And yet of late he
+had been behaving himself in a marvellous manner. He
+had never bothered her. On the voyage back to France
+he had not bothered her. They had separated with
+punctilious cordiality. Neither of them had written to the
+other, but she knew that he was working diligently and
+satisfactorily. He was apparently cured of her. It was
+perhaps due to the seeming completeness of his cure that
+her relations with Mr. Gilman had been what they were.
+... And now, suddenly, this!</p>
+
+<p>So with clear conscience she pulled the bell cord.</p>
+
+<p>Musa himself opened the door. He was coatless and
+in a dressing-gown, under which showed glimpses of a new
+smartness. As soon as he saw her he went very pale.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Bon jour</em>,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>He repeated the phrase stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can I come in?&#8221; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>He silently signified, with a certain annoying resignation,
+that she might. For one instant she was under a
+tremendous impulse to walk grandly and haughtily down the
+stairs. But she conquered the impulse. He was so pale.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This way, excuse me,&#8221; he said, and preceded her along
+a short, narrow passage which ended in an open door leading
+into a small room. There was no carpet on the floor of
+the passage, and only a quite inadequate rug on the floor
+of the room. The furniture was scanty and poor. There
+was a table, a music stand, a cheap imitation of a Louis
+Quatorze chair, two other chairs, and some piles of music.
+No curtains to the window! Not a picture on the walls!
+On the table a dusty disorder of small objects, including ash-trays,
+and towards the back of it a little account book, open,
+with a pencil on it and a low pile of coppers and a silver
+ten-sou piece on the top of the coppers. Nevertheless this
+interior represented a novel luxuriousness for Musa; for
+previously, as Audrey knew, he had lived in one room, and
+there was no bed here. The flat, indeed, actually comprised
+three rooms. The account book and the pitiful heap
+of coins touched her. She had expended much on the enterprise
+of launching him to glory, and those coins seemed to
+be all that had filtered through to him. The whole dwelling
+was pathetic, and she thought of the splendours of her own
+daily life, of the absolute unimportance to her of such sums
+as would keep Musa in content for a year or for ten years,
+and of the grandiose, majestic, dazzling career of herself and
+Mr. Gilman when their respective fortunes should be joined
+together. And she mysteriously saw Mr. Gilman&#8217;s face
+again, and that too was pathetic. Everything was pathetic.
+She alone seemed to be hard, dominating, overbearing. Her
+conscience waked to fresh activity. Was she losing her
+soul? Where were her ideals? Could she really work in
+full honesty for the feminist cause as the wife of a man
+like Mr. Gilman? He was adorable: she felt in that
+moment that she had a genuine affection for him; but could
+Mrs. Gilman challenge the police, retort audaciously upon
+magistrates, and lie in prison? In a word, could she be a
+martyr? Would Mr. Gilman, with all his amenability, consent?
+Would she herself consent? Would it not be
+ridiculous? Thus her flying, shamed thoughts in front of
+the waiting Musa!</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then you aren&#8217;t ill?&#8221; she began.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ill!&#8221; he exclaimed. &#8220;Why do you wish that I should
+be ill?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As he answered her he removed his open fiddle case, with
+the violin inside it, from the Louis Quatorze chair, and
+signed to her to sit down. She sat down.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I heard that&mdash;this morning&mdash;at the rehearsal&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! You have heard that?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And I thought perhaps you were ill. So I came to see.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What have you heard?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Frankly, Musa, it is said that you said you would not
+play to-night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Does it concern you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It concerns everyone.... And you have been so
+good lately.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! I have been good lately. You have heard that.
+And did you expect me to continue to be good when you
+returned to Paris and passed all your days in public with
+that antique and grotesque Monsieur Gilman? All the world
+sees you. I myself have seen you. It is horrible.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She controlled herself. And the fact that she was intensely
+flattered helped her to do so.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now Musa,&#8221; she said, firmly and kindly, as on previous
+occasions she had spoken to him. &#8220;Do be reasonable. I
+refuse to be angry, and it is impossible for you to insult me,
+however much you try. But do be reasonable. Do think
+of the future. We are all wishing for your success. We
+shall all be there. And now you say you aren&#8217;t going to
+play. It is really too much.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You have perhaps bought tickets,&#8221; said Musa, and a
+flush gradually spread over his cheeks. &#8220;You have perhaps
+bought tickets, and you are afraid lest you have been
+robbed. Tranquillise yourself, Madame. If you have the
+least fear, I will instruct my agent to reimburse you. And
+why should I not play? Naturally I shall play. Accept my
+word, if you can.&#8221; He spoke with an icy and convincing
+decision.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I&#8217;m so glad!&#8221; Audrey murmured.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What right have you to be glad, Madame? If you are
+glad it is your own affair. Have I troubled you since we
+last met? I need the sympathy of nobody. I am assured
+of a large audience. My impresario is excessively optimistic.
+And if this is so, I owe it to none but myself. You speak
+of insults. Permit me to say that I regard your patronage
+as an insult. I have done nothing, I imagine, to deserve
+it. I crack my head to divine what I have done to deserve
+it. You hear some silly talk about a rehearsal and you
+precipitate yourself <em>chez moi</em>&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Without a word Audrey rose and departed. He followed
+her to the door and held it open.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<em>Bon jour</em>, Madame.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She descended the stairs. Perhaps it was his sudden
+illogical change of tone; perhaps it was the memory of his
+phrase, &#8220;assured of a large audience,&#8221; coupled with a
+picture of the sinister Mr. Cowl unsuccessfully trying to
+give away tickets&mdash;but whatever was the origin of the sob,
+she did give a sob. As she walked downcast through the
+courtyard she heard clearly the sounds of Musa&#8217;s violin,
+played with savage vigour.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_41" id="chapter_41" />CHAPTER XLI</h2>
+
+
+<h3>FINANCIAL NEWS</h3>
+
+<p>The Salle Xavier, or Xavier Hall, had been built, with
+other people&#8217;s money, by Xavier in order to force the
+general public to do something which the general public
+does not want to do and never would do of its own accord.
+Namely, to listen to high-class music. It had not been built,
+and it was not run, strange to say, to advertise a certain
+brand of piano. Xavier was an old Jew, of surpassing
+ugliness, from Cracow or some such place. He looked a
+rascal, and he was one&mdash;admittedly; he himself would imply
+it, if not crudely admit it. He had no personal interest in
+music, either high-class or low-class. But he possessed a
+gift for languages and he had mixed a great deal with
+musicians in an informal manner. Wagner, at Venice, had
+once threatened Xavier with a stick, and also Xavier had
+twice run away with great exponents of the rôle of Isolde.
+His competence as a connoisseur of Wagner&#8217;s music, and
+of the proper methods of rendering Wagner&#8217;s music, could
+therefore not be questioned, and it was not questioned.</p>
+
+<p>He had a habit of initiating grandiose schemes for opera
+or concerts and of obtaining money therefor from wealthy
+amateurs. After a few months he would return the money
+less ten per cent. for preliminary expenses and plus his
+regrets that the schemes had unhappily fallen through owing
+to unforeseen difficulties. And wealthy amateurs were so
+astonished to get ninety per cent. of their money back from
+a rascal that they thought him almost an honest man, asked
+him to dinner, and listened sympathetically to details of
+his next grandiose scheme. The Xavier Hall was one of the
+few schemes&mdash;and the only real estate scheme&mdash;that had
+ever gone through. With the hall for a centre, Xavier laid
+daily his plans and conspiracies for persuading the public
+against its will. To this end he employed in large numbers
+clerks, printers, bill posters, ticket agents, doorkeepers, programme
+writers, programme sellers, charwomen, and even
+artists. He always had some new dodge or hope. The hall
+was let several times a week for concerts or other entertainments,
+and many of them were private speculations of
+Xavier. They were nearly all failures. And the hall,
+thoroughly accustomed to seeing itself half empty, did not
+pay interest on its capital. How could it? Upon occasions
+there had actually been more persons in the orchestra than
+in the audience. Seated in the foyer, with one eye upon a
+shabby programme girl and another upon the street outside,
+Xavier would sometimes refer to these facts in conversation
+with a titled patron, and would describe the public
+realistically and without pretence of illusion. Nevertheless,
+Xavier had grown to be a rich man, for percentages were his
+hourly food; he received them even from programme sellers.
+At nine o&#8217;clock the hall was rather less than half full,
+and this was rightly regarded as very promising, for the
+management, like the management of every place of distraction
+in Paris, held it a point of honour to start from twenty
+to thirty minutes late&mdash;as though all Parisians had many
+ages ago decided that in Paris one could not be punctual,
+and that, long since tired of waiting for each other, they
+had entered into a competition to make each other wait, the
+individual who arrived last being universally regarded as
+the winner. The members of the orchestra were filing
+negligently in from the back of the vast terraced platform,
+yawning, and ravaged by the fearful ennui of eternal high-class
+music. They entered in dozens and scores, and they
+kept on entering, and as they gazed inimically at each other,
+fingering their instruments, their pale faces seemed to be
+asking: &#8220;Why should it be necessary to collect so many
+of us in order to prove that just one single human being
+can play the violin? We can all play the violin, or something
+else just as good. And we have all been geniuses in
+our time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In strong contrast to their fatigued and disastrous indifference
+was the demeanour of a considerable group of
+demonstrators in the gallery. This body had crossed the
+Seine from the sacred Quarter, and, not owning a wardrobe
+sufficiently impressive to entitle it to ask for free seats, it
+had paid for its seats. Hence naturally its seats were the
+worst in the hall. But the group did not care. It was
+capable of exciting itself about high-class music. Moreover
+it had, for that night, an article of religious faith, to
+wit, that Musa was the greatest violinist that had ever lived
+or ever could live, and it was determined to prove this article
+of faith by sheer force of hands and feet. Therefore it was
+very happy, and just a little noisy.</p>
+
+<p>In the main part of the hall the audience could be
+divided into two species, one less numerous than the other.
+First, the devotees of music, who went to nearly every
+concert, extremely knowing, extremely blasé, extremely
+disdainful and fastidious, with precise views about every
+musical composition, every conductor, and every performer;
+weary of melodious nights at which the same melodies were
+ever heard, but addicted to them, as some people are
+addicted to vices equally deleterious. These devotees would
+have had trouble with their conscience or their instincts had
+they not, by coming to the concert, put themselves in a
+position to affirm exactly and positively what manner of a
+performer Musa was. They had no hope of being pleased
+by him. Indeed they knew beforehand that he was yet
+another false star, but they had to ascertain the truth for
+themselves, because&mdash;you see&mdash;there was a slight chance
+that he might be a genuine star, in which case their careers
+would have been ruined had they not been able to say to
+succeeding generations: &#8220;I was at his first concert. It was
+a memorable,&#8221; etc. etc. They were an emaciated tribe,
+and in fact had the air of mummies temporarily revived and
+escaped out of museums. They were shabby, but not with
+the gallery shabbiness; they were shabby because shabbiness
+was part of their unworldly refinement; and it did not
+matter&mdash;they would have got their free seats even if they
+had come in sacks and cerements.</p>
+
+<p>The second main division of the audience&mdash;and the
+larger&mdash;consisted of the jolly pleasure seekers, who had
+dined well, who respected Beethoven no more than Oscar
+Straus, and who demanded only one boon&mdash;not to be bored.
+They had full dimpled cheeks, and they were adequately
+attired, and they dropped cigarettes with reluctance in the
+foyer, and they entered adventurously with marked courage,
+well aware that they had come to something queer and
+dangerous, something that was neither a revue nor a
+musical comedy, and, while hoping optimistically for the
+best, determined to march boldly out again in the event
+of the worst. They had seven mortal evenings a week to
+dispose of somehow, and occasionally they were obliged to
+take risks. Their expressions for the most part had that
+condescension which is characteristic of those who take a
+risk without being paid for it.</p>
+
+<p>All around the hall ran a horseshoe of private boxes,
+between the balcony and the gallery. These boxes gradually
+filled. At a quarter-past nine over half of them were
+occupied; which fact, combined with the stylishness of the
+hats in them, proved that Xavier had immense skill in
+certain directions, and that on that night, for some reason
+or other, he had been doing his very best.</p>
+
+<p>At twenty minutes past nine the audience had coalesced
+and become an entity, and the group from the Quarter was
+stamping an imitation of the first bars of the C minor
+Symphony, to indicate that further delay might involve
+complications.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey sat with Miss Ingate modestly and inconspicuously
+in the fifth row of the stalls. Miss Ingate, prodigious
+in crimson, was in a state of beatitude, because she
+never went to concerts and imagined that she had inadvertently
+slipped into heaven. The mere size of the
+orchestra so overwhelmed her that she was convinced that
+it was an orchestra specially enlarged to meet the unique
+importance of Musa&#8217;s genius. &#8220;They <em>must</em> think highly of
+him!&#8221; she said. She employed the time in looking about
+her. She had already found, besides many other Anglo-Saxon
+acquaintances, Rosamund, in black, Tommy with
+Nick, and Mr. Cowl, who was one seat to Audrey&#8217;s left in
+the sixth row of the stalls. Also Mr. Gilman and Madame
+Piriac and Monsieur Piriac in a double box. Audrey and
+herself ought to have been in that box, and had the afternoon
+developed otherwise they probably would have been in that
+box. Fortunately at the luncheon, Audrey, who had
+bought various lots of seats, had with the strange cautiousness
+of a young girl left herself free to utilise or not to
+utilise the offered hospitality of Mr. Gilman&#8217;s double box,
+and Mr. Gilman had not pressed her for a decision. Was
+it not important that the hall should seem as full as
+possible? When Miss Ingate, pushing her investigations
+farther, had discovered not merely Monsieur Dauphin, but
+Mr. Ziegler, late of Frinton and now resident in Paris, her
+cup was full.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s vehy wonderful, <em>vehy</em> wonderful!&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>But it was Audrey who most deeply had the sense of
+the wonderfulness of the thing. For it was Audrey who
+had created it. Having months ago comprehended that a
+formal and splendid debut was necessary for Musa if he
+was to succeed within a reasonable space of time, she had
+willed the debut within her own brain. She alone had
+thought of it. And now the realisation seemed to her to be
+absolutely a miracle. Had she read of such an affair a
+year earlier in a newspaper&mdash;with the words &#8220;Paris,&#8221; &#8220;<em>tout
+Paris</em>,&#8221; &#8220;young genius,&#8221; and so on&mdash;she would have
+pictured it as gloriously, thrillingly romantic, and it indeed
+was gloriously and thrillingly romantic. She thought:
+&#8220;None of these people sitting around me know that
+I have brought it about, and that it is all mine.&#8221; The
+thought was sweet. She felt like an invisible African genie
+out of the Thousand and One Nights.</p>
+
+<p>And yet what had she done to bring it about? Nothing,
+simply nothing, except to command it! She had not even
+signed cheques. Mr. Foulger had signed the cheques! Mr.
+Foulger, who set down the whole enterprise as incomprehensible
+lunacy! Mr. Foulger, who had never been to
+aught but a smoking-concert in his life, and who could
+not pronounce the name of Beethoven without hesitations!
+The great deed had cost money, and it would cost more
+money; it would probably cost four hundred pounds ere it
+was finished with. An extravagant sum, but Xavier had
+motor-cars and toys even more expensive than motor-cars
+to keep up! Audrey, however, considered it a small sum,
+compared to the terrific spectacular effect obtained. And
+she was right. The attributes of money seemed entirely
+magical to her. And she was right again. She respected
+money with a new respect. And she respected herself for
+using money with such large grandeur.</p>
+
+<p>And withal she was most horribly nervous, just as
+nervous as though it was she who was doomed to face
+the indifferent and exacting audience with nothing but a
+violin bow for weapon. She was so nervous that she
+could not listen, could not even follow Miss Ingate&#8217;s simple
+remarks; she heard them as from a long distance, and
+grasped them after a long interval. Still, she was uplifted,
+doughty, and proud. The humiliation of the afternoon had
+vanished like a mist. Nay, she felt glad that Musa had
+behaved to her just as he did behave. His mien pleased
+her; his wounding words, each of which she clearly remembered,
+were a source of delight. She had never
+admired him so much. She had now no resentment against
+him. He had proved that her hopes of him were, after all,
+well justified. He would succeed. Only some silly and improbable
+accident could stop him from succeeding. She
+was not nervous about his success. She was nervous for
+him. She became him. She tuned his fiddle, gathered
+herself together and walked on to the platform, bowed to
+the dim multitudinous heads in front of him, looked at the
+conductor, waited for the opening bars, drew his bow
+across his strings at precisely the correct second, and heard
+the resulting sound under her ear. And all that before the
+conductor had appeared! Such were the manifestations of
+her purely personal desire for the achievement of a neat,
+clean job.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;See!&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;Mr. Gilman is bowing to
+us. He does look splendid, and isn&#8217;t Madame Piriac lovely?
+I must say I don&#8217;t care so much for these French husbands.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had to turn and join Miss Ingate in acknowledging
+the elaborate bow. At any rate, then, Mr. Gilman had
+not been utterly estranged by her capricious abandonment of
+him. And why should he be? He was a man of sense;
+he would understand perfectly when she explained to-morrow.
+Further, he was her slave. She was sure of him. She
+would apologise to him. She would richly recompense him
+by smiles and honey and charming persuasive simplicity.
+And he would see that with all her innocent and modest
+ingenuousness she was capable of acting seriously and
+effectively in a sudden crisis. She would rise higher in
+his esteem. As for the foreseen proposal, well&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A sporadic clapping wakened her out of those reflections.
+The conductor was approaching his desk. The orchestra
+applauded him. He tapped the desk and raised his stick.
+And there was a loud noise, the thumping of her heart.
+The concert had begun. Musa was still invisible&mdash;what
+was he doing at that instant, somewhere behind?&mdash;but the
+concert had begun. Stars do not take part in the first
+item of an orchestral concert. There is a convention that
+they shall be preluded; and Musa was preluded by the
+overture to <em>Die Meistersinger</em>. In the soft second section
+of the overture, a most noticeable babble came from a
+stage-box. &#8220;Oh! It&#8217;s the Foas,&#8221; muttered Miss Ingate.
+&#8220;What a lot of people are fussing around them!&#8221; &#8220;Hsh!&#8221;
+frowned Audrey, outraged by the interruption. Madame
+Foa took about fifty bars in which to settle herself, and
+Monsieur Foa chattered to people behind him as freely as
+if he had been in a café Nobody seemed to mind.</p>
+
+<p>The overture was applauded, but Madame Foa, instead
+of applauding, leaned gracefully back, smiling, and waved
+somebody to the seat beside her.</p>
+
+<p>Violent demonstrations from the gallery!... He was
+there, tripping down the stepped pathway between the
+drums. The demonstrations grew general. The orchestra
+applauded after its own fashion. He reached the conductor,
+smiled at the conductor and bowed very admirably.
+He seemed to be absolutely at his ease. Then there was
+a delay. The conductor&#8217;s scores had got themselves mixed
+up. It was dreadful. It was enough to make a woman
+shriek.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I say!&#8221; said a voice in Audrey&#8217;s ear. She turned as
+if shot. Mr. Cowl&#8217;s round face was close to hers. &#8220;I
+suppose you saw the <em>New York Herald</em> this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; answered Audrey impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>The orchestra started the Beethoven violin Concerto.
+But Mr. Cowl kept his course.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Didn&#8217;t you?&#8221; he said. &#8220;About the Zacatecas Oil
+Corporation? It&#8217;s under a receivership. It&#8217;s gone smash.
+I&#8217;ve had an idea for some time it would. All due to these
+Mexican revolutions. I thought you might like to know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa&#8217;s bow hung firmly over the strings.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_42" id="chapter_42" />CHAPTER XLII</h2>
+
+
+<h3>INTERVAL</h3>
+
+<p>The most sinister feature of entertainments organised by
+Xavier was the intervals. Xavier laid stress on intervals;
+they gave repose, and in many cases they saved money. All
+Paris managers are inclined to give to the interval the
+importance of a star turn, and Xavier in this respect surpassed
+his rivals, though he perhaps regarded his cloak-rooms,
+which were organised to cause the largest possible
+amount of inconvenience to the largest possible number of
+people, as his surest financial buttress. Xavier could or
+would never see the close resemblance of intervals to wet
+blankets, extinguishers, palls and hostile critics. The
+Allegro movement of the Concerto was a real success, and
+the audience as a whole would have applauded even more if
+the gallery in particular had not applauded so much. The
+second or Larghetto movement was also a success, but to a
+less degree. As for the third and last movement, it put the
+gallery into an ecstasy while leaving the floor in possession
+of full critical faculties. Musa retired and had to return,
+and when he returned the floor good-humouredly joined the
+vociferous gallery in laudations, and he had to return again.
+Then the interminable interval. Silence! Murmurings!
+Silence! Creepings towards exits! And in many, very
+many hearts the secret trouble question: &#8220;Why are we
+here? What have we come for? What is all this pother
+about art and genius? Honestly, shall we not be glad and
+relieved when the solemn old thing is over?"... And
+the desolating, cynical indifference of the conductor and the
+orchestra! Often there is a clearer vision of the truth
+during the intervals of a classical concert than on a
+deathbed.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey was extremely depressed in the interval after
+the Beethoven Concerto and before the Lalo. But she was
+not depressed by the news of the accident to the Zacatecas
+Oil Corporation in which was the major part of her wealth.
+The tidings had stunned rather than injured that part of her
+which was capable of being affected by finance. She had
+not felt the blow. Moreover she was protected by the
+knowledge that she had thousands of pounds in hand and
+also the Moze property intact, and further she was already
+reconsidering her newly-acquired respect for money. No!
+What depressed her was a doubt as to the genius of Musa.
+In the long dreadful pause it seemed impossible that he
+should have genius. The entire concert presented itself as
+a grotesque farce, of which she as its creator ought to be
+ashamed. She was ready to kill Xavier or his responsible
+representative.</p>
+
+<p>Then she saw the tall and calm Rosamund, with her
+grey hair and black attire and her subduing self-complacency,
+making a way between the rows of stalls towards
+her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wanted to see you,&#8221; said Rosamund, after the formal
+greetings. &#8220;Very much.&#8221; Her voice was as kind and as
+unrelenting as the grave.</p>
+
+<p>At this point Miss Ingate ought to have yielded her
+seat to the terrific Rosamund, but she failed to do so,
+doubtless by inadvertence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you come into the foyer for a moment?&#8221; Rosamund
+inflexibly suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t the interval nearly over?&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, no!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And as a fact there was not the slightest sign of the
+interval being nearly over. Audrey obediently rose. But
+the invitation had been so conspicuously addressed to herself
+that Miss Ingate, gathering her wits, remained in her
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>The foyer&mdash;decorated in the Cracovian taste&mdash;was dotted
+with cigarette smokers and with those who had fled from
+the interval. Rosamund did not sit down; she did not try
+for seclusion in a corner. She stepped well into the foyer,
+and then stood still, and absently lighted a cigarette,
+omitting to offer a cigarette to Audrey. Rosamund&#8217;s air of
+a deaconess made the cigarette extremely remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wanted to tell you about Jane Foley,&#8221; began
+Rosamund quietly. &#8220;Have you heard?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No! What?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course you haven&#8217;t. I alone knew. She has run
+away to England.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Run away! But she&#8217;ll be caught!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She may be. But that is not all. She has run away
+to get married. She dared not tell me. She wrote me.
+She put the letter in the manuscript of the last chapter
+but one of her book, which I am revising for her. She will
+almost certainly be caught if she tries to get married in
+her own name. Therefore she will get married in a false
+name. All this, however, is not what I wanted to tell
+you about.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then you shouldn&#8217;t have begun to talk about it,&#8221; said
+Audrey suddenly. &#8220;Did you expect me to let you leave it
+in the middle! Jane getting married! I do think she
+might have told me.... What next, I wonder! I suppose
+you&#8217;ve&mdash;er&mdash;lost her now?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not entirely, I believe,&#8221; said Rosamund. &#8220;Certainly
+not entirely. But of course I could never trust her again.
+This is the worst blow I have ever had. She says&mdash;but why
+go into that? Well, she does say she will work as hard
+as ever, nearly; and that her future husband strongly
+supports us&mdash;and so on.&#8221; Rosamund smiled with complete
+detachment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And who&#8217;s he?&#8221; Audrey demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;His name is Aguilar,&#8221; said Rosamund. &#8220;So she says.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aguilar?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. I gather&mdash;I say I gather&mdash;that he belongs to
+the industrial class. But of course that is precisely the
+class that Jane springs from. Odd! Is it not? Heredity,
+I presume.&#8221; She raised her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said nothing. She was too shocked to speak&mdash;not
+pained or outraged, but simply shaken. What in the
+name of Juno could Jane see in Aguilar? Jane, to whom
+every man was the hereditary enemy! Aguilar, who had
+no use for either man or woman! Aguilar, a man without
+a Christian name, one of those men in connection with
+whom a Christian name is impossibly ridiculous. How
+should she, Audrey, address Aguilar in future? Would he
+have to be asked to tea? These vital questions naturally
+transcended all others in Audrey&#8217;s mind.... Still (she
+veered round), it was perhaps after all just the union that
+might have been expected.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now,&#8221; said Rosamund at length, &#8220;I have a
+question to put to you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want a definite answer here and now.&#8221; She
+looked round disdainfully at the foyer. &#8220;But I do want
+to set your mind on the right track at the earliest possible
+moment&mdash;before any accidents occur.&#8221; She smiled
+satirically. &#8220;You see how frank I am with you. I&#8217;ll be
+more frank still, and tell you that I came to this concert
+to-night specially to see you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you?&#8221; Audrey murmured. &#8220;Well!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The older woman looked down upon her from a superior
+height. Her eyes were those of an autocrat. It was
+quite possible to see in them the born leader who had
+dominated thousands of women and played a drawn game
+with the British Government itself. But Audrey, at the
+very moment when she was feeling the overbearing magic
+of that gaze, happened to remember the scene in Madame
+Piriac&#8217;s automobile on the night of her first arrival in
+Paris, when she herself was asleep and Rosamund, not
+knowing that she was asleep, had been solemnly addressing
+her. Miss Ingate&#8217;s often repeated account of the scene
+always made her laugh, and the memory of it now caused
+her to smile faintly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I want to suggest to you,&#8221; Rosamund proceeded,
+&#8220;that you begin to work for me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For the suffrage&mdash;or for you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is the same thing,&#8221; said Rosamund coldly. &#8220;I
+am the suffrage. Without me the cause would not have
+existed to-day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;of course I will. I have done
+a bit already, you know.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I know,&#8221; Rosamund admitted. &#8220;You did very
+well at the Blue City. That&#8217;s why I&#8217;m approaching you.
+That&#8217;s why I&#8217;ve chosen you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Chosen me for what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You know that a new great campaign will soon begin.
+It is all arranged. It will necessitate my returning to
+England and challenging the police. You know also that
+Jane Foley was to have been my lieutenant-in-chief&mdash;for
+the active part of the operation. You will admit that I
+can no longer count on her completely. Will you take
+her place?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll help,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I&#8217;ll do what I can. I dare
+say I shan&#8217;t have much money, because one of those
+&#8217;accidents&#8217; you mentioned has happened to me already.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That need not trouble you,&#8221; replied Rosamund imperturbable.
+&#8220;I have always been able to get all the
+money that was needed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;ll help all I can.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s not what I ask,&#8221; said Rosamund inflexibly.
+&#8220;Will you take Jane Foley&#8217;s place? Will you give yourself
+utterly?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey answered with sudden vehemence:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I won&#8217;t. You didn&#8217;t want a definite answer, but
+there it is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But surely you believe in the cause?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s the greatest of all causes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m rather inclined to think it is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why not give yourself, then? You are free. I have
+given myself, my child.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Audrey, who resented the appellation of
+&#8220;child.&#8221; &#8220;But, you see, it&#8217;s your hobby.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My hobby, Mrs. Moncreiff!&#8221; exclaimed Rosamund.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly, your hobby,&#8221; Audrey persisted.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have sacrificed everything to it,&#8221; said Rosamund.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pardon me,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think you&#8217;ve
+sacrificed anything to it. You just enjoy bossing other
+people above everything, and it gives you every chance
+to boss. And you enjoy plots too, and look at the chances
+you get for that&#8217;. Mind you, I like you for it. I think
+you&#8217;re splendid. Only <em>I</em> don&#8217;t want to be a monomaniac,
+and I won&#8217;t be.&#8221; Her convictions seemed to have become
+suddenly clear and absolutely decided.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you mean to infer that I am a monomaniac?&#8221;
+asked Rosamund, raising her eyebrows&mdash;but only a little.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;as you mentioned frankness&mdash;what
+else would you call yourself but a monomaniac?
+You only live for one thing&mdash;don&#8217;t you, now?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is the greatest thing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t say it isn&#8217;t,&#8221; Audrey admitted. &#8220;But I&#8217;ve
+been thinking a good deal about all this, and at last I&#8217;ve
+come to the conclusion that one thing-isn&#8217;t enough for
+me, not nearly enough. And I&#8217;m not going to be peculiar
+at any price. Neither a fanatic nor a monomaniac, nor
+anything like that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are in love,&#8221; asserted Rosamund.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what if I am? If you ask me, I think a girl
+who isn&#8217;t in love ought to be somewhat ashamed of herself,
+or at least sorry for herself. And I am sorry for myself,
+because I am not in love. I wish I was. Why shouldn&#8217;t
+I be? It must be lovely to be in love. If I was in love
+I shouldn&#8217;t be <em>only</em> in love. You think you understand
+what girls are nowadays, but you don&#8217;t. I didn&#8217;t myself
+until just lately. But I&#8217;m beginning to. Girls were
+supposed to be only interested in one thing&mdash;in your time.
+Monomaniacs, that&#8217;s what they had to be. You changed
+all that, or you&#8217;re trying to change it, but you only mean
+women to be monomaniacs about something else. It isn&#8217;t
+good enough. I want everything, and I&#8217;m going to get it&mdash;or
+have a good try for it. I&#8217;ll never be a martyr if I can
+help it. And I believe I can help it. I believe I&#8217;ve got
+just enough common sense to save me from being a martyr
+&mdash;either to a husband or a house or family&mdash;or a cause.
+I want to have a husband and a house and a family,
+and a cause too. That&#8217;ll be just about everything, won&#8217;t
+it? And if you imagine I can&#8217;t look after all of them at
+once, all I can say is I don&#8217;t agree with you. Because
+I&#8217;ve got an idea I can. Supposing I had all these things,
+I fancy I could have a tiff with my husband and make
+it up, play with my children, alter a dress, change the
+furniture, tackle the servants, and go out to a meeting
+and perhaps have a difficulty with the police&mdash;all in one
+day. Only if I did get into trouble with the police I
+should pay the fine&mdash;you see. The police aren&#8217;t going to
+have me altogether. Nobody is. Nobody, man or woman,
+is going to be able to boast that he&#8217;s got me altogether.
+You think you&#8217;re independent. But you aren&#8217;t. We girls
+will show you what independence is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re a rather surprising young creature,&#8221; observed
+Rosamund with a casual air, unmoved. &#8220;You&#8217;re quite
+excited.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. I surprise myself. But these things do come
+in bursts. I&#8217;ve noticed that before. They weren&#8217;t clear
+when you began to talk. They&#8217;re clear now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let me tell you this,&#8221; said Rosamund. &#8220;A cause
+must have martyrs.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t see it,&#8221; Audrey protested. &#8220;I should have
+thought common sense would be lots more useful than
+martyrs. And monomaniacs never do have common
+sense.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;re very young.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is that meant for an insult, or is it just a statement?&#8221;
+Audrey laughed pleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>And Rosamund laughed too.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just a statement,&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, here&#8217;s another statement,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;You&#8217;re
+very old. That&#8217;s where I have the advantage of you.
+Still, tell me what I can do in your new campaign, and
+I&#8217;ll do it if I can. But there isn&#8217;t going to be any utterly
+&mdash;that&#8217;s all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think the interval is over,&#8221; said Rosamund with
+finality. &#8220;Perhaps we&#8217;d better adjourn.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The foyer had nearly emptied. The distant sound of
+music could be heard.</p>
+
+<p>As she was re-entering the hall, Audrey met Mr. Cowl,
+who was coming out.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have decided I can&#8217;t stand any more,&#8221; Mr. Cowl
+remarked in a loud whisper. &#8220;I hope you didn&#8217;t mind
+me telling you about the Zacatecas. As I said, I thought
+you might be interested. Good-bye. So pleasant to have
+met you again, dear lady.&#8221; His face had the same
+enigmatic smile which had made him so formidable at
+Moze.</p>
+
+<p>Musa had already begun to play the Spanish Symphony
+of Lalo, without which no genius is permitted to make
+his formal debut on the violin in France.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_43" id="chapter_43" />CHAPTER XLIII</h2>
+
+
+<h3>ENTR&#8217;ACTE</h3>
+
+<p>After the Spanish Symphony not only the conductor but
+the entire orchestra followed Musa from the platform, and
+Audrey understood that the previous interval had not really
+been an interval and that the first genuine interval was
+about to begin. The audience seemed to understand this
+too, for practically the whole of it stood up and moved
+towards the doors. Audrey would have stayed in her
+seat, but Miss Ingate expressed a desire to go out and
+&#8220;see the fun&#8221; in the foyer, and, moreover, she asserted
+that the Foas from their box had been signalling to her
+and Audrey an intention to meet them in the foyer. Miss
+Ingate was in excellent spirits. She said it beat her how
+Musa&#8217;s fingers could get through so many notes in so
+short a time, and also that it made her feel tired even
+to watch the fingers. She was convinced that nobody had
+ever handled the violin so marvellously before. As for
+success, Musa had been recalled, and the applause from
+the gallery, fired by its religious belief, was obstinate and
+extremely vociferous. Audrey, however, was aware of
+terrible sick qualms, for she knew that Musa was not so
+far dominating his public. Much of the applause had
+obviously the worst quality that applause can have&mdash;it was
+good-natured. Yet she could not accept failure for Musa.
+Failure would be too monstrous an injustice, and therefore
+it could not happen.</p>
+
+<p>The emptiness of the Foas&#8217; box indicated that Miss
+Ingate might be correct in her interpretation of signals,
+and Audrey allowed herself to be led away from the now
+forlorn auditorium. As they filed along the gangways she
+had to listen to the indifferent remarks of utterly unprejudiced
+and uninterested persons about the performance
+of genius, and further she had to learn that a fair proportion
+of them were departing with no intention to return.
+In the thronged foyer they saw Mr. Gilman, alone, before
+he saw them. He was carrying a box of chocolates&mdash;doubtless
+one of the little things that Mr. Price had had
+instructions to provide for the evening, Mr. Gilman perhaps
+would not have caught sight of them had it not been
+for the stridency of Miss Ingate&#8217;s voice, which caused him
+to turn round.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey experienced once again the sensation&mdash;which
+latterly was apt to recur in her&mdash;of having too many
+matters on her mind simultaneously; in a phrase, the
+sensation of the exceeding complexity of existence. And
+she resented it. The interview with Rosamund was quite
+enough for one night. It had been a triumph for her; she
+had surprised herself in that interview; it had left her with
+a conviction of freedom; it had uplifted her. She ought
+to have been in a state of exaltation after that interview,
+and she was. Only, while in a state of exaltation, she
+was still in the old state of depression&mdash;about the tendency
+of the concert, of her concert, and about the rumoured
+disappearance of her fortune. Also she was preoccupied
+by the very strange affair of Jane Foley and Aguilar.</p>
+
+<p>And now&mdash;a further intricacy of mood&mdash;came a whole
+new set of emotions due to the mere spectacle of Mr.
+Gilman&#8217;s august back! She was intimidated by Mr. Gilman&#8217;s
+back. She knew horribly that in the afternoon she had
+treated Mr. Gilman as Mr. Gilman ought never to have
+been treated. And, quite apart from intimidation, she had
+another feeling, a feeling which was ghastly and of which
+she was ashamed.... Assuming the disappearance of her
+fortune, would Mr. Gilman&#8217;s attitude towards her be thereby
+changed? ... She admitted that young girls ought not
+to have such suspicions against respectable and mature
+men of established position in the world. Nevertheless,
+she could not blow the suspicion away.</p>
+
+<p>But the instant Mr. Gilman&#8217;s eye met hers the suspicion
+vanished, and not the suspicion only, but all her
+intimidation. The miracle was produced by something in
+the gaze of Mr. Gilman as it rested on her, something
+wistful&mdash;not more definable than that, something which she
+had noticed in Mr. Gilman&#8217;s gaze on other occasions. It
+perfectly restored her. It gave her the positive assurance
+of a fact which marvellously enheartens young girls of
+about Audrey&#8217;s years&mdash;to wit, that they have a mysterious
+power surpassing the power of age, knowledge, wisdom,
+or wealth, that they influence and decide the course of
+history, and are the sole true mistresses of the world.
+Whence the mysterious power sprang she did not exactly
+know, but she surmised&mdash;rightly&mdash;that it was connected
+with her youth, with a dimple, with the incredibly soft
+down on her cheek, with the arch softness of her glance,
+with a gesture of the hand, with a turn of the shoulder,
+with a pleat of the skirt.... Anyhow, she possessed it,
+and to possess it was to wield it. It transformed her
+into a delicious tyrant, but a tyrant; it inspired her with
+exquisite cruelty, but cruelty. Her thoughts might have
+been summed up in eight words:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pooh! He has suffered. Well, he must suffer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Ah! But she meant to be very kind to him. He was
+so reliable, so adorable, and so dependent. She had
+genuine affection for him. And he was at once a rock
+and a cushion.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it going splendidly&mdash;splendidly, Mr. Gilman?&#8221;
+exclaimed Miss Ingate in her enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Apparently,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman, with comfort in his
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>At that moment the musical critic with large, dark
+Eastern eyes, whom Audrey had met at the Foas&#8217;, strolled
+nonchalantly by, and, perceiving Miss Ingate, described a
+huge and perfect curve in the air with his glossy silk hat,
+which had been tipped at the back of his head. Mr.
+Gilman had come close to Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Foas started down with me,&#8221; said Mr. Gilman
+mildly. &#8220;But they always meet such crowds of acquaintances
+at these affairs that they seldom get anywhere.
+Hortense would not leave the box. She never will.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I&#8217;m so glad I&#8217;ve seen you,&#8221; Audrey began
+excitedly, but with simplicity and compelling sweetness.
+&#8220;You&#8217;ve no idea how sorry I am about this afternoon!
+I&#8217;m frightfully sorry, really! But I was so upset. I
+didn&#8217;t know what to do. You know how anxious everybody
+was about Musa for to-night. He&#8217;s the pet of the
+Quarter, and, of course, I belong to the Quarter. At
+least&mdash;I did. I thought he might be ill, or something.
+However, it was all right in the end. I was looking
+forward tremendously to that drive. Are you going to
+forgive me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Please, please!&#8221; he eagerly entreated, with a faint
+blush. &#8220;Of course, I quite understand. There&#8217;s nothing
+whatever to forgive.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! but there is,&#8221; she insisted. &#8220;Only you&#8217;re so
+good-natured.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was being magnanimous. She was pretending that
+she had no mysterious power. But her motive was quite
+pure. If he was good-natured, so was she. She honestly
+wanted to recompense him, and to recompense him richly.
+And she did. Her demeanour was enchanting in its ingenuous
+flattery. She felt happy despite all her anxieties,
+for he was living up to her ideal of him. She felt happy,
+and her resolve to make him happy to the very limit of
+his dreams was intense. She had a vision of her future
+existence stretching out in front of her, and there was
+not a shadow on it. She thought he was going to offer
+her the box of chocolates, but he did not.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I rather wanted to ask your advice,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish you would,&#8221; he replied.</p>
+
+<p>Just then the Foas arrived, and with them Dauphin,
+the great and fashionable painter and the original discoverer
+of Musa. And as they all began to speak at once
+Audrey heard the Oriental musical critic say slowly to an
+inquiring Miss Ingate:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is not a concert talent that he has.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You hear! You hear!&#8221; exclaimed Monsieur Foa to
+Monsieur Dauphin and Madame Foa, with an impressed
+air. &#8220;You hear what Miquette says. He has not a
+concert talent. He has everything that you like, but not
+a concert talent.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Foa seemed to be exhibiting the majestic Oriental, nicknamed
+Miquette, as the final arbiter, whose word settled
+problems like a sword, and Miquette seemed to be trying
+to bear the high rôle with negligent modesty.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, yes, he has! But, yes, he has!&#8221; Dauphin protested,
+sweeping all Miquettes politely away. And then
+there was an urbane riot of greetings, salutes, bowings,
+smilings, cooings and compliments.</p>
+
+<p>Dauphin was magnificent, playing the part of the
+opulent painter <em>à la mode</em> with the most finished skill,
+the most splendid richness of detail. It was notorious that
+in the evenings he wore the finest silk shirts in Paris,
+and his waistcoat was designed to give scope to these
+shirts. He might have come&mdash;he probably had come&mdash;straight
+from the bower of archduchesses; but he produced
+in Audrey the illusion that archduchesses were a trifle
+compared to herself. He had not seen her for a long
+time. Gazing at her, he breathed relief; all his features
+indicated the sudden, unexpected assuaging of eternal and
+intense desires. He might have been travelling through
+the desert for many days and she might have been the
+oasis&mdash;the pool of living water and the palm.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now&mdash;like that! Just like that!&#8221; he said, holding
+her hand and, as it were, hypnotising her in the pose in
+which she happened to be. He looked hard at her.
+&#8220;It is unique. Madame, where did you find that
+dress?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Callot,&#8221; answered Audrey submissively.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought so. Well, Madame, I can wait no more.
+I will wait no more. It is Dauphin who implores you to
+come to his studio. To come&mdash;it is your duty. Madame
+Foa, you will bring her. I count on you absolutely to
+bring her. Even if it is only to be a sketch&mdash;the merest
+hint. But I must do it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, Madame,&#8221; said Madame Foa with all the
+Italian charm. &#8220;Dauphin must paint you. The contrary
+is unthinkable. My husband and I have often said so.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;To-morrow?&#8221; Dauphin suggested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah! To-morrow, my little Dauphin, I cannot,&#8221; said
+Madame Foa.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nor I,&#8221; said Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The day after to-morrow, then. I will send my auto.
+What address? Half-past eleven. That goes? In any
+case, I insist. Be kind! Be kind!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey blushed. Half the foyer was staring at the
+group. She was flattered. She saw herself remarkable.
+She thought she would look more particularly, with perfect
+detachment, at the mirror that night, in order to decide
+whether her appearance was as striking, as original, as
+distinguished, as Dauphin&#8217;s attitude implied. There must
+surely be something in it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About that advice&mdash;may I call to-morrow?&#8221; It was
+Mr. Gilman&#8217;s voice at her elbow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Advice?&#8221; She had forgotten her announced intention
+of asking his advice. (The subject was to be Zacatecas.)
+&#8220;Oh, yes. How nice of you! Please do call. Come for
+tea.&#8221; She was delightful to him, but at the same time
+there was in her tone a little of the condescending casualness
+proper to the tone of a girl openly admired by the
+confidant and painter of princesses and archduchesses, the
+man who treated all plain women and women past the
+prime with a desolating indifference.</p>
+
+<p>She thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am a rotten little snob.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman gave thanksgivings and departed, explaining
+that he must return to Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>Foa and Dauphin and the Oriental resumed the argument
+about Musa&#8217;s talent and the concert. Miquette would say
+nothing as to the success of the concert. Foa asserted
+that the concert was not and would not be a success.
+Dauphin pooh-poohed and insisted vehemently that the
+success was unmistakable and increasing. Moreover, he
+criticised the hall, the choice of programme, the orchestra,
+the conductor. &#8220;I discovered Musa,&#8221; said he. &#8220;I have
+always said that he is a great concert player, and that
+he is destined for a great world-success, and to-night I
+am more sure of it than ever.&#8221; Whereupon Madame Foa
+said with much sympathy that she hoped it was so, and
+Foa said: &#8220;You create illusions for yourself, on purpose.&#8221;
+Dauphin bore him down with wavy gestures and warm
+cries of &#8220;No! No! No!&#8221; And he appealed to Audrey
+as-a woman incapable of illusions. And Audrey agreed
+with Dauphin. And while she was agreeing she kept
+saying to herself: &#8220;Why do I pretend to agree with him?
+He is not sincere. He knows he is not sincere. We all
+know&mdash;except perhaps Winnie Ingate. The concert is a
+failure. If it were not a failure, Madame Foa would not
+be so sympathetic. She is more subtle even than Madame
+Piriac. I shall never be subtle like that. I wish I could
+be. I wish I was at Moze. I am too Essex for all this.
+And Winnie here is too comic for words.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>An aged and repellent Jew came into sight. He raised
+Madame Foa&#8217;s hand to his odious lips and kissed it, and
+Audrey wondered how Madame Foa could tolerate the
+formality.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Monsieur Xavier?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Xavier shrugged his round shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do not say,&#8221; said he, in a hoarse voice to the company,
+&#8220;do not say that I have not done my best on this occasion.&#8221;
+He lifted his eyes heavenward, and as he did so his passing
+glance embraced Audrey, and she violently hated him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie,&#8221; said she, &#8220;I think we ought to be getting
+back to our seats.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; cried Madame Foa, &#8220;we are going round with
+Dauphin to the artists&#8217; room. You do not come with us,
+Madame Moncreiff?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In your place ...&#8221; muttered Xavier discouragingly,
+with a look at Dauphin, and another shrug of the shoulders.
+&#8220;I have been ...&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ah!&#8221; said Dauphin, in a strange new tone. And then
+very brightly to Audrey: &#8220;Now, as to Saturday, dear
+lady&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Xavier engaged in private converse with Foa, and his
+demeanour to Foa was extremely deferential, whereas he
+almost ignored the Oriental critic. And Audrey puzzled her
+head once again to discover why the Foas should exert such
+influence upon the fate of music in Paris. The enigma was
+only one among many.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_44" id="chapter_44" />CHAPTER XLIV</h2>
+
+<h3>END OF THE CONCERT</h3>
+
+
+<p>The first item after the true interval was the Chaconne of
+Bach, which Musa had played upon a memorable occasion
+in Frinton. He stood upon the platform utterly alone,
+against a background of empty chairs, double-basses and
+drums. He seemed to be unfriended and forlorn. It
+appeared to Audrey that he was playing with despair. She
+wished, as she looked from Musa to the deserted places in
+the body of the hall, that the piece was over, and that the
+entire concert was over. How could anyone enjoy such
+an arid maze of sounds? The whole theory of classical
+composition and its vogue was hollow and ridiculous.
+People did not like the classics; they could not and they
+never would. Now a waltz ... after a jolly dinner and
+wine! ... But the Chaconne! But Bach! But culture!
+The audience was visibly and audibly restless. For about
+two hundred years the attempt to force this Chaconne upon
+the public had been continuous, and it was still boring them.
+Of course it was! The thing was unnatural.</p>
+
+<p>And she herself was a fool; she was a ninny. And the
+alleged power of money was an immense fraud. She had
+thought to perform miracles by means of a banking account.
+For a moment she had imagined that the miracles had come
+to pass. But they had not come to pass. The public was
+too old, too tired, and too wary. It could not thus be
+tricked into making a reputation. The forces that made
+reputations were far less amenable than she had fancied.
+The world was too clever and too experienced for her ingenuous
+self. Geniuses were not lying about and waiting
+to be picked up. Musa was not a genius. She had been a
+simpleton, and the sacred Quarter had been a simpleton.
+She was rather angry with Musa for not being a genius.
+And the confidence which he had displayed a few hours
+earlier was just grotesque conceit! And men and women
+who were supposed to be friendly human hearts were not
+so in truth. They were merely indifferent and callous spectators.
+The Foas, for example, were chattering in their
+box, apparently oblivious of the tragedy that was enacting
+under their eyes. But then, it was perhaps not a tragedy;
+it was perhaps a farce.</p>
+
+<p>And what would these self-absorbed spectators of existence
+say and do, if and when it was known that she was
+no longer a young woman of enormous wealth? Would
+Dauphin have sought to compel her to enter his studio had
+he been aware that her fortune had gone tip in smoke?
+She was not in a real world. She was in a world of shams.
+And she was a sham in the world of shams. She wanted
+to be back again in the honest realities of Moze, where in
+the churchyard she could see the tombs of her great-great-grandfathers.
+Only one extraneous interest drew her
+thoughts away from Moze. That interest was Mr. Gilman.
+Mr. Gilman was her conquest and her slave. She adored
+him because he was so wistful and so reliable and so
+adoring. Mr. Gilman sat intent and straight upright in
+Madame Piriac&#8217;s box and behaved just as though Bach
+himself was present. He understood nothing of Bach, but
+he could be trusted to behave with benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>The music suddenly ceased. The Chaconne was finished.
+The gallery of enthusiasts still applauded with vociferation,
+with mystic faith, with sublime obstinacy. It was carrying
+on a sort of religious war against the base apathy of the
+rest of the audience. It was determined to force its belief
+down the throats of the unintelligent mob. It had made
+up its mind that until it had had its way the world should
+stand still. No encore had yet been obtained, and the
+gallery was set on an encore. The clapping fainted, expired,
+and then broke into new life, only to expire again
+and recommence. A few irritated persons hissed. The
+gallery responded with vigour. Musa, having retired, reappeared,
+very white, and bowed. The applause was
+feverish and unconvincing. Musa vanished. But the
+gallery had thick soles and hard hands and stout sticks,
+even serviceable umbrellas. It could not be appeased by
+bows alone. And after about three minutes of tedious
+manoeuvring, Musa had at last to yield an encore that in
+fact nobody wanted. He played a foolish pyrotechnical
+affair of De Bériot, which resembled nothing so much as a
+joke at a funeral. After that the fate of the concert could
+not be disputed even by the gallery. At the finish of the
+evening there was, in the terrible idiom of the theatre,
+&#8220;not a hand.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Whether Musa had played well or ill, Audrey had not
+the least idea. Nor did that point seem to matter. Naught
+but the attitude of the public seemed to matter. This was
+strange, because for a year Audrey had been learning steadily
+in the Quarter that the attitude of the public had no importance
+whatever. She suffered from the delusion that
+the public was staring at her and saying to her: &#8220;You, you
+silly little thing, are responsible for this fiasco. We condescended
+to come&mdash;and this is what you have offered us.
+Go home, and let your hair down and shorten your skirts,
+for you are no better than a schoolgirl, after all.&#8221; She
+was really self-conscious. She despised Musa, or rather
+she threw to him a little condescending pity. And yet at
+the same time she was furious against that group in the
+foyer for being so easily dissuaded from going to see Musa
+in the artists&#8217; room.... Rats deserting a sinking ship!...
+People, even the nicest, would drop a failure like a
+match that was burning out.... Yes, and they would
+drop her.... No, they would not, because of Mr. Gilman.
+Mr. Gilman was calling-to see her to-morrow. He was
+the rock and the cushion. She would send Miss Ingate
+out for the afternoon. As the audience hurried eagerly
+forth she spoke sharply to Miss Ingate. She was indeed
+very rude to Miss Ingate. She was exasperated, and Miss
+Ingate happened to be handy.</p>
+
+<p>In the foyer not a trace of the Foa clan nor of Madame
+Piriac and her husband, nor of Mr. Gilman! But Tommy
+and Nick were there, putting on their cloaks, and with
+them, but not helping them, was Mr. Ziegler. The blond
+Mr. Ziegler greeted Audrey as though the occasion of their
+previous meeting had been a triumph for him. His self-satisfaction,
+if ever it had been damaged, was repaired to
+perfection. The girls were silent; Miss Ingate was silent;
+but Mr. Ziegler was not silent.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He played better than I did anticipate,&#8221; said Mr.
+Ziegler, lighting a cigarette, after he had nonchalantly
+acknowledged the presentation to him of Miss Ingate.
+&#8220;But of what use is this French public? None. Even had
+he succeeded here it would have meant nothing. Nothing.
+In music Paris does not exist. There are six towns in
+Germany where success means vorldt-reputation. Not that
+he would succeed in Germany. He has not studied in Germany.
+And outside Germany there are no schools. However,
+we have the intention to impose our culture upon all
+European nations, including France. In one year our army
+will be here&mdash;in Paris. I should wait for that, but probably
+I shall be called up. In any case, I shall be present.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But whatever do you mean?&#8221; cried Miss Ingate,
+aghast.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do I mean? I mean our army will be here.
+All know it in Germany. They know it in Paris! But what
+can they do? How can they stop us?... Decadent!...&#8221;
+He laughed easily.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, my chocolates!&#8221; exclaimed Miss Thompkins.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ve left them in the hall!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, here they are,&#8221; said Nick, handing the box.</p>
+
+<p>To Audrey it seemed to be the identical box that Mr.
+Gilman had been carrying. But of course it might not be.
+Thousands of chocolate boxes resemble each other exactly.</p>
+
+<p>Carefully ignoring Mr. Ziegler, Audrey remarked to
+Tommy with a light-heartedness which she did not feel:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, what did you think of Jane this afternoon?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane Foley. Nick was taking you to see her, wasn&#8217;t
+she?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes!&#8221; said Tommy with a bright smile. &#8220;But I
+didn&#8217;t go. I went for a motor drive with Mr. Gilman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was a short pause. At length Tommy said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So he&#8217;s got the goods on you at last!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Who?&#8221; Audrey sharply questioned.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dauphin. I knew he would. Remember my words.
+That portrait will cost you forty thousand francs, not
+counting the frame.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was the end of the concert.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_45" id="chapter_45" />CHAPTER XLV</h2>
+
+<h3>STRANGE RESULT OF A QUARREL</h3>
+
+
+<p>The next afternoon Audrey sat nervous and expectant, but
+highly finished, in her drawing-room at the Hôtel du
+Danube. Miss Ingate had gone out, pretending to be
+quite unaware that she had been sent out. The more detailed
+part of Audrey&#8217;s toilette had been accomplished
+subsequent to Miss Ingate&#8217;s departure, for Audrey had
+been at pains to inform Miss Ingate that she, Audrey, was
+even less interested than usual in her appearance that afternoon.
+They were close and mutually reliable friends; but
+every friendship has its reservations. Elise also was out;
+indeed, Miss Ingate had taken her.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey had the weight of all the world on her, and so
+long as she was alone she permitted herself to look as
+though she had. She had to be wise, not only for Audrey
+Moze, but for others. She had to be wise for Musa, whose
+failure, though the newspapers all spoke (at about twenty
+francs a line) of his overwhelming success, was admittedly
+lamentable; and she hated Musa; she confessed that she had
+been terribly mistaken in Musa, both as an artist and as a
+man; still, he was on her mind. She had to be wise about
+her share in the new campaign of Rosamund, which, while
+not on her mind, was on her conscience. She had to be
+wise about the presumable loss of her fortune; she had
+telegraphed to Mr. Foulger early that morning for information,
+and an answer was now due. Finally she had to be
+wise for Mr. Gilman, whose happiness depended on a tone
+of her voice, on a single monosyllable breathed through those
+rich lips. She looked forward with interest to being wise
+for Mr. Gilman. She felt capable of that. The other
+necessary wisdoms troubled her brow. She seemed to be
+more full of responsibility and sagacity than any human
+being could have been expected to be. She was, however,
+very calm. Her calmness was prodigious.</p>
+
+<p>Then the bell rang, and she could hear one of the hotel
+attendants open the outer door with his key. Instantly her
+calmness, of which she had been so proud, was dashed to
+pieces and she had scarcely begun in a hurry to pick the
+pieces up and put them together again when the attendant
+entered the drawing-room. She was afraid, but she thought
+she was happy.</p>
+
+<p>Only it was not Mr. Gilman the attendant announced.
+The man said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mademoiselle Nickall.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey said to herself that she must get Nick very
+quickly away. She was in no humour to talk even to Nick,
+and, moreover, she did not want Nick to know that Mr.
+Gilman was calling upon her.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Nickall was innocent and sweet. Good nature
+radiated from her soft, tired features, and was somehow
+also entangled in her fluffy grey hair. She kissed Audrey
+with affection.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve just come to say good-bye, you dear!&#8221; she said,
+sitting down and putting her check parasol across her knees.
+&#8220;How lovely you look!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good-bye?&#8221; Audrey questioned. &#8220;Do I?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have to cross for England to-night. I&#8217;ve had my
+orders. Rosamund came this morning. What about yours?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh!&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;I don&#8217;t take orders. But I
+expect I shall join in, one of these days, when I&#8217;ve had
+everything explained to me properly. You see, you and I
+haven&#8217;t got the same tastes, Nick. You aren&#8217;t happy
+without a martyrdom. I am.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Nick smiled gravely and uncertainly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very serious this time,&#8221; said she. &#8220;Hasn&#8217;t
+Rosamund spoken to you yet?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s spoken to me. And I&#8217;ve spoken to her. It was
+deuce, I should say. Or perhaps my &#8217;vantage. Anyhow,
+I&#8217;m not moving just yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then,&#8221; said Nick, &#8220;if you&#8217;re staying in Paris, I
+hope you&#8217;ll keep an eye on Musa. He needs it. Tommy&#8217;s
+going away. At least I fancy she is. We both went to
+see him this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Both of you!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, you see, we&#8217;ve always looked after him. He
+was in a terrible state about last night. That&#8217;s really one
+reason why I called. Not that I&#8217;d have gone without
+kissing you&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She stopped. There was another ring at the bell. The
+attendant came in with great rapidity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m lost!&#8221; thought Audrey, disgusted and perturbed.
+&#8220;Her being here will spoil everything.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But the attendant handed her a card, and the card bore
+the name of Musa. Audrey flushed. Almost instinctively,
+without thinking, she passed the card to Nick.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My land!&#8221; exclaimed Nick. &#8220;If he sees me here he&#8217;ll
+think I&#8217;ve come on purpose to talk about him and pity him,
+and he&#8217;ll be just perfectly furious. Can I get out any other
+way?&#8221; She glanced interrogatively at the half-open door
+of the bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I don&#8217;t want to see him, either!&#8221; Audrey protested.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! You must! He&#8217;ll listen to sense from you,
+perhaps. Can I go this way?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Impelled to act in spite of herself, Audrey took Nick
+into the bedroom, and as soon as Musa had been introduced
+into the drawing-room she embraced Nick in silence
+and escorted her on tiptoe through Miss Ingate&#8217;s bedroom
+to the vestibule and waved an adieu. Then she retraced her
+steps and made a grand entry into the drawing-room from
+her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of Musa immediately.
+A meeting between him and Mr. Gilman on her
+hearthrug might involve the most horrible complications.</p>
+
+<p>The young man and the young woman shook hands.
+But it was the handshaking of bruisers when they enter the
+ring, and before the blood starts to flow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Won&#8217;t you please sit down?&#8221; said Audrey. He was
+obliged now to obey her, as she had been obliged to obey
+him on the previous afternoon in the Rue Cassette.</p>
+
+<p>If Audrey looked as though the whole world was on her
+shoulders, Musa&#8217;s face seemed to contradict hers and to say
+that the world, far from being on anybody&#8217;s shoulders, had
+come to an end. All the expression of the violinist showed
+that in his honest conviction a great mundane calamity had
+occurred, the calamity of course being that his violin bow
+had not caused catgut to vibrate in such a way as to affect
+the ears of a particular set of people in a particular manner.
+But in addition to this sense of a calamity he was under
+the influence of another emotion&mdash;angry resentment. However,
+he sat down, holding firmly his hat, gloves, and stick.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I saw my agent this morning,&#8221; said he, in a grating
+voice, in French. He was pale.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes?&#8221; said Audrey. She suddenly guessed what was
+coming, and she felt a certain alarm, which nevertheless
+was not entirely disagreeable.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why did you pay for that concert, and the future
+concerts, without telling me, Madame?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Paid for the concerts?&#8221; she repeated, rather weakly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Madame. To do so was to make me ridiculous&mdash;not
+to the world, but to myself. For I believed all the
+time that I had succeeded in gaining the genuine interest
+of an agent who was prepared to risk money upon the
+proper exploitation of my talent. I worked in that belief.
+In spite of your attitude to me I did work. Your antipathy
+was bad for me; but I conquered myself, and I worked. I
+had confidence in myself. If last night I did not have a
+triumph, it was not because I did not work, but because I
+had been upset&mdash;and again by you, Madame. Even after
+the misfortune of last night I still had confidence, for I
+knew that the reasons of my failure were accidental and
+temporary. But I now know that I was living in a fool&#8217;s
+paradise, which you had kindly created for me. You have
+money. Apparently you have too much money. And with
+money you possess the arrogance of wealth. You knew that
+I had accepted assistance from good friends. And you
+thought in your arrogance that you might launch me without
+informing me of your intention. You thought it would
+amuse you to make a little fairy-tale in real life. It was a
+negligent gesture on the part of a rich and idle woman. It
+cost you nothing save a few bank-notes, of which you had
+so many that it bored you to count them. How amusing to
+make a reputation! How charitable to help a starving
+player! But you forgot one thing. You forgot my dignity
+and my honour. It was nothing to you that you exposed
+these to the danger of the most grave affront. It was
+nothing to you that I was received just as though I had
+been a child, and that for months I was made, without knowing
+it, to fulfil the rôle of a conceited jackanapes. When
+one is led to have confidence in oneself one is tempted to
+adopt a certain tone and to use certain phrases, which may
+or may not be justified. I yielded to the temptation. I
+was wrong, but I was also victimised. This morning, with
+a moment&#8217;s torture under the impertinent tongue of a
+rascally impresario, I paid for all the spurious confidence
+which I have felt and for all the proud words I have uttered.
+I came to-day in order to lay at your feet my thanks for the
+unique humiliation which I owe to you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His mien was undoubtedly splendid. It ought to have
+cowed and shamed Audrey. But it did not. She absolutely
+refused to acknowledge, even within her own heart, that
+she had committed any wrong. On the contrary, she
+remembered all the secret sympathy which she had lavished
+on Musa, all her very earnest and single-minded desires
+for his apotheosis at the hands of the Parisian public;
+and his ingratitude positively exasperated her. She was
+aroused. But she tried to hide the fact that she was
+roused, speaking in a guarded and sardonic voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And did this agent of yours&mdash;I do not know his name&mdash;tell
+you that I was paying for the concert&mdash;I mean, the
+concerts?&#8221; she demanded with an air of impassivity.
+&#8220;He did not give your name.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s something,&#8221; Audrey put in, her body trembling.
+&#8220;I am much obliged to him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But he clearly indicated that money had been paid&mdash;that
+he had not paid it himself&mdash;that the enterprise was
+not genuine. He permitted himself to sneer until I corrected
+him. He then withdrew what he had said and
+told me that I had misunderstood. But he was not convincing.
+It was too late. And I had not misunderstood.
+Far from that, I had understood. At once the truth
+traversed my mind like a flash of lightning. It was you
+who had paid.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And how did you guess that?&#8221; She laughed carelessly,
+though she could not keep her foot from shaking
+on the carpet.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I knew because I knew!&#8221; cried Musa. &#8220;It explained
+all your conduct, your ways of speaking to me, your
+attitude of a schoolmistress, everything. How ingenuous
+I have been not to perceive it before!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey firmly. &#8220;You are wrong. It is
+absolutely untrue that I have ever paid a penny, or ever
+shall, to any agent on your behalf. Do you hear? Why
+should I, indeed! And now what have you to reply?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was aware of not the slightest remorse for this
+enormous and unqualified lie. Nay, she held it was not
+a lie, because Musa deserved to hear it. Strange logic,
+but her logic! And she was much uplifted and enfevered,
+and grandly careless of all consequences.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are a woman,&#8221; said Musa curtly and obstinately.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That, at any rate, is true.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Therefore I cannot treat you as a man.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Please do,&#8221; she said, rising.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No. If you were a man I should call you out.&#8221; And
+Musa rose also. &#8220;And I should be right. As you are
+a woman I have told you the truth, and I can do no
+more. I shall not characterise your denial. I have no
+taste for recrimination. Besides, in such a game, no man
+can be the equal of a woman. But I maintain what I
+have said, and I affirm that I know it to be true, and
+that there is no excuse for your conduct. And so I
+respectfully take leave.&#8221; He moved towards the door and
+then stopped. &#8220;There never had been any excuse for
+your conduct to me,&#8221; he added. &#8220;It has always been
+the conduct of a rich and capricious woman who amused
+herself by patronising a poor artist.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You may be interested to know,&#8221; she said fiercely,
+&#8220;that I am no longer rich. Last night I heard that
+my fortune is gone. If I have amused myself, that may
+amuse you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It does amuse me,&#8221; he retorted grimly and more
+loudly. &#8220;I wish that you had never possessed a son.
+For then I might have been spared many mournful hours.
+All would have been different. Yes! From three days
+ago when I saw you walking intimately in the Tuileries
+Gardens with the unspeakable Gilman&mdash;right back to last
+year when you first, from caprice, did your best to make
+me love you&mdash;did it deliberately, so that all the Quarter
+could see!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In a furious temper Audrey rushed past Musa to the
+door, and stood with her back to it, palpitating. She
+vaguely recalled a similar movement of hers long ago, and
+the slightly comic figure of Mr. Foulger flitted through
+her memory.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You shall apologise for that! You shall apologise
+before you leave this room!&#8221; she exploded. Her chin
+was aloft and her mouth remained open. &#8220;I say you
+shall apologise for that monstrous untruth!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He approached her, uttering not a word. She was
+quite ready to kill him. She had no fear of anything
+whatever. Not once since his arrival had she given one
+thought to the imminent advent of Mr. Gilman.</p>
+
+<p>She said to herself, watching Musa intently:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, he shall apologise. It is shameful, what he says.
+It&#8217;s worse than horrid. I am as strong as he is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Musa dropped his hat, stick and gloves. The hat,
+being English and hard, bounced on the carpet. Then he
+put his trembling arms around her waist, and his trembling
+lips came nearer and nearer to hers.</p>
+
+<p>She thought, very puzzled:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is happening? This is all wrong. I am furious
+with him! I will never speak to him again! What is
+he doing? This is all wrong. I must stop it. I&#8217;m saying
+nothing to him about my career, and my independence,
+and how horrid it is to be the wife of a genius, and all
+that.... I must stop it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But she had no volition to stop it.</p>
+
+<p>She thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Am I fainting?&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was upon this scene that Mr. Gilman intruded.
+Mr. Gilman looked from one to the other. Perhaps the
+thought in his mind was that if they added their ages
+together they could not equal his age. Perhaps it was
+not. He continued to look from one to the other, and
+this needed some ocular effort, for they were as far apart
+as two persons in such a situation usually get when they
+are surprised. Then he caught sight of the hat, stick and
+gloves on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve been expecting you for a long time,&#8221; said Audrey,
+with that miraculous bland tranquillity of which young
+girls alone have the secret when the conventions are
+imperilled. &#8220;I was just going to order tea.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Gilman hesitated and then replied:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How kind of you! But please don&#8217;t order tea for
+me. The&mdash;er&mdash;fact is, I have been unexpectedly called
+away, and I only called to explain that&mdash;er&mdash;I could not
+call.&#8221; After all, he was a man of some experience.</p>
+
+<p>She let him go. His demeanour to Musa, like Musa&#8217;s
+to him, was a marvel of high courtesy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Musa,&#8221; said Audrey, with an intimidated, defiant, proud
+smile, when the door had shut on Mr. Gilman, &#8220;I am
+still frightfully angry with you. If we stay here I shall
+suffocate. Let us go out for a walk. Besides, other
+people might call.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Simultaneously there was another ring. It was a cable.
+She read:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sold Zacatecas at an average of six and a quarter
+dollars three weeks ago. Wrote you at length to Wimereux.
+Writing again as to new investments.</p>
+
+<p class="letterSignature">&#8220;FOULGER.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This comes of having no fixed address,&#8221; she said,
+throwing the blue cablegram carelessly down in front of
+Musa. &#8220;I&#8217;m not quite ruined, after all. But I might have
+known&mdash;with Mr. Foulger.&#8221; Then she explained.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; he began.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, you don&#8217;t,&#8221; she stopped him. &#8220;So you needn&#8217;t
+start on that line. You are brilliant at figures. At least
+I long since suspected you were. How much is one hundred
+and eighty thousand times six and a quarter?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding his brilliance, it took two pencils, two
+heads, and one piece of paper to solve the problem. They
+were not quite certain, but the answer seemed to be
+£225,000 in English money.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We cannot starve,&#8221; said Audrey, and then paused....
+&#8220;Musa, are we friends? We shall quarrel horribly.
+Do you know, I never knew that proposals of marriage
+were made like that!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have not told you one thing,&#8221; said Musa. &#8220;I am
+going to play in Germany, instead of further concerts in
+Paris. It is arranged.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not in Germany,&#8221; she pleaded, thinking of Ziegler.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, in Germany,&#8221; said Musa masterfully. &#8220;I have
+a reputation to make. It is the agent who has suggested
+it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But the concerts in London?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are English. I wish not to wound you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Audrey stood up again, she had to look at the
+floor in order to make sure that it was there. Once
+she had tasted absinthe. She had had to take the same
+precaution then.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Stop! I entreat thee!&#8221; said Musa suddenly, just
+as, all arrayed in her finery, she was opening the door
+for the walk.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is it?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He kissed her, and with his lips almost on hers he
+murmured:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thou shalt not go out without avowing. And if thou
+art angry&mdash;well, I adore thy anger. The concerts were ...
+thy enterprise? I guessed well?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You see,&#8221; she replied like a shot, &#8220;you weren&#8217;t sure,
+although you pretended you were.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the Rue de Rivoli, and in the resplendent Champs
+Elysées they passed column after column of entertainment
+posters. But the name of Musa had been mysteriously
+removed from all of them.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr class="newChapter" />
+<h2><a name="chapter_46" id="chapter_46" />CHAPTER XLVI</h2>
+
+<h3>AN EPILOGUE</h3>
+
+
+<p>Audrey was walking along Piccadilly when she overtook
+Miss Ingate, who had been arrested by a shop window,
+the window of one of the shops recently included in the
+vast edifice of the Hotel Majestic.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate gave a little squeal of surprise. The two
+kissed very heartily in the street, which was full of spring
+and of the posters of evening papers bearing melodramatic
+tidings of the latest nocturnal development of the terrible
+suffragette campaign.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You said eleven, Audrey. It isn&#8217;t eleven yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I&#8217;m behind time. I meant to be all spruced
+up and receive you in state at the hotel. But the boat
+was three hours late at Harwich. I jumped into a cab
+at Liverpool Street, but I got out at Piccadilly Circus
+because the streets looked so fine and I felt I really must
+walk a bit.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And where&#8217;s your husband?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s at Liverpool Street trying to look after the
+luggage. He lost some of it at Hamburg. He likes
+looking after luggage, so I just left him at it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate&#8217;s lower lip dropped at the corners.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ve had a tiff.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Winnie, we haven&#8217;t.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did you go to all his concerts?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All. I heard all his practising, and I sat in the
+stalls at all his concerts. Quite contrary to my principles,
+of course. But, Winnie, it&#8217;s very queer, I <em>wanted</em> to
+do it. So naturally I did it. We&#8217;ve never been apart&mdash;until
+now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And it&#8217;s not exaggerated, what you&#8217;ve written me
+about his success?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not a bit. I&#8217;ve been most careful not to exaggerate.
+In fact, I&#8217;ve tried to be gloomy. No use, however! It
+was a triumph.... And how&#8217;s all this business?&#8221; Audrey
+demanded, in a new key, indicating an orange-tinted newspaper
+bill that was being flaunted in front of her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh! I believe it&#8217;s dreadful. Of course, you know
+Rosamund&#8217;s in prison. But they&#8217;ll have to let her out
+soon. Jane Foley&mdash;she still calls herself Foley&mdash;hasn&#8217;t
+been caught. And that&#8217;s funny. I doubled my subscription.
+We had to, you see. But that&#8217;s all I&#8217;ve done. They don&#8217;t
+have processions and things now, and barrel organs are
+<em>quite</em> out of fashion. What with that, and my rheumatism!...
+I used to think I should live to vote myself. I feel
+I shan&#8217;t now. So I&#8217;ve gone back into water-colours.
+They&#8217;re very soothing, if you let the paper dry after each
+wash and don&#8217;t take them seriously.... Now, I&#8217;m a
+very common-sense woman, Audrey, as you must have
+noticed, and I&#8217;m not subject to fancies. Will you just
+look at the girl on the left hand in this window here, and
+tell me whether I&#8217;m dreaming or not?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Miss Ingate indicated the shop window which had
+arrested her. The establishment was that of a hair
+specialist, and the window was mainly occupied by two
+girls who sat in arm-chairs with their backs to the glass,
+and all their magnificent hair spread out at length over
+the backs of the chairs for the inspection of the public;
+the implication being that the magnificent hair was due
+to the specific of the hair specialist. Passers-by continually
+stopped to gaze at the spectacle, but they never stopped
+long, because the spectacle was monotonous.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, what about her?&#8221; said Audrey, staring.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t it Lady Southminster?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good heavens!&#8221; Audrey&#8217;s mind went back to the
+Channel packet and the rain squall and the scenes on the
+Paris train. &#8220;So it is! Whatever can have happened to
+her? Let&#8217;s go in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And in they went, Audrey leading, and demanding at
+once a bottle of the specific; Audrey had scarcely spoken
+when the left-hand girl in the window, who, of course,
+from her vantage had a full view of the shop, screamed
+lightly and jumped down from the window.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t give me away!&#8221; she whispered appealingly in
+Audrey&#8217;s ear. The next moment, not heeding the excitement
+of the shop manager, she had drawn Audrey and
+Miss Ingate through another door which led into the
+entrance-hall of the Majestic Hotel. The shop was thus
+contrived to catch two publics at once.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If they knew I was Lady Southminster in there,&#8221;
+said Lady Southminster in a feverish murmur&mdash;she seemed
+not averse to the sensation caused by her hair in the
+twilight of the hotel&mdash;&#8220;I expect I should lose my place,
+and I don&#8217;t want to lose it. <em>He&#8217;ll</em> be coming by presently,
+and he&#8217;ll see me, and it&#8217;ll be a lesson to him. We&#8217;re
+always together. Race meetings, dances, golf, restaurants,
+bridge. Twenty-four hours every day. He won&#8217;t lose
+sight of me. He&#8217;s that fond of me, you know. I couldn&#8217;t
+stand it. I&#8217;d as lief be in prison&mdash;only I&#8217;m that fond of
+him, you know. But I was so homesick, and I felt if I
+didn&#8217;t have a change I should burst. This is Constantinopoulos&#8217;s
+old shop, you know, where I used to make
+cigarettes in the window. He&#8217;s dead, Constantinopoulos is.
+I don&#8217;t know what <em>he&#8217;d</em> have said to hair restorers. I
+asked for the place, and I showed &#8217;em my hair, and I
+got it. And me sitting there&mdash;it&#8217;s quite like old times.
+Only before, you know, I used to have my face to the
+street. I don&#8217;t know which I like best. But, anyhow,
+you can see my profile from the side window. And <em>he</em>
+will. He always looks at that sort of thing. He&#8217;ll be
+furious. But it will do him no end of good. Well,
+good-bye. But come back in and buy a bottle, or I shall
+be let in for a shindy. In fact, you might buy two
+bottles.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So that&#8217;s love!&#8221; said Audrey when the transaction
+was over and they were in the entrance-hall again.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;That&#8217;s marriage. And don&#8217;t
+you forget it.... Hallo, Tommy!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;d better not let Mr. Gilman hear me called
+Tommy in this hotel,&#8221; laughed Miss Thompkins, who was
+attired with an unusual richness, as she advanced towards
+Miss Ingate and Audrey. &#8220;And what are you doing
+here?&#8221; she questioned Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m staying here,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;But I&#8217;ve only just
+arrived. I&#8217;m advance agent for my husband. How are
+you? And what are <em>you</em> doing here? I thought you hated
+London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I came the day before yesterday,&#8221; Tommy replied.
+&#8220;And I&#8217;m very fit. You see, Mr. Gilman preferred us
+to be married in London. And I&#8217;d no objection. So
+here I am. The wedding&#8217;s to-morrow. You aren&#8217;t very
+startled, are you? Had you heard?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Audrey, &#8220;not what you&#8217;d call &#8216;heard.&#8217;
+But I&#8217;d a sort of a kind of a&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You come right over here, young woman.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I want to get my number.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You come right over here right now,&#8221; Tommy insisted.
+And in another corner of the entrance-hall she
+spoke thus, and there was both seriousness and fun in
+her voice: &#8220;Don&#8217;t you run away with the idea that I&#8217;m
+taking your leavings, young woman. Because I&#8217;m not.
+We all knew you&#8217;d lost your head about Musa, and it
+was quite right of you. But you never had a chance
+with Ernest, though you thought you had, after I&#8217;d met
+him. Admit I&#8217;m much better suited for him than you&#8217;d
+have been. I&#8217;d only one difficulty, and that was the nice
+boy Price, who wanted to drown himself for my beautiful
+freckled face. That&#8217;s all. Now you can go and get your
+number.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The incident might not have ended there had not
+Madame Piriac appeared in the entrance-hall out of the
+interior of the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He exacted my coming,&#8221; said Madame Piriac privately
+to Audrey. &#8220;You know how he is strange. He asks for
+a quiet wedding, but at the same time it must be all that
+is most correct. There are things, he says, which demand
+a woman.... I know four times nothing of the English
+etiquette. I have abandoned my husband. And here I
+am. <em>Voilà</em>! Listen. She has great skill with him, <em>cette
+Tommy</em>. Nevertheless, I have the intention to counsel her
+about her complexion. Impossible to keep any man with a
+complexion like hers!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They saw Mr. Gilman himself enter the hotel. He
+was very nervous and very important. As soon as he
+caught sight of Miss Thompkins he said to the door-keeper:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tell my chauffeur to wait.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He was punctiliously attentive to Miss Thompkins, and
+held her hand for two seconds after he had practically
+finished with it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you ready, dear?&#8221; he said. &#8220;You&#8217;ll be sorry
+to hear that my liver is all wrong again. I knew it was
+because I slept so heavily.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>These words were distinctly heard by Audrey herself.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think I&#8217;ll slip upstairs now,&#8221; she murmured to
+Madame Piriac. And vanished, before Mr. Gilman had
+observed her presence.</p>
+
+<p>She thought:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How he has aged!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely ten minutes later, when Audrey was upstairs
+in her sitting-room, waiting idly for the luggage and her
+husband to arrive, and thinking upon the case of Lady
+Southminster, the telephone bell rang out startlingly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Shinner to see you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Shinner? Oh! Mr. Shinner. Send him up,
+please.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This Mr. Shinner was the concert agent with connections
+in Paris whom Audrey had first consulted in the
+enterprise of launching Musa upon the French public. He
+was a large, dark man, black moustached and bearded,
+with heavy limbs and features, and an opaque, pimpled
+skin. In spite of these characteristics, he entered the
+room soft-footed as a fairy, ingratiating as a dog aware
+of his own iniquity, reassuring as applause.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, Mr. Shinner. But how did you know we were
+here? As a matter of fact we aren&#8217;t here. My husband
+has not arrived yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madam,&#8221; said Mr. Shinner, &#8220;I happened to hear that
+you had telegraphed for rooms, and as I was in the neighbourhood
+I thought I would venture to call.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But who told you we had telegraphed for rooms?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The manager is a good friend of mine, and as you
+are now famous&mdash;&mdash;&#8221; Ah! I have heard all about the German
+tour. I mean I have read about it. I subscribe to the
+German musical papers. One must, in my profession. Also
+I have had direct news from my correspondents in Germany.
+It was a triumph there, was it not?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;After Dusseldorf. My husband
+did not make much money&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That will not trouble you,&#8221; Mr. Shinner smiled easily.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But somebody did&mdash;the agents did.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps not so much as you think, madam, if I may
+say so. Perhaps not so much as you think. And we must
+all live&mdash;unfortunately. Has your husband made any
+arrangements yet for London or for a provincial tour? I
+have reason to think that the season will be particularly
+brilliant. And I can now offer advantages&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, Mr. Shinner, when I last saw you, and it isn&#8217;t
+so very long ago, you told me that my husband was not a
+concert-player, which was exactly what I had heard in
+Paris.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t go quite so far as that, surely, did I?&#8221; Mr.
+Shinner softly insinuated. He might have been pouring
+honey from his mouth. &#8220;Surely I didn&#8217;t say quite that?
+And perhaps I had been too much influenced by Paris.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you said he wasn&#8217;t a concert-player and never
+would be&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t rub it in, madam,&#8221; said Mr. Shinner merrily.
+&#8221;<em>Peccavi</em>.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s that?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing, nothing, madam,&#8221; he disclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And you said there were far too many violinists on the
+market, and that it was useless for a French player to offer
+himself to the London musical public. And I don&#8217;t know
+what you didn&#8217;t say.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I didn&#8217;t know then that your husband would have
+such a success in Germany.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What difference does that make?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Madam,&#8221; said Mr. Shinner, &#8220;it makes every difference.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But England and Germany hate each other. At least
+they despise each other. And what&#8217;s more, nearly everybody
+in Germany was talking about going to war this
+summer. I was told they are all ready to invade England
+after they have taken Paris and Calais. We heard it
+everywhere.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know anything about any war,&#8221; said Mr.
+Shinner with tranquillity. &#8220;But I do know that the London
+musical public depends absolutely on Germany. The
+only first-class instrumentalist that England has ever produced
+had no success here until he went to Germany and
+Germanised his name and himself and announced that he
+despised England. Then he came back, and he has caused a
+furore ever since. So far as regards London, a success in
+Karlsruhe, Wiesbaden, Leipzig, Dusseldorf, and so on, is
+worth far more than a success in the Queen&#8217;s Hall. Indeed&mdash;can
+you get a success in the Queen&#8217;s Hall without a
+success in these places first? I doubt it. Your husband
+now has London at his feet. Not Paris, though he may
+capture Paris after he has captured London. But London
+certainly. He cannot find a better agent than myself. All
+artists like me, because I <em>understand</em>. You see, my mother
+was harpist to the late Queen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But&mdash;&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Your husband is assuredly a genius, madam!&#8221; Mr.
+Shinner stood up in his enthusiasm, and banged his left fist
+with his right palm.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I know that,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;But you are such
+an expensive luxury.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Shinner pushed away the accusation with both
+hands. &#8220;Madam, madam, I shall take all the risks. I
+should not dream, now, of asking for a cheque on account.
+On the contrary, I should guarantee a percentage of the
+gross receipts. Perhaps I am unwise to take risks&mdash;I dare
+say I am&mdash;but I could not bear to see your husband in the
+hands of another agent. We professional men have our
+feelings.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t cry, Mr. Shinner,&#8221; said Audrey impulsively. It
+was not a proper remark to make, but the sudden impetuous
+entrance of Musa himself, carrying his violin case,
+eased the situation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There is a man which is asking for you outside in the
+corridor,&#8221; said Musa to his wife. &#8220;It is the gardener,
+Aguilar, I think. I have brought all the luggage, not excluding
+that which was lost at Hamburg.&#8221; He had a
+glorious air, and was probably more proud of his still
+improving English and of his ability as a courier than of
+his triumphs on the fiddle. &#8220;Ah!&#8221; Mr. Shinner was
+bowing before him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is Mr. Shinner, the agent, my love,&#8221; said Audrey.
+&#8220;I&#8217;ll leave you to talk to him. He sees money in you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the passage the authentic Aguilar stood with Miss
+Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here&#8217;s Mr. Aguilar,&#8221; said Miss Ingate. &#8220;I&#8217;m just
+going into No. 37, Madame Piriac&#8217;s room. Don&#8217;t you think
+Mr. Aguilar looks vehy odd in London?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good morning, Aguilar. You in town on business?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Aguilar touched his forehead. It is possible that he
+looked very odd in London, but he was wearing a most
+respectable new suit of clothes, and might well have passed
+for a land agent.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;Mornin&#8217;, ma&#8217;am. I had to come up because I couldn&#8217;t
+get delivery of those wallpapers you chose. Otherwise all
+the repairs and alterations are going on as well as could
+be expected.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And how is your wife, Aguilar?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s nicely, thank ye, ma&#8217;am. I pointed out to the
+foreman that it would be a mistake to make the dining-room
+door open the other way, as the architect suggested.
+But he would do it. However, I&#8217;ve told you, ma&#8217;am. It&#8217;ll
+only have to be altered back. Perhaps I ought to tell you
+that I took the liberty of taking a fortnight&#8217;s holiday,
+ma&#8217;am. It&#8217;s the only holiday I ever did take, except the
+annual day off for the Colchester Rose Show, which is
+perhaps more a matter of business with a head gardener
+than a holiday, as ye might say. My wife wanted me in
+London.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s not caught yet?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No&#8217;m. And I don&#8217;t think as she will be, not with me
+about. I never did allow myself to be bossed by police, and
+I always been too much for &#8217;em. And as I&#8217;m on the
+matter, ma&#8217;am, I should like to give you notice as soon
+as it&#8217;s convenient. I wouldn&#8217;t leave on any account till that
+foreman&#8217;s off the place; he&#8217;s no better than a fool. But as
+soon afterwards as you like.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Certainly, Aguilar. I was quite expecting it. Where
+are you going to live?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, ma&#8217;am, I&#8217;ve got hold of a little poultry run
+business in the north of London. It&#8217;ll be handy for Holloway
+in case&mdash;And Jane asked me to give you this letter,
+ma&#8217;am. I see her this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Audrey read the note. Very short, it was signed
+&#8220;Jane&#8221; and &#8220;Nick,&#8221; and dated from a house in Fitzroy
+Street. It caused acute excitement in Audrey.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall come at once,&#8221; said she.</p>
+
+<p>Getting rid of Aguilar, she knocked at the door of
+No. 37.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Read that,&#8221; she ordered Miss Ingate and Madame
+Piriac, giving them the note jointly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And are you going?&#8221; said Miss Ingate, nervous and
+impressed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course,&#8221; Audrey answered. &#8220;Don&#8217;t they ask me
+to go at once? I meant to write to my cousins at Woodbridge
+and my uncles in the colonies, and tell them all that
+I was settling down at last. And I meant to look at those
+new flats in Park Lane with Musa. But I shall have to
+leave all that for the present. Also my lunch.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, darling,&#8221; put in Madame Piriac, who had been
+standing before the dressing-table trying on a hat. &#8220;But,
+darling, it is very serious, this matter. What about your
+husband?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He&#8217;ll keep,&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;He&#8217;s had his turn. I
+must have mine now. I haven&#8217;t had a day off from being
+a wife for ever so long. And it&#8217;s a little enervating, you
+know. It spoils you for the fresh air.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I imagined to myself that you two were happy in an
+ideal fashion,&#8221; murmured Madame Piriac.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So we are!&#8221; said Audrey. &#8220;Though a certain coolness
+did arise over the luggage this morning. But I don&#8217;t
+want to be ideally happy all the time. And I won&#8217;t be. I
+want&mdash;I want all the sensations there are; and I want to
+be everything. And I can be. Musa understands.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If he does,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, &#8220;he&#8217;ll be the first
+husband that ever did.&#8221; Her lips were sardonic.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, of course,&#8221; said Audrey nonchalantly, &#8220;he <em>is</em>.
+Didn&#8217;t you know that?... And didn&#8217;t you tell me not
+to forget Lady Southminster?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did I?&#8221; said Miss Ingate.</p>
+
+<p>Audrey heard voices in the corridor. Musa was parting
+from a subservient Shinner. Also the luggage was bumping
+along the carpet. She called her husband into No. 37
+and kissed him rather violently in front of Madame Piriac
+and Miss Ingate, and showed him the note. Then she
+whispered to him, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What&#8217;s that you&#8217;re whispering?&#8221; Miss Ingate archly
+demanded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing. I was only asking him to come and help
+me to open my big trunk. I want something out of it.
+Au revoir, you two.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do you think of it all, Madame Piriac?&#8221; Miss
+Ingate inquired when the pair were alone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;All the sensations there are!&#8217; &#8216;Everything!&#8217;&#8221;
+Madame Piriac repeated Audrey&#8217;s phrases. &#8220;One is forced
+to conclude that she has an appetite for life.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Miss Ingate, &#8220;she wants the lion&#8217;s share of
+it, that&#8217;s what she wants. No mistake. But of course she&#8217;s
+young.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was never young like that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Neither was I! Neither was I!&#8221; Miss Ingate asseverated.
+&#8220;But something vehy, vehy strange has come over
+the world, if you ask me.&#8221;</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lion's Share, by E. Arnold Bennett
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+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/14487.txt b/old/14487.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..93ef87d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/14487.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lion's Share, by E. Arnold Bennett
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Lion's Share
+
+Author: E. Arnold Bennett
+
+Release Date: December 27, 2004 [EBook #14487]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LION'S SHARE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Nick Kocharhook and the PG
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LION'S SHARE
+
+by
+
+Arnold Bennett
+
+First Published 1916.
+
+
+
+_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
+
+NOVELS--
+    A MAN FROM THE NORTH
+    ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+    LEONORA
+    A GREAT MAN
+    SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
+    WHOM GOD HATH JOINED
+    BURIED ALIVE
+    THE OLD WIVES' TALE
+    THE GLIMPSE
+    HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND
+    CLAYHANGER
+    HILDA LESSWAYS
+    THESE TWAIN
+    THE CARD
+    THE REGENT
+    THE PRICE OF LOVE
+
+
+FANTASIAS--
+    THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL
+    THE GATES OF WRATH
+    TERESA OF WATLING STREET
+    THE LOOT OF CITIES
+    HUGO
+    THE GHOST
+    THE CITY OF PLEASURE
+
+
+SHORT STORIES--
+    TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+    THE GRIM SMILE OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+    THE MATADOR OF THE FIVE TOWNS
+
+
+BELLES-LETTRES--
+    JOURNALISM FOR WOMEN
+    FAME AND FICTION
+    HOW TO BECOME AN AUTHOR
+    THE TRUTH ABOUT AN AUTHOR
+    THE REASONABLE LIFE
+    HOW TO LIVE ON TWENTY-FOUR HOURS A DAY
+    THE HUMAN MACHINE
+    LITERARY TASTE
+    FRIENDSHIP AND HAPPINESS
+    THOSE UNITED STATES
+    MARRIAGE
+    LIBERTY
+
+
+DRAMA--
+    POLITE FARCES
+    CUPID AND COMMONSENSE
+    WHAT THE PUBLIC WANTS
+    THE HONEYMOON
+    THE GREAT ADVENTURE
+    MILESTONES (in collaboration with Edward Knoblauch)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+        (In collaboration with Eden Phillpotts)
+    THE SINEWS OF WAR: A Romance
+    THE STATUE: A Romance
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+1. MISS INGATE, AND THE YACHT
+2. THE THIEF'S PLAN WRECKED
+3. THE LEGACY
+4. MR. FOULGER
+5. THE DEAD HAND
+6. THE YOUNG WIDOW
+7. THE CIGARETTE GIRL
+8. EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD
+9. LIFE IN PARIS
+10. FANCY DRESS
+11. A POLITICAL REFUGEE
+12. WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO
+13. THE SWOON
+14. MISS INGATE POINTS OUT THE DOOR
+15. THE RIGHT BANK
+16. ROBES
+17. SOIREE
+18. A DECISION
+19. THE BOUDOIR
+20. PAGET GARDENS
+21. JANE
+22. THE DETECTIVE
+23. THE BLUE CITY
+24. THE SPATTS
+25. THE MUTE
+26. NOCTURNE
+27. IN THE GARDEN
+28. ENCOUNTER
+29. FLIGHT
+30. ARIADNE
+31. THE NOSTRUM
+32. BY THE BINNACLE
+33. AGUILAR'S DOUBLE LIFE
+34. THE TANK-ROOM
+35. THE THIRD SORT OF WOMAN
+36. IN THE DINGHY
+37. AFLOAT
+38. IN THE UNIVERSE
+39. THE IMMINENT DRIVE
+40. GENIUS AT BAY
+41. FINANCIAL NEWS
+42. INTERVAL
+43. ENTR'ACTE
+44. END OF THE CONCERT
+45. STRANGE RESULT OF A QUARREL
+46. AN EPILOGUE
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+MISS INGATE, AND THE YACHT
+
+
+Audrey had just closed the safe in her father's study when she was startled
+by a slight noise. She turned like a defensive animal to face danger. It
+had indeed occurred to her that she was rather like an animal in captivity,
+and she found a bitter pleasure in the idea, though it was not at all
+original.
+
+"And Flank Hall is my Zoo!" she had said. (Not that she had ever seen the
+Zoological Gardens or visited London.)
+
+She was lithe; she moved with charm. Her short, plain blue serge
+walking-frock disclosed the form of her limbs and left them free, and it
+made her look younger even than she was. Its simplicity suited her gestures
+and took grace from them. But she wore the old thing without the least
+interest in it--almost unconsciously. She had none of the preoccupations
+caused by the paraphernalia of existence. She scarcely knew what it was to
+own. She was aware only of her body and her soul. Beyond these her
+possessions were so few, so mean, so unimportant, that she might have
+carried them to the grave and into heaven without protest from the
+authorities earthly or celestial.
+
+The slight noise was due to the door of the study, which great age had
+distorted and bereft of sense, and, in fact, almost unhinged. It unlatched
+itself, paused, and then calmly but firmly swung wide open. When it could
+swing no farther it shook, vibrating into repose.
+
+Audrey condemned the door for a senile lunatic, and herself for a poltroon.
+She became defiant of peril, until the sound of a step on the stair beyond
+the door threw her back into alarm. But when the figure of Miss Ingate
+appeared in the doorway she was definitely reassured, to the point of
+disdain. All her facial expression said: "It's only Miss Ingate."
+
+And yet Miss Ingate was not a negligible woman. Her untidy hair was
+greying; she was stout, she was fifty, she was plain, she had not elegance;
+her accent and turns of speech were noticeably those of Essex. But she had
+a magnificent pale forehead; the eyes beneath it sparkled with energy,
+inquisitiveness, and sagacity; and the mouth beneath the eyes showed by its
+sardonic dropping corners that she had come to a settled, cheerful
+conclusion about human nature, and that the conclusion was not flattering.
+Miss Ingate was a Guardian of the Poor, and the Local Representative of the
+Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association. She had studied intimately
+the needy and the rich and the middling. She was charitable without
+illusions; and, while adhering to every social convention, she did so with
+a toleration pleasantly contemptuous; in her heart she had no mercy for
+snobs of any kind, though, unfortunately, she was at times absurdly
+intimidated by them--at other times she was not.
+
+To the west, within a radius of twelve miles, she knew everybody and
+everybody knew her; to the east her fame was bounded only by the regardless
+sea. She and her ancestors had lived in the village of Moze as long as even
+Mr. Mathew Moze and his ancestors. In the village, and to the village, she
+was Miss Ingate, a natural phenomenon, like the lie of the land and the
+river Moze. Her opinions offended nobody, not Mr. Moze himself--she was
+Miss Ingate. She was laughed at, beloved and respected. Her sagacity had
+one flaw, and the flaw sprang from her sincere conviction that human nature
+in that corner of Essex, which she understood so profoundly, and where she
+was so perfectly at home, was different from, and more fondly foolish than,
+human nature in any other part of the world. She could not believe that
+distant populations could be at once so pathetically and so naughtily human
+as the population in and around Moze.
+
+If Audrey disdained Miss Ingate, it was only because Miss Ingate was
+neither young nor fair nor the proprietress of some man, and because people
+made out that she was peculiar. In some respects Audrey looked upon Miss
+Ingate as a life-belt, as the speck of light at the end of a tunnel, as the
+enigmatic smile which glimmers always in the frown of destiny.
+
+"Well?" cried Miss Ingate in her rather shrill voice, grinning
+sardonically, with the corners of her lips still lower than usual in
+anticipatory sarcasm. It was as if she had said: "You cannot surprise me by
+any narrative of imbecility or turpitude or bathos. All the same, I am
+dying to hear the latest eccentricity of this village."
+
+"Well?" parried Audrey, holding one hand behind her.
+
+They did not shake hands. People who call at ten o'clock in the morning
+cannot expect to have their hands shaken. Miss Ingate certainly expected
+nothing of the sort. She had the freedom of Flank Hall, as of scores of
+other houses, at all times of day. Servants opened front doors for her with
+a careless smile, and having shut front doors they left her loose, like a
+familiar cat, to find what she wanted. They seldom "showed" her into any
+room, nor did they dream of acting before her the unconvincing comedy of
+going to "see" whether masters or mistresses were out or in.
+
+"Where's your mother?" asked Miss Ingate idly, quite sure that interesting
+divulgations would come, and quite content to wait for them. She had been
+out of the village for over a week.
+
+"Mother's taking her acetyl salicylic," Audrey answered, coming to the door
+of the study.
+
+This meant merely that Mrs. Moze had a customary attack of the neuralgia
+for which the district is justly renowned among strangers.
+
+"Oh!" murmured Miss Ingate callously. Mrs. Moze, though she had lived in
+the district for twenty-five years, did not belong to it. If she chose to
+keep on having neuralgia, that was her affair, but in justice to natives
+and to the district she ought not to make too much of it, and she ought to
+admit that it might well be due to her weakness after her operation. Miss
+Ingate considered the climate to be the finest in England; which it was, on
+the condition that you were proof against neuralgia.
+
+"Father's gone to Colchester in the car to see the Bishop," Audrey coldly
+added.
+
+"If I'd known he was going to Colchester I should have asked him for a
+lift," said Miss Ingate, with determination.
+
+"Oh, yes! He'd have taken _you!_" said Audrey, reserved. "I suppose you
+had fine times in London!"
+
+"Oh! It was vehy exciting! It was vehy exciting!" Miss Ingate agreed
+loudly.
+
+"Father wouldn't let me read about it in the paper," said Audrey, still
+reserved. "He never will, you know. But I did!"
+
+"Oh! But you didn't read about me playing the barrel organ all the way down
+Regent Street, because that wasn't in any of the papers."
+
+"You _didn't!_" Audrey protested, with a sudden dark smile.
+
+"Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Yes, I did. And vehy tiring it was. Vehy tiring
+indeed. It's quite an art to turn a barrel organ. If you don't keep going
+perfectly even it makes the tune jerky. Oh! I know a bit about barrel
+organs now. They smashed it all to pieces. Oh yes! All to pieces. I spoke
+to the police. I said, 'Aren't you going to protect these ladies'
+property?' But they didn't lift a finger."
+
+"And weren't you arrested?"
+
+"Me!" shrieked Miss Ingate. "Me arrested!" Then more quietly, in an assured
+tone, "Oh no! I wasn't arrested. You see, as soon as the row began I just
+walked away from the organ and became one of the crowd. I'm all _for_ them,
+but I wasn't going to be arrested."
+
+Miss Ingate's sparkling eyes seemed to say: "Sylvia Pankhurst can be
+arrested if she likes, and so can Mrs. Despard and Annie Kenney and Jane
+Foley, or any of them. But the policeman that is clever enough to catch
+Miss Ingate of Moze does not exist. And the gumption of Miss Ingate of Moze
+surpasses the united gumption of all the other feminists in England."
+
+"Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!" repeated Miss Ingate with mingled complacency, glee,
+passion, and sardonic tolerance of the whole panorama of worldly existence.
+"The police were awful, shocking. But I was not arrested."
+
+"Well, _I_ was--this morning," said Audrey in a low and poignant voice.
+
+Miss Ingate was startled out of her mood of the detached ironic spectator.
+
+"What?" she frowned.
+
+They heard a servant moving about at the foot of the stairs, and a capped
+head could be seen through the interstices of the white Chinese balustrade.
+The study was the only immediate refuge; Miss Ingate advanced right into
+it, and Audrey pushed the door to.
+
+"Father's given me a month's C.B."
+
+Miss Ingate, gazing at the girl's face, saw in its quiet and yet savage
+desperation the possibility that after all she might indeed be surprised by
+the vagaries of human nature in the village. And her glance became
+sympathetic, even tender, as well as apprehensive.
+
+"'C.B.'? What do you mean--'C.B.'?"
+
+"Don't you know what C.B. means?" exclaimed Audrey with scornful
+superiority over the old spinster. "Confined to barracks. Father says I'm
+not to go beyond the grounds for a month. And to-day's the second of
+April!"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Yes, he does. He's given me a week, you know, before. Now it's a month."
+
+Silence fell.
+
+Miss Ingate looked round at the shabby study, with its guns, cigar-boxes,
+prints, books neither old nor new, japanned boxes of documents, and general
+litter scattered over the voluted walnut furniture. Her own house was
+old-fashioned, and she realised it was old-fashioned; but when she came
+into Flank Hall, and particularly into Mr. Moze's study, she felt as if
+she was stepping backwards into history--and this in spite of the fact that
+nothing in the place was really ancient, save the ceilings and the woodwork
+round the windows. It was Mr. Moze's habit of mind that dominated and
+transmogrified the whole interior, giving it the quality of a mausoleum.
+The suffragette procession in which Miss Ingate had musically and
+discreetly taken part seemed to her as she stood in Mr. Moze's changeless
+lair to be a phantasm. Then she looked at the young captive animal and
+perceived that two centuries may coincide on the same carpet and that time
+is merely a convention.
+
+"What you been doing?" she questioned, with delicacy.
+
+"I took a strange man by the hand," said Audrey, choosing her words
+queerly, as she sometimes did, to produce a dramatic effect.
+
+"This morning?"
+
+"Yes. Eight o'clock."
+
+"What? Is there a strange man in the village?"
+
+"You don't mean to say you haven't seen the yacht!"
+
+"Yacht?" Miss Ingate showed some excitement.
+
+"Come and look, Winnie," said Audrey, who occasionally thought fit to
+address Miss Ingate in the manner of the elder generation. She drew Miss
+Ingate to the window.
+
+Between the brown curtains Mozewater, the broad, shallow estuary of the
+Moze, was spread out glittering in the sunshine which could not get into
+the chilly room. The tide was nearly at full, and the estuary looked like a
+mighty harbour for great ships; but in six hours it would be reduced to a
+narrow stream winding through mud flats of marvellous ochres, greens, and
+pinks. In the hazy distance a fitful white flash showed where ocean waves
+were breaking on a sand-bank. And in the foreground, against a disused Hard
+that was a couple of hundred yards lower down than the village Hard, a
+large white yacht was moored, probably the largest yacht that had ever
+threaded that ticklish navigation. She was a shallow-draft barge-yacht,
+rigged like a Thames barge, and her whiteness and the glint of her brass,
+and the flicker of her ensign at the stern were dazzling. Blue figures ran
+busily about on her, and a white-and-blue person in a peaked cap stood
+importantly at the wheel.
+
+"She was on the mud last night," said Audrey eagerly, "opposite the Flank
+buoy, and she came up this morning at half-flood. I think they made fast at
+Lousey Hard, because they couldn't get any farther without waiting. They
+have a motor, and it must be their first trip this season. I was on the
+dyke. I wasn't even looking at them, but they called me, so I had to go.
+They only wanted to know if Lousey Hard was private. Of course I told them
+it wasn't. It was a very middle-aged man spoke to me. He must be the owner.
+As soon as they were tied up he wanted to jump ashore. It was rather
+awkward, and I just held out my hand to help him. Father saw me from here.
+I might have known he would."
+
+"Why! It's going off!" exclaimed Miss Ingate.
+
+The yacht swung slowly round, held by her stern to the Hard. Then the last
+hawser was cast off, and she floated away on the first of the ebb; and as
+she moved, her main-sail, unbrailed, spread itself out and became a vast
+pinion. Like a dream of happiness she lessened and faded, and Lousey Hard
+was as lonely and forlorn as ever.
+
+"But didn't you explain to your father?" Miss Ingate demanded of Audrey.
+
+"Of course I did. But he wouldn't listen. He never does. I might just as
+well have explained to the hall-clock. He raged. I think he enjoys losing
+his temper. He said I oughtn't to have been there at all, and it was just
+like me, and he couldn't understand it in a daughter of his, and it would
+be a great shock to my poor mother, and he'd talked enough--he should now
+proceed to action. All the usual things. He actually asked me who 'the man'
+was."
+
+"And who was it?"
+
+"How can I tell? For goodness' sake don't go imitating father, Winnie! ...
+Rather a dull man, I should say. Rather like father, only not so old. He
+had a beautiful necktie; I think it must have been made out of a strip of
+Joseph's coat."
+
+Miss Ingate giggled at a high pitch, and Audrey responsively smiled.
+
+"Oh dear! Oh dear!" murmured Miss Ingate when her giggling was exhausted.
+"How queer it is that a girl like you can't keep your father in a good
+temper!"
+
+"Father hates me to say funny things. If I say anything funny he turns as
+black as ink--and he takes care to keep gloomy all the rest of the day,
+too. He never laughs. Mother laughs now and then, but I never heard father
+laugh. Oh yes, I did. He laughed when the cat fell out of the bathroom
+window on to the lawn-roller. He went quite red in the face with
+laughing.... I say, Miss Ingate, do you think father's mad?"
+
+"I shouldn't think he's what you call mad," replied Miss Ingate judicially,
+with admirable sang-froid. "I've known so many peculiar people in my time.
+And you must remember, Audrey, this is a peculiar part of the world."
+
+"Well, I believe he's mad, anyway. I believe he's got men on the brain,
+especially young men. He's growing worse. Yesterday he told me I musn't
+have the punt out on Mozewater this season unless he's with me. Fancy
+skiffing about with father! He says I'm too old for that now. So there you
+are. The older I get the less I'm allowed to do. I can't go a walk, unless
+it's an errand. The pedal is off my bike, and father is much too cunning to
+have it repaired. I can't boat. I'm never given any money. He grumbles
+frightfully if I want any clothes, so I never want any. That's my latest
+dodge. I've read every book in the house except the silly liturgical and
+legal things he's always having from the London Library--and I've read even
+some of those. He won't buy any new music. Golf! Ye gods, Winnie, you
+should hear him talk about ladies and golf!"
+
+"I have," said Miss Ingate. "But it doesn't ruffle me, because I don't
+play."
+
+"But he plays with girls, and young girls, too, all the same. He's been
+caught in the act. Ethel told me. He little thinks I know. He'd let me play
+if he could be the only man on the course. He's mad about me and men. He
+never looks at me without thinking of all the boys in the district."
+
+"But he's really very fond of you, Audrey."
+
+"Yes, I know," said Audrey. "He ought to keep me in the china cupboard."
+
+"Well, it's a great problem."
+
+"He's invented a beautiful new trick for keeping me in when he's out. I
+have to copy his beastly Society letters for him."
+
+"I see he's got a new box," observed Miss Ingate, glancing into the open
+cupboard in which stood the safe. On the top of the safe were two japanned
+boxes, each lettered in white: "The National Reformation Society." The
+uppermost box was freshly unpacked and shone with all the intact pride of
+virginity.
+
+"You should read some of the letters. You really should, Winnie," said
+Audrey. "All the bigwigs of the Society love writing to each other. I bet
+you father will get a typewriting machine this year, and make me learn it.
+The chairman has a typewriter, and father means to be the next chairman.
+You'll see.... Oh! What's that? Listen!"
+
+"What's what?"
+
+A faint distant throbbing could be heard.
+
+"It's the motor! He's coming back for something. Fly out of here, Winnie,
+fly!"
+
+Audrey felt sick at the thought that if her father had returned only a few
+minutes earlier he might have trapped her at the safe itself. She still
+kept one hand behind her.
+
+Miss Ingate, who with all her qualities was rather easily flustered, ran
+out of the dangerous room in Audrey's wake. They met Mr. Mathew Moze at
+the half-landing of the stairs.
+
+He was a man of average size, somewhat past sixty years. He had plump
+cheeks, tinged with red; his hair, moustache and short, full beard, were
+quite grey. He wore a thick wide-spreading ulster, and between his coat and
+waistcoat a leather vest, and on his head a grey cap. Put him in the Strand
+in town clothes, and he might have been taken for a clerk, a civil servant,
+a club secretary, a retired military officer, a poet, an undertaker--for
+anything except the last of a long line of immovable squires who could not
+possibly conceive what it was not to be the owner of land. His face was
+preoccupied and overcast, but as soon as he realised that Miss Ingate was
+on the stairs it instantly brightened into a warm and rather wistful smile.
+
+"Good morning, Miss Ingate," he greeted her with deferential cordiality.
+"I'm so glad to see you back."
+
+"Good morning, good morning, Mr. Moze," responded Miss Ingate. "Vehy nice
+of you. Vehy nice of you."
+
+Nobody would have guessed from their demeanour that they differed on every
+subject except their loyalty to that particular corner of Essex, that he
+regarded her and her political associates as deadly microbes in the
+national organism, and that she regarded him as a nincompoop crossed with a
+tyrant. Each of them had a magic glass to see in the other nothing but a
+local Effendi and familiar guardian angel of Moze. Moreover, Mr. Moze's
+public smile and public manner were irresistible--until he lost his temper.
+He might have had friends by the score, had it not been for his deep
+constitutional reserve--due partly to diffidence and partly to an immense
+hidden conceit. Mr. Moze's existence was actuated, though he knew it not,
+by the conviction that the historic traditions of England were committed to
+his keeping. Hence the conceit, which was that of a soul secretly
+self-dedicated.
+
+Audrey, outraged by the hateful hypocrisy of persons over fifty, and
+terribly constrained and alarmed, turned vaguely back up the stairs. Miss
+Ingate, not quite knowing what she did, with an equal vagueness followed
+her.
+
+"Come in. Do come in," urged Mr. Moze at the door of the study.
+
+Audrey, who remained on the landing, heard her elders talk smoothly of
+grave Mozian things, while Mr. Moze unlocked the new tin box above the
+safe.
+
+"I'd forgotten a most important paper," said he, as he relocked the box. "I
+have an appointment with the Bishop of Colchester at ten-forty-five, and I
+fear I may be late. Will you excuse me, Miss Ingate?"
+
+She excused him.
+
+Departing, he put the paper into his pocket with a careful and loving
+gesture that well symbolised his passionate affection for the Society of
+which he was already the vice-chairman. He had been a member of the
+National Reformation Society for eleven years. Despite the promise of its
+name, this wealthy association of idealists had no care for reforms in a
+sadly imperfect England. Its aim was anti-Romanist. The Reformation which
+it had in mind was Luther's, and it wished, by fighting an alleged
+insidious revival of Roman Catholicism, to make sure that so far as England
+was concerned Luther had not preached in vain.
+
+Mr. Moze's connection with the Society had originated in a quarrel between
+himself and a Catholic priest from Ipswich who had instituted a boys'
+summer camp on the banks of Mozewater near the village of Moze. Until that
+quarrel, the exceeding noxiousness of the Papal doctrine had not clearly
+presented itself to Mr. Moze. In such strange ways may an ideal come to
+birth. As Mr. Moze, preoccupied and gloomy once more, steered himself
+rapidly out of Moze towards the episcopal presence, the image of the
+imperturbable and Jesuitical priest took shape in his mind, refreshing his
+determination to be even with Rome at any cost.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE THIEF'S PLAN WRECKED
+
+
+"The fact is," said Audrey, "father has another woman in the house now."
+
+Mr. Moze had left Miss Ingate in the study and Audrey had cautiously
+rejoined her there.
+
+"Another woman in the house!" repeated Miss Ingate, sitting down in happy
+expectation. "What on earth do you mean? Who on earth do you mean?"
+
+"I mean me."
+
+"You aren't a woman, Audrey."
+
+"I'm just as much of a woman as you are. All father's behaviour proves it."
+
+"But your father treats you as a child."
+
+"No, he doesn't. He treats me as a woman. If he thought I was a child he
+wouldn't have anything to worry about. I'm over nineteen."
+
+"You don't look it."
+
+"Of course I don't. But I could if I liked. I simply won't look it because
+I don't care to be made ridiculous. I should start to look my age at once
+if father stopped treating me like a child."
+
+"But you've just said he treats you as a woman!"
+
+"You don't understand, Winnie," said the girl sharply. "Unless you're
+pretending. Now you've never told me anything about yourself, and I've
+always told you lots about myself. You belong to an old-fashioned family.
+How were you treated when you were my age?"
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"You know what way," said Audrey, gazing at her.
+
+"Well, my dear. Things seemed to come very naturally, somehow."
+
+"Were you ever engaged?"
+
+"Me? Oh, no!" answered Miss Ingate with tranquillity. "I'm vehy interested
+in them. Oh, vehy! Oh, vehy! And I like talking to them. But anything more
+than that gets on my nerves. My eldest sister was the one. Oh! She was the
+one. She refused eleven men, and when she was going to be married she made
+me embroider the monograms of all of them on the skirt of her
+wedding-dress. She made me, and I had to do it. I sat up all night the
+night before the wedding to finish them."
+
+"And what did the bridegroom say about it?"
+
+"The bridegroom didn't say anything about it because he didn't know. Nobody
+knew except Arabella and me. She just wanted to feel that the monograms
+were on her dress, that was all."
+
+"How strange!"
+
+"Yes, it was. But this is a vehy strange part of the world."
+
+"And what happened afterwards?"
+
+"Bella died when she had her first baby, and the baby died as well. And the
+father's dead now, too."
+
+"What a horrid story, Winnie!" Audrey murmured. And after a pause: "I like
+your sister."
+
+"She was vehy uncommon. But I liked her too. I don't know why, but I did.
+She could make the best marmalade I ever tasted in my born days."
+
+"I could make the best marmalade you ever tasted in your born days," said
+Audrey, sinking neatly to the floor and crossing her legs, "but they won't
+let me."
+
+"Won't let you! But I thought you did all sorts of things in the house."
+
+"No, Winnie. I only do one thing. I do as I'm told--and not always even
+that. Now, if I wanted to make the best marmalade you ever tasted in your
+born days, first of all there would be a fearful row about the oranges.
+Secondly, father would tell mother she must tell me exactly what I was to
+do. He would also tell cook. Thirdly and lastly, dear friends, he would
+come into the kitchen himself. It wouldn't be my marmalade at all. I should
+only be a marmalade-making machine. They never let me have any
+responsibility--no, not even when mother's operation was on--and I'm never
+officially free. The kitchen-maid has far more responsibility than I have.
+And she has an evening off and an afternoon off. She can write a letter
+without everybody asking her who she's writing to. She's only seventeen.
+She has the morning postman for a young man now, and probably one or two
+others that I don't know of. And she has money and she buys her own
+clothes. She's a very naughty, wicked girl, and I wish I was in her place.
+She scorns me, naturally. Who wouldn't?"
+
+Miss Ingate said not a word. She merely sat with her hands in the lap of
+her spotted pale-blue dress, faintly and sadly smiling.
+
+Audrey burst out:
+
+"Miss Ingate, what can I do? I must do something. What can I do?"
+
+Miss Ingate shook her head, and put her lips tightly together, while
+mechanically smoothing the sides of her grey coat.
+
+"I don't know," she said. "It beats me."
+
+"Then _I'll_ tell you what I can do!" answered Audrey firmly, wriggling
+somewhat nearer to her along the floor. "And what I shall do."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Will you promise to keep it a secret?"
+
+Miss Ingate nodded, smiling and showing her teeth. Her broad polished
+forehead positively shone with kindly eagerness.
+
+"Will you swear?"
+
+Miss Ingate hesitated, and then nodded again.
+
+"Then put your hand on my head and say, 'I swear.'"
+
+Miss Ingate obeyed.
+
+"I shall leave this house," said Audrey in a low voice.
+
+"You won't, Audrey!"
+
+"I'll eat my hand off if I've not left this house by to-morrow, anyway."
+
+"To-morrow!" Miss Ingate nearly screamed. "Now, Audrey, do reflect. Think
+what you are!"
+
+Audrey bounded to her feet.
+
+"That's what father's always saying," she exploded angrily. "He's always
+telling me to examine myself. The fact is, I know too much about myself. I
+know exactly the kind of girl it is who's going to leave this house.
+Exactly!"
+
+"Audrey, you frighten me. Where are you going to?"
+
+"London."
+
+"Oh! That's all right then. I am relieved. I thought perhaps you waited to
+come to _my_ house. You won't get to London, because you haven't any
+money."
+
+"Oh, yes, I have. I've got a hundred pounds."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Remember, you've sworn.... Here!" she cried suddenly, and drawing her hand
+from behind her back she most sensationally displayed a crushed roll of
+bank-notes.
+
+"And who did you get those from?"
+
+"I didn't get them from anybody. I got them out of father's safe. They're
+his reserve. He keeps them right at the back of the left-hand drawer, and
+he's so sure they're there that he never looks for them. He thinks he's a
+perfect model, but really he's careless. There's a duplicate key to the
+safe, you know, and he leaves it with a lot of other keys loose in his
+desk. I expect he thought nobody would ever dream of guessing it was a key
+of the safe. I know he never looked at this roll, because I've been opening
+the safe every day for weeks past, and the roll was always the same. In
+fact, it was dusty. Then to-day I decided to take it, and here you are! He
+finished himself off yesterday, so far as I'm concerned, with the business
+about the punt."
+
+"But do you know you're a thief, Audrey?" breathed Miss Ingate, extremely
+embarrassed, and for once somewhat staggered by the vagaries of human
+nature.
+
+"You seem to forget, Miss Ingate," said Audrey solemnly, "that Cousin
+Caroline left me a legacy of two hundred pounds last year, and that I've
+never seen a penny of it. Father absolutely declined to let me have the
+tiniest bit of it. Well, I've taken half. He can keep the other half for
+his trouble."
+
+Miss Ingate's mouth stood open, and her eyes seemed startled.
+
+"But you can't go to London alone. You wouldn't know what to do."
+
+"Yes, I should. I've arranged everything. I shall wear my best clothes.
+When I arrive at Liverpool Street I shall take a taxi. I've got three
+addresses of boarding-houses out of the _Daily Telegraph_, and they're all
+in Bloomsbury, W.C. I shall have lessons in shorthand and typewriting at
+Pitman's School, and then I shall get a situation. My name will be
+Vavasour."
+
+"But you'll be caught."
+
+"I shan't. I shall book to Ipswich first and begin again from there. Girls
+like me aren't so easy to catch as all that."
+
+"You're vehy cunning."
+
+"I get that from mother. She's most frightfully cunning with father."
+
+"Audrey," said Miss Ingate with a strange grin, "I don't know how I can sit
+here and listen to you. You'll ruin me with your father, because if you go
+I'm sure I shall never be able to keep from him that I knew all about it."
+
+"Then you shouldn't have sworn," retorted Audrey. "But I'm glad you did
+swear, because I had to tell somebody, and there was nobody but you."
+
+Miss Ingate might possibly have contrived to employ some of that sagacity
+in which she took a secret pride upon a very critical and urgent situation,
+had not Mrs. Moze, with a white handkerchief wrapped round her forehead,
+at that moment come into the room. Immediately the study was full of
+neuralgia and eau-de-Cologne.
+
+When Mrs. Moze and Miss Ingate at length recovered from the tenderness of
+meeting each other after a separation of ten days or more, Audrey had
+vanished like an illusion. She was not afraid of her mother; and she could
+trust Miss Ingate, though Miss Ingate and Mrs. Moze were dangerously
+intimate; but she was too self-conscious to remain in the presence of her
+fellow-creatures; and in spite of her faith in Miss Ingate she thought of
+the spinster as of a vase filled now with a fatal liquor which by any
+accident might spill and spread ruin--so that she could scarcely bear to
+look upon Miss Ingate.
+
+At the back of the house a young Pomeranian dog, which had recently solaced
+Miss Ingate in the loss of a Pekingese done to death by a spinster's
+too-nourishing love, was prancing on his four springs round the chained
+yard-dog, his friend and patron. In a series of marvellous short bounds, he
+followed Audrey with yapping eagerness down the slope of the garden; and
+the yard-dog, aware that none but the omnipotent deity, Mr. Moze, sole
+source of good and evil, had the right to loose him, turned round once and
+laid himself flat and long on the ground, sighing.
+
+The garden, after developing into an orchard and deteriorating into a
+scraggy plantation, ended in a low wall that was at about the level of the
+sea-wall and separated from it by a water-course and a strip of very green
+meadow. Audrey glanced instinctively back at the house to see if anybody
+was watching her.
+
+Flank Hall, which for a hundred years had been called "the new hall," was a
+seemly Georgian residence, warm in colour, with some quaint woodwork; and
+like most such buildings in Essex, it made a very happy marriage with the
+landscape. Its dormers and fine chimneys glowed amid the dark bare trees,
+and they alone would have captivated a Londoner possessing those precious
+attributes, fortunately ever spreading among the enlightened
+middle-classes, a motor-car, a cultured taste in architecture, and a desire
+to enter the squirearchy. Audrey loathed the house. For her it was the last
+depth of sordidness and the commonplace. She could imagine positively
+nothing less romantic. She thought of the ground floor on chill March
+mornings with no fires anywhere save a red gleam in the dining-room, and
+herself wandering about in it idle, at a loss for a diversion, an ambition,
+an effort, a real task; and she thought of the upper floor, a mainly
+unoccupied wilderness of iron bedsteads and yellow chests of drawers and
+chipped earthenware and islands of carpets, and her mother plaintively and
+weariedly arguing with some servant over a slop-pail in a corner. The
+images of the interior, indelibly printed in her soul, desolated her.
+
+Mozewater she loved, and every souvenir of it was exquisite--red barges
+beating miraculously up the shallow puddles to Moze Quay, equinoctial
+spring-tides when the estuary was a tremendous ocean covered with foam and
+the sea-wall felt the light lash of spray, thunderstorms in autumn
+gathering over the yellow melancholy of deathlike sunsets, wild birds
+crying across miles of uncovered mud at early morning and duck-hunters
+crouching in punts behind a waving screen of delicate grasses to wing them,
+and the mysterious shapes of steamers and warships in the offing beyond the
+Sand.... The sail of the receding yacht gleamed now against the Sand, and
+its flashing broke her heart; for it was the flashing of freedom. She
+thought of the yachtsman; he was very courteous and deferential; a mild
+creature; he had behaved to her as to a woman.... Oh! To be the petted and
+capricious wife of such a man, to nod commands, to enslave with a smile, to
+want a thing and instantly to have it, to be consulted and to decide, to
+spend with large gestures, to be charitable, to be adored by those whom you
+had saved from disaster, to increase happiness wherever you went ... and to
+be free!....
+
+The little dog jumped up at her because he was tired of being ignored, and
+she caught him and kissed him again and again passionately, and he wriggled
+with ecstasy and licked her ears with all the love in him. And in kissing
+him she kissed grave and affectionate husbands, she kissed the lovely
+scenery of the Sound, and she kissed the magnificent ideal of emancipation.
+But the dog had soon had enough of her arms; he broke free, sprang,
+alighted, and rolled over, and arose sniffing, with earth on his black
+muzzle....
+
+He looked up at her inquiringly.... Strange, short-frocked blue figure
+looking down at him! She had a bulging forehead; her brown eyes were
+tunnelled underneath it. But what living eyes, what ardent eyes, that
+blazed up and sank like a fire! What delicate and exact mirrors of the
+secret traffic between her soul and the soul of the world!  She had full
+cheeks, and a large mouth ripe red, inviting and provocative. In the midst,
+an absurd small unprominent nose that meant nothing! Her complexion was
+divine, surpassing all similes. To caress that smooth downy cheek (if you
+looked close you could see the infinitesimal down against the light like an
+aura on the edge of the silhouette), even to let the gaze dwell on it, what
+an enchantment!... She considered herself piquant and comely, and she was
+not deceived. She had long hands.
+
+The wind from afar on her cheek reminded her poignantly that she was a
+prisoner. She could not go to the clustered village on the left, nor into
+the saltings on the right, nor even on to the sea-wall where the new rushes
+and grasses were showing. All the estuary was barred, and the winding road
+that mounted the slope towards Colchester. Her revolt against injustice
+was savage. Hatred of her father surged up in her like glittering lava. She
+had long since ceased to try to comprehend him. She despised herself
+because she was unreasonably afraid of him, ridiculously mute before him.
+She could not understand how anybody could be friendly with him--for was he
+not notorious? Yet everywhere he was greeted with respect and smiles, and
+he would chat at length with all manner of people on a note of mild and
+smooth cordiality. He and Miss Ingate would enjoy together the most
+enormous talks. She was, however, aware that Miss Ingate's opinion of him
+was not very different from her own. Each time she saw her father and Miss
+Ingate in communion she would say in her heart to Miss Ingate: "You are
+disloyal to me." ...
+
+Was it possible that she had confided to Miss Ingate her fearful secret?
+The conversation appeared to her unreal now. She went over her plan. In the
+afternoon her father was always out, and to-morrow afternoon her mother
+would be out too. She would have a few things in a light bag that she could
+carry--her mother's bag! She would put on her best clothes and a veil from
+her mother's wardrobe. She would take the 4.5 p.m. train. The stationmaster
+would be at his tea then. Only the booking-clerk and the porter would see
+her, and neither would dare to make an observation. She would ask for a
+return ticket to Ipswich; that would allay suspicion, and at Ipswich she
+would book again. She had cut out the addresses of the boarding-houses.
+She would have to buy things in London. She knew of two shops--Harrod's and
+Shoolbred's; she had seen their catalogues. And the very next morning after
+arrival she would go to Pitman's School. She would change the first of the
+L5 notes at the station and ask for plenty of silver. She glanced at the
+unlimited wealth still crushed in her hand, and then she carefully dropped
+the fortune down the neck of her frock.... Stealing? She repulsed the idea
+with violent disdain. What she had accomplished against her father was not
+a crime, but a vengeance.... She would never be found in London. It was
+impossible. Her plan seemed to her to be perfect in each detail, except
+one. She was not the right sort of girl to execute it. She was very shy.
+She suspected that no other girl could really be as shy as she was. She
+recalled dreadful rare moments with her mother in strange drawing-rooms.
+Still, she would execute the plan even if she died of fright. A force
+within her would compel her to execute it. This force did not make for
+happiness; on the contrary, it uncomfortably scared her; but it was
+irresistible.
+
+Something on the brow of the road from Colchester attracted her attention.
+It was a handcart, pushed by a labourer and by Police Inspector Keeble,
+whom she liked. Following the handcart over the brow came a loose
+procession of villagers, which included no children, because the children
+were in school. Except on a Sunday Audrey had never before seen a
+procession of villagers, and these villagers must have been collected out
+of the fields, for the procession was going in the direction of, and not
+away from, the village. The handcart was covered with a tarpaulin.... She
+knew what had happened; she knew infallibly. Skirting the boundary of the
+grounds, she reached the main entrance to Flank Hall thirty seconds before
+the handcart. The little dog, delighted in a new adventure, yapped
+ecstatically at her heels, and then bounded onwards to meet the Inspector
+and the handcart.
+
+"Run and tell yer mother, Miss Moze," Inspector Keeble called out in a
+carrying whisper. "There's been an accident. He ditched the car near
+Ardleigh cross-roads, trying to avoid some fowls."
+
+Mr. Moze, hurrying too fast to meet the Bishop of Colchester, had met a
+greater than the Bishop.
+
+Audrey glanced an instant with a sick qualm at the outlines of the shape
+beneath the tarpaulin, and ran.
+
+In the dining-room, over the speck of fire, Mrs. Moze and Miss Ingate were
+locked in a deep intimate gossip.
+
+"Mother!" cried Audrey, and then sank like a sack.
+
+"Why! The little thing's fainted!" Miss Ingate exclaimed in a voice
+suddenly hoarse.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LEGACY
+
+
+Audrey and Miss Ingate were in the late Mathew Moze's study, fascinated--as
+much unconsciously as consciously--by the thing which since its owner's
+death had grown every hour more mysterious and more formidable--the safe.
+It was a fine afternoon. The secondary but still grandiose enigma of the
+affair, Mr. Cowl, could be heard walking methodically on the gravel in the
+garden. Mr. Cowl was the secretary of the National Reformation Society.
+
+Suddenly the irregular sound of crunching receded.
+
+"He's gone somewhere else," said Audrey.
+
+"I'm so relieved," said Miss Ingate. "I hope he's gone a long way off."
+
+"Are you?" murmured Audrey, with an air of surprised superiority.
+
+But in secret Audrey felt just as relieved as Miss Ingate, despite the fact
+that, her mother being prostrate, she was the mistress of the situation,
+and could have ordered Mr. Cowl to leave, with the certainty of being
+obeyed. She was astonished at her illogical sensations, and she had been
+frequently so astonished in the previous four days.
+
+For example, she was free; she knew that she could impose herself on her
+mother; never again would she be the slave of an unreasoning tyrant; yet
+she was gloomy and without hope. She had hated the unreasoning tyrant; yet
+she felt very sorry for him because he was dead. And though she felt very
+sorry for him, she detested hearing the panegyrics upon him of the village,
+and particularly of those persons with whom he had quarrelled; she actually
+stopped Miss Ingate in the midst of an enumeration of his good
+qualities--his charm, his smile, his courtesy, his integrity, et cetera;
+she could not bear it. She thought that no child had ever had such a
+strange attitude to a deceased parent as hers to Mr. Moze. She had
+anticipated the inquest with an awful dread; it proved to be a trifle, and
+a ridiculous trifle. In the long weekly letter which she wrote to her
+adored school-friend Ethel at Manningtree she had actually likened the
+coroner to a pecking fowl! Was it possible that a daughter could write in
+such a strain about the inquest on her father's body?
+
+The funeral had seemed a function by itself, with some guidance from the
+undertaker and still more from Mr. Cowl. Villagers and district
+acquaintances had been many at the ceremony, but relatives rare. Mr. Moze's
+four younger brothers were all in the Colonies; Mrs. Moze had apparently no
+connections. Madame Piriac, daughter of Mr. Moze's first wife by that
+lady's first husband, had telegraphed sympathies from Paris. A cousin or so
+had come in person from Woodbridge for the day.
+
+It was from the demeanour of these cousins, grave men twice her age or
+more, that Audrey had first divined her new importance in the world. Their
+deference indicated that in their opinion the future mistress of Flank Hall
+was not Mrs. Moze, but Audrey. Audrey admitted that they were right.  Yet
+she took no pleasure in issuing commands. She spoke firmly, but she said to
+herself: "There is no backbone to this firmness, and I am a fraud." She had
+always yearned for responsibility, yet now that it was in her hand she
+trembled, and she would have dropped it and run away from it as from a
+bomb, had she not been too cowardly to show her cowardice.
+
+The instance of Aguilar, the head-gardener and mechanic, well illustrated
+her pusillanimity. She loathed Aguilar; her mother loathed him; the
+servants loathed him. He had said at the inquest that the car was in
+perfect order, but that Mr. Moze was too excitable to be a good driver.
+His evidence was true, but the jury did not care for his manner. Nor did
+the village. He had only two good qualities--honesty and efficiency; and
+these by their rarity excited jealousy rather than admiration. Audrey
+strongly desired to throw the gardener-mechanic upon the world; it
+nauseated her to see his disobliging face about the garden. But he remained
+scathless, to refuse demanded vegetables, to annoy the kitchen, to
+pronounce the motor-car utterly valueless, and to complain of his own
+liver. Audrey had legs; she had a tongue; she could articulate. Neither
+wish nor power was lacking in her to give Aguilar the supreme experience of
+his career. And yet she did not walk up to him and say: "Aguilar, please
+take a week's notice." Why? The question puzzled her and lowered her
+opinion of herself.
+
+She was similarly absurd in the paramount matter of the safe. The safe
+could not be opened. The village, having been thrilled by four stirring
+days of the most precious and rare fever, had suffered much after the
+funeral from a severe reaction of dullness. It would have suffered much
+more had the fact not escaped that the safe could not be opened. In the
+deep depression of the day following the funeral the village could still
+say to itself: "Romance and excitement are not yet over, for the key of the
+Moze safe is lost, and the will is in the safe!"
+
+The village did not know that there were two keys to the safe and that they
+were both lost. Nobody knew that except Audrey and Miss Ingate and Mr.
+Cowl. The official key was lost because Mr. Moze's key-ring was lost. The
+theory was that it had been jerked out of his pocket in the accident.
+Persistent search for it had been unsuccessful. As for the unofficial or
+duplicate key, Audrey could not remember where she had put it after her
+burglary, the conclusion of which had been disturbed by Miss Ingate. At one
+moment she was quite sure that she had left the key in the safe, but at
+another moment she was equally sure that she was holding the key in her
+right hand (the bank-notes being in her left) when Miss Ingate entered the
+room; at still another moment she was almost convinced that before Miss
+Ingate's arrival she had run to the desk and slipped the key back into its
+drawer. In any case the second key was irretrievable. She discussed the
+dilemma very fully with Miss Ingate, who had obligingly come to stay in the
+house. They examined every aspect of the affair, except Audrey's guiltiness
+of theft, which both of them tacitly ignored. In the end they decided that
+it might be wiser not to conceal Audrey's knowledge of the existence of a
+second key; and they told Mr. Cowl, because he happened to be at hand. In
+so doing they were ill-advised, because Mr. Cowl at once acted in a
+characteristic and inconvenient fashion which they ought to have foreseen.
+
+On the day before the funeral Mr. Cowl had telegraphed from some place in
+Devonshire that he should represent the National Reformation Society at the
+funeral, and asked for a bed, on the pretext that he could not get from
+Devonshire to Moze in time for the funeral if he postponed his departure
+until the next morning. The telegram was quite costly. He arrived for
+dinner, a fat man about thirty-eight, with chestnut hair, a low, alluring
+voice, and a small handbag for luggage. Miss Ingate thought him very
+interesting, and he was. He said little about the National Reformation
+Society, but a great deal about the late Mr. Moze, of whom he appeared to
+be an intimate friend; presumably the friendship had developed at meetings
+of the Society. After dinner he strolled nonchalantly to the sideboard and
+opened a box of the deceased's cigars, and suggested that, as he was well
+acquainted with the brand, having often enjoyed the hospitality of Mr.
+Moze's cigar-case, he should smoke a cigar now to the memory of the
+departed. Miss Ingate then began to feel alarmed. He smoked four cigars to
+the memory of the departed, and on retiring ventured to take four more for
+consumption during the night, as he seldom slept.
+
+In the morning he went into the bathroom at eight o'clock and remained
+there till noon, reading and smoking in continually renewed hot water. He
+descended blandly, begged Miss Moze not to trouble about his breakfast, and
+gently assumed a certain control of the funeral. After the funeral he
+announced that he should leave on the morrow; but the mystery of the safe
+held him to the house. When he heard of the existence of the second key he
+organised and took command of a complete search of the study, and in the
+course of the search he inspected every document in the study. He said he
+knew that the deceased had left a legacy to the Society, and he should not
+feel justified in quitting Moze until the will was found.
+
+Now in these circumstances Audrey ought certainly to have telegraphed to
+her father's solicitor at Chelmsford at once. In the alternative she ought
+to have hired a safe-opening expert or a burglar from Colchester. She had
+accomplished neither of these downright things. With absolute power, she
+had done nothing but postpone. She wondered at herself, for up to her
+father's death she had been a great critic of absolute power.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The heavy policemanish step of Mr. Cowl was heard on the landing.
+
+"He's coming down on us!" exclaimed Miss Ingate, partly afraid, and partly
+ironic at her own fear. "I'm sure he's coming down on us. Audrey, I liked
+that man at first, but now I tremble before him. And I'm sure his moustache
+is dyed. Can't you ask him to leave?"
+
+"Is his moustache dyed, Winnie? Oh, what fun!"
+
+Miss Ingate's apprehension was justified. There was a knock at the study
+door, discreet, insistent, menacing, and it was Mr. Cowl's knock. He
+entered, smiling gravely and yet, as it were, teasingly. His easy bigness,
+florid and sinister, made a disturbing contrast with the artless and pure
+simplicity of Audrey in her new black robe, and even with Miss Ingate's
+pallid maturity, which, after all, was passably innocent and ingenuous. Mr.
+Cowl resembled a great beast good-humouredly lolloping into the cage in
+which two rabbits had been placed for his diversion and hunger.
+
+Pulling a key from the pocket of his vast waistcoat, he said in his quiet
+voice, so seductive and ominous:
+
+"Is this the key of the safe?"
+
+He offered it delicately to Audrey.
+
+It was the key of the safe.
+
+"Did they find it in the ditch?" Audrey demanded, blushing, for she knew
+that the key had not been found in the ditch; she knew by a certain
+indentation on it that it was the duplicate key which she herself had
+mislaid.
+
+"No," said Mr. Cowl. "I found it myself, and not in the ditch. I remembered
+you had said that you had changed at the dressmaker's in the village and
+had left there an old frock."
+
+"Did I?" murmured Audrey, with a deeper blush.
+
+Mr. Cowl nodded.
+
+"I had the happy idea that you might have had the key and left it in the
+pocket of the frock. So I trotted down to the dressmaker's and asked for
+the frock, in your name, and lo! the result!"
+
+He pointed to the key lying in Audrey's long hand.
+
+"But how should I have had the key, Mr. Cowl? Why should I have had the
+key?" Audrey burst out like a simpleton.
+
+"That, Miss Moze," said he, with a peculiar grin and in an equally peculiar
+tone, "is a matter about which obviously you are better informed than I am.
+Shall we try the key?"
+
+With a smooth undeniable gesture he took the key again from Audrey, and
+bent his huge form to open the safe. As he did so Miss Ingate made a
+sarcastic and yet affrighted face at Audrey, and Audrey tried to send a
+signal in reply, but failed, owing to imperfect self-control. However, she
+managed to say to Mr. Cowl's curved back:
+
+"You couldn't have found the key in the pocket of my old frock, Mr. Cowl."
+
+"And why?" he inquired benevolently, raising and turning his chestnut head.
+Even in that exciting instant Audrey could debate within herself whether or
+not his superb moustache was dyed.
+
+"Because it has no pocket."
+
+"So I discovered," said Mr. Cowl, after a little pause. "I merely stated
+that I had the happy idea--for it proved to be a happy idea--that you might
+have left the key in the pocket. I discovered it, as a fact, in a slit of
+the lining of the belt.... Conceivably you had slipped it in there--in a
+hurry." He put strange implications into the last three words. "Yes, it is
+the authentic key," he concluded, as the door of the safe swung heavily and
+silently open.
+
+Audrey, for the first time, felt rather like a thief as she beheld the
+familiar interior of the safe which a few days earlier she had so
+successfully rifled. "Is it possible," she thought, "that I really took
+bank-notes out of that safe, and that they are at this very moment in my
+bedroom between the leaves of 'Pictures of Palestine'?"
+
+Mr. Cowl was cautiously fumbling among the serried row of documents which,
+their edges towards the front, filled the steel shelf above the drawers.
+Audrey had never experienced any curiosity concerning the documents. Lucre
+alone had interested the base creature. No documents would have helped her
+to freedom. But now she thought apprehensively: "My fate may be among those
+documents." She was quite prepared to learn that her father had done
+something silly in his will.
+
+"This resembles a testament," said Mr. Cowl, smiling to himself, and
+pulling out a foolscap scrip, folded and endorsed. "Yes. Dated last year."
+
+He unfolded the document; a letter slipped from the interior of it; he
+placed the letter on the small occasional table next to the desk, and
+offered the will to Audrey with precisely the same gesture as he had
+offered the key.
+
+Audrey tried to decipher the will, and completely failed.
+
+"Will you read it, Miss Ingate?" she muttered.
+
+"I can't! I can't!" answered Miss Ingate in excitement. "I'm sure I can't.
+I never could read wills. They're so funny, somehow. And I haven't got my
+spectacles." She flushed slightly.
+
+"May _I_ venture to tell you what it contains?" Mr. Cowl suggested. "There
+can be no indiscretion on my part, as all wills after probate are public
+property and can be inspected by any Tom, Dick or Harry for a fee of one
+shilling."
+
+He took the document and gazed at it intently, turning over a page and
+turning back, for an extraordinarily long time.
+
+Audrey said to herself again and again, with exasperated impatience: "He
+knows now, and I don't know. He knows now, and I don't know. He knows now,
+and I don't know."
+
+At length Mr. Cowl spoke:
+
+"It is a perfectly simple will. The testator leaves the whole of his
+property to Mrs. Moze for life, and afterwards to you, Miss Moze. There are
+only two legacies. Ten pounds to James Aguilar, gardener. And the
+testator's shares in the Zacatecas Oil Development Corporation to the
+National Reformation Society. I may say that the testator had expressed to
+me his intention of leaving these shares to the Society. We should have
+preferred money, free of legacy duty, but the late Mr. Moze had a reason
+for everything he did. I must now bid you good-bye, ladies," he went on
+strangely, with no pause. "Miss Moze, will you convey my sympathetic
+respects to your mother and my thanks for her most kind hospitality? My
+grateful sympathies to yourself. Good-bye, Miss Ingate.... Er, Miss
+Ingate, why do you look at me in that peculiar way?"
+
+"Well, Mr. Cowl, you're a very peculiar man. May I ask whether you were
+born in this part of the country?"
+
+"At Clacton, Miss Ingate," answered Mr. Cowl imperturbably.
+
+"I knew it," said Miss Ingate, and the corners of her lips went
+sardonically down.
+
+"Please don't trouble to come downstairs," said Mr. Cowl. "My bag is
+packed. I have tipped the parlourmaid, and there is just time to catch the
+train."
+
+He departed, leaving the two women speechless.
+
+After a moment, Miss Ingate said dryly:
+
+"He was so very peculiar I knew he must belong to these parts."
+
+"How did he know I left my blue frock at Miss Pannell's?" cried Audrey. "I
+never told him."
+
+"He must have been eavesdropping!" cried Miss Ingate. "He never found the
+key in your frock. He must have found it here somewhere; I feel sure it
+must have dropped by the safe, and I lay anything he had opened the safe
+before and read the will before. I could tell from the way he looked."
+
+"And why should he suppose that I'd the key?" Audrey put in.
+
+"Eavesdropping! I'm convinced that man knows too much." Audrey reddened
+once more. "I believe he thought you'd be capable of burning the will.
+That's why he made you handle it in his presence and mine."
+
+"Well, Winnie," said Audrey, "I think you might have told him all that
+while he was here, instead of letting him go off so triumphant."
+
+"I did begin to," said Miss Ingate with a snigger. "But you wouldn't back
+me up, you little coward."
+
+"I shall never be a coward again!" Audrey said violently.
+
+They read the will together. They had no difficulty at all in comprehending
+it now that they were alone.
+
+"I do think it's a horrid shame Aguilar should have that ten pounds," said
+Audrey. "But otherwise I don't care. You can't guess how relieved I am,
+Winnie. I imagined the most dreadful things. I don't know what I imagined.
+But now we shall have all the property and everything, just as much as ever
+there was, and only me and mother to spend it." Audrey danced an embryonic
+jig. "Won't I keep mother in order! Winnie, I shall make her go with me to
+Paris. I've always wanted to know that Madame Piriac--she does write such
+funny English in her letters."
+
+"What's that you're saying?" murmured Miss Ingate, who had picked up the
+letter which Mr. Cowl had laid on the small table.
+
+"I say I shall make mother go to Paris with me."
+
+"You won't," said Miss Ingate. "Because she won't go. I know your mother
+better than you do.... Oh!  Audrey!"
+
+Audrey saw Miss Ingate's face turn scarlet from the roots of her hair to
+her chin.
+
+Miss Ingate had dropped the letter. Audrey snatched it.
+
+"My dear Moze," the letter ran. "I send you herewith a report of the
+meeting of the Great Mexican Oil Company at New York. You will see that
+they duly authorised the contract by which the Zacatecas Oil Corporation
+transfers our property to them in exchange for shares at the rate of four
+Great Mexican shares for one Zacatecas share. As each of the Development
+Syndicate shares represents ten of the Corporation shares, and as on my
+recommendation you put L4,500 into the Syndicate, you will therefore own
+180,000 Great Mexican shares. They are at present above par. Mark my
+words, they will be worth from seven to ten dollars apiece in a year's
+time. I think you now owe me a good turn, eh?"
+
+The letter was signed with a name unknown to either of them, and it was
+dated from Coleman Street, E.C.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+MR. FOULGER
+
+
+Half an hour later the woman and the girl, still in the study and severely
+damaged by the culminating events of Mr. Cowl's visit, were almost
+prostrated by the entirely unexpected announcement of the arrival of Mr.
+Foulger. Mr. Foulger was the late Mr. Moze's solicitor from Chelmsford.
+Audrey's first thought was: "Has heaven telegraphed to him on my behalf?"
+But her next was that all the solicitors in the world would now be useless
+in the horrible calamity that had befallen.
+
+It is to be noted that Audrey was no worse off than before the discovery of
+the astounding value of the Zacatecas shares. The Moze property, inherited
+through generations and consisting mainly in farms and tithe-rents, was not
+in the slightest degree impaired. On the contrary, the steady progress of
+agriculture in Essex indicated that its yield must improve with years.
+Nevertheless Audrey felt as though she and her mother were ruined, and as
+though the National Reformation Society had been guilty of a fearful crime
+against a widow and an orphan. The lovely vision of immeasurable wealth had
+flashed and scintillated for a month in front of her dazzled eyes--and then
+blackness, nothingness, the dark void! She knew that she would never be
+happy again.
+
+And she thought, scornfully, "How could father have been so preoccupied and
+so gloomy, with all those riches?" She could not conceive anybody as rich
+as her father secretly was not being day and night in a condition of pure
+delight at the whole spectacle of existence. Her opinion of Mathew Moze
+fell lower than ever, and fell finally.
+
+The parlourmaid, in a negligence of attire indicating that no man was left
+alive in the house, waited at the door of the study to learn whether or not
+Miss Moze was in.
+
+"You'll _have_ to see him," said Miss Ingate firmly. "It'll be all right.
+I've known him all my life. He's a very nice man."
+
+After the parlourmaid had gone, and while Audrey was upbraiding her for not
+confessing earlier her acquaintance with Mr. Foulger, Miss Ingate added:
+
+"Only his wife has a wooden leg."
+
+Then Mr. Foulger entered. He was a shortish man of about fifty, with a
+paunch, but not otherwise fat; dressed like a sportsman. He trod very
+lightly. The expression on his ruddy face was amiable but extremely alert,
+hardening at intervals into decision or caution. He saw before him a
+nervous, frowning girl in inelegant black, and Miss Ingate with a curious
+look in her eyes and a sardonic and timid twitching of her lips. For an
+instant he was discountenanced; but he at once recovered, accomplishing a
+bright salute.
+
+"Here you are at last, Mr. Foulger!" Miss Ingate responded. "But you're too
+late."
+
+These mysterious words, and the speechlessness of Audrey, upset him again.
+
+"I was away in Somersetshire for a little fishing," he said, after he had
+deplored the death of Mr. Moze, the illness of Mrs. Moze, and the
+bereavement of Miss Moze, and had congratulated Miss Moze on the protective
+friendship of his old friend, Miss Ingate. "I was away for a little
+fishing, and I only heard the sad news when I got back home at noon to-day.
+I came over at once." He cleared his throat and looked first at Audrey and
+then at Miss Ingate. He felt that he ought to be addressing Audrey, but
+somehow he could not help addressing Miss Ingate instead. His grey legs
+were spread abroad as he sat very erect on a chair, and between them his
+dependent paunch found a comfortable space for itself.
+
+"You must have been getting anxious about the will. I have brought it with
+me," he said. He drew a white document from the breast-pocket of his
+cutaway coat, and he perched a pair of eyeglasses carelessly on his nose.
+"It was executed before your birth, Miss Moze. But a will keeps like wine.
+The whole of the property of every description is left to Mrs. Moze, and
+she is sole executrix. If she should predecease the testator, then
+everything is left to his child or children. Not perhaps a very
+businesslike will--a will likely to lead to unforeseen complications, but
+the sort of will that a man in the first flush of marriage often does make,
+and there is no stopping him. Your father had almost every quality, but he
+was not businesslike--if I may say so with respect. However, I confess that
+for the present I see no difficulties. Of course the death duties will have
+to be paid, but your father always kept a considerable amount of money at
+call. When I say 'considerable,' I mean several thousands. That was a point
+on which he and I had many discussions."
+
+Mr. Foulger glanced around with satisfaction. Already the prospect of legal
+business and costs had brought about a change in his official demeanour of
+an adviser truly bereaved by the death of a client. He saw the young girl,
+gazing fiercely at the carpet, suddenly begin to weep. This phenomenon, to
+which he was not unaccustomed, did not by itself disturb him; but the face
+of Miss Ingate gave him strange apprehensions, which reached a climax when
+Miss Ingate, obviously not at all at ease, muttered:
+
+"There is a later will, Mr. Foulger. It was made last year."
+
+"I see," he breathed, scarcely above a whisper.
+
+He thought he did see. He thought he understood why he had been kept
+waiting, why Mrs. Moze pretended to be ill, why the girl had frowned, why
+the naively calm Miss Ingate was in such a state of nerves. The explanation
+was that he was not wanted. The explanation was that Mr. Moze had changed
+his solicitor. His face hardened, for he and his uncle between them had
+"acted" for the Moze family for over seventy years.
+
+He rose from the chair.
+
+"Then I need not trouble you any longer," he said in a firm tone, and
+turned with real dignity to leave.
+
+He was exceedingly astonished when with one swift movement Audrey rose, and
+flashed like a missile to the door, and stood with her back to it. The fact
+was that Audrey had just remembered her vow never again to be afraid of
+anybody. When Miss Ingate with extraordinary agility also jumped up and
+approached him, he apprehended, recalling rumours of Miss Ingate's advanced
+feminism, that the fate of an anti-suffragette Cabinet Minister might be
+awaiting him, and he prepared his defence.
+
+"You mustn't go," said Miss Ingate.
+
+"You are my solicitor, whatever mother may say, and you mustn't go," added
+Audrey in a soft voice.
+
+The man was entranced. It occurred to him that he would have a tale to tell
+and to re-tell at his club for years, about "a certain fair client who
+shall be nameless."
+
+The next minute he had heard a somewhat romantic, if not hysterical,
+version of the facts of the case, and he was perusing the original
+documents. By chance he read first the letter about the Zacatecas shares.
+That Mathew Moze had made a will without his aid was a shock; that Mathew
+Moze had invested money without his advice was another shock quite as
+severe. But he knew the status of the Great Mexican Oil Company, and his
+countenance lighted as he realised the rich immensity of the business of
+proving the will and devolving the estate; his costs would run to the most
+agreeable figures. As soon as he glanced at the testament which Mr. Cowl
+had found, he muttered, with satisfaction and disdain:
+
+"H'm! He made this himself."
+
+And he gazed at it compassionately, as a cabinetmaker might gaze at a piece
+of amateur fretwork.
+
+Standing, he read it slowly and with extreme care. And when he had finished
+he casually remarked, in the classic legal phrase:
+
+"It isn't worth the paper it's written on."
+
+Then he sat down again, and his neat paunch resumed its niche between his
+legs. He knew that he had made a tremendous effect.
+
+"But--but----" Miss Ingate began.
+
+"Not worth the paper it's written on," he repeated. "There is only one
+witness, and there ought to be two, and even the one witness is a bad
+one--Aguilar, because he profits under the will. He would have to give up
+his legacy before his attestation could count, and even then it would be no
+good alone. Mr. Moze has not even expressly revoked the old will. If there
+hadn't been a previous will, and if Aguilar was a thoroughly reliable man,
+and if the family had wished to uphold the new will, I dare say the Court
+_might_ have pronounced for it. But under the circumstances it hasn't the
+ghost of a chance."
+
+"But won't the National Reformation Society make trouble?" demanded Miss
+Ingate faintly.
+
+"Let 'em try!" said Mr. Foulger, who wished that the National Reformation
+Society would indeed try.
+
+Even as he articulated the words, he was aware of Audrey coming towards him
+from the direction of the door; he was aware of her black frock and of her
+white face, with its bulging forehead and its deliciously insignificant
+nose. She held out her hand.
+
+"You are a dear!" she whispered.
+
+Her lips seemed to aim uncertainly for his face. Did they just touch, with
+exquisite contact, his bristly chin, or was it a divine illusion? ... She
+blushed in a very marked manner. He blinked, and his happy blinking seemed
+to say: "Only wills drawn by me are genuine.... Didn't I tell you Mr. Moze
+was not a man of business?"
+
+Audrey ran to Miss Ingate.
+
+Mr. Foulger, suddenly ashamed, and determined to be a lawyer, said sharply:
+
+"Has Mrs. Moze made a will?"
+
+"Mother made a will? Oh no!"
+
+"Then she should make one at once, in your favour, of course. No time
+should be lost."
+
+"But Mrs. Moze is ill in bed," protested Miss Ingate.
+
+"All the more reason why she should make a will. It may save endless
+trouble. And it is her duty. I shall suggest that I be the executor and
+trustee, of course with the usual power to charge costs." His face was hard
+again. "You will thank me later on, Miss Moze," he added.
+
+"Do you mean _now?_" shrilled Miss Ingate.
+
+"I do," said he. "If you will give me some paper, we might go to her at
+once. You can be one of the witnesses. I could be a witness, but as I am
+to act under the will for a consideration somebody else would be
+preferable."
+
+"I should suggest Aguilar," answered Miss Ingate, the corners of her lips
+dropping.
+
+Miss Ingate went first, to prepare Mrs. Moze.
+
+When Audrey was alone in the study--she had not even offered to accompany
+her elders to the bedroom--she made a long sound: "Ooo!" Then she gave a
+leap and stood still, staring out of the window at the estuary. She tried
+to force her mood to the colour of her dress, but the sense of propriety
+was insufficient for the task. The magnificence of all the world was
+unfolding itself to her soul. Events had hitherto so dizzyingly beaten down
+upon her head that she had scarcely been conscious of feeling. Now she
+luxuriously felt. "I am at last born," she thought. "Miracles have
+happened.... It's incredible.... I can do what I like with mother.... But
+if I don't take care I shall die of relief this very moment!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE DEAD HAND
+
+
+Audrey was wakened up that night, just after she had gone to sleep, by a
+touch on the cheek. Her mother, palely indistinct in the darkness, was
+standing by the bedside. She wore a white wrap over her night attire, and
+the customary white bandage from which emanated a faint odour of
+eau-de-Cologne, was around her forehead.
+
+"Audrey, darling, I must speak to you."
+
+Instantly Audrey became the wise directress of her poor foolish mother's
+existence.
+
+"Mother," she said, with firm kindness, "please do go back to bed at once.
+This sort of thing is simply frightful for your neuralgia. I'll come to you
+in one moment."
+
+And Mrs. Moze meekly obeyed; she had gone even before Audrey had had time
+to light her candle. Audrey was very content in thus being able to control
+her mother and order everything for the best. She guessed that the old lady
+had got some idea into her head about the property, or about her own will,
+or about the solicitor, or about a tombstone, and that it was worrying her.
+She and Miss Ingate (who had now returned home) had had a very extensive
+palaver, in low voices that never ceased, after the triumphant departure of
+Mr. Foulger. Audrey had cautiously protested; she was afraid her mother
+would be fatigued, and she saw no reason why her mother should be
+acquainted with all the details of a complex matter; but the gossiping
+habit of a quarter of a century was too powerful for Audrey.
+
+In the large parental bedroom the only light was Audrey's candle. Mrs. Moze
+was lying on the right half of the great bed, where she had always lain.
+She might have lain luxuriously in the middle, with vast spaces at either
+hand, but again habit was too powerful.
+
+The girl, all in white, held the candle higher, and the shadows everywhere
+shrunk in unison. Mrs. Moze blinked.
+
+"Put the candle on the night-table," said Mrs. Moze curtly.
+
+Audrey did so. The bedroom, for her, was full of the souvenirs of parental
+authority. Her first recollections were those of awe in regard to the
+bedroom. And when she thought that on that bed she had been born, she had a
+very queer sensation.
+
+"I've decided," said Mrs. Moze, lying on her back, and looking up at the
+ceiling, "I've decided that your father's wishes must be obeyed."
+
+"What about, mother?"
+
+"About those shares going to the National Reformation Society. He meant
+them to go, and they must go to the Society. I've thought it well over and
+I've quite decided. I didn't tell Miss Ingate, as it doesn't concern her.
+But I felt I must tell you at once."
+
+"Mother!" cried Audrey. "Have you taken leave of your senses?" She
+shivered; the room was very cold, and as she shivered her image in the
+mirror of the wardrobe shivered, and also her shadow that climbed up the
+wall and bent at right-angles at the cornice till it reached the middle of
+the ceiling.
+
+Mrs. Moze replied obstinately:
+
+"I've not taken leave of my senses, and I'll thank you to remember that I'm
+your mother. I have always carried out your father's wishes, and at my time
+of life I can't alter. Your father was a very wise man. We shall be as well
+off as we always were. Better, because I can save, and I shall save. We
+have no complaint to make; I should have no excuse for disobeying your
+father. Everything is mine to do as I wish with it, and I shall give the
+shares to the Society. What the shares are worth can't affect my duty.
+Besides, perhaps they aren't worth anything. I always understood that
+things like that were always jumping up and down, and generally worthless
+in the end.... That's all I wanted to tell you."
+
+Why did Audrey seize the candle and walk straight out of the bedroom,
+leaving darkness behind her? Was it because the acuteness of her feelings
+drove her out, or was it because she knew instinctively that her mother's
+decision would prove to be immovable? Perhaps both.
+
+She dropped back into her own bed with a soundless sigh of exhaustion. She
+did not blow out the candle, but lay staring at it. Her dream was
+annihilated. She foresaw an interminable, weary and futile future in and
+about Moze, and her mother always indisposed, always fretful, and curiously
+obstinate in weakness. But Audrey, despite her tragic disillusion, was less
+desolated than made solemn. In the most disturbing way she knew herself to
+be the daughter of her father and her mother; and she comprehended that her
+destiny could not be broken off suddenly from theirs. She was touched
+because her mother deemed her father a very wise man, whereas she, Audrey,
+knew that he was nothing of the sort. She felt sorry for both of them. She
+pitied her father, and she was a mother to her mother. Their relations
+together, and the mystic posthumous spell of her father over her mother,
+impressed her profoundly.... And she was proud of herself for having
+demonstrated her courage by preventing the solicitor from running away, and
+extraordinarily ashamed of her sentimental and brazen behaviour to the
+solicitor afterwards. These various thoughts mitigated her despair as she
+gazed at the sinking candle. Nevertheless her dream was annihilated.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE YOUNG WIDOW
+
+
+It was early October. Audrey stood at the garden door of Flank Hall.
+
+The estuary, in all the colours of unsettled, mild, bright weather, lay at
+her feet beneath a high arch of changing blue and white. The capricious
+wind moved in her hair, moved in the rich grasses of the sea-wall, bent at
+a curtseying angle the red-sailed barges, put caps on the waves in the
+middle distance, and drew out into long horizontal scarves the smoke of
+faint steamers in the offing.
+
+Audrey was dressed in black, but her raiment had obviously not been
+fashioned in the village, nor even at Colchester, nor yet at Ipswich, that
+great and stylish city. She looked older; she certainly had acquired
+something of an air of knowledge, assurance, domination, sauciness and
+challenge, which qualities were all partly illustrated in her large,
+audacious hat. The spirit which the late Mr. Moze had so successfully
+suppressed was at length coming to the surface for all beholders to see,
+and the process of evolution begun at the moment when Audrey had bounced up
+and prevented an authoritative solicitor from leaving the study was already
+advanced. Nevertheless, at frequent intervals Audrey's eyes changed, and
+she seemed for an instant to be a very naive, very ingenuous and wistful
+little thing--and this though she had reached the age of twenty. Perhaps
+she was feeling sorry for the girl she used to be.
+
+And no doubt she was also thinking of her mother, who had died within eight
+hours of their nocturnal interview. The death of Mrs. Moze surprised
+everyone, except possibly Mrs. Moze. As an unsuspected result of the
+operation upon her, an embolism had been wandering in her veins; it reached
+the brain, and she expired, to the great loss of the National Reformation
+Society. Such was the brief and simple history. When Audrey stood by the
+body, she had felt that if it could have saved her mother she would have
+enriched the National Reformation Society with all she possessed.
+
+Gradually the sense of freedom had grown paramount in her, and she had
+undertaken the enterprise of completely subduing Mr. Foulger to her own
+ends.
+
+The back hall was carpetless and pictureless, and the furniture in it was
+draped in grey-white. Every room in the abode was in the same state, and,
+since all the windows were shuttered, every room lay moribund in a ghostly
+twilight. Only the clocks remained alive, probably thinking themselves
+immortal. The breakfast things were washed up and stored away. The last two
+servants had already gone. Behind Audrey, forming a hilly background, were
+trunks and boxes, a large bunch of flowers encased in paper, and a case of
+umbrellas and parasols; the whole strikingly new, and every single item
+except the flowers labelled "Paris via Charing Cross and Calais."
+
+Audrey opened her black Russian satchel, and the purse within it. Therein
+were a little compartment full of English gold, another full of French
+gold, another full of multicoloured French bank-notes; and loose in the
+satchel was a blue book of credit-notes, each for five hundred francs, or
+twenty pounds--a thick book! And she would not have minded much if she had
+lost the whole satchel--it would be so easy to replace the satchel with
+all its contents.
+
+Then a small brougham came very deliberately up the drive. It was the
+vehicle in which Miss Ingate went her ways; in accordance with Miss
+Ingate's immemorial command, it travelled at a walking pace up all the
+hills to save the horse, and at a walking pace down all hills lest the
+horse should stumble and Miss Ingate be destroyed. It was now followed by
+a luggage-cart on which was a large trunk.
+
+At the same moment Aguilar, the gardener, appeared from somewhere--he who
+had been robbed of a legacy of ten pounds, but who by his ruthless and
+incontestable integrity had secured the job of caretaker of Flank Hall.
+
+The drivers touched their hats to Audrey and jumped down, and Miss Ingate,
+with a blue veil tied like a handkerchief round her bonnet and chin--sign
+that she was a traveller--emerged from the brougham, sardonically smiling
+at her own and everybody's expense, and too excited to be able to give
+greetings. The three men started to move the trunks, and the two women
+whispered together in the back-hall.
+
+"Audrey," demanded Miss Ingate, with a start, "what are those rings on your
+finger?"
+
+Audrey replied:
+
+"One's a wedding ring and the other's a mourning ring. I bought them
+yesterday at Colchester.... Hsh!" She stilled further exclamations from
+Miss Ingate until the men were out of the hall.
+
+"Look here! Quick!" she whispered, hastily unlocking a large hat-case that
+was left. And Miss Ingate looked and saw a block toque, entirely unsuitable
+for a young girl, and a widow's veil.
+
+"I look bewitching in them," said Audrey, relocking the case.
+
+"But, my child, what does it mean?"
+
+"It means that I'm not silly enough to go to Paris as a girl. I've had more
+than enough of being a girl. I'm determined to arrive in Paris as a young
+widow. It will be much better in every way, and far easier for you. In
+fact, you'll have no chaperoning to do at all. I shall be the chaperon. Now
+don't say you won't go, because you will."
+
+"You ought to have told me before."
+
+"No, I oughtn't. Nothing could have been more foolish."
+
+"But who are you the widow of?"
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Audrey. "You are a sport, Winnie!  I'll tell you all the
+interesting details in the train."
+
+In another minute Aguilar, gloomy and unbending, had received the keys of
+Flank Hall, and the procession crunched down the drive on its way to the
+station.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE CIGARETTE GIRL
+
+
+Audrey did not deem that she had begun truly to live until the next
+morning, when they left London, after having passed a night in the Charing
+Cross Hotel. During several visits to London in the course of the summer
+Audrey had learnt something about the valuelessness of money in a
+metropolis chiefly inhabited by people who were positively embarrassed by
+their riches. She knew, for example, that money being very plentiful and
+stylish hats very rare, large quantities of money had to be given for
+infinitesimal quantities of hats. The big and glittering shops were full of
+people whose pockets bulged with money which they were obviously anxious to
+part with in order to obtain goods, while the proud shop-assistants, secure
+in the knowledge that money was naught and goods were everything, did their
+utmost, by hauteur and steely negatives, to render any transaction
+possible. It was the result of a mysterious "Law of Exchange." She was
+aware of this. She had lost her childhood's naive illusions about the
+sovereignty of money.
+
+Nevertheless she received one or two shocks on the journey, which was
+planned upon the most luxurious scale that the imagination of Messrs.
+Thomas Cook & Son could conceive. There was four pounds and ninepence to
+pay for excess luggage at Charing Cross. Half a year earlier four pounds
+would have bought all the luggage she could have got together. She very
+nearly said to the clerk at the window: "Don't you mean shillings?" But in
+spite of nervousness, blushings, and all manner of sensitive reactions to
+new experiences, her natural sang-froid and instinctive knowledge of the
+world saved her from such a terrible lapse, and she put down a bank-note
+without the slightest hint that she was wondering whether it would not be
+more advantageous to throw the luggage away.
+
+The boat was crowded, and the sea and wind full of menace. Fighting their
+way along the deck after laden porters, Audrey and Miss Ingate
+simultaneously espied the private cabin list hung in a conspicuous spot.
+They perused it as eagerly as if it had been the account of a _cause
+celebre._ Among the list were two English lords, an Honourable Mrs., a
+baroness with a Hungarian name, several Teutonic names, and Mrs. Moncreiff.
+
+Audrey blushed deeply at the sign of Mrs. Moncreiff, for she was Mrs.
+Moncreiff. Behind the veil, and with the touch of white in her toque, she
+might have been any age up to twenty-eight or so. It would have been
+impossible to say that she was a young girl, that she was not versed in the
+world, that she had not the whole catechism of men at her finger-ends. All
+who glanced at her glanced again--with sympathy and curiosity; and the
+second glance pricked Audrey's conscience, making her feel like a thief.
+But her moods were capricious. At one moment she was a thief, a clumsy
+fraud, an ignorant ninny, and a suitable prey for the secret police; and at
+the next she was very clever, self-confident, equal to the situation, and
+enjoying the situation more than she had ever enjoyed anything, and
+determined to prolong the situation indefinitely.
+
+The cabin was very spacious, yet not more so than was proper, considering
+that the rent of it came to about sixpence a minute. There was room, even
+after all the packages were stowed, for both of them to lie down. But
+instead of lying down they eagerly inspected the little abode. They found a
+lavatory basin with hot and cold water taps, but no hot water and no cold
+water, no soap and no towels. And they found a crystal water-bottle, but it
+was empty. Then a steward came and asked them if they wanted anything, and
+because they were miserable poltroons they smiled and said "No." They were
+secretly convinced that all the other private cabins, inhabited by titled
+persons and by financiers, were superior to their cabin, and that the
+captain of the steamer had fobbed them off with an imitation of a real
+cabin.
+
+Then it was that Miss Ingate, who since Charing Cross had been a little
+excited by a glimpsed newspaper contents-bill indicating suffragette riots
+that morning, perceived, through the open door of the cabin, a most
+beautiful and most elegant girl, attired impeccably in that ritualistic
+garb of travel which the truly cosmopolitan wear on combined rail-and-ocean
+journeys and on no other occasions. It was at once apparent that the
+celestial creature had put on that special hat, that special veil, that
+special cloak, and those special gloves because she was deeply aware of
+what was correct, and that she would not put them on again until destiny
+took her again across the sea, and that if destiny never did take her again
+across the sea never again would she show herself in the vestments, whose
+correctness was only equalled by their expensiveness.
+
+The young woman, however, took no thought of her impressive clothes. She
+was existing upon quite another plane. Miss Ingate, preoccupied by the
+wrongs and perils of her sex, and momentarily softened out of her sardonic
+irony, suspected that they might be in the presence of a victim of
+oppression or neglect. The victim lay Half-prone upon the hard wooden seat
+against the ship's rail. Her dark eyes opened piteously at times, and her
+exquisite profile, surmounted by the priceless hat all askew, made a
+silhouette now against the sea and now against the distant white cliffs of
+Albion, according to the fearful heaving of the ship. Spray occasionally
+dashed over her. She heeded it not. A few feet farther off she would have
+been sheltered by a weather-awning, but, clinging fiercely to the rail, she
+would not move.
+
+Then a sharp squall of rain broke, but she entirely ignored the rain.
+
+The next moment Miss Ingate and Audrey, rushing forth, had gently seized
+her and drawn her into their cabin. They might have succoured other martyrs
+to the modern passion for moving about, for there were many; but they chose
+this particular martyr because she was so wondrously dressed, and also
+perhaps a little because she was so young. As she lay on the cabin sofa she
+looked still younger; she looked a child. Yet when Miss Ingate removed her
+gloves in order to rub those chill, fragile, and miraculously manicured
+hands, a wedding ring was revealed. The wedding ring rendered her intensely
+romantic in the eyes of Audrey and Miss Ingate, who both thought, in
+private:
+
+"She must be the wife of one of those lords!"
+
+Every detail of her raiment, as she was put at her ease, showed her to be
+clothed in precisely the manner which Audrey and Miss Ingate thought
+peeresses always were clothed. Hence, being English, they mingled respect
+with their solacing pity. Nevertheless, their respect was tempered by a
+peculiar pride, for both of them, in taking lemonade on the Pullman, had
+taken therewith a certain preventive or remedy which made them loftily
+indifferent to the heaving of ships and the eccentricities of the sea. The
+specific had done all that was claimed for it--which was a great deal--so
+much so that they felt themselves superwomen among a cargo of flaccid and
+feeble sub-females. And they grew charmingly conceited.
+
+"Am I in my cabin?" murmured the martyr, about a quarter of an hour after
+Miss Ingate, having obtained soda water, had administered to her a dose of
+the miraculous specific.
+
+Her delicious cheeks were now a delicate crimson. But they had been of a
+delicate crimson throughout.
+
+"No," said Audrey. "You're in ours. Which is yours?"
+
+"It's on the other side of the ship, then. I came out for a little air. But
+I couldn't get back. I'd just as lief have died as shift from that seat out
+there by the railings."
+
+Something in the accent, something in those fine English words "lief" and
+"shift," destroyed in the minds of Audrey and Miss Ingate the agreeable
+notion that they had a peeress on their hands.
+
+"Is your husband on board?" asked Audrey.
+
+"He just is," was the answer. "He's in our cabin."
+
+"Shall I fetch him?" Miss Ingate suggested. The corners of her lips had
+begun to fall once more.
+
+"Will you?" said the young woman. "It's Lord Southminster. I'm Lady
+Southminster."
+
+The two saviours were thrilled. Each felt that she had misinterpreted the
+accent, and that probably peeresses did habitually use such words as "lief"
+and "shift." The corners of Miss Ingate's lips rose to their proper
+position.
+
+"I'll look for the number on the cabin list," said she hastily, and went
+forth with trembling to summon the peer.
+
+As Audrey, alone in the cabin with Lady Southminster, bent curiously over
+the prostrate form, Lady Southminster exclaimed with an air of childlike
+admiration:
+
+"You're real ladies, you are!"
+
+And Audrey felt old and experienced. She decided that Lady Southminster
+could not be more than seventeen, and it seemed to be about half a century
+since Audrey was seventeen.
+
+"He can't come," announced Miss Ingate breathlessly, returning to the
+cabin, and supporting herself against the door as the solid teak sank under
+her feet. "Oh yes! He's there all right. It was Number 12. I've seen him. I
+told him, but I don't think he heard me--to understand, that is. If you ask
+me, he couldn't come if forty wives sent for him."
+
+"Oh, couldn't he!" observed Lady Southminster, sitting up. "Couldn't he!"
+
+When the boat was within ten minutes of France, the remedy had had such an
+effect upon her that she could walk about. Accompanied by Audrey she
+managed to work her way round the cabin-deck to No. 12. It was empty, save
+for hand-luggage! The two girls searched, as well as they could, the whole
+crowded ship for Lord Southminster, and found him not. Lady Southminster
+neither fainted nor wept. She merely said:
+
+"Oh! All right! If that's it....!"
+
+Hand-luggage was being collected. But Lady Southminster would not collect
+hers, nor allow it to be collected. She agreed with Miss Ingate and Audrey
+that her husband must ultimately reappear either on the quay or in the
+train. While they were all standing huddled together in the throng waiting
+for the gangway to put ashore, she said in a low casual tone, ^ propos of
+nothing:
+
+"I only married him the day before yesterday. I don't know whether you
+know, but I used to make cigarettes in Constantinopoulos's window in
+Piccadilly. I don't see why I should be ashamed of it, d'you?"
+
+"Certainly not," said Miss Ingate. "But it _is_ rather romantic, isn't it,
+Audrey?"
+
+Despite the terrific interest of the adventure of the cigarette girl,
+disappointment began immediately after landing. This France, of which
+Audrey had heard so much and dreamed so much, was a very ramshackle and
+untidy and one-horse affair. The custom-house was rather like a battlefield
+without any rules of warfare; the scene in the refreshment-room was rather
+like a sack after a battle; the station was a desert with odd files of
+people here and there; the platforms were ridiculous, and you wanted a pair
+of steps to get up into the train. Whatever romance there might be in
+France had been brought by Audrey in her secret heart and by Lady
+Southminster.
+
+Audrey had come to France, and she was going to Paris, solely because of a
+vision which had been created in her by the letters and by the photographs
+of Madame Piriac. Although Madame Piriac and she had absolutely no tie of
+blood, Madame Piriac being the daughter by a first husband of the French
+widow who became the first Mrs. Moze--and speedily died, Audrey persisted
+privately in regarding Madame Piriac as a kind of elder sister. She felt a
+very considerable esteem for Madame Piriac, upon whom she had never set
+eyes, and Madame Piriac had certainly given her the impression that France
+was to England what paradise is to purgatory. Further, Audrey had fallen in
+love with Madame Piriac's portraits, whose elegance was superb. And yet,
+too, Audrey was jealous of Madame Piriac, and especially so since the
+attainment of freedom and wealth. Madame Piriac had most warmly invited
+her, after the death of Mrs. Moze, to pay a long visit to Paris as a guest
+in her home. Audrey had declined--from jealousy. She would not go to Madame
+Piriac's as a raw girl, overdone with money, who could only speak one
+language and who knew nothing at all of this our planet. She would go, if
+she went, as a young woman of the world who could hold her own in any
+drawing-room, be it Madame Piriac's or another. Hence Miss Ingate had
+obtained the address of a Paris boarding-house, and one or two preliminary
+introductions from political friends in London.
+
+Well, France was not equal to its reputation; and Miss Ingate's sardonic
+smile seemed to be saying: "So this is your France!"
+
+However, the excitement of escorting the youngest English peeress to Paris
+sufficed for Audrey, even if it did not suffice for Miss Ingate with her
+middle-aged apprehensions. They knew that Lady Southminster was the
+youngest English peeress because she had told them so. At the very moment
+when they were dispatching a telegram for her to an address in London, she
+had popped out the remark: "Do you know I'm the youngest peeress in
+England?" And truth shone in her candid and simple smile. They had not
+found the peer, neither on the ship, nor on the quay, nor in the station.
+And the peeress would not wait. She was indeed obviously frightened at the
+idea of remaining in Calais alone, even till the next express. She said
+that her husband's "man" would meet the train in Paris. She ate plenteously
+with Audrey and Miss Ingate in the refreshment-room, and she would not
+leave them nor allow them to leave her. The easiest course was to let her
+have her way, and she had it.
+
+By dint of Miss Ingate's unscrupulous tricks with small baggage they
+contrived to keep a whole compartment to themselves. As soon as the train
+started the peeress began to cry. Then, wiping her heavenly silly eyes, and
+upbraiding herself, she related to her protectresses the glory of a new
+manicure set. Unfortunately she could not show them the set, as it had been
+left in the cabin. She was actually in possession of nothing portable
+except her clothes, some English magazines bought at Calais, and a handbag
+which contained much money and many bonbons.
+
+"He's done it on purpose," she said to Audrey as soon as Miss Ingate went
+off to take tea in the tea-car. "I'm sure he's done it on purpose. He's
+hidden himself, and he'll turn up when he thinks he's beaten me. D'you know
+why I wouldn't bring that luggage away out of the cabin?  Because we had a
+quarrel about it, at the station, and he said things to me. In fact we
+weren't speaking. And we weren't speaking last night either. The radiator
+of his--our--car leaked, and we had to come home from the Coliseum in a
+motor-bus. He couldn't get a taxi. It wasn't his fault, but a friend of
+mine told me the day before I was married that a lady always ought to be
+angry when her husband can't get a taxi after the theatre--she says it does
+'em good. So first I told him he mustn't leave me to look for one.  Then I
+said I'd wait where I was, and then I said we'd walk on, and then I said we
+must take a motor-bus. It was that that finished him. He said: 'Did I
+expect him to invent a taxi when there wasn't one?' And he swore. So of
+course I sulked. You must, you know. And my shoes were too thin and I felt
+chilly. But only a fortnight before I was making cigarettes in the window
+of Constantinopoulos's. Funny, isn't it? Otherwise he's behaved splendid.
+Still, what I do say is a man's no right to be ill when he's taking you to
+Paris on your honeymoon. I knew he was going to be ill when I left him in
+the cabin, but he stuck me out he wasn't. A man that's so bad he can't come
+to his wife when _she's_ bad isn't a man--that's what I say. Don't you
+think so? You know all about that sort of thing, I lay."
+
+Audrey said briefly that she did think so, glad that the peeress's intense
+and excusable interest in herself kept her from being curious about others.
+
+"Marriage ain't all chocolate-creams," said the peeress after a pause.
+"Have one?" And she opened her bag very hospitably.
+
+Then she turned to her magazines. And no sooner had she glanced at the
+cover of the second one than she gave a squeal, and, fetching deep breaths,
+passed the periodical to Audrey. At the top of the cover was printed in
+large letters the title of a story by a famous author of short tales. It
+ran:
+
+"MAN OVERBOARD."
+
+Henceforward a suspicion that had lain concealed in the undergrowth of the
+hearts of the two girls stalked boldly about in full daylight.
+
+"He's done it, and he's done it to spite me!" murmured Lady Southminster
+tearfully.
+
+"Oh no!" Audrey protested. "Even if he had fallen overboard he'd have been
+seen and the captain would have stopped the boat."
+
+"Where do you come from?" Lady Southminster retorted with disdain. "That's
+an _omen_, that is"--pointing to the words on the cover of the magazine.
+"What else could it be? I ask you."
+
+When Miss Ingate returned the child was fast asleep. Miss Ingate was paler
+than usual. Having convinced herself that the sleeper did genuinely sleep,
+she breathed to Audrey:
+
+"He's in the next compartment! ... He must have hidden himself till nearly
+the last minute on the boat and then got into the train while we were
+sending off that telegram."
+
+Audrey blenched.
+
+"Shall you wake her?"
+
+"Wake her, and have a scene--with us here? No, I shan't. He's a fool."
+
+"How d'you know?" asked Audrey.
+
+"Well, he must have been a fool to marry her."
+
+"Well," whispered Audrey. "If I'd been a man I'd have married that face
+like a shot."
+
+"It might be all right if he'd only married the face. But he's married what
+she calls her mind."
+
+"Is he young?"
+
+"Yes. And as good-looking in his own way as she is."
+
+"Well--"
+
+But the Countess of Southminster stirred, and the slight movement stopped
+conversation.
+
+The journey was endless, but it was no longer than the sleep of the
+Countess. At length dusk and mist began to gather in the hollows of the
+land; stations succeeded one another more frequently. The reflections of
+the electric lights in the compartment could be seen beyond the glass of
+the windows. The train still ruthlessly clattered and shook and swayed and
+thundered; and weary lords, ladies and financiers had read all the
+illustrated magazines and six-penny novels in existence, and they lolled
+exhausted and bored amid the debris of literature and light refreshments.
+Then the speed of the convoy slackened, and Audrey, looking forth, saw a
+pale cathedral dome resting aloft amid dark clouds. It was a magical
+glimpse, and it was the first glimpse of Paris. "Oh!" cried Audrey, far
+more like a girl than a widow. The train rattled through defiles of high
+twinkling houses, roared under bridges, screeched, threaded forests of cold
+blue lamps, and at last came to rest under a black echoing vault.
+
+Paris!
+
+And, mysteriously, all Audrey's illusions concerning France had been born
+again. She was convinced that Paris could not fail to be paradisiacal.
+
+Lady Southminster awoke.
+
+Almost simultaneously a young man very well dressed passed along the
+corridor. Lady Southminster, with an awful start, seized her bag and sprang
+after him, but was impeded by other passengers. She caught him only after
+he had descended to the platform, which was at the bottom of a precipice
+below the windows. He had just been saluted by, and given orders to, a
+waiting valet. She caught him sharply by the arm. He shook free and walked
+quickly away up the platform, guided by a wise instinct for avoiding a
+scene in front of fellow-travellers. She followed close after him, talking
+with rapidity. They receded. Audrey and Miss Ingate leaned out of the
+windows to watch, and still farther and farther out. Just as the
+honeymooning pair disappeared altogether their two forms came into contact,
+and Audrey's eyes could see the arm of Lord Southminster take the arm of
+Lady Southminster. They vanished from view like one flesh. And Audrey and
+Miss Ingate, deserted, forgotten utterly, unthanked, buffeted by passengers
+and by the valet who had climbed up into the carriage to take away the
+impedimenta of his master, gazed at each other and then burst out laughing.
+
+"So that's marriage!" said Audrey.
+
+"No," said Miss Ingate. "That's love. I've seen a deal of love in my time,
+ever since my sister Arabella's first engagement, but I never saw any that
+wasn't vehy, vehy queer."
+
+"I do hope they'll be happy," said Audrey.
+
+"Do you?" said Miss Ingate.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+EXPLOITATION OF WIDOWHOOD
+
+
+The carriage had emptied, and the two adventurers stood alone among empty
+compartments. The platform was also empty. Not a porter in sight. One after
+the other, the young widow and the elderly spinster, their purses bulging
+with money, got their packages by great efforts down on to the platform.
+
+An employee strolled past.
+
+"_Porteur?_" murmured Audrey timidly.
+
+The man sniggered, shrugged his shoulders, and vanished.
+
+Audrey felt that she had gone back to her school days. She was helpless,
+and Miss Ingate was the same. She wished ardently that she was in Moze
+again. She could not imagine how she had been such a fool as to undertake
+this absurd expedition which could only end in ridicule and disaster. She
+was ready to cry. Then another employee appeared, hesitated, and picked up
+a bag, scowling and inimical. Gradually the man, very tousled and dirty,
+clustered all the bags and parcels around his person, and walked off.
+Audrey and Miss Ingate meekly following. The great roof of the station
+resounded to whistles and the escape of steam and the clashing of wagons.
+
+Beyond the platforms there were droves of people, of whom nearly every
+individual was preoccupied and hurried. And what people! Audrey had in her
+heart expected a sort of glittering white terminus full of dandiacal men
+and elegant Parisiennes who had stepped straight out of fashion-plates, and
+who had no cares--for was not this Paris? Whereas, in fact, the multitude
+was the dingiest she had ever seen. Not a gleam of elegance! No hint of
+dazzling colour! No smiling and satiric beauty! They were just persons.
+
+At last, after formalities, Audrey and Miss Ingate reached the foul and
+chilly custom-house appointed for the examination of luggage.
+Unrecognisable peers and other highnesses stood waiting at long counters,
+forming bays, on which was nothing at all. Then, far behind, a truck hugely
+piled with trunks rolled in through a back door and men pitched the trunks
+like toys here and there on the counters, and officials came into view, and
+knots of travellers gathered round trunks, and locks were turned and lids
+were lifted, and the flash of linen showed in spots on the drabness of the
+scene. Miss Ingate observed with horror the complete undoing of a lady's
+large trunk, and the exposure to the world's harsh gaze of the most
+intimate possessions of that lady. Soon the counters were like a fair. But
+no trunk belonging to Audrey or to Miss Ingate was visible. They knew then,
+what they had both privately suspected ever since Charing Cross, that their
+trunks would be lost on the journey.
+
+"Oh! My trunk!" cried Miss Ingate.
+
+Beneath a pile of other trunks on an incoming truck she had espied her
+property. Audrey saw it, too. The vision was magical. The trunk seemed like
+a piece of home, a bit of Moze and of England. It drew affection from them
+as though it had been an animal. They sped towards it, forgetting their
+small baggage. Their _porteur_ leaped over the counter from behind and made
+signs for a key. All Audrey's trunks in turn joined Miss Ingate's; none was
+missing. And finally an official, small and fierce, responded to the
+invocations of the _porteur_ and established himself at the counter in
+front of them. He put his hand on Miss Ingate's trunk.
+
+"Op-en," he said in English.
+
+Miss Ingate opened her purse, and indicated to the official by signs that
+she had no key for the trunk, and she also cried loudly, so that he should
+comprehend:
+
+"No key! ... Lost!"
+
+Then she looked awkwardly at Audrey.
+
+"I've been told they only want to open one trunk when there's a lot. Let
+him choose another one," she murmured archly.
+
+But the official merely walked away, to deal with the trunks of somebody
+else close by.
+
+Audrey was cross.
+
+"Miss Ingate," she said formally, "you had the key when we started, because
+you showed it to me. You can't possibly have lost it."
+
+"No," answered Winnie calmly and knowingly. "I haven't lost it. But I'm not
+going to have the things in my trunk thrown about for all these foreigners
+to see. It's simply disgraceful. They ought to have women officials and
+private rooms at these places. And they would have, if women had the vote.
+Let him open one of your trunks. All your things are new."
+
+The _porteur_ had meanwhile been discharging French into Audrey's other
+ear.
+
+"Of course you must open it, Winnie," said she. "Don't be so absurd!"
+There was a persuasive lightness in her voice, but there was also command.
+For a moment she was the perfect widow.
+
+"I'd rather not."
+
+"The _porteur_ says we shall be here all night," Audrey persisted.
+
+"Do you know French?"
+
+"I learnt French at school, Winnie," said the perfect widow. "I can't
+understand every word, but I can make out the drift." And Audrey went on
+translating the porter according to her own wisdom. "He says there have
+been dreadful scenes here before, when people have refused to open their
+trunks, and the police have had to be called in. He says the man won't
+upset the things in your trunk at all."
+
+Miss Ingate gazed into the distance, and privately smiled. Audrey had
+never guessed that in Miss Ingate were such depths of obstinate stupidity.
+She felt quite distinctly that her understanding of human nature was
+increasing.
+
+"Oh! Look!" said Miss Ingate casually. "I'm sure those must be real
+Parisians!" Her offhandedness, her inability to realise the situation, were
+exasperating to the young widow. Audrey glanced where Miss Ingate had
+pointed, and saw in the doorway of the custom-house two women and a lad,
+all cloaked but all obviously in radiant fancy dress, laughing together.
+
+"Don't they look French!" said Miss Ingate.
+
+Audrey tapped her foot on the asphalt floor, while people whose luggage had
+been examined bumped strenuously against her in the effort to depart. She
+was extremely pessimistic; she knew she could do nothing with Miss Ingate;
+and the thought of the vast, flaring, rumbling city beyond the station
+intimidated her. The _porteur_, who had gone away to collect their
+neglected small baggage, now returned, and nudged her, pointing to the
+official who had resumed his place behind the trunks. He was certainly a
+fierce man, but he was a little man, and there was an agreeable peculiarity
+in his eye.
+
+Audrey, suddenly inspired and emboldened, faced him; she shrugged her
+shoulders Gallically at Miss Ingate's trunk, and gave a sad, sweet, wistful
+smile, and then put her hand with an exquisite inviting gesture on the
+smallest of her own trunks. The act was a deliberate exploitation of
+widowhood. The official fiercely shrugged his shoulders and threw up his
+arms, and told the _porteur_ to open the small trunk.
+
+"I told you they would," said Miss Ingate negligently.
+
+Audrey would have turned upon her and slain her had she not been busy with
+the tremendous realisation of the fact that by a glance and a gesture she
+had conquered the customs official--a foreigner and a stranger. She wanted
+to be alone and to think.
+
+Just as the trunk was being relocked, Audrey heard an American girlish
+voice behind her:
+
+"Now, you must be Miss Ingate!"
+
+"I am," Miss Ingate almost ecstatically admitted.
+
+The trio in cloaked fancy dress were surrounding Miss Ingate like a
+bodyguard.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+LIFE IN PARIS
+
+
+Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall were a charm to dissipate all the
+affrighting menace of the city beyond the station. Miss Thompkins had
+fluffy red hair, with the freckles which too often accompany red hair, and
+was addressed as Tommy. Miss Nickall had fluffy grey hair, with warm,
+loving eyes, and was addressed as Nick. The age of either might have been
+anything from twenty-four to forty. The one came from Wyoming, the other
+from Arizona; and it was instantly clear that they were close friends. They
+had driven up to the terminus before going to a fancy-dress ball to be
+given that night in the studio of Monsieur Dauphin, a famous French painter
+and a delightful man. They had met Monsieur Dauphin on the previous evening
+on the terrace of the Cafe de Versailles, and Monsieur had said, in
+response to their suggestion, that he would be enchanted and too much
+honoured if they would bring their English friends to his little
+"leaping"--that was, hop.
+
+Also they had thought that it would be nice for the travellers to be met at
+the terminus, especially as Miss Ingate had been very particularly
+recommended to Miss Thompkins by a whole group of people in London. It was
+Miss Thompkins who had supplied the address of reliable furnished rooms,
+and she and Nick would personally introduce the ladies to their landlady,
+who was a sweet creature.
+
+Tommy and Nick and Miss Ingate were at once on terms of cordial
+informality; but the Americans seemed to be a little diffident before the
+companion. Their voices, at the introduction, had reinforced the surprise
+of their first glances. "Oh! _Mrs._ Moncreiff!" The slightest insistence,
+no more, on the "Mrs."! Nothing said, but evidently they had expected
+somebody else!
+
+Then there was the boy, whom they called Musa. He was dark, slim, with
+timorous great eyes, and attired in red as a devil beneath his student's
+cloak. He apologised slowly in English for not being able to speak English.
+He said he was very French, and Tommy and Nick smiled, and he smiled back
+at them rather wistfully. When Tommy and Nick had spoken with the
+chauffeurs in French he interpreted their remarks. There were two
+motor-taxis, one for the luggage.
+
+Miss Thompkins accompanied the luggage; she insisted on doing so. She could
+tell sinister tales of Paris cabmen, and she even delayed the departure in
+order to explain that once in the suburbs and in the pre-taxi days a cabman
+had threatened to drive her and himself into the Seine unless she would be
+his bride, and she saved herself by promising to be his bride and telling
+him that she lived in the Avenue de l'Opera; as soon as the cab reached a
+populous thoroughfare she opened the cab door and squealed and was rescued;
+she had let the driver go free because of his good taste.
+
+As the procession whizzed through nocturnal streets, some thunderous with
+traffic, others very quiet, but all lined with lofty regular buildings,
+Audrey was penetrated by the romance of this city where cabmen passionately
+and to the point of suicide and murder adored their fares. And she thought
+that perhaps, after all, Madame Piriac's impression of Paris might not be
+entirely misleading. Miss Ingate and Nick talked easily, very charmed with
+one another, both excited. Audrey said little, and the dark youth said
+nothing. But once the dark youth murmured shyly to Audrey in English:
+
+"Do you play at ten-nis, Madame?"
+
+They crossed a thoroughfare that twinkled and glittered from end to end
+with moving sky-signs. Serpents pursued burning serpents on the heights of
+that thoroughfare, invisible hands wrote mystic words of warning and
+invitation, and blazing kittens played with balls of incandescent wool.
+Throngs of promenaders moved under theatrical trees that waved their pale
+emerald against the velvet sky, and the ground floor of every edifice was a
+glowing cafe, whose tables, full of idle sippers and loungers, bulged out
+on to the broad pavements.... The momentary vision was shut off instantly
+as the taxis shot down the mouth of a dark narrow street; but it had been
+long enough to make Audrey's heart throb.
+
+"What is that?" she asked.
+
+"That?" exclaimed Nick kindly. "Oh! That's only the _grand boulevard_."
+
+Then they crossed the sombre, lamp-reflecting Seine, and soon afterwards
+the two taxis stopped at a vast black door in a very wide street of serried
+palatial facades that were continually shaken by the rushing tumult of
+electric cars. Tommy jumped out and pushed a button, and the door
+automatically split in two, disclosing a vast and dim tunnel. Tommy ran
+within, and came out again with a coatless man in a black-and-yellow
+striped waistcoat and a short white apron. This man, Musa, and the two
+chauffeurs entered swiftly into a complex altercation, which endured until
+Audrey had paid the chauffeurs and all the trunks had been transported
+behind the immense door and the door bangingly shut.
+
+"Vehy amusing, isn't it?" whispered Miss Ingate caustically to Audrey.
+"Aren't they dears?"
+
+"Madame Dubois's establishment is on the third and fourth floors," said
+Nick.
+
+They climbed a broad, curving, carpeted staircase.
+
+"We're here," said Audrey to Miss Ingate after scores of stairs.
+
+Miss Ingate, breathless, could only smile.
+
+And Audrey profoundly felt that she was in Paris. The mere shape of the
+doorknob by the side of a brass plate lettered "Madame Dubois" told her
+that she was in an exotic land.
+
+And in the interior of Madame Dubois's establishment Tommy and Nick
+together drew apart the curtains, opened the windows, and opened the
+shutters of a pleasantly stuffy sitting-room. Everybody leaned out, and
+they saw the superb thoroughfare, straight and interminable, and the moving
+roofs of the tram-cars, and dwarfs on the pavements. The night was mild
+and languorous.
+
+"You see that!" Nick pointed to a blaze of electricity to the left on the
+opposite side of the road. "That's where we shall take you to dine, after
+you've spruced yourselves up. You needn't bother about fancy dress.
+Monsieur Dauphin always has stacks of kimonos--for his models, you know."
+
+While the travellers spruced themselves up in different bedrooms, Tommy
+chattered through one pair of double doors ajar, and Nick through the
+other, and Musa strummed with many mistakes on an antique Pleyel piano. And
+as Audrey listened to the talk of these acquaintances, Tommy and Nick, who
+in half an hour had put on the hue of her lifelong friends, and as she
+heard the piano, and felt the vibration of cars far beneath, she decided
+that she was still growing happier and happier, and that life and the world
+were marvellous.
+
+A little later they passed into the cafe-restaurant through a throng of
+seated sippers who were spread around its portals like a defence. The
+interior, low, and stretching backwards, apparently endless, into the
+bowels of the building, was swimming in the brightest light. At a raised
+semicircular counter in the centre two women were enthroned, plump, sedate,
+darkly dressed, and of middle age. To these priestesses came a constant
+succession of waiters, in the classic garb of waiters, bearing trays which
+they offered to the gaze of the women, and afterwards throwing down coins
+that rang on the marble of the counter. One of the women wrote swiftly in a
+great tome. Both of them, while performing their duties, glanced
+continually into every part of the establishment, watching especially each
+departure and each arrival.
+
+At scores of tables were the most heterogeneous collection of people that
+Audrey had ever seen; men and women, girls and old men, even a few children
+with their mothers. Liquids were of every colour, ices chromatic, and the
+scarlet of lobster made a luscious contrast with the shaded tints of
+salads. In the extreme background men were playing billiards at three
+tables. Though nearly everybody was talking, no one talked loudly, so that
+the resulting monotone of conversation was a gentle drone, out of which
+shot up at intervals the crash of crockery or a hoarse command. And this
+drone combined itself with the glittering light, and with the mild warmth
+that floated in waves through the open windows, and with the red plush of
+the seats, and with the rosiness of painted nymphs on the blue walls, and
+with the complexions of women's faces, and their hats and frocks, and with
+the hues of the liquids--to produce a totality of impression that made
+Audrey dizzy with ecstasy. This was not the Paris set forth by Madame
+Piriac, but it was a wondrous Paris, and in Audrey's esteem not far removed
+from heaven.
+
+Miss Ingate, magnificently pale, followed Tommy and Nick with ironic
+delight up the long passage between the tables. Her eyes seemed to be
+saying: "I am overpowered, and yet there is something in me that is not
+overpowered, and by virtue of my kind-hearted derision I, from Essex, am
+superior to you all!" Audrey, with glance downcast, followed Miss Ingate,
+and Musa came last, sinuously. Nobody looked up at them more than casually,
+but at intervals during the passage Tommy and Nick nodded and smiled: "How
+d'ye do? How d'ye do?" "_Bon soir,_" and answers were given in American or
+French voices.
+
+They came to rest near the billiard tables, and near an aperture with a
+shelf where all the waiters congregated to shout their orders. A
+grey-haired waiter, with the rapidity and dexterity of a conjurer, laid a
+cloth over the marble round which they sat, Audrey and Miss Ingate on the
+plush bench, and Tommy and Nick, with Musa between them, on chairs
+opposite. The waiter then discussed with them for five minutes what they
+should eat, and he argued the problem seriously, wisely, helpfully, as
+befitted. It was Audrey, in full view of a buffet laden with shell-fish and
+fruit, who first suggested lobster, and lobster was chosen, nothing but
+lobster. Miss Ingate said that she was not a bit tired, and that lobster
+was her dream. The sentiment was universal at the table. When asked what
+she would drink, Audrey was on the point of answering "lemonade." But a
+doubt about the propriety of everlasting lemonade for a widow with much
+knowledge of the world, stopped her.
+
+"I vote we all have grenadines," said Nick.
+
+Grenadine was agreeable to Audrey's ear, and everyone concurred.
+
+The ordering was always summarised and explained by Musa in a few phrases
+which, to Audrey, sounded very different from the French of Tommy and Nick.
+And she took oath that she would instantly begin to learn to speak French,
+not like Tommy and Nick, whose accent she cruelly despised, but like Musa.
+
+Then Tommy and Nick removed their cloaks, and sat displayed as a geisha and
+a contadina, respectively. Musa had already unmasked his devilry. The cafe
+was not in the least disturbed by these gorgeous and strange apparitions.
+An orchestra began to play. Lobster arrived, and high glasses full of
+glinting green. Audrey ate and drank with gusto, with innocence, with the
+intensest love of life. And she was the most beautiful and touching sight
+in the cafe-restaurant. Miss Ingate, grinning, caught her eye with joyous
+mockery. "We are going it, aren't we, Audrey?" shrieked Miss Ingate.
+
+Miss Thompkins and Miss Nickall began slowly to differentiate themselves in
+Audrey's mind. At first they were merely two American girls--the first
+Audrey had met. They were of about the same age--whatever that age might
+be--and if they were not exactly of the same age, then Tommy with red hair
+was older than Nick with grey hair. Indeed, Nick took the earliest
+opportunity to remark that her hair had turned grey at nineteen. They both
+had dreamy eyes that looked through instead of looking at; they were both
+hazy concerning matters of fact; they were both attached like a couple of
+aunts to Musa, who nestled between them like a cat between two cushions;
+they were both extraordinarily friendly and hospitable; they both painted
+and both had studios--in the same house; they both showed quite a
+remarkable admiration and esteem for all their acquaintances; and they both
+lacked interest in their complexions and their hair.
+
+The resemblance did not go very much farther. Tommy, for all her praising
+of friends, was of a critical, curious, and analytical disposition, and her
+greenish eyes were always at work qualifying in a very subtle manner what
+her tongue said, when her tongue was benevolent, as it often was. Feminism
+and suffragism being the tie between the new acquaintances, these subjects
+were the first material of conversation, and an empress of militancy known
+to the world as "Rosamund" having been mentioned, Miss Ingate said with
+enthusiasm:
+
+"She lives only for one thing."
+
+"Yes," replied Tommy. "And if she got it, I guess no one would be more
+disgusted than she herself."
+
+There was an instant's silence.
+
+"Oh, Tommy!" Nick lovingly protested.
+
+Said Miss Ingate with a comprehending satiric grin:
+
+"I see what you mean. I quite see. I quite see. You're right, Miss
+Thompkins. I'm sure you're right."
+
+Audrey decided she would have to be very clever in order to be equal to
+Tommy's subtlety. Nick, on the other hand, was not a bit subtle, except
+when she tried to imitate Tommy. Nick was kindness, and sympathy, and
+vagueness. You could see these admirable qualities in every curve of her
+face and gleam of her eyes. She was very sympathetic, but somewhat shocked
+when Audrey blurted out that she had not come to Paris in order to paint.
+
+"There are at least fifty painters in this cafe this very minute," said
+Tommy. And somehow it was just as if she had said: "If you haven't come to
+Paris to paint, what have you come for?"
+
+"Does Mr. Musa paint, too?" asked Audrey.
+
+"Oh _no_!" Both his protectresses answered together, pained. Tommy added:
+"Musa plays the violin--of course."
+
+And Musa blushed. Later, he murmured to Audrey across the table, while
+Tommy was ordering a salad, that there were tennis courts in the Luxembourg
+gardens.
+
+"I used to paint," Miss Ingate broke out. "And I'm beginning to think I
+should like to paint again."
+
+Said Nick, enraptured:
+
+"I'll let you use my studio, if you will. I'd just love you to, now! Where
+did you study?"
+
+"Well, it was like this," said Miss Ingate with satisfaction. "It was a
+long time ago. I finished painting a dog-kennel because the house-painter's
+wife died and he had to go to her funeral, and the dog didn't like being
+kept waiting. That gave me the idea. I went into water-colours, but
+afterwards I went back to oils. Oils seemed more real. Then I started on
+portraits, and I did a portrait of my Aunt Sarah from memory. After she saw
+it she tore up her will, and before I could get her into a good temper
+again she married her third husband and she had to make a new will in
+favour of him. So I found painting very expensive. Not that it would have
+made any difference, I suppose, would it? After that I went into
+miniatures. The same dog that I painted the kennel for ate up the best
+miniature I ever did. It killed him. I put a cross over his grave in the
+garden. All that made me see what a fool I'd been, and I exchanged my
+painting things for a lawn-mower, but it never turned out to be any good."
+
+"You dear! You precious! You priceless!" cooed Nick. "I shall fix up my
+second best easel for you to-morrow."
+
+"Isn't she just too lovely!" Tommy murmured aside to Audrey.
+
+"I not much understand," said Musa.
+
+Tommy translated to him, haltingly, and Audrey was moved to say, with
+energy:
+
+"What I want most is to learn French, and I'm going to begin to-morrow
+morning."
+
+Nick was kindly confusing and shaming Miss Ingate with a short history and
+catechism of modern art, including such names as Vuillard, Bonnard,
+Picasso, Signac, and Matisse--all very eagerly poured out and all very
+unnerving for Miss Ingate, whose directory of painting was practically
+limited to the names of Raphael, Sir Joshua, Rembrandt, Rubens,
+Gainsborough, Turner, Leighton, Millais, Gustave Dore and Frank Dicksee.
+When, however, Nick referred to Monsieur Dauphin, Miss Ingate was as it
+were washed safely ashore and said with assurance: "Oh yes! Oh yes! Oh
+yes!"
+
+Tommy listened for a few moments, and then, leaning across the table and
+lighting a cigarette, she said in an intimate undertone to Audrey: "I hope
+you don't _mind_ coming to the ball to-night. We really didn't know------"
+She stopped. Her eyes, ferreting in Audrey's black, completed the
+communication.
+
+Unnerved for the tenth of a second, Audrey recovered and answered:
+
+"Oh, no! I shall like it very much."
+
+"You've been up against life!" murmured Tommy in a melting voice, gazing at
+her. "But how wonderful all experience is, isn't it. I once had a husband.
+We separated--at least, he separated. But I know the feel of being a wife."
+
+Audrey blushed deeply. She wanted to push away all that sympathy, and she
+was exceedingly alarmed by the revelation that Tommy was an initiate. The
+widow was the merest schoolgirl once more. But her blush had saved her from
+a chat in which she could not conceivably have held her own.
+
+"Excuse me being so clumsy," said Tommy contritely. "Another time." And
+she waved her cigarette to the waiter in demand for the bill.
+
+It was after the orchestra had finished a tango, and while Tommy was
+examining the bill, that the first violin and leader, in a magenta coat,
+approached the table, and with a bow offered his violin deferentially to
+Musa. Many heads turned to watch what would happen. But Musa only shrugged
+his shoulders and with an exquisite gesture of refusal signified that he
+had to leave. Whereupon the magenta coat gracefully retired, starting a
+Hungarian dance as he went.
+
+"Musa is supposed to be the greatest violinist in Paris--perhaps in the
+world," Tommy whispered casually to Audrey. "He used to play here, till
+Dauphin discovered him."
+
+Audrey, overcome by this prodigious blow, trembled at the contemplation of
+her blind stupidity.
+
+Beyond question, Musa now looked extremely important, vivid, masterful. She
+had been mistaking him for a nice, ornamental, useless boy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+FANCY DRESS
+
+
+Just as the cafe-restaurant had been an intensification of ordinary life,
+so was the ball in Dauphin's studio an intensification of the
+cafe-restaurant. It had more colour, more noise, more music, more heat,
+more varied kinds of people, and, of course, far more riotous movement than
+the cafe-restaurant. The only quality in which the cafe-restaurant stood
+first was that of sustenance. Monsieur Dauphin had not attempted to rival
+the cafe-restaurant in the matter of food and drink. And that there was no
+general hope of his doing so could be deduced from the fact that many of
+the more experienced guests arrived with bottles, fruit, sausages, and
+sandwiches of their own.
+
+When Audrey and her friends entered the precincts of the vast new white
+building in the Boulevard Raspail, upon whose topmost floor Monsieur
+Dauphin painted the portraits of the women of the French, British, and
+American plutocracies and aristocracies, a lift full of gay-coloured
+figures was just shooting upwards past the wrought-iron balustrades of the
+gigantic staircase. Tommy and Nick stopped to speak to a columbine who
+hovered between the pavement and the threshold of the house.
+
+"I don't know whether it's the grenadine or the lobster, or whether it's
+Paris," said Miss Ingate confidentially in the interval; "but I can
+scarcely tell whether I'm standing on my head or my heels."
+
+Before the Americans rejoined them, the lift had returned and ascended with
+another covey of fancy costumes, including a man with a nose a foot long
+and a girl with bright green hair, dressed as an acrobat. On its next
+journey the lift held Tommy and Nick's party, and it held no more.
+
+When the party emerged from it, they were greeted with a cheer, hoarse and
+half human, by a band of light amateur mountebanks of both sexes who were
+huddled in a doorway. Within a quarter of an hour Audrey and Miss Ingate,
+after astounding struggles in a dressing-room in which Nick alone saved
+their lives and reputations, appeared in Japanese disguise according to
+promise, and nobody could tell whether Audrey was maid, wife, or widow. She
+might have been a creature created on the spot, for the celestial purpose
+of a fancy-dress ball in Monsieur Dauphin's studio.
+
+The studio was very large and rather lofty. Its walls had been painted by
+gifted pupils of Monsieur Dauphin and by fellow-artists, with scenes of
+life according to Catullus, Theocritus, Propertius, Martial, Petronius, and
+other classical writers. It is not too much to say that the walls of the
+studio constituted a complete novelty for Audrey and Miss Ingate. Miss
+Ingate opened her mouth to say something, but, saying nothing, forgot for a
+long time to shut it again.
+
+Chinese lanterns, electrically illuminated, were strung across the studio
+at a convenient height so that athletic dancers could prodigiously leap up
+and make them swing. Beneath this incoherent but exciting radiance the
+guests swayed and glided, in a joyous din, under the influence of an
+orchestra of men snouted like pigs and raised on a dais. In a corner was a
+spiral staircase leading to the flat roof of the studio and a view of all
+Paris. Up and down this corkscrew contending parties fought amiably for the
+right of way.
+
+Tommy and Nick began instantly to perform introductions between Audrey and
+Miss Ingate and the other guests. In a few moments Audrey had failed to
+catch the names of a score and a half of people--many Americans, some
+French, some Argentine, one or two English. They were all very talented
+people, and, according to Miss Ingate, the most characteristically French
+were invariably either Americans or Argentines.
+
+A telephone bell rang in the distance, and presently a toreador stood on a
+chair and pierced the music with a message of yells in French, and the room
+hugely guffawed and cheered.
+
+"Where is the host?" Audrey asked.
+
+"That's what the telephoning was about," said Tommy, speaking loudly
+against the hubbub. "He hasn't come yet. He had to rush off this afternoon
+to do pastel portraits of two Russian princesses at St. Germain, and he
+hasn't got back yet. The telephone was to say that he's started."
+
+Then one of the introduced--it was a girl wearing a mask--took Audrey by
+the waist and whirled her strongly away and she was lost in the maze.
+Audrey's first impulse was to protest, but she said to herself: "Why
+protest? This is what we're here for." And she gave herself up to the
+dance. Her partner held her very firmly, somewhat bending over her.
+Neither spoke. Gyrating in long curves, with the other dancers swishing
+mysteriously about them like the dancers of a dream, and the music as far
+off as another world, they clung together in the rhythm and in the
+enchantment, until the music ceased.... The strong girl threw Audrey
+carelessly off, and walked away, breathing hard. And there was something in
+the strong girl's nonchalant and curt departure which woke a chord in
+Audrey's soul that had never been wakened before. Audrey could scarcely
+credit that she was on the same planet as Essex. She had many dances with
+men whom she hoped and believed she had been introduced to by Tommy, and no
+less than seventeen persons of either sex told her in unusual English that
+they had heard she wanted to learn French and that they would like to teach
+her; and then she met Musa, the devil.
+
+Musa, with an indolent and wistful smile, suggested the roof. Audrey was
+now just one of the throng, and quite unconscious of herself; she fought
+archly and gaily on the spiral staircase exactly as she had seen others do,
+and at last they were on the roof, and the silhouettes of other fantastic
+figures and of cowled chimney pots stood out dark against the vague yellow
+glow of the city beneath. While Musa was pointing out the historic
+landmarks to her, she was thinking how she could never again be the girl
+who had left Moze on the previous morning. And yet Musa was so natural and
+so direct that it was impossible to take him for anything but a boy, and
+hence Audrey sank back into early girlhood, talking spasmodically to Musa
+as she used in school days to talk to the brother of her school friend.
+
+"I will teach you French," said Musa, unaware that he had numerous
+predecessors in the offer. "But will you play tennis with me in the gardens
+of the Luxembourg?"
+
+Audrey said she would, and that she would buy a racket.
+
+"Tell me about all those artists Miss Nickall spoke of," she said. "I must
+know about all the artists, and all the musicians, and all the authors. I
+must know all about them at once. I shan't sleep until I know all their
+names and I can talk French. I shan't _sleep_."
+
+Musa began the catalogue. When a girl came and chucked him under the chin,
+he angrily slapped her face. Then, to avoid complications, they descended.
+
+In the middle of the studio, wearing a silk hat, a morning coat, striped
+trousers, yellow gloves, and boots with spats, stood a smiling figure.
+
+"_Voila_ Dauphin!" said Musa.
+
+"Musa!" called Monsieur Dauphin, espying the youth on the staircase. Then
+he made a gesture to the orchestra: "Give him a violin!"
+
+Audrey stood by Musa while he played a dance that nobody danced to, and
+when he had finished she was rather ashamed, under the curtain of wild
+cheering, because with her Essex incredulity she had not sufficiently
+believed in Musa's greatness.
+
+"Permit your host to introduce himself," said a voice behind her, not in
+the correct English of a linguistic Frenchman, but in utterly English
+English. She had now descended to the floor of the studio.
+
+Emile Dauphin raised his glossy hat, and then asked to be allowed to put it
+on again, as the company had decided that it was part of his costume. He
+had a delicious smile, at once respectful and intimate. Audrey had read
+somewhere that really great men were always simple and unaffected--indeed
+that it was often impossible to guess from their demeanour that, etc.,
+etc.--and this experience of the first celebrity with whom she had ever
+spoken (except Musa, who was somehow only Musa) confirmed the statement,
+and confirmed also her young instinctive belief that what is printed must
+be true. She was beginning to feel the stealthy on-comings of fatigue, and
+certainly she was very nervous, but Monsieur Dauphin's quite particularly
+sympathetic manner, and her own sudden determination not to be a little
+blushing fool gave her new power.
+
+"I can't express to you," he said, moving towards the dais and mesmerising
+her to keep by his side. "I can't express to you how sorry I was to be so
+late." He made the apology with lightness, but with sincerity. Audrey knew
+how polite the French were. "But truly circumstances were too much for me.
+Those two Russian princesses--they came to me through a mutual friend, a
+dear old friend of mine, very closely attached also to them. They leave
+to-morrow morning by the St. Petersburg express, on which they have engaged
+a special coach. What was I to do? I tried to tear myself away earlier, but
+of course there were the portrait sketches to finish, and no doubt you know
+the usage of the best society in Russia."
+
+"Yes," murmured Audrey.
+
+"Come up on the dais, will you?" he suggested. "And let us survey the scene
+together."
+
+They surveyed the scene together. The snouted band was having supper on the
+floor in a corner, and many of the guests also were seated on the floor.
+Miss Ingate, intoxicated by the rapture of existence, and Miss Thompkins
+were carefully examining the frescoes on the walls. A young woman covered
+from head to foot with gold tinsel was throwing chocolates into Musa's
+mouth, or as near to it as she could.
+
+"What a splendid player Mr. Musa is!" Audrey inaugurated her career as a
+woman of the world. "I doubt if I have ever heard such violin playing."
+
+"I'm so glad you think so," replied Monsieur Dauphin. "Of course you know
+I'm very conceited about my painting. Anybody will tell you so. But beneath
+all that I'm not so sure. I often have the gravest doubts about my work.
+But I never had any doubt that when I took Musa out of the orchestra in the
+Cafe de Versailles I was giving a genius to the world. And perhaps that's
+how I shall be remembered by posterity. And if it is I shall be content."
+
+Never before had Audrey heard anybody connect himself with posterity, and
+she was very much impressed. Monsieur Dauphin was resigned and yet brave.
+By no means convinced that posterity would do the right thing, he
+nevertheless had no grudge against posterity.
+
+Just then there was a sharp scream at the top of the spiral staircase. With
+a smile that condoned the scream and excused his flight, Monsieur Dauphin
+ran to the staircase, and up it, and disappeared on to the roof. Nobody
+seemed to be perturbed. Audrey was left alone and conspicuous on the dais.
+
+"Charming, isn't he?" said Miss Thompkins, arriving with Miss Ingate in
+front of the flower-screened platform.
+
+"Oh! he is!" answered Audrey with sincerity, leaning downwards.
+
+"Has he told you all about the Russian princesses?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Audrey, pleased.
+
+"I thought he would," said Miss Thompkins, with a peculiar intonation.
+
+Audrey knew then that Miss Thompkins, having first maliciously made sure
+that she was a ninny, was now telling her to her face that she was a ninny.
+
+Tommy continued:
+
+"Then I guess he told you he'd given Musa to the world."
+
+Audrey nodded.
+
+"Ah! I knew he would. Well, when he comes back he'll tell you that you must
+come to one of his _real_ entertainments here, and that this one is
+nothing. Then he'll tell you about all the nobs he knows in London. And at
+last he'll say that you have a strangely expressive face, and he'd like to
+paint it and show the picture in the Salon. But he won't tell you it'll
+cost you forty thousand francs. So I'll tell you that, because perhaps
+later on, if you don't know, you might find yourself making a noise like a
+tenderfoot. You see, Miss Ingate hasn't concealed that you're a lady
+millionaire."
+
+"No, I haven't," said Miss Ingate, glowing and yet sarcastic. "I couldn't
+bring myself to, because I was so anxious to see if human nature in Paris
+is anything like what it is in Essex."
+
+"And why should you hide it, Winnie?" Audrey stoutly demanded.
+
+"Well, au revoir," Tommy murmured delicately, with a very original gesture.
+"He's coming back."
+
+As Monsieur Dauphin, having apparently established peace on the roof,
+approached again, Audrey discreetly examined his face and his demeanour, to
+see if she could perceive in him any of the sinister things that Tommy had
+implied. She was unable to make up her mind whether she could or not. But
+in the end she decided that she was as shrewd as anybody in the place.
+
+"Have you been to my roof-garden, Mrs. Moncreiff?" he asked in a persuasive
+voice, raising his eyebrows.
+
+She said she had, and that she thought the roof was heavenly.
+
+Then from the corner of her eye she saw Miss Ingate and Tommy sidling
+mischievously away, like conspirators who have lighted a time fuse. She
+considered that Tommy, with her red hair and freckles, and strange glances
+and strange tones full of a naughty and malicious sweetness, was even more
+peculiar than Miss Ingate. But she was not intimidated by them nor by the
+illustrious Monsieur Dauphin, so perfectly master of his faculties. Rather
+she was exultant in the contagion of their malice. Once more she felt as if
+she had ceased to be a girl a very long time ago. And she was aware of
+agreeable and exciting temptations.
+
+"Are you taking a house in Paris?" inquired Monsieur Dauphin.
+
+Audrey answered primly:
+
+"I haven't decided. Should you advise me to do so?"
+
+He waved a hand.
+
+"Ah! It depends on the life you wish to lead. Who knows--with a young woman
+who has all experience behind her and all life before her! But I do hope I
+may see you again. And I trust I may persuade you to come to my studio
+again." Audrey felt the thrill of drama as he proceeded. "This is scarcely
+a night for you. I ought to tell you that I give three entertainments
+during the autumn. To-night is the first. It is for students and those
+English and Americans who think they are seeing Paris here. Then I give
+another for the political and dramatic worlds. Each is secretly proud to
+meet the other. The third I reserve to my friends. Some of my many friends
+in London are good enough to come over specially for it. It is on
+Christmas Eve. I do wish you would come to that one."
+
+"I suppose," she said, catching the diabolic glances of Miss Ingate and
+Tommy, "I suppose you know almost more people in London than in Paris?"
+
+He answered:
+
+"Well, I count among my friends more than two-thirds of the subscribers to
+Covent Garden Opera.... By the way, do you happen to be connected with the
+Moncreiffs of Suddon Wester? They have a charming house in Hyde Park
+Terrace. But probably you know it?"
+
+Audrey burst out laughing. She laughed loud and violently till the tears
+stood in her eyes.
+
+"Well," he said, at a loss, deprecatingly. "Perhaps these Moncreiffs _are_
+rather weird."
+
+"I was only laughing," she said in gasps, but with a complete secret
+composure. "Because we had such an awful quarrel with them last year. I
+couldn't tell you the details. They're too shocking."
+
+He gave a dubious smile.
+
+"D'you know, dear young lady," he recommenced after a brief pause, "I
+should adore to paint a portrait of you laughing. It would be very well
+hung in the Salon. Your face is so strangely expressive. It is utterly
+different, in expression, from any other face I ever saw--and I have
+studied faces."
+
+Heedless of the general interest which she was arousing, Audrey leaned on
+the rail of the screen of flowers, and gave herself up afresh to laughter.
+Monsieur Dauphin was decidedly puzzled. The affair might have ended in
+hysteria and confusion had not Miss Ingate, with Nick and Tommy, come
+hurrying up to the dais.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A POLITICAL REFUGEE
+
+
+"Rosamund has come to my studio and wants to see me at once. _She has sent
+for me._ Miss Ingate says she shall go, too."
+
+It was these words in a highly emotionalised voice from Miss Nickall that,
+like a vague murmured message of vast events, drew the entire quartet away
+from the bright inebriated scene created by Monsieur Dauphin.
+
+The single word "Rosamund" sufficed to break one mood and induce another in
+all bosoms save that of Audrey, who was in a state of permanent joyous
+exultation that she scarcely even attempted to control. The great militant
+had a surname, but it was rarely used save by police magistrates. Her
+Christian name alone was more impressive than the myriad cognomens of
+queens and princesses. Miss Nickall ran away home at once. Miss Thompkins
+was left to deliver Miss Ingate and Audrey at Nick's studio, which, being
+in the Rue Delambre, was not far away. And not the shedding of the kimono
+and the re-assumption of European attire could affect Audrey's spirits. Had
+she been capable of regret in that hour, she would have regretted the
+abandonment of the ball, where the refined, spiritual, strange faces of the
+men, and the enigmatic quality of the women, and the exceeding novelty of
+the social code had begun to arouse in her sentiments of approval and
+admiration. But she quitted the staggering frolic without a sigh; for she
+carried within her a frolic surpassing anything exterior or physical.
+
+The immense flickering boulevard with its double roadway stretched away to
+the horizon on either hand, empty.
+
+"What time is it?" asked Miss Ingate.
+
+Tommy looked at her wrist-watch.
+
+"Don't tell me! Don't tell me!" cried Audrey.
+
+"We might get a taxi in the Rue de Babylone," Tommy suggested. "Or shall we
+walk?"
+
+"We _must_ walk," cried Audrey.
+
+She knew the name of the street. In the distance she could recognise the
+dying lights of the cafe-restaurant where they had eaten. She felt already
+like an inhabitant of the dreamed-of city. It was almost inconceivable to
+her that she had been within it for only a few hours, and that England lay
+less than a day behind her in the past, and Moze less than two days. And
+Aguilar the morose, and the shuttered rooms of Flank Hall, shot for an
+instant into her mind and out again.
+
+The other two women walked rather quickly, mesmerised possibly by the magic
+of the illustrious Christian name, and Audrey gave occasional schoolgirlish
+leaps by their side. A little policeman appeared inquisitive from a
+by-street, and Audrey tossed her head as if saying: "Pooh! I belong here.
+All the mystery of this city is mine, and I am as at home as in Moze
+Street."
+
+And as they surged through the echoing solitude of the boulevard, and as
+they crossed the equally tremendous boulevard that cut through it east and
+west, Tommy told the story of Nick's previous relations with Rosamund. Nick
+had met Rosamund once before through her English chum, Betty Burke, an art
+student who had ultimately sacrificed art to the welfare of her sex, but
+who with Mrs. Burke had shared rooms and studio with Nick for many months.
+Tommy's narrative was spotted with hardly perceptible sarcasms concerning
+art, women, Betty Burke, Mrs. Burke, and Nick; but she put no barb into
+Rosamund. And when Miss Ingate, who had never met Rosamund, asked what
+Rosamund amounted to in the esteem of Tommy, Tommy evaded the question.
+Miss Ingate remembered, however, what she had said in the cafe-restaurant.
+
+Then they turned into the Rue Delambre, and Tommy halted them in the deep
+obscurity in front of another of those huge black doors which throughout
+Paris seemed to guard the secrets of individual life. An automobile was
+waiting close by. A little door in the huge one clicked and yielded, and
+they climbed over a step into black darkness.
+
+"Thompkins!" called Miss Thompkins loudly to the black darkness, to
+reassure the drowsy concierge in his hidden den, shutting the door with a
+bang behind them; and, groping for the hands of the others, she dragged
+them forward stumbling.
+
+"I never have a match," she said.
+
+They blundered up tenebrous stairs.
+
+"We're just passing my door," said Tommy. "Nick's is higher up."
+
+Then a perpendicular slit of light showed itself--and a portal slightly
+open could be distinguished.
+
+"I shall quit here," said Tommy. "You go right in."
+
+"You aren't leaving us?" exclaimed Miss Ingate in alarm.
+
+"I won't go in," Tommy persisted in a quiet satiric tone. "I'll leave my
+door open below, and see you when you come down."
+
+She could be heard descending.
+
+"Why, I guess they're here," said a voice, Nick's, within, and the door was
+pulled wide open.
+
+"My legs are all of a tremble!" muttered Miss Ingate.
+
+Nick's studio seemed larger than reality because of its inadequate
+illumination. On a small paint-stained table in the centre was an oil-lamp
+beneath a round shade that had been decorated by some artist's hand with a
+series of reclining women in many colours. This lamp made a moon in the
+midnight of the studio, but it was a moon almost without rays; the shade
+seemed to imprison the light, save that which escaped from its superior
+orifice. Against the table stood a tall thin woman in black. Her face was
+lit by the rays escaping upward; a pale, firm, bland face, with rather
+prominent cheeks, loose grey hair above, surmounted by a toque. The dress
+was dark, and the only noticeable feature of it was that the sleeves were
+finished in white linen; from these the hands emerged calm and veined under
+the lampshade; in one of them a pair of gloves were clasped. On the table
+lay a thin mantle.
+
+At the back of the studio there sat another woman, so engloomed that no
+detail of her could be distinguished.
+
+"As I was saying," the tall upright woman resumed as soon as Miss Ingate
+and Audrey had been introduced. "Betty Burke is in prison. She got six
+weeks this morning. She may never come out again. Almost her last words
+from the dock were that you, Miss Nickall, should be asked to go to London
+to look after Mrs. Burke, and perhaps to take Betty's place in other ways.
+She said that her mother preferred you to anybody else, and that she was
+sure you would come. Shall you?"
+
+The accents were very clear, the face was delicately smiling, the little
+gestures had a quite tranquil quality. Rosamund did not seem to care
+whether Miss Nickall obeyed the summons or not. She did not seem to care
+about anything whatever except her own manner of existing. She was the
+centre of Paris, and Paris was naught but a circumference for her. All
+phenomena beyond the individuality of the woman were reduced to the
+irrelevant and the negligible. It would have been absurd to mention to her
+costume balls. The frost of her indifference would have wilted them into
+nothingness.
+
+"Yes, of course, I shall go," Nick answered.
+
+"When?" was the implacable question.
+
+"Oh! By the first train," said Nick eagerly. As she approached the lamp,
+the gleam of the devotee could be seen in her gaze. In one moment she had
+sacrificed Paris and art and Tommy and herself, and had risen to the sacred
+ardour of a vocation. Rosamund was well accustomed to watching the process,
+and she gave not the least sign of satisfaction or approval.
+
+"I ought to tell you," she went on, "that I came over from London suddenly
+by the afternoon service in order to escape arrest. I am now a political
+refugee. Things have come to this pass. You will do well to leave by the
+first train. That is why I decided to call here before going to bed."
+
+"Where's Tommy?" asked Nick, appealing wildly to Miss Ingate and Audrey.
+Upon being answered she said, still more wildly: "I must see her. Can
+you--No, I'll run down myself." In the doorway she turned round: "Mrs.
+Moncreiff, would you and Miss Ingate like to have my studio while I'm away?
+I should just love you to. There's a very nice bed over there behind the
+screen, and a fair sort of couch over here. Do say you will! _Do_!"
+
+"Oh! We will!" Miss Ingate replied at once, reassuringly, as though in
+haste to grant the supreme request of some condemned victim. And indeed
+Miss Nickall appeared ready to burst into tears if she should be thwarted.
+
+As soon as Nick had gone, Miss Ingate's smiling face, nervous, intimidated,
+audacious, sardonic, and good humoured, moved out of the gloom nearer to
+Rosamund.
+
+"You knew I played the barrel organ all down Regent Street?" she ventured,
+blushing.
+
+"Ah!" murmured Rosamund, unmoved. "It was you who played the barrel-organ?
+So it was."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Ingate. "But I'm like you. I don't care passionately for
+prison. Eh! Eh! I'm not so vehy, vehy fond of it. I don't know Miss Burke,
+but what a pity she has got six weeks, isn't it? Still, I was vehy much
+struck by what someone said to me to-day--that you'd be vehy sorry if women
+_did_ get the vote. I think I should be sorry, too--you know what I mean."
+
+"Perfectly," ejaculated Rosamund, with a pleasant smile.
+
+"I hope I'm not skidding," said Miss Ingate still more timidly, but also
+with a sardonic giggle, looking round into the gloom. "I do skid sometimes,
+you know, and we've just come away from a----"
+
+She could not finish.
+
+"And Mrs. Moncreiff, if I've got the name right, is she with us, too?"
+asked Rosamund, miraculously urbane. And added: "I hear she has wealth and
+is the mistress of it."
+
+Audrey jumped up, smiling, and lifting her veil. She could not help
+smiling. The studio, the lamp, Rosamund with her miraculous
+self-complacency, Nick with her soft, mad eyes and wistful voice, the
+blundering ruthless Miss Ingate, all seemed intensely absurd to her.
+Everything seemed absurd except dancing and revelry and coloured lights and
+strange disguises and sensuous contacts. She had the most careless
+contempt, stiffened by a slight loathing, for political movements and every
+melancholy effort to reform the world. The world did not need reforming and
+did not want to be reformed.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know my story," Audrey began, not realising how she
+would continue. "I am a widow. I made an unhappy marriage. My husband on
+the day after our wedding-day began to eat peas with his knife. In a week I
+was forced to leave him. And a fortnight later I heard that he was dead of
+blood-poisoning. He had cut his mouth."
+
+And she thought:
+
+"What is the matter with me? I have ruined myself." All her exultation had
+collapsed.
+
+But Rosamund remarked gravely:
+
+"It is a common story."
+
+Suddenly there was a movement in the obscure corner where sat the unnamed
+and unintroduced lady. This lady rose and came towards the table. She was
+very elegant in dress and manner, and she looked maturely young.
+
+"Madame Piriac," announced Rosamund.
+
+Audrey recoiled.... Gazing hard at the face, she saw in it a vague but
+undeniable resemblance to certain admired photographs which had arrived at
+Moze from France.
+
+"Pardon me!" said Madame Piriac in English with a strong French accent. "I
+shall like very much to hear the details of this story of _petits pois_."
+The tone of Madame Piriac's question was unexceptionable; it took account
+of Audrey's mourning attire, and of her youthfulness; but Audrey could
+formulate no answer to it. Instead of speaking she gave a touch to her
+veil, and it dropped before her piquant, troubled, inscrutable face like a
+screen.
+
+Miss Ingate said with noticeable calm, but also with the air of a
+conspirator who sees danger to a most secret machination:
+
+"I'm afraid Mrs. Moncreiff won't care to go into details."
+
+It was neatly done. Madame Piriac brought the episode to a close with a
+sympathetic smile and an apposite gesture. And Audrey, safe behind her
+veil, glanced gratefully and admiringly at Miss Ingate, who, taken quite
+unawares, had been so surprisingly able thus to get her out of a scrape.
+She felt very young and callow among these three women, and the mere
+presence of Madame Piriac, of whom years ago she had created for herself a
+wondrous image, put her into a considerable flutter. On the whole she was
+ready to believe that the actual Madame Piriac was quite equal to the image
+of her founded on photographs and letters. She set her teeth, and decided
+that Madame Piriac should not learn her identity--yet! There was little
+risk of her discovering it for herself, for no photograph of Audrey had
+gone to Paris for a dozen years, and Miss Ingate's loyalty was absolute.
+
+As Audrey sat down again, the illustrious Rosamund took a chair near her,
+and it could not be doubted that the woman had the mien and the carriage of
+a leader.
+
+"You are very rich, are you not?" asked Rosamund, in a tone at once
+deferential and intimate, and she smiled very attractively in the gloom.
+Impossible not to reckon with that smile, as startling as it was seductive!
+
+Evidently Nick had been communicative.
+
+"I suppose I am," murmured Audrey, like a child, and feeling like a child.
+Yet at the same time she was asking herself with fierce curiosity: "What
+has Madame Piriac got to do with this woman?"
+
+"I hear you have eight or ten thousand a year and can do what you like with
+it. And you cannot be more than twenty-three.... What a responsibility it
+must be for you!  You are a friend of Miss Ingate's and therefore on our
+side. Indeed, if a woman such as you were not on our side, I wonder whom
+we _could_ count on. Miss Ingate is, of course, a subscriber to the
+Union--"
+
+"Only a very little one," cried Miss Ingate.
+
+Audrey had never felt so abashed since an ex-parlourmaid at Flank Hall, who
+had left everything to join the Salvation Army, had asked her once in the
+streets of Colchester whether she had found salvation. She knew that she,
+if any one, ought to subscribe to the Suffragette Union, and to subscribe
+largely. For she was a convinced suffragette by faith, because Miss Ingate
+was a convinced suffragette. If Miss Ingate had been a Mormon, Audrey also
+would have been a Mormon. And, although she hated to subscribe, she knew
+also that if Rosamund demanded from her any subscription, however
+large--even a thousand pounds--she would not know how to refuse. She felt
+before Rosamund as hundreds of women, and not a few men, had felt.
+
+"I may be leaving for Germany to-morrow," Rosamund proceeded. "I may not
+see you again--at any rate for many weeks. May I write to London that you
+mean to support us?"
+
+Audrey was giving herself up for lost, and not without reason. She
+foreshadowed a future of steely self-sacrifice, propaganda, hammers, riots,
+and prison; with no self-indulgence in it, no fine clothes, no art, and no
+young men save earnest young men. She saw herself in the iron clutch of her
+own conscience and sense of duty. And she was frightened. But at that
+moment Nick rushed into the room, and the spell was broken. Nick considered
+that she had the right to monopolise Rosamund, and she monopolised her.
+
+Miss Ingate prudently gathered Audrey to her side, and was off with her.
+Nick ran to kiss them, and told them that Tommy was waiting for them in the
+other studio. They groped downstairs, guided by a wisp of light from
+Tommy's studio.
+
+"Why didn't you come up?" asked Miss Ingate of Tommy in Tommy's
+antechamber. "Have you and _she_ quarrelled?"
+
+"Oh no!" said Tommy. "But I'm afraid of her. She'd grab me if she had the
+least chance, and I don't want to be grabbed."
+
+Tommy was arranging to escort them home, and had already got out on the
+landing, when Rosamund and Madame Piriac, followed by Nick holding a candle
+aloft, came down the stairs. A few words of explanation, a little innocent
+blundering on the part of Nick, a polite suggestion by Madame Piriac, and
+an imperious affirmative by Rosamund--and the two strangers to Paris found
+themselves in Madame Piriac's waiting automobile on the way to their rooms!
+
+In the darkness of the car the four women could not distinguish each
+other's faces. But Rosamund's voice was audible in a monologue, and Miss
+Ingate trembled for Audrey and for the future.
+
+"This is the most important political movement in the history of the
+world," Rosamund was saying, not at all in a speechifying manner, but quite
+intimately and naturally. "Everybody admits that, and that's what makes it
+so extraordinarily interesting, and that is why we have had such
+magnificent help from women in the very highest positions who wouldn't
+dream of touching ordinary politics. It's a marvellous thing to be in the
+movement, if we can only realise it. Don't you think so, Mrs. Moncreiff?"
+
+Audrey made no response. The other two sat silent. Miss Ingate thought:
+
+"What's the girl going to do next? Surely she could mumble something."
+
+The car curved and stopped.
+
+"Here we are," said Miss Ingate, delighted. "And thank you so much. I
+suppose all we have to do is just to push the bell and the door opens. Now
+Audrey, dear."
+
+Audrey did not stir.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" murmured Madame Piriac, "What has she, little one?"
+
+Rosamund said stiffly and curtly:
+
+"She is asleep.... It is very late. Four o'clock."
+
+Excellent as was Audrey's excuse for her lapse, Rosamund was not at all
+pleased. That slumber was one of Rosamund's rare defeats.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+WIDOWHOOD IN THE STUDIO
+
+
+Audrey was in a white pique coat and short skirt, with pale blue blouse and
+pale blue hat--and at the extremity blue stockings and white tennis shoes.
+She picked up a tennis racket in its press, and prepared to leave the
+studio. She had bought the coat, the skirt, the blouse, the hat, the
+tennis shoes, the racket, the press, and practically all she wore, visible
+and invisible, at that very convenient and immense shop, the Bon Marche,
+whose only drawback was that it was always full. Everybody in the Quarter,
+except a few dolls not in earnest, bought everything at the Bon Marche,
+because the Bon Marche was so comprehensive and so reliable. If you desired
+a toothbrush, the Bon Marche not only supplied it, but delivered it in a
+30-h.p. motor-van manned by two officials in uniform. And if you desired a
+bedroom suite, a pair of corsets, a box of pastels, an anthracite stove, or
+a new wallpaper, the Bon Marche would never shake its head.
+
+And Audrey was now of the Quarter. Many simple sojourners in the Quarter
+tried to imply the Latin Quarter when they said the Quarter. But the
+Quarter was only the Montparnasse Quarter. Nevertheless, it sufficed. It
+had its own boulevards, restaurants, cafes, concerts, theatres, palaces,
+shops, gardens, museums, and churches. There was no need to leave it, and
+if you were a proper amateur of the Quarter, you never did leave it save to
+scoff at other Quarters. Sometimes you fringed the Latin Quarter in the big
+cafes of the Boulevard St. Michel, and sometimes you strolled northwards as
+far as the Seine, and occasionally even crossed the Seine in order to enter
+the Louvre, which lined the other bank, but you did not go any farther. Why
+should you?
+
+Audrey had become so acclimatised to the Quarter that Miss Nickall's studio
+seemed her natural home. It was very typically a woman's studio of the
+Quarter. About thirty feet each way and fourteen feet high, with certain
+irregularities of shape, it was divided into corners. There were the two
+bed-corners, which were lounge-corners during the day; the afternoon-tea
+corner, with a piece or two of antique furniture and some old silk
+hangings, where on high afternoons tea was given to droves of visitors; and
+there was the culinary corner, with spirit-lamps, gas-rings, kettles, and a
+bowl or two over which you might spend a couple of arduous hours in
+ineffectually whipping up a mayonnaise for an impromptu lunch. Artistic
+operations were carried out in the middle of the studio, not too far from
+the stove, which never went out from November to May. A large mirror hung
+paramount on one wall. The remaining spaces of the studio were filled with
+old easels, canvases, old frames, old costumes and multifarious other
+properties for pictures, trunks, lamps, boards, tables, and bric-a-brac
+bought at the Ham-and-Old-Iron Fair. There were a million objects in the
+studio, and their situations had to be, and were, learnt off by heart. The
+scene of the toilette was a small attached chamber.
+
+The housekeeping combined the simplicity of the early Christians with the
+efficient organising of the twentieth century. It began at about half-past
+seven, when unseen but heard beings left fresh rolls and the _New York
+Herald_ or the _Daily Mail_ at the studio door. You made your own bed, just
+as you cleaned your own boots or washed your own face. The larder
+consisted of tins of coffee, tea, sugar, and cakes, with an intermittent
+supply of butter and lemons. The infusing of tea and coffee was practised
+in perfection. It mattered not in the least whether toilette or breakfast
+came first, but it was exceedingly important that the care of the stove
+should precede both. Between ten and eleven the concierge's wife arrived
+with tools and utensils; she swept and dusted under a considerable
+percentage of the million objects--and the responsibilities of housekeeping
+were finished until the next day, for afternoon tea, if it occurred, was a
+diversion and not a toil.
+
+A great expanse of twelve to fifteen hours lay in front of you. It was not
+uncomfortably and unchangeably cut into fixed portions by the incidence of
+lunch and dinner. You ate when you felt inclined to eat, and nearly always
+at restaurants where you met your acquaintances. Meals were the least
+important happenings of the day. You had no reliable watch, and you needed
+none, for you had no fixed programme. You worked till you had had enough of
+work. You went forth into the world exactly when the idea took you. If you
+were bored, you found a friend and went to sit in a cafe. You were ready
+for anything. The word "rule" had been omitted from your dictionary. You
+retired to bed when the still small voice within murmured that there was
+naught else to do. You woke up in the morning amid cups and saucers,
+lingerie, masterpieces, and boots. And the next day was the same. All the
+days were the same. Weeks passed with inexpressible rapidity, and all
+things beyond the Quarter had the quality of vague murmurings and noises
+behind the scenes.
+
+May had come. Audrey and Miss Ingate had lived in the studio for six months
+before they realised that they had settled down there and that habits had
+been formed. Still, they had accomplished something. Miss Ingate had gone
+back into oils and was attending life classes, and Audrey, by terrible
+application and by sitting daily at the feet of an oldish lady in black,
+and by refusing to speak English between breakfast and dinner, had acquired
+a good accent and much fluency in the French tongue. Now, when she spoke
+French, she thought in French, and she was extremely proud of the
+achievement. Also she was acquainted with the names and styles of all known
+modern painters from pointillistes to cubistes, and, indeed, with the
+latest eccentricities in all the arts. She could tell who was immortal, and
+she was fully aware that there was no real painting in England. In brief,
+she was perhaps more Parisian even than she had hoped. She had absorbed
+Paris into her system. It was still not the Paris of her early fancy; in
+particular, it lacked elegance; but it richly satisfied her.
+
+She had on this afternoon of young May an appointment with a young man. And
+the appointment seemed quite natural, causing no inward disturbance. Less
+than ever could she understand her father's ukases against young men and
+against every form of self-indulgence. Now, when she had the idea of doing
+a thing, she merely did it. Her instincts were her only guide, and, though
+her instincts were often highly complex, they seldom puzzled her. The old
+instinct that the desire to do a thing was a sufficient reason against
+doing it, had expired. For many weeks she had lived with a secret fear that
+such unbridled conduct must lead to terrible catastrophes, but as nothing
+happened this fear also expired. She was constantly with young men, and
+often with men not young; she liked it, but just as much she liked being
+with women. She never had any difficulties with men. Miss Thompkins
+insinuated at intervals that she flirted, but she had the sharpest contempt
+for flirtation, and as a practice put it on a level with embezzlement or
+arson. Miss Thompkins, however, kept on insinuating. Audrey regarded
+herself as decidedly wiser than Miss Thompkins. Her opinions on vital
+matters changed almost weekly, but she was always absolutely sure that the
+new opinion was final and incontrovertible. Her scorn of the old English
+Audrey, though concealed, was terrific.
+
+And it is to be remembered that she was a widow. She was never half a
+second late, now, in replying when addressed as "Mrs. Moncreiff."
+Frequently she thought that she in fact was a widow. Widowhood was a very
+advantageous state. It had a free pass to all affairs of interest. It
+opened wide the door of the world. It recked nothing of girlish codes. It
+abolished discussions concerning conventional propriety. Its chief defect,
+for Audrey, was that if she met another widow, or even a married woman, she
+had to take heed lest she stumbled. Fortunately, neither widows nor wives
+were very prevalent in the Quarter. And Audrey had attained skill in the
+use of the state of widowhood. She told no more infantile perilous tales
+about husbands who ate peas with a knife. In her thankfulness that the
+tyrannic Rosamund had gone to Germany, and that Madame Piriac had vanished
+back into unknown Paris, Audrey was at pains to take to heart the lesson of
+a semi-hysterical blunder.
+
+She descended the dark, dusty oak stairs utterly content. And at the door
+of the gloomy den of the concierge the concierge's wife was standing. She
+was a new wife, the young mate of a middle-aged husband, and she had only
+been illuminating the den (which was kitchen, parlour, and bedroom in a
+space of ten feet by eight) for about a month. She was plump and pretty,
+and also she was fair, which was unusual for a Frenchwoman. She wore a
+striped frock and a little black apron, and her yellow hair was waved with
+art. Audrey offered her the key of the studio with a smile, and, as Audrey
+expected, the concierge's wife began to chatter. The concierge's wife loved
+to chatter with Anglo-Saxon tenants, and she specially enjoyed chattering
+with Audrey, because of the superior quality of Audrey's French and of her
+tips. Audrey listened, proud because she could understand so well and
+answer so fluently.
+
+The sun, which in May shone on the courtyard for about forty minutes in the
+afternoon on clear days, caught these two creatures in the same beam. They
+made a delicious sight--Audrey dark, with her large forehead and negligible
+nose, and the concierge's wife rather doll-like in the regularity of her
+features. They were delicious not only because of their varied charm, but
+because they were so absurdly wise and omniscient, and because they had
+come to settled conclusions about every kind of worldly problem. Youth and
+vitality equalised their ranks, and the fact that Audrey possessed many
+ascertained ancestors, and a part of the earth's surface, and much money,
+and that the concierge's wife possessed nothing but herself and a few bits
+of furniture, was not of the slightest importance.
+
+The concierge's wife, after curiosity concerning tennis, grew confidential
+about herself, and more confidential. And at last she lowered her tones,
+and with sparkling eyes communicated information to Audrey in a voice that
+was little more than a whisper.
+
+"Oh! truly? I must go," hastily said Audrey, blushing, and off she ran,
+reduced in an instant to the schoolgirl. Her departure was a retreat.
+These occasional discomfitures made a faint blot on the excellence of being
+a widow.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SWOON
+
+
+In the north-east corner of the Luxembourg Gardens, where the lawn-tennis
+courts were permitted by a public authority which was strangely impartial
+and cosmopolitan in the matter of games, Miss Ingate sat sketching a group
+of statuary with the Rue de Vaugirard behind it. She was sketching in the
+orthodox way, on the orthodox stool, with the orthodox combined paint-box
+and easel, and the orthodox police permit in the cover of the box.
+
+The bright and warm weather was tonic; it accounted for the whole
+temperament of Parisians. Under such a sky, with such a delicate pricking
+vitalisation in the air, it was impossible not to be Parisian. The trees,
+all arranged in beautiful perspectives, were coming into leaf, and through
+their screens could be seen everywhere children shouting as they played at
+ball and top, and both kinds of nurses, and scores of perambulators and
+mothers, and a few couples dallying with their sensations, and old men
+reading papers, and old women knitting and relating anecdotes or entire
+histories. And nobody was curious beyond his own group. The people were
+perfectly at home in this grandiose setting of gardens and fountains and
+grey palaces, with theatres, boulevards and the odour and roar of
+motor-buses just beyond the palisades. And Miss Ingate in the exciting
+sunshine gazed around with her subdued Essex grin, as if saying: "It's the
+most topsy-turvy planet that I was ever on, and why am I, of all people,
+trying to make this canvas look like a piece of sculpture and a street?"
+
+"Now, Miss Ingate," said tall red-haired Tommy, who was standing over her.
+"Before you go any farther, do look at the line of roofs and see how
+interesting it is; it's really full of interest. And you've simply not got
+on speaking terms with it yet."
+
+"No more I have! No more I have!" cried Miss Ingate, glancing round at
+Audrey, who was swinging her racket. "Thank you, Tommy. I ought to have
+thought of it for my own sake, because roofs are so much easier than
+statues, and I must get an effect somewhere, mustn't I?"
+
+Tommy winked at Audrey. But Tommy's wink was as naught to the great
+invisible wink of Miss Ingate, the everlasting wink that derided the
+universe and the sun himself.
+
+Then Musa appeared, with paraphernalia, at the end of a path. Accompanying
+him was a specimen of the creature known on tennis lawns as "a fourth." He
+was almost nameless, tall, very young, with the seedlings of a moustache
+and a space of nude calf between his knickerbockers and his socks. He was
+very ceremonious, shy, ungainly and blushful. He played a fair-to-middling
+game; and nothing more need be said of him.
+
+Musa by contrast was an accomplished man of the world, and the fact that
+the fourth obviously regarded him as a hero helped Musa to behave in a
+manner satisfactory to himself in front of these English and American
+women, so strange, so exotic, so kind, and so disconcerting. Musa looked
+upon Britain as a romantic isle where people died for love. And as for
+America, in his mind it was as sinister, as wondrous, and as fatal as the
+Indies might seem to a bank clerk in Bradford. He had need of every moral
+assistance in this or any other social ordeal. For, though he was still the
+greatest violinist in Paris, and perhaps in the world, he could not yet
+prove this profound truth by the only demonstration which the world
+accepts.
+
+If he played in studios he was idolised. If he played at small concerts in
+unknown halls he was received with rapture. But he was never lionised. The
+great concert halls never saw him on their platforms; his name was never in
+the newspapers; and hospitable personages never fought together for his
+presence at their tables, even if occasionally they invited him to perform
+for charity in return for a glass of claret and a sandwich. Monsieur
+Dauphin had attempted to force the invisible barriers for him, but without
+success. All his admirers in the Quarter stuck to it that he was in the
+rank of Kreisler and Ysaye; at the same time they were annoyed with him
+inasmuch as he did not force the world to acknowledge the prophetic good
+taste of the Quarter. And Musa made mistakes. He ought to have arrived at
+studios in a magnificent automobile, and to have given superb and
+uproarious repasts, and to have rendered innumerable women exquisitely
+unhappy. Whereas he arrived by tube or bus, never offered hospitality of
+any sort, and was like a cat with women. Hence the attitude of the Quarter
+was patronising, as if the Quarter had said: "Yes, he is the greatest
+violinist in Paris and perhaps in the world; but that's all, and it isn't
+enough."
+
+The young man and the boy made ready for the game as for a gladiatorial
+display. Their frowning seriousness proved that they had comprehended the
+true British idea of sport. Musa came round the net to Audrey's side, but
+Audrey said in French:
+
+"Miss Thompkins and I will play together. See, we are going to beat you and
+Gustave."
+
+Musa retired. A few indifferent spectators had collected. Gustave, the
+fourth, had to serve.
+
+"Play!" he muttered, in a thick and threatening voice, whose depth was the
+measure of his nervousness.
+
+He served a double fault to Tommy, and then a fault to Audrey. The fourth
+ball he got over. Audrey played it. The two males rushed with appalling
+force together on the centre line in pursuit, and a terrible collision
+occurred. Musa fell away from Gustave as from a wall. When he arose out of
+the pebbly dust his right arm hung very limp from the shoulder. No sooner
+had he risen than he sank again, and the blood began to leave his face, and
+his eyes closed. The fourth, having recovered from the collision, knelt
+down by his side, and gazed earnestly at him. Tommy and Audrey hurried
+towards the statuesque group, and Audrey was thinking: "Why did I refuse to
+let him play with me? If he had played with me there would have been no
+accident." She reproached herself because she well knew that only out of
+the most absurd contrariness had she repulsed Musa. Or was it that she had
+repulsed him from fear of something that Tommy might say or look?
+
+In a few seconds, strongly drawn by this marvellous piece of luck,
+promenaders were darting with joyous rapidity from north, south, east and
+west to witness the tragedy. There were nurses with coloured streamers six
+feet long, lusty children, errand boys, lads, and sundry nondescript men,
+some of whom carefully folded up their newspapers as they hurried to the
+cynosure. They beheld the body as though it were a corpse, and the corpse
+of an enemy; they formulated and discussed theories of the event; they
+examined minutely the rackets which had been thrown on the ground. They
+were exercising the immemorial rights of unmoved curiosity; they held
+themselves as indifferent as gods, and the murmur of their impartial voices
+floated soothingly over Musa, and the shadow of their active profiles
+covered him from the sparkling sunshine. Somebody mentioned policemen, in
+the plural, but none came. All remarked in turn that the ladies were
+English, as though that were a sufficient explanation of the whole affair.
+
+No one said:
+
+"It is Musa, the greatest violinist in Paris and perhaps in Europe."
+
+Desperately Audrey stooped and seized Musa beneath the armpits to lift him
+to a sitting position.
+
+"You'd better leave him alone," said Tommy, with a kind of ironic warning
+and innuendo.
+
+But Audrey still struggled with the mass, convinced that she was showing
+initiative and firmness of character. The fourth with fierce vigour began
+to aid her, and another youth from the crowd was joining the enterprise
+when Miss Ingate arrived from her stool.
+
+"Drop him, you silly little thing!" adjured Miss Ingate. "Instead of
+lifting his head you ought to lift his feet."
+
+Audrey stared uncertain for a moment, and then let the mass subside.
+Whereupon Miss Ingate with all her strength lifted both legs to the height
+of her waist, giving Musa the appearance of a wheelless barrow.
+
+"You want to let the blood run _into_ his head," said Miss Ingate with a
+self-conscious grin at the increasing crowd. "People only faint because the
+blood leaves their heads--that's why they go pale."
+
+Musa's cheeks showed a tinge of red. You could almost see the precious
+blood being decanted by Miss Ingate out of the man's feet into his head. In
+a minute he opened his eyes. Miss Ingate lowered the legs.
+
+"It was only the pain that made him feel queer," she said.
+
+The episode was over, and the crowd very gradually and reluctantly
+scattered, disappointed at the lack of a fatal conclusion. Musa stood up,
+smiling apologetically, and Audrey supported him by the left arm, for the
+right could not be touched.
+
+"Hadn't you better take him home, Mrs. Moncreiff?" Tommy suggested. "You
+can get a taxi here in the Rue de Vaugirard." She did not smile, but her
+green eyes glinted.
+
+"Yes, I will," said Audrey curtly.
+
+And Tommy's eyes glinted still more.
+
+"And I shall get a doctor," said Audrey. "His arm may be broken."
+
+"I should," Tommy concurred with gravity.
+
+"Well, if it is, _I_ can't set it," said Miss Ingate quizzically. "I was
+getting on so well with the high lights on that statue. I'll come along
+back to the studio in about half an hour."
+
+The fourth, who had been hovering near like a criminal magnetised by his
+crime, bounded off furiously at the suggestion that he should stop a taxi
+at the entrance to the gardens.
+
+"I hope he has broken his arm and he can never play any more," thought
+Audrey, astoundingly, as she and the fourth helped pale Musa into the open
+taxi. "It will just serve those two right." She meant Miss Ingate and
+Tommy.
+
+No sooner did the taxi start than Musa began to cry. He did not seem to
+care that he was in the midst of a busy street, with a piquant widow by his
+side.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MISS INGATE POINTS OUT THE DOOR
+
+
+"Why did you cry this afternoon, Musa?"
+
+Musa made no reply.
+
+Audrey was lighting the big lamp in the Moncreiff-Ingate studio. It made
+exactly the same moon as it had made on the night in the previous autumn
+when Audrey had first seen it. She had brought Musa to the studio because
+she did not care to take him to his own lodgings.  (As a fact, nobody that
+she knew, except Musa, had ever seen Musa's lodgings.) This was almost the
+first moment they had had to themselves since the visit of the little
+American doctor from the Rue Servandoni. The rumour of Musa's misfortune
+had spread through the Quarter like the smell of a fire, and various
+persons of both sexes had called to inspect, to sympathise, and to take
+tea, which Audrey was continually making throughout the late afternoon.
+Musa had had an egg for his tea, and more than one girl had helped to
+spread the yolk and the white on pieces of bread-and-butter, for the victim
+of destiny had his right arm in a sling. Audrey had let them do it, as a
+mother patronisingly lets her friends amuse her baby.
+
+In the end they had all gone; Tommy had enigmatically looked in and gone,
+and Miss Ingate had gone to dine at the favourite restaurant of the hour in
+the Rue Leopold Robert. Audrey had refused to go, asserting that which was
+not true; namely, that she had had an enormous tea, including far too many
+_petits fours_. Miss Ingate in departing had given a glance at her sketch
+(fixed on the easel), and another at Audrey, and another at Musa, all
+equally ironic and kindly.
+
+Musa also had declined dinner, but he had done nothing to indicate that he
+meant to leave. He sat mournful and passive in a basket chair, his sling
+making a patch of white in the gloom. The truth was that he suffered from a
+disability not uncommon among certain natures: he did not know how to go.
+He could arrive with ease, but he was no expert at vanishing. Audrey was
+troubled. As suited her age and condition, she was apt to feel the
+responsibility of the whole universe. She knew that she was responsible for
+Musa's accident, and now she was beginning to be aware that she was
+responsible for his future as well. She was sure that he needed
+encouragement and guidance. She pictured him with his fiddle under his
+chin, masterful, confident, miraculous, throwing a spell over everyone
+within earshot. But actually she saw him listless and vanquished in the
+basket chair, and she perceived that only a strongly influential and
+determined woman, such as herself, could save him from disaster. No man
+could do it. His tears had shaken her. She was willing to make allowances
+for a foreigner, but she had never seen a man cry before, and the spectacle
+was very disturbing. It inspired her with a fear that even she could not be
+the salvation of Musa.
+
+"I demanded something of you," she said, after lowering the wick of the
+lamp to exactly the right point, and staring at it for a greater length of
+time than was necessary or even seemly. She spoke French, and as she
+listened to her French accent she heard that it was good.
+
+"I am done for!" came the mournful voice of Musa out of the obscurity
+behind the lamp.
+
+"What! You are done for? But you know what the doctor said. He said no bone
+was broken. Only a little strain, and the pain from your----" Admirable
+though her French accent was, she could not think of the French word for
+"funny-bone." Indeed she had never learnt it. So she said it in English.
+Musa knew not what she meant, and thus a slight chasm was opened between
+them which neither could bridge. She finished: "In one week you are going
+to be able to play again."
+
+Musa shook his head.
+
+Relieved as she was to discover that Musa had cried because he was done
+for, and not because he was hurt, she was still worried by his want of
+elasticity, of resiliency. Nevertheless she was agreeably worried. The
+doctor had disappointed her by his light optimism, but he could not smile
+away Musa's moral indisposition. The large vagueness of the studio, the
+very faint twilight still showing through the great window, the silence and
+intimacy, the sounds of the French language, the gleam of the white sling,
+all combined to permeate her with delicious melancholy. And not for
+everlasting bliss would she have had Musa strong, obstinate, and certain of
+success.
+
+"A week!" he murmured. "It is for ever. A week of practice lost is
+eternally lost. And on Wednesday one had invited me to play at Foa's. And I
+cannot."
+
+"Foa? Who is Foa?"
+
+"What! You do not know Foa? In order to succeed it is necessary, it is
+essential, to play at Foa's. That alone gives the _cachet_. Dauphin told me
+last week. He arranged it. After having played at Foa's all is possible.
+Dauphin was about to abandon me when he met Foa. Now I am ruined. This
+afternoon after the tennis I was going to Durand's to get the new Caprice
+of Roussel--he is an intimate friend of Foa. I should have studied it in
+five days. They would have been ravished by the attention .... But why talk
+I thus? No, I could not have played Caprice to please them. I am cursed. I
+will never again touch the violin, I swear it. What am I?  Do I not live on
+the money _lent_ to me regularly by Mademoiselle Thompkins and Mademoiselle
+Nickall?"
+
+"You don't, Musa?" Audrey burst out in English.
+
+"Yes, yes!" said Musa violently. "But last month, from Mademoiselle
+Nickall--nothing! She is in London; she forgets. It is better like that.
+Soon I shall be playing in the Opera orchestra, fourth desk, one hundred
+francs a month. That will be the end. There can be no other."
+
+Instead of admiring the secret charity of Tommy and Nick, which she had
+never suspected, Audrey was very annoyed by it. She detested it and
+resented it. And especially the charity of Miss Thompkins. She considered
+that from a woman with eyes and innuendoes like Tommy's charity amounted to
+a sneer.
+
+"It is extremely unsatisfactory," she said, dropping on to Miss Ingate's
+sofa.
+
+Not another word was spoken. Audrey tapped her foot. Musa creaked in the
+basket chair. He avoided her eyes, but occasionally she glared at him like
+a schoolmistress. Then her gaze softened--he looked so ill, so helpless,
+so hopeless. She wanted to light a cigarette for him, but she was somehow
+bound to the sofa. She wanted him to go--she hated the prospect of his
+going. He could not possibly go, alone, to his solitary room. Who would
+tend him, soothe him, put him to bed? He was an infant....
+
+Then, after a long while, Miss Ingate entered sharply. Audrey coughed and
+sprang up.
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated Miss Ingate.
+
+"I--I think I shall just change my boots," said Audrey, smoothing out the
+short white skirt. And she disappeared into the dressing-room that gave on
+to the studio.
+
+As soon as she was gone, Miss Ingate went close up to Musa's chair. He had
+not moved.
+
+She said, smiling, with the corners of her mouth well down:
+
+"Do you see that door, young man?"
+
+And she indicated the door.
+
+When Audrey came back into the studio.
+
+"Audrey," cried Miss Ingate shrilly. "What you been doing to Musa? As soon
+as you went out he up vehy quickly and ran away."
+
+At this information Audrey was more obviously troubled and dashed than Miss
+Ingate had ever seen her, in Paris. She made no answer at all.
+Fortunately, lying on the table in front of the mirror was a letter for
+Miss Ingate which had arrived by the evening post. Audrey went for it,
+pretending to search, and then handed it over with a casual gesture.
+
+"It looks as if it was from Nick," she murmured.
+
+Miss Ingate, as she was putting on her spectacles, remarked:
+
+"I hope you weren't hurt--me not coming with you and Musa in the taxi from
+the gardens this afternoon, dear."
+
+"Me? Oh no!"
+
+"It wasn't that I was so vehy interested in my sketch. But to my mind
+there's nothing more ridiculous than several women all looking after one
+man. Miss Thompkins thought so, too."
+
+"Oh! Did she?... What does Nick say?"
+
+Miss Ingate had put the letter flat on the table in the full glare of the
+lamp, and was leaning over it, her grey hair brilliantly illuminated.
+Audrey kept in the shadow and in the distance. Miss Ingate had a habit of
+reading to herself under her breath. She read slowly, and turned pages over
+with a deliberate movement.
+
+"Well," said Miss Ingate twisting her head sideways so as to see Audrey
+standing like a ghost afar off. "Well, she _has_ been going it! She's
+broken a window in Oxford Street with a hammer; she had one night in the
+cells for that. And she'd have had to go to prison altogether only some
+unknown body paid the fine for her. She says: 'There are some mean persons
+in the world, and he was one. I feel sure it was a man, and an American,
+too. The owners of the shops are going to bring a law action against me
+for the value of the plate-glass. It is such fun. And our leaders are
+splendid and so in earnest. They say we are doing a great historical work,
+and we are. The London correspondent of the _New York Times_ interviewed me
+because I am American. I did not want to be interviewed, but our
+instructions are--never to avoid publicity. There is to be no more window
+breaking for the present. Something new is being arranged. The hammer is
+so heavy, and sometimes the first blow does not break the window. The
+situation is _very_ serious, and the Government is at its wits' end. This
+we _know_. We have our agents everywhere. All the most thoughtful people
+are strongly in favour of votes for women; but of course some of them are
+afraid of our methods. This only shows that they have not learnt the
+lessons of history. I wonder that you and dear Mrs. Moncreiff do not come
+and help. Many women ask after you, and everybody at Kingsway is very
+curious to know Mrs. Moncreiff. Since Mrs. Burke's death, Betty has taken
+rooms in this house, but perhaps Tommy has told you this already. If so,
+excuse. Betty's health is very bad since they let her out last. With regard
+to the rent, will you pay the next quarter direct to the concierge
+yourselves? It will save so much trouble. I must tell you----'"
+
+Slowly Audrey moved up to the table and leaned over the letter by Miss
+Ingate's side.
+
+"So you see!" said Miss Ingate. "Well, we must show it to Tommy in the
+morning. 'Not learnt the lessons of history,' eh? I know who's been talking
+to Nick. _I_ know as well as if I could hear them speaking."
+
+"Do you think we ought to go to London?" Audrey demanded bluntly.
+
+"Well," Miss Ingate answered, with impartial irony on her long upper lip.
+"I don't know. Of course I played the organ all the way down Regent Street.
+I feel very strongly about votes for women, and once when I was helping in
+the night and day vigil at the House of Commons and some Ministers came out
+smoking their _cigahs_ and asked us how we liked it, I was vehy, vehy
+angry. However, the next morning I had a cigarette myself and felt better.
+But I'm not a professional reformer, like a lot of them are at Kingsway.
+It isn't my meat and drink. And I don't think it matters much whether we
+get the vote next year or in ten years. I'm Winifred Ingate before I'm
+anything else. And so long as I'm pretty comfortable no one's going to make
+me believe that the world's coming to an end. I know one thing--if we did
+get the vote it would take me all my time to keep most of the women I know
+from, voting for something silly."
+
+"Winnie," said Audrey. "You're very sensible sometimes."
+
+"I'm always very sensible," Winnie retorted, "until I get nervous. Then I'm
+apt to skid."
+
+Without more words they transformed the studio, by a few magical strokes,
+from a drawing-room into a bedroom. Audrey, the last to retire,
+extinguished the lamp, and tripped to her bed behind her screen. Only a few
+slight movements disturbed the silence.
+
+"Winnie," said Audrey suddenly. "I do believe you're one of those awful
+people who compromise. You're always right in the middle of the raft."
+
+But Miss Ingate, being fast asleep, offered no answer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE RIGHT BANK
+
+
+The next day, after a studio lunch which contained too much starch and was
+deficient in nitrogen, Miss Ingate, putting on her hat and jacket, said
+with a caustic gesture:
+
+"Well, I must be off to my life class. And much good may it do me!"
+
+The astonishing creature had apparently begun existence again, and begun it
+on the plane of art, but this did not prevent the observer within her from
+taking the same attitude towards her second career as she had taken towards
+her first. Nothing seemed more meet for Miss Ingate's ironic contemplation
+than the daily struggle for style and beauty in the academies of the
+Quarter.
+
+Audrey made no reply. The morning had been unusually silent, giving
+considerable scope for Miss Ingate's faculty for leaving well alone.
+
+"I suppose you aren't coming out?" added Miss Ingate.
+
+"No. I went out a bit this morning. You know I have my French lesson in
+twenty minutes."
+
+"Of course."
+
+Miss Ingate seized her apparatus and departed. The instant she was alone
+Audrey began in haste to change into all her best clothes, which were
+black, and which the Quarter seldom saw. Fashionably arrayed, she sat down
+and wrote a note to Madame Schmitt, her French instructress, to say that
+she had been suddenly called away on urgent business, and asking her
+nevertheless to count the time as a lesson given. This done, she put her
+credit notes and her cheque-book into her handbag, and, leaving the note
+with the concierge's wife, who bristled with interesting suspicions, she
+vanished into Paris.
+
+The weather was even more superb than on the previous day. Paris glittered
+around her as she drove, slowly, in a horse-taxi, to the Place de l'Opera
+on the right bank, where the _grand boulevard_ meets the Avenue de l'Opera
+and the Rue de la Paix. Here was the very centre of the fashionable and
+pleasure-ridden district which the Quarter held in noble scorn. She had
+seen it before, because she had started a banking account (under advice
+from Mr. Foulger), and the establishment of her bankers was situate at the
+corner of the Avenue de l'Opera and the Rue de la Paix. But she knew
+little of the district, and such trifling information as she had acquired
+was tinged by the natural hostility of a young woman who for over six
+months, with no compulsion to do so, had toiled regularly and fiercely in
+the pursuit of knowledge. She paid off the cab, and went to test the
+soundness of her bankers. The place was full of tourists, and in one
+department of it young men in cages, who knew not the Quarter, were
+counting, and ladling, and pinning together, and engorging, and dealing
+forth, the currency and notes of all the great nations of the earth. The
+spectacle was inspiring.
+
+In half a year the restive but finally obedient Mr. Foulger had sent three
+thousand pounds to Paris in the unpoetic form of small oblong pieces of
+paper signed with his own dull signature. Audrey desired to experience the
+thrill of authentic money. She waited some time in front of a cage, with
+her cheque-book open on the counter, until a young man glanced at her
+interrogatively through the bars.
+
+"How much money have I got here, please?" she asked. She ought to have
+said: "What is my balance, please?" But nobody had taught her the sacred
+formula.
+
+"What name?" said the clerk.
+
+"Moze--Audrey Moze," she answered, for she had not dared to acquaint Mr.
+Foulger with her widowhood, and his cheques were made out to herself.
+
+The clerk vanished, and in a moment reappeared, silently wrote something on
+a little form, and pushed it to her under the grille. She read:
+
+                            "73,065 frs. 50c."
+
+The fact was that in six months she had spent little more than the amount
+which she had brought with her from London. Having begun in simplicity, in
+simplicity she had continued, partly because she had been too industrious
+and too earnest for luxurious caprices, partly because she had never been
+accustomed to anything else but simplicity, and partly from wilfulness. It
+had pleased her to think that she was piling tens of thousands upon tens of
+thousands--in francs.
+
+But in the night she had decided that the moment had arrived for a change
+in the great campaign of seeing life and tasting it.
+
+She timorously drew a cheque for eleven thousand francs, and asked for ten
+thousand in notes and a thousand in gold. The clerk showed no trace of
+either astonishment or alarm; but he insisted on her endorsing the cheque.
+When she saw the gold, she changed half of it for ten notes of fifty francs
+each.
+
+Emerging with false but fairly plausible nonchalance from the crowded
+establishment, where other clerks were selling tickets to Palestine,
+Timbuctoo, Bagdad, Berlin, and all the abodes of happiness in the world,
+she saw at the newspaper kiosk opposite the little blue poster of an
+English daily. It said: "More Suffragette Riots." She had a qualm, for her
+conscience was apt to be tyrannic, and its empire over her had been
+strengthened by the long, steady course of hard work which she had
+accomplished. Miss Ingate's arguments had not placated that conscience.
+It had said to her in the night: "If ever there was a girl who ought to
+assist heartily in the emancipation of women, that girl is you, Audrey
+Moze."
+
+"Pooh!" she replied to her conscience, for she could always confute it with
+a sharp word--for a time.
+
+And she crossed to the _grand boulevard_, and turned westward along the
+splendid, humming, roaring thoroughfare gay with flags and gleaming with
+such plate-glass as Nick the militant would have loved to shatter.
+Certainly there was nothing like this street in the Quarter. The Quarter
+could equal it neither in shops, nor in cafes, nor in vehicles, nor in
+crowds. It was an exultant thoroughfare, and Audrey caught its buoyancy,
+which could be distinctly seen in the feather on her hat. At the end of it
+she passed into the cool shade of a music-shop with the name "Durand" on
+its facade. She had found the address, and another one, in the telephone
+book at the Cafe de Versailles that morning. It was an immense shop
+containing millions of pieces of music for all instruments and all tastes.
+Yet when she modestly asked for the Caprice for violin of Roussel, the
+_morceau_ was brought to her without the slightest hesitation, together
+with the pianoforte accompaniment. The price was twelve francs.
+
+Her gloved hand closed round the slim roll with the delicate firmness which
+was actuating all her proceedings on that magnificent afternoon. She was
+determined to save Musa not merely from himself, but from Miss Thompkins
+and everybody. It was not that she was specially interested in Musa. No!
+She was interested in a clean, neat job--that was all. She had begun to
+take charge of Musa, and she intended to carry the affair through. He had
+the ability to succeed, and he should succeed. It would be ridiculous for
+him not to succeed. From certain hints, and from a deeply sagacious
+instinct, she had divined that money and management were the only
+ingredients lacking to Musa's triumph. She could supply both these
+elements; and she would. And her reward would be the pride of the workman
+in his job.
+
+Now her firmness hesitated. She retraced the boulevard to the Place de
+l'Opera, and then took the Rue de la Paix. In the first shop on the
+left-hand side, next to her bankers, she saw amid a dazzling collection of
+jewelled articles for travellers and letter-writers and diary-keepers, a
+sublime gold handbag, or, as the French say, hand-sack. Its clasp was set
+with a sapphire. Impulse sent her gliding right into the shop, with the
+words already on her lips: "How much is that gold hand-sack in the window?"
+But when she reached the hushed and shadowed interior, which was furnished
+like a drawing-room with soft carpets and tapestried chairs, she beheld
+dozens of gold hand-sacks glinting like secret treasure in a cave; and she
+was embarrassed by the number and variety of them. A well-dressed and
+affable lady and gentleman, with a quite remarkable similarity of prominent
+noses, welcomed her in general terms, and seemed surprised, and even a
+little pained, when she talked about buying and selling. She came out of
+the shop with a gold hand-sack which had cost twelve hundred francs, and
+all her money was in it.
+
+Fortified by the impressive bauble, she walked along the street to the
+Place Vendome, where she descried in the distance the glittering signs and
+arms of the Hotel du Danube. Then she walked up the opposite pavement of
+the Rue de la Paix, and down again and up again until she had grasped its
+significance.
+
+It was a street of jewellery, perfumes, antiques, gloves, hats, frocks, and
+furs. It was a street wherein the lily was painted and gold was gilded.
+Every window was a miracle of taste, refinement, and costliness. Every
+article in every window was so dear that no article was ticketed with its
+price, save a few wafer-like watches and jewelled rings that bore tiny
+figures, such as 12,500 francs, 40,000 francs. Despite her wealth, Audrey
+felt poor. The upper windows of nearly all the great buildings were arrayed
+with plants in full bloom. The roadway was covered with superb automobiles,
+some of them nearly as long as trains. About half of them stood in repose
+at the kerb, and Audrey as she strolled could see through their panes of
+bevelled glass the complex luxury within of toy dogs, clocks, writing-pads,
+mirrors, powder boxes, parasols, and the lounging arrogance of uniformed
+menials. At close intervals women passed rapidly across the pavements to or
+from these automobiles. If they were leaving a shop, the automobile sprang
+into life, dogs, menials, and all, the door was opened, the woman slipped
+in like a mechanical toy, the door banged, the menial jumped, and with
+trumpet tones the entire machine curved and swept away. The aspect of these
+women made Audrey feel glad that she was wearing her best clothes, and
+simultaneously made her feel that her best clothes were worse than useless.
+
+She saw an automobile shop with a card at the door: "Town and touring cars
+for hire by day, week, or month." A gorgeous Mercedes, too spick, too span,
+altogether too celestial for earthly use, occupied most of the shop.
+
+"Good afternoon, Madame," said a man in bad English. For Audrey had
+misguided herself into the emporium. She did not care to be addressed in
+her own tongue; she even objected to the instant discovery of her
+nationality, of which at the moment she was ashamed. And so it was with
+frigidity that she inquired whether cars were to be hired.
+
+The shopman hesitated. Audrey knew that she had committed an indiscretion.
+It was impossible that cars should be handed out thus unceremoniously to
+anybody who had the fancy to enter the shop! Cars were naturally the
+subject of negotiations and references.... And then the shopman, espying
+the gold bag, and being by it and by the English frigidity humbled to his
+proper station, fawned and replied that he had cars for hire, and the best
+cars. Did the lady want a large car or a small car? She wanted a large car.
+Did she want a town or a touring car? She wanted a town car, and by the
+week. When did she want it? She wanted it at once--in half an hour.
+
+"I can hire you a car in half an hour, with liveried chauffeur," said the
+shopman, after telephoning. "But he cannot speak English."
+
+"_Ca m'est egal_," answered Audrey with grim satisfaction. "What kind of a
+car will it be?"
+
+"Mercedes, Madame."
+
+The price was eight hundred francs a week, inclusive. As Audrey was paying
+for the first week the man murmured:
+
+"What address, Madame?"
+
+"Hotel du Danube," she answered like lightning--indeed far quicker than
+thought. "But I shall call here for the car. It must be waiting outside."
+
+The dispenser of cars bowed.
+
+"Can you get a taxi for me?" Audrey suggested. "I will leave this roll here
+and this bag," producing her old handbag which she had concealed under her
+coat. And she thought: "All this is really very simple."
+
+At the other address which she had found in the telephone book--a house in
+the Rue d'Aumale--she said to an aged concierge:
+
+"Monsieur Foa--which floor?"
+
+A very dark, rather short and negligently dressed man of nearly middle-age
+who was descending the staircase, raised his hat with grave ceremony:
+
+"Pardon, Madame. Foa--it is I."
+
+Audrey was not prepared for this encounter. She had intended to compose her
+face and her speech while mounting the staircase. She blushed.
+
+"I come from Musa--the violinist," she began hesitatingly. "You invited
+him to play at your flat on Friday night, Monsieur."
+
+Monsieur Foa gave a sudden enchanting smile:
+
+"Yes, Madame. I hear much good of him from my friend Dauphin, much good.
+And we long to hear him play. It appears he is a great artist."
+
+"He has had an accident," said Audrey. Monsier Foa's face grew serious. "It
+is nothing--a few days. The elbow--a trifle. He cannot play next Friday.
+But he will be desolated if he may not play to you later. He has so few
+friends.... I came.... I...."
+
+"Madame, every Friday we are at home, every Friday. My wife will be
+ravished. I shall be ravished. Believe me. Let him be reassured."
+
+"Monsieur, you are too amiable. I shall tell Musa."
+
+"Musa, he may have few friends--it is possible, Madame--but he is
+nevertheless fortunate. Madame is English, is it not so? My wife and I
+adore England and the English. For us there is only England. If Madame
+would do us the honour of coming when Musa plays.... My wife will send an
+invitation, to the end of remaining within the rules. You, Madame, and any
+of your friends."
+
+"Monsieur is too amiable, truly."
+
+In the end they were standing together on the pavement by the waiting taxi.
+She gave him her card, and breathed the words "Hotel du Danube." He was
+enchanted. She offered her hand. He took it, raised it, and kissed the
+back of it. Then he stood with his hat off until she had passed from his
+sight.
+
+Audrey was burning with excitement. She said to herself:
+
+"I have discovered Paris."
+
+When the taxi turned again into the Rue de la Paix, she thought:
+
+"The car will not be waiting. It would be too lovely if it were."
+
+But there the car was, huge, glistening, unreal, incredible. And a
+chauffeur gloved and liveried in brown, to match the car, stood by its
+side, and the shopman was at the door, holding the Caprice of Roussel and
+the old handbag ready in his hand.
+
+"Here is Madame," said he.
+
+The chauffeur saluted.
+
+The car was closed.
+
+"Will Madame have the carriage open or closed?"
+
+"Closed."
+
+Having paid the taxi-driver, Audrey entered the car, and as she did so, she
+threw over her shoulder:
+
+"Hotel du Danube."
+
+While the chauffeur started the engine, the shopman with brilliant smiles
+delivered the music and the bag. The door clicked. Audrey noticed the
+clock, the rug, the powder-box, the speaking-tube, and the mirror. She
+gazed, and saw a face triumphant and delicious in the mirror. The car began
+to glide forward. She leaned back against the pale grey upholstery, but in
+her soul she was standing and crying with a wild wave of the hand, to the
+whole street:
+
+"It is a miracle!"
+
+In a moment the gigantic car stopped in front of the Hotel du Danube. Two
+attendants rushed out in uniforms of delicate blue. They did not touch
+their hats--they raised them. Audrey descended and penetrated into the
+portico, where a tall dandy saluted and inquired her will. She wanted
+rooms; she wanted a flat? Certainly. They had nothing but flats. A large
+flat on the ground-floor was at her disposal absolutely. Two bedrooms,
+sitting-room, bathroom. It had its own private entrance in the courtyard.
+She inspected it. The suite was furnished in the Empire style. Herself and
+maid? No. A friend! Well, the maids could sleep upstairs. It could arrange
+itself. She had no maid? Her friend had no maid? Ah! So much the better.
+Sixty francs a day.
+
+"Where is the dining-room?" demanded Audrey.
+
+"Madame," said the dandy, shocked. "We have no dining-room. All meals are
+specially cooked to order and served in the private rooms. We have the
+reputation...." He opened his arms and bowed.
+
+Good! Good! She would return with her friend in one hour or so.
+
+"106 Rue Delambre," she bade the chauffeur, after being followed to the
+pavement by the dandy and a suite.
+
+"Rue de Londres?" said the chauffeur.
+
+"No. Rue Delambre."
+
+It had to be looked out on the map, but the chauffeur, trained to the hour,
+did not blench. However, when he found the Rue Delambre, the success with
+which he repudiated it was complete.
+
+"Winnie!" began Audrey in the studio, with assumed indifference. Miss
+Ingate was at tea.
+
+"Oh! You are a swell. Where you been?"
+
+"Winnie! What do you say to going and living on the right bank for a bit?"
+
+"Well, well!" said Miss Ingate. "So that's it, is it?  I've been ready to
+go for a long time. Of course you want to go first thing to-morrow morning.
+I know you."
+
+"No, I don't," said Audrey. "I want to go to-night. Now! Pack the trunks
+quick. I've got the finest auto you ever saw waiting at the door."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+ROBES
+
+
+On the second following Friday evening, Audrey's suite of rooms at the
+Hotel du Danube glowed in every corner with pink-shaded electricity.
+According to what Audrey had everywhere observed to be the French custom,
+there was in this flat the minimum of corridor and the maximum of doors.
+Each room communicated directly with all the other rooms. The doors were
+open, and three women continually in a feverish elation passed to and fro.
+Empire chairs and sofas were covered with rich garments of every colour and
+form and material, from the transparent blue silk _matinee_ to the dark
+heavy cloak of velvet ornamented with fur. The place was in fact very like
+the showrooms of a cosmopolitan dressmaker after a vast trying-on. Sundry
+cosmopolitan dressmakers had contributed to the rich confusion. None had
+hesitated for an instant to execute Audrey's commands. They had all been
+waiting, apparently since the beginning of time, to serve her. All that
+district of Paris had been thus waiting. The flat had been waiting, the
+automobile had been waiting, the chauffeur had been waiting, and purveyors
+of every sort. A word from her seemed to have released them from an
+enchantment. For the most part they were strange people, these magical
+attendants, never mentioning money, but rather deprecating the sound of it,
+and content to supply nothing but the finest productions of their
+unquestionable genius. Still, Audrey reckoned that she owed about
+twenty-five thousand francs to Paris.
+
+The third woman was the maid, Elise. The hotel had invented and delivered
+Elise, and thereafter seemed easier in its mind. Elise was thirty years of
+age and not repellent of aspect. On a black dress she wore the smallest
+white muslin apron that either Audrey or Miss Ingate had ever seen. She
+kept pins in her mouth, but in other respects showed few eccentricities
+beyond an extreme excitability. When at eight o'clock Mademoiselle's new
+gown, promised for seven, had not arrived, Elise begged permission to use
+Madame's salts. When the bell rang at eight-thirty, and a lackey brought in
+an oval-shaped box with a long loop to it of leathern strap, she only just
+managed not to kiss the lackey. The rapid movement of Mademoiselle and
+Elise with the contents of the box from the drawing-room into
+Mademoiselle's bedroom was the last rushing and swishing that preceded a
+considerable peace.
+
+Madame was absolutely ready, in her bedroom. In the large mirror of the
+dark wardrobe she surveyed her victoriously young face, the magnificent
+grey dress, the coiffure, the jewels, the spangled shoes, the fan; and the
+ensemble satisfied her. She was intensely and calmly happy. No thought of
+the past nor of the future, nor of what was going on in other parts of the
+earth's surface could in the slightest degree impair her happiness. She had
+done nothing herself, she had neither earned money nor created any of the
+objects which adorned her; nor was she capable of doing the one or the
+other. Yet she felt proud as well as happy, because she was young and
+superbly healthy, and not unattractive. These were her high virtues. And
+her attitude was so right that nobody would have disagreed with her.
+
+Her left ear was listening for the sound, through the unlatched window, of
+the arrival of the automobile with Musa and his fiddle inside it.
+
+Then the door leading from Mademoiselle's bedroom opened sharply, and
+Mademoiselle appeared, with her grey hair, her pale shining forehead, her
+sardonic grin, and the new dress of those Empire colours, magenta and
+green. Elise stood behind, trembling with satisfaction.
+
+"Well----" Audrey began. But she heard the automobile, and told Elise to
+run and be ready to open the front door of the flat.
+
+"Rather showy, isn't it? Rather daring?" said Miss Ingate, advancing
+self-consciously and self-deprecating.
+
+"Winnie," answered Audrey. "It's a nice question between you and the Queen
+of Sheba."
+
+Suddenly Miss Ingate beheld in the mirror the masterpiece of an illustrious
+male dressmaker-a masterpiece in which no touch of the last fashion was
+abated-and little Essex Winnie grinning from within it.
+
+She screamed. And forthwith putting her hands behind her neck she began to
+unhook the corsage.
+
+"What are you doing, Winnie?"
+
+"I'm taking it off."
+
+"But why?"
+
+"Because I'm not going to wear it."
+
+"But you've nothing else to wear."
+
+"I can't help that."
+
+"But you can't come. What on earth shall you do?"
+
+"I dare say I shall go to bed. Or I might shoot myself. But if you think
+that I'm going outside this room in this dress, you're a perfect simpleton,
+Audrey. I don't mind being a fool, but I won't look one."
+
+Audrey heard Musa enter the drawing-room.
+
+She pulled the door to, keeping her hand on the knob.
+
+"Very well, Winnie," she said coldly, and swept into the drawing-room.
+
+As she and Musa left the pink rose-shaded flat, she heard a burst of tears
+from Elise in the bedroom.
+
+"21 Rue d'Aumale," she curtly ordered the chauffeur, who sat like a god
+obscurely in front of the illuminated interior of the carriage. Musa's
+violin case lay amid the cushions therein.
+
+The chauffeur approvingly touched his hat. The Rue d'Aumale was a good
+street.
+
+"I wonder what his surname is?" Audrey thought curiously. "And whether he's
+in love or married, and has children." She knew nothing of him save that
+his Christian name was Michel.
+
+She was taciturn and severe with Musa.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+SOIREE
+
+
+"Monsieur Foa--which floor?" Audrey asked once again of the aged concierge
+in the Rue d'Aumale. This time she got an answer. It was the fifth or top
+floor. Musa said nothing, permitting himself to be taken about like a
+parcel, though with a more graceful passivity. There was no lift, but at
+each floor a cushioned seat for travellers to use and a palm in a coloured
+pot in a niche for travellers to gaze upon as they rested. The quality of
+the palms, however, deteriorated floor by floor, and on the fourth and
+fifth floors the niches were empty. A broad embroidered bell-pull,
+twitched, gave rise to one clanging sound within the abode of the Foas, and
+the clanging sound reacted upon a small dog which yapped loudly and
+continued to yap until the visitors had entered and the door been closed
+again. Monsieur came out of a room into the small entrance-hall,
+accompanied by a considerable noise of conversation. He beamed his
+ravishment; he kissed hands; he helped with the dark blue cloak.
+
+"I brought Monsieur Musa in my car," said Audrey. "The weather----"
+
+Monsieur Foa bowed low to Monsieur Musa, and Monsieur Musa bowed low to
+Monsieur Foa.
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+"Monsieur!"
+
+"Monsieur, your accident I hope...."
+
+And so on.
+
+Cloak, overcoat, hat, stick--everything except the violin case--were thrown
+pell-mell on to a piece of furniture in the entrance-hall. Monsieur Foa,
+instead of being in evening dress, was in exactly the same clothes as he
+had worn at his first meeting with Audrey.
+
+Madame Foa appeared in the doorway. She was a slim blonde Italian of pure
+descent, whereas only the paternal grandfather of Monsieur Foa had been
+Italian. Madame Foa, who had called on Audrey at the Danube, exhibited the
+same symptoms of pleasure as her husband.
+
+"But your friend? But your friend?" cried she.
+
+Audrey, being led gradually into the drawing-room, explained that Miss
+Ingate had been prevented at the last moment, etc., etc.
+
+The distinction of Madame Foa's simple dress had reassured Audrey to a
+certain extent, but the size of the drawing-room disconcerted her again.
+She had understood that the house of the Foas was the real esoteric centre
+of musical Paris, and she had prepared herself for vast and luxurious
+salons, footmen, fountains of wine, rare flowers, dandies, and the divine
+shoulders of operatic sopranos who combined wit with the most seductive
+charm. The drawing-room of the Foas was not as large as her own
+drawing-room at the Danube. Still it was full, and double doors leading to
+an unseen dining-room at right angles to its length produced an illusion of
+space. Some of the men and some of the women were elegant, and even very
+elegant; others were not. Audrey instantly with her expert eye saw that the
+pictures on the walls were of the last correctness, and a few by
+illustrious painters. Here and there she could see scrawled on them "a mon
+ami, Andre Foa." Such phenomena were balm. Everybody in the room was
+presented to her, and with the greatest particularity, and the host and
+hostess gazed on her as on an idol, a jewel, an exquisite and startling
+discovery. Musa found two men he knew. The conversation was resumed with
+energy.
+
+"And now," said Madame Foa in English, sitting down intimately beside
+Audrey, with a loving gesture, "We will have a little talk, you and I. I
+find our friend Madame Piriac met you last year."
+
+"Ah! Yes," murmured Audrey, fatally struck, but admirably dissembling, for
+she was determined to achieve the evening successfully. "Madame Piriac,
+will she come to-night?"
+
+"I fear not," replied Madame Foa. "She would if she could."
+
+"I should so like to have seen her again," said Audrey eagerly. She was so
+relieved at Madame Piriac's not coming that she felt she could afford to be
+eager.
+
+And Monsieur Foa, a little distance off, threw a sign into the duologue,
+and called:
+
+"You permit me? Your dress ... _Exquise! Exquise!_ And these pigs of French
+persist in saying that the English lack taste!" He clapped his hand to his
+forehead in despair of the French.
+
+Then the clanging sound supervened, and the little fox-terrier yapped, and
+Monsieur Foa went out, ejaculating "Ah!" and Madame Foa went into the
+doorway. Audrey glanced round for Musa, but he was out of sight in the
+dining-room. Several people turned at once and spoke to her, including two
+composers who had probably composed more impossibilities for amateur
+pianists than any other two men who ever lived, and a musical critic with
+large dark eyes and an Eastern air, who had come from the Opera very
+sarcastic about the Opera. One of the composers asked the critic whether he
+had not heard Musa play.
+
+"Yes," said the critic. "I heard him in the Ternes Quarter--somewhere. He
+plays very agreeably. Madame," he addressed Audrey. "I was discussing with
+these gentlemen whether it be not possible to define the principle of
+beauty in music. Once it is defined, my trade will be much simplified, you
+see. What say you?"
+
+How could she discourse on the principle of beauty in music when she had
+the whole weight of the evening on her shoulders? Musa was the whole weight
+of the evening. Would he succeed? She was his mother, his manager, his
+creator. He was her handiwork. If he failed she would have failed. That was
+her sole interest in him, but it was an overwhelming interest. When would
+he be asked to play? Useless for them to flatter her about her dress, to
+treat her like a rarity, if they offered callous, careless, off-hand
+remarks, such as "He plays very agreeably."
+
+She stammered:
+
+"I--I only know what I like."
+
+One of the composers jumped up excitedly:
+
+"_Voila_ Madame has said the final word. You hear me, the final word, the
+most profound. Argue as you will, perfect the art of criticism to no matter
+what point, and you will never get beyond the final word of Madame."
+
+The critic shrugged his shoulders, and with a smile bowed to the ravishing
+utterer of last words on the most baffling of subjects. This fluttered
+person soon perceived that she had been mistaken in supposing that the room
+was full. The clanging sound kept recurring, the dog kept barking, and new
+guests continually poured into the room, thereby proving that it was not
+full. All comers were introduced to Audrey, whose head was a dizzy riot of
+strange names. Then at last a girl sang, and was applauded. Madame Foa
+played for her. "Now," thought Audrey, "they will ask Musa." Then one of
+the composers played the piano, his themes punctuated by the clanging sound
+and by the dog. The room was asphyxiating, but no one except Audrey seemed
+to be inconvenienced. Then several guests rang in quick succession.
+
+"Madame!" the suave and ardent voice of Foa could be heard in the
+entrance-hall. "And thou, Roussel ... Ippolita, Ippolita!" he called to
+his wife. "It is Roussel."
+
+Audrey did not turn her head. She could not. But presently Roussel, in a
+blue suit with a wonderful flowing bow of a black necktie in _crepe de
+Chine_, was led before her. And Musa was led before Roussel. Audrey, from
+nervousness, was moved to relate the history of Musa's accident to Roussel.
+
+The moment had arrived. Roussel sat down to the piano. Musa tuned his
+fiddle.
+
+"From what appears," murmured Monsieur Foa to nobody in particular, with an
+ecstatic expectant smile on his face, "this Musa is all that is most
+amazing."
+
+Then, in the silence, the clanging sound was renewed, and the fox-terrier
+reacted.
+
+"Andre, my friend," cried Madame Foa, skipping into the hall. "Will you do
+me the pleasure of exterminating this dog?"
+
+Delicate osculatory explosions and pretty exclamations in the hall! The
+hostess was encountering an old friend. There was also a man's deep
+English voice. Then a hush. The man's voice produced a very strange effect
+upon Audrey. Roussel began to play. Musa held his bow aloft. Creeping
+steps in the doorway made Audrey look round. A lady smiled and bowed to
+her. It was Madame Piriac, resplendent and serene.
+
+Musa played the Caprice. Audrey did not hear him, partly because the vision
+of Madame Piriac, and the man's deep voice, had extremely perturbed her,
+and partly because she was so desperately anxious for Musa's triumph. She
+had decided that she could make his triumph here the prelude to tremendous
+things. When he had finished she held her breath....
+
+The applause, after an instant, was sudden and extremely cordial. Monsieur
+Foa loudly clapped, smiling at Audrey. Roussel patted Musa on the back and
+chattered to him fondly. On each side of her Audrey could catch murmured
+exclamations of delight. Musa himself was certainly pleased and happy....
+He had played at Foa's, where it was absolutely essential to play if one
+intended to conquer Paris and to prove one's pretensions; and he had found
+favour with this satiated and fastidious audience.
+
+"_Ouf!"_ sighed the musical critic Orientally lounging on a chair. "Andre,
+has it occurred to you that we are expiring for want of air?"
+
+A window was opened, and a shiver went through the assembly.
+
+The clanging sounded again, but no dog, for the dog had been exterminated.
+
+"Dauphin, my old pig!" Foa's greeting from the entrance floated into the
+drawing-room, and then a very impressed: "Mademoiselle" from Madame Foa.
+
+"What?" cried Dauphin. "Musa has played? He played well? So much the
+better. What did I tell you?"
+
+And he entered the drawing-room with the satisfied air of having fed Musa
+from infancy and also of having taught him all he knew about the violin.
+
+Madame Foa followed him, and with her was Miss Ingate, gorgeous and
+blushing. The whole company was now on its feet and moving about. Miss
+Ingate scuttered to Audrey.
+
+"Well," she whispered. "Here I am. I came partly to satisfy that hysterical
+Elise, and Monsieur Dauphin met me on the stairs. But really I came because
+I've had another letter from Miss Nickall. She's been and got her arm
+broken in a street row. I knew those policemen would do it one day. I
+always said they would."
+
+But Audrey seemed not to be listening. With a side-long gaze she saw Madame
+Piriac talking with a middle-aged Englishman, whose back alone was visible
+to her. Madame Piriac laughed and vanished out of sight into the
+dining-room. The Englishman turned and met Audrey's glance.
+
+Abruptly leaving Miss Ingate, Audrey walked straight up to the Englishman.
+
+"Good evening," she said in a low voice. "What is your name?"
+
+"Gilman," he answered, with a laugh. "I only this instant recognised you."
+
+"Well, Mr. Gilman," said Audrey, "will you oblige me very much by not
+recognising me? I want us to be introduced. I am most particularly anxious
+that no one should know I'm the same girl who helped you to jump off your
+yacht at Lousey Hard last year."
+
+And she moved quickly away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A DECISION
+
+
+The entire company was sitting or standing round the table in the
+dining-room. It was a table at which eight might have sat down to dinner
+with a fair amount of comfort; and perhaps thirty-eight now were
+successfully claiming an interest in it. Not at the end, but about a third
+of the way down one side, Madame Foa brewed tea in a copper receptacle over
+a spirit lamp. At the other extremity was a battalion of glasses, some
+syphons and some lofty bottles. Except for a border of teacups and glasses
+the rest of the white expanse was empty, save that two silver biscuit boxes
+and a silver cigarette box wandered up and down it according to the needs
+of the community. Audrey was sitting next to the Oriental musical critic,
+on her left, and on her right she had a beautiful stout woman who could
+speak nothing but Polish, but who expressed herself very clearly in the
+language of smiles, nods, and shrugs; to Audrey she seemed to be extremely
+romantic; the musical critic could converse somewhat in Polish, and
+occasionally he talked across Audrey to the Pole. Several other languages
+were flying about. The subject of discussion was feminism, chiefly as
+practised in England. It was Miss Ingate who had begun it; her striking and
+peculiar appearance, and in particular her frock, had given importance to
+her lightest word. People who comprehended naught of English listened to
+her entranced. The host, who was among these, stood behind her in a state
+of ecstasy. Her pale forehead reddened; her sardonic grin became
+deliciously self-conscious. "I know I'm skidding," she cried. "I know I'm
+skidding."
+
+"What does she say? Skeed--skeed?" demanded the host.
+
+Audrey interpreted. Shouts of laughter!
+
+"Oh! These English! These Englishwomen!" said the host. "I adore them. I
+adore them all. They alone exist."
+
+"It's vehy serious!" protested Miss Ingate. "It's vehy serious!"
+
+"We shall go to London to-morrow, shan't we, Winnie?" said Audrey across
+the table to her.
+
+"Yes," agreed Miss Ingate. "I think we ought. We're as free as birds. When
+the police have broken our arms we can come back to Paris to recover. I
+shan't feel comfortable until I've been and had my arm broken--it's vehy
+serious."
+
+"What does she say? What is it that she says?" from the host.
+
+More interpretation. More laughter, but this time an impressed laughter.
+And Audrey perceived that just as she was regarding the Polish woman as
+romantic, so the whole company was regarding herself and Miss Ingate as
+romantic. She could feel the polite, curious eyes of twenty men upon her;
+and her mind seemed to stiffen into a formidable resolve. She grew
+conscious of the lifting of all depression, all anxiety. Her conscience was
+at rest. She had been thinking for more than a week past: "I ought to go to
+London." How often had she not said to herself: "If any woman should be in
+this movement, I should be in this movement. I am a coward as long as I
+stay here, dallying my time away." Now the decision was made, absolutely.
+
+The Oriental musical critic turned to glance upward behind his chair. Then
+he vacated it. The next instant Madame Piriac was sitting in his place.
+
+She said:
+
+"Are you really going to London to-morrow, Madame?"
+
+"Yes, Madame, really!" answered Audrey firmly, without the least
+hesitation.
+
+"How I regret it! For this reason. I wished so much to make your
+acquaintance. I mean--to know you a little. You go perhaps in the
+afternoon? Could you not do me the great pleasure of coming to lunch with
+me? I inhabit the Quai Voltaire. It is all that is most convenient."
+
+Audrey was startled and suspicious, but she could not deny the
+persuasiveness of the invitation.
+
+"Ah! Madame!" she said. "I know not at what hour we go. But even if it
+should be in the afternoon there is the packing--you know--in a word...."
+
+"Listen," Madame Piriac proceeded, bending even more intimately towards
+her. "Be very, very kind. Come to see me to-night. Come in my car. I will
+see that you reach the Rue Delambre afterwards."
+
+"But Madame, we are at the Hotel du Danube. I have my own car. You are very
+amiable."
+
+Madame Piriac was a little taken aback.
+
+"So much the better," she said, in a new tone. "The Hotel du Danube is
+nearer still. But come in my car. Mademoiselle Ingate can return in yours.
+Do not desolate me."
+
+"Does she know who I am?" thought Audrey, and then: "What do I care if she
+does?"
+
+And she said aloud:
+
+"Madame, it is I who would be desolated to deprive myself of this
+pleasure."
+
+A considerable period elapsed before they could leave, because of the
+complex discussion concerning feminism which was delicately raging round
+the edge of the table. The animation was acute, but it was purely
+intellectual. The guests discussed the psychology of English suffragettes,
+sympathetically, admiringly; they were even wonderstruck; yet they might
+have been discussing the psychology of the ancient Babylonians, so perfect
+was their detachment, so completely unclouded by any prejudice was their
+desire to reach the truth. Many of the things which they imperturbably and
+politely said made Audrey feel glad that she was a widow. Had she not been
+a widow, possibly they would not have been uttered.
+
+And when Madame Piriac and Audrey did rise to go, both host and hostess
+began to upbraid. The host, indeed, barred the doorway with his urbane
+figure. They were not kind, they were not true friends, to leave so soon.
+The morrow had no sort of importance. The hour was scarcely one o'clock.
+Other guests were expected.... Madame Piriac alone knew how to handle the
+situation; she appealed privately to Madame Foa. Having appealed to Madame
+Foa, she disappeared with Madame Foa, and could not be found when Audrey
+and Miss Ingate were ready to leave. While these two waited in the
+antechamber, Monsieur Foa said suddenly in a confidential tone to Audrey:
+
+"He is charming, Musa, quite charming."
+
+"Did you like his playing?" Audrey demanded boldly.
+
+She could not understand why it should be necessary for a violinist to play
+and to succeed at this house before he could capture Paris. She was
+delighted excessively with the home, but positively it bore no resemblance
+to what she had anticipated; nor did it seem to her to possess any of the
+attributes of influence; for one of her basic ideas about the world was
+that influential people must be dull and formal, moving about with
+deliberation in sombrely magnificent interiors.
+
+"Yes," said Monsieur Foa. "I like it. He plays admirably." And he spoke
+sincerely. Audrey, however, was a little disappointed because Monsieur Foa
+did not assert that Musa was the most marvellous genius he had ever
+listened to.
+
+"I am very, very content to have heard him," said Monsieur Foa.
+
+"Do you think he will succeed in Paris?"
+
+"Ah! Madame! There is the Press. There are the snobs.... In fine...."
+
+"I suppose if he had money?" Audrey murmured.
+
+"Ah! Madame! In Paris, if one has money, one has everything. Paris--it is
+not London, where to succeed one must be truly successful. But he is a
+player very highly accomplished. It is miraculous that he should have
+played so long in a cafe--Dauphin told me the history."
+
+Musa appeared, and after him Madame Piriac. More appeals, more reproaches,
+more asseverations that friends who left so early as one o'clock in the
+morning were not friends--and the host at length consented to open the
+door. At that very instant the bell clanged. Another guest had arrived.
+
+When, after the long descent of the stairs (which, however, unlike the
+stairs of the Rue Delambre, were lighted), Audrey saw seven automobiles in
+the street, she veered again towards the possibility that the Foas might
+after all be influential. Musa and Mr. Gilman, the yachtsman, had left with
+the women. Audrey told Miss Ingate to drive Musa home. She said not a word
+to him about her departure the next afternoon, and he made no reference to
+it. As the most imposing automobile moved splendidly away, Mr. Gilman held
+open the door of Madame Piriac's vehicle.
+
+Mr. Gilman sat down opposite to the women. In the enclosed space the rumour
+of his heavy breathing was noticeable. Madame Piriac began to speak in
+English--her own English--with a unique accent that Audrey at once loved.
+
+"You commence soon the yachting, my oncle?" said she, and turning to
+Audrey: "Mistair Gilman is no oncle to me. But he is a great friend of my
+husband. I call always him oncle. Do not I, oncle? Mistair Gilman lives
+only for the yachting. Every year in May we lose him, till September."
+
+"Really!" said Audrey.
+
+Her heart was apprehensively beating. She even suspected for an instant
+that both of them knew who she was, and that Mr. Gilman, before she had
+addressed him in the drawing-room, had already related to Madame Piriac the
+episode of Mozewater. Then she said to herself that the idea was absurd;
+and lastly, repeating within her breast that she didn't care, she became
+desperately bold.
+
+"I should love to buy a yacht," she said, after a pause. "We used to live
+far inland and I know nothing of the sea; in fact I scarcely saw it till I
+crossed the Channel, but I have always dreamed about it."
+
+"You must come and have a look at my new yacht, Mrs. Moncreiff," said Mr.
+Gilman in his solemn, thick voice. "I always say that no yacht is herself
+without ladies on board, a yacht being feminine, you see." He gave a little
+laugh.
+
+"Ah! My oncle!" Madame Piriac broke in. "I see in that no reason. If a
+yacht was masculine then I could see the reason in it."
+
+"Perhaps not one of my happiest efforts," said Mr. Gilman with
+resignation. "I am a dull man."
+
+"No, no!" Madame Piriac protested. "You are a dear. But why have you said
+nothing to-night at the Foas in the great discussion about feminism? Not
+one word have you said!"
+
+"I really don't understand it," said Mr. Gilman. "Either everybody is mad,
+or I am mad. I dare say I am mad."
+
+"Well," said Madame Piriac. "I said not much myself, but I enjoyed it. It
+was better than the music, music, which they talk always there. People talk
+too much shops in these days. It is out-to-place and done over."
+
+"Do you mean overdone?" asked Mr. Gilman mildly.
+
+"Well, overdone, if you like better that."
+
+"Do you mean shop, Hortense?" asked Mr. Gilman further.
+
+"Shop, shop! The English is impossible!"
+
+The automobile crossed the Seine and arrived in the deserted Quai Voltaire.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE BOUDOIR
+
+
+In the setting of her own boudoir Madame Piriac equalled, and in some ways
+surpassed, the finest pictures which Audrey had imagined of her. Her
+evening dress made Audrey doubt whether after all her own was the genuine
+triumph which she had supposed; in Madame Piriac's boudoir, and close by
+Madame Piriac, it had disconcertingly the air of being an ingenious but
+unconvincing imitation of the real thing.
+
+But Madame Piriac's dress had the advantage of being worn with the highest
+skill and assurance; Madame Piriac knew what the least fold of her dress
+was doing, in the way of effect, on the floor behind her back. And Madame
+Piriac was mistress, not only of her dress, but of herself and all her
+faculties. A handsome woman, rather more than slim, but not plump, she had
+an expression of confidence, of knowing exactly what she was about, of
+foreseeing all her effects, which Audrey envied more than she had ever
+envied anything.
+
+As soon as Audrey came into the room she had said to herself: "I will have
+a boudoir like this." It was an interior in which every piece of furniture
+was loaded with objects personal to its owner. So many signed photographs,
+so much remarkable bric-a-brac, so many intimate contrivances of ornamental
+comfort, Audrey had never before seen within four walls. The chandelier,
+comprising ten thousand crystals, sparkled down upon a complex aggregate of
+richness overwhelming to everybody except Madame Piriac, who subdued it,
+understood it, and had the key to it. Audrey wondered how many servants
+took how many hours to dust the room. She was sure, however, that whatever
+the number of servants required, Madame Piriac managed them all to
+perfection. She longed violently to be as old as Madame Piriac, whom she
+assessed at twenty-nine and a half, and to be French, and to know all about
+everything in life as Madame Piriac did. Yet at the same time she was
+extremely determined to be Audrey, and not to be intimidated by Madame
+Piriac or by anyone.
+
+Just as they were beginning to suck iced lemonade up straws--a delightful
+caprice of Madame Piriac's, well suited to catch Audrey's taste--the door
+opened softly, and a tall, very dark, bearded man, appreciably older than
+Madame Piriac, entered with a kind of soft energy, and Mr. Gilman followed
+him.
+
+"Ah! My friend!" murmured Madame Piriac. "You give me pleasure. This is
+Madame Moncreiff, of whom I have spoken to you. Madame--my husband. We have
+just come from the Foas."
+
+Monsieur Piriac bent over Audrey's hand, and smiled with vivacity, and they
+talked a little of the evening, carelessly, as though time existed not. And
+then Monsieur Piriac said to his wife:
+
+"Dear friend. I have to work with this old Gilman. We shall therefore ask
+you to excuse us. Till to-morrow, then. Good night."
+
+"Good night, my friend. Do not do harm to yourself. Good night, my oncle."
+
+Monsieur Piriac saluted with formality but with sincerity.
+
+"Oh!" thought Audrey, as the men went away. "I should want to marry exactly
+him if I did want to marry. He doesn't interfere; he isn't curious; he
+doesn't want to know. He leaves her alone. She leaves him alone. How clever
+they are!"
+
+"My husband is now chief of the Cabinet of the Foreign Minister," said
+Madame Piriac with modest pride. "They kill themselves, you know, in that
+office--especially in these times. But I watch. And I tell Monsieur Gilman
+to watch.... How nice you are when you sit in a chair like that!  Only
+Englishwomen know how to use an easy chair.... To say nothing of the
+frock."
+
+"Madame Piriac," Audrey brusquely demanded with an expression of ingenuous
+curiosity. "Why did you bring me here?" It was the cry of an animal at once
+rash and rather desperate, determined to unmask all the secret dangers that
+might be threatening.
+
+"I much desired to see you," Madame Piriac answered very smoothly, "in
+order to apologise to you for my indiscreet question on the night when we
+first met. Your fairy tale about your late husband was a very proper reply
+to the attitude of Madame Rosamund--as you all call her. It was very
+clever--so clever that I myself did not appreciate it until after I had
+spoken. Ever since that moment I have wanted to explain, to know you more.
+Also your pretence of going to sleep in the automobile showed what in a
+woman I call distinguished talent."
+
+"But, Madame, I assure you that I really was asleep."
+
+"So much the better. The fact proves that your instinct for the right thing
+is quite exceptional. It is not that I would criticise Madame Rosamund, who
+has genius. Nevertheless her genius causes her to commit errors of which
+others would be incapable.... So she has captured you, too."
+
+"Captured me!" Audrey protested--and she was made stronger by the
+flattering reference to her distinguished talent. "I've never seen her from
+that day to this!"
+
+"No. But she has captured you. You are going."
+
+"Going where?"
+
+"To London, to take part in these riots."
+
+"I shan't have anything to do with riots."
+
+"Within a month you will have been in a riot, Madame ... and I shall
+regret it."
+
+"And even if I am, Madame! You are a friend of Rosamund's. You must be in
+sympathy."
+
+"In sympathy with what?"
+
+"With--with all this suffragism, feminism. I am anyway!" Audrey sat up
+straight. "It's horrible that women don't have the Vote. And it's horrible
+the things they have to suffer in order to get it. But they _will_ get it!"
+
+"Why do you say 'they'?"
+
+"I mean 'we.'"
+
+"Supposing you meant 'they,' after all? And you did, Madame. Let me tell
+you. You ask me if I sympathise with suffragism. You might as well ask me
+if I sympathise with a storm or with an earthquake, or with a river running
+to the sea. Perhaps I do. But perhaps I do not. That has no importance.
+Feminism is a natural phenomenon; it was unavoidable. You Englishwomen will
+get your vote. Even we in France will get it one day. It cannot be
+denied.... Sympathy is not required. But let us suppose that all women
+joined the struggle. What would happen to women?  What would happen to the
+world? Just as nunneries were a necessity of other ages, so even in this
+age women must meditate. Far more than men they need to understand
+themselves. Until they understand themselves how can they understand men?
+The function of women is to understand. Their function is also to
+preserve. All the beautiful and luxurious things in the world are in the
+custody of women. Men would never of themselves keep a tradition. If there
+is anything on earth worth keeping, women must keep it. And the tradition
+will be lost if every woman listens to Madame Rosamund. That is what she
+cannot see. Her genius blinds her. You say I am a friend of Madame
+Rosamund. I am. Madame Rosamund was educated in Paris, at the same school
+as my aunt and myself. But I have never helped her in her mission. And I
+never will. My vocation is elsewhere. When she fled over here from the
+English police, she came to me. I received her. She asked me to drive her
+to certain addresses. I did so. She was my guest. I surrounded her with all
+that she had abandoned, all that her genius had forced her to abandon. But
+I never spoke to her of her work, nor she to me of it. Still, I dare to
+think that I was of some value to the woman in Madame Rosamund."
+
+Audrey felt very young and awkward and defiant. She felt defiant because
+Madame Piriac had impressed her, and she was determined not to be
+impressed.
+
+"So you wanted to tell me all this," said she, putting down her glass, with
+the straws in it, on a small round table laden with tiny figures in silver.
+"Why did you want to tell me, Madame?"
+
+"I wanted to tell you because I want you to do nothing that you will
+regret. You greatly interested me the moment I saw you. And when I saw you
+in that studio, in that Quarter, I feared for you."
+
+"Feared what?"
+
+"I feared that you might mistake your vocation--that vocation which is so
+clearly written on your face. I saw a woman young and free and rich, and I
+was afraid that she might waste everything."
+
+"But do you know anything about me?"
+
+Madame Piriac paused before replying.
+
+"Nothing but what I see. But I see that you are in a high degree what all
+women are to a greater extent than men--an individualist. You know the
+feeling that comes over a woman in hours of complete intimacy with a man?
+You know what I mean?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" Audrey agreed, blushing.
+
+"In those moments we perceive that only the individual counts with us. And
+with you, above all, the individual should count. Unless you use your youth
+and your freedom and your money for some individual, you will never be
+content; you will eternally regret. All that is in your face."
+
+Audrey blushed more, thinking of certain plans formed in that head of hers.
+She said nothing. She was both very pleased and very exasperated.
+
+"I have a relative in England, a young girl," Madame Piriac proceeded, "in
+some unpronounceable county. We write to each other. She is excessively
+English."
+
+Audrey was scarlet. Several times during the sojourn in Paris she had sent
+letters (to Madame Piriac) to be posted in Essex by Mr. Foulger. These
+letters were full of quaint inventions about winter life in Essex, and
+other matters.
+
+Madame Piriac, looking reflectively at the red embers of wood in the grate,
+went on:
+
+"She says she may come to Paris soon. I have often asked her to come, but
+she has refused. Perhaps next month I shall go to England to fetch her. I
+should like her to know you--very much. She is younger than you are, but
+only a little, I think."
+
+"I shall be delighted, if I am here," Audrey stammered, and she rose. "You
+are a very kind woman. Very, very amiable. You do not know how much I
+admire you. I wish I was like you. But I am not. You have seen only one
+side of me. You should see the inside. It is very strange. I must go to
+London. I am forced to go to London. I should be a coward if I did not go
+to London. Tell me, is my dress really good? Or is it a deception?"
+
+Madame Piriac smiled, and kissed her on both cheeks.
+
+"It is good," said Madame Piriac. "But your maid is not all that she ought
+to be. However, it is good."
+
+"If you had simply praised it, and only that, I should not have been
+content," said Audrey, and kissed Madame Piriac in the English way, the
+youthful and direct way.
+
+Not another word about the male sex, the female sex, tradition or
+individualism, passed between them.
+
+Mr. Gilman was summoned to take Audrey across the river to the right bank.
+They went in a taxi. He was protective and very silent. But just as the cab
+was turning out of the Rue de Rivoli into the Rue Castiglione he said:
+
+"I shall obey you absolutely, Mrs. Moncreiff. It is a great pleasure for an
+old, lonely man to keep a secret for a young and charming woman. A greater
+pleasure than you can possibly imagine. You may count on me. I am not a
+talker, but you have put me under an obligation, and I am very grateful."
+
+She took care that her thanks should reward him.
+
+"Winnie," she burst out in the rose-coloured secrecy of the bedroom, "has
+Elise gone to bed? ... All right. Well, I'm lost. Madame Piniac is going
+to England to fetch me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+PAGET GARDENS
+
+
+"Has anything happened in this town?" asked Audrey of Miss Ingate.
+
+It was the afternoon of the day following their arrival in London from
+Paris, and it was a fine afternoon. They were walking from the Charing
+Cross Hotel, where they had slept, to Paget Gardens.
+
+"Anything happened?" repeated Miss Ingate. "What you mean? I don't see
+anything vehy particular on the posters."
+
+"Everybody looks so sad and worried, compared with people in Paris."
+
+"So they do! So they do!" cried Miss Ingate. "Oh, yes! So they do! I
+wondered what it was seemed so queer. That's it. Well, of course you
+mustn't forget we're in England. I always did say it was a vehy peculiar
+place."
+
+"Do _we_ look like that?" Audrey suggested.
+
+"I expect we do."
+
+"I'm quite sure that I don't, Winnie, anyway. I'm really very cheerful. I'm
+surprisingly cheerful."
+
+It was true. Also she both looked and felt more girlish than ever in Paris.
+Impossible to divine, watching her in her light clothes, and with her airy
+step, that she was the relict of a man who had so tragically died of
+blood-poisoning caused by bad table manners.
+
+"I've a good mind to ask a policeman," said she.
+
+"You'd better not," Miss Ingate warned her.
+
+Audrey instantly turned into the roadway, treating the creosoted wood as
+though it had been rose-strewn velvet, and reached a refuge where a
+policeman was standing. The policeman bent with benevolence and politeness
+to listen to her tale.
+
+"Excuse me," she said, smiling innocently up at him, "but is anything the
+matter?"
+
+"_What_ street, miss?" he questioned, bending lower.
+
+"Is anything the matter? All the people round here are so gloomy."
+
+The policeman glanced at her.
+
+"There will be something the matter," he remarked calmly. "There will be
+something the matter pretty soon if I have much more of that suffragette
+sauce. I thought you was one of them the moment I saw you, but I wasn't
+sure."
+
+This was the first time Audrey had ever spoken to a policeman, save
+Inspector Keeble, at Moze, who was a friendly human being. And she had a
+little pang of fear. The policeman was like a high wall of blue cloth,
+with a marvellous imitation of a human face at the top, and above the face
+a cupola.
+
+"Thank you," she murmured reproachfully, and hastened back to Miss Ingate,
+who heard the tale with a grinning awe that was, nevertheless, sardonic.
+They pressed onwards to Piccadilly Circus, where the only normal and
+cheerful living creatures were the van horses and the flower-women; and up
+Regent Street, through crowds of rapt and mystical women and romantical men
+who had apparently wandered out of a play by Henrik Ibsen.
+
+They then took a motor-bus, which was full of the same enigmatic,
+far-gazing heroines and heroes. When they got off, the conductor pointed
+dreamily in a certain direction and murmured the words: "Paget Square."
+Their desire was Paget Gardens, and, after finding Paget Square, Paget
+Mansions, Paget Houses, Paget Street, Paget Mews, and Upper Paget Street,
+they found Paget Gardens. It was a terrace of huge and fashionable houses
+fronting on an immense, blank brick wall. The houses were very lofty; so
+lofty that the architect, presumably afraid of hitting heaven with his
+patent chimney cowls, had sunk the lowest storey deep into the earth.
+Looking over the high palisades which protected the pavement from the
+precipice thus made, one could plainly see the lowest storey and all that
+was therein.
+
+"Whoever can she be staying with?" exclaimed Miss Ingate. "It's a
+marchioness at least. There's no doubt the very best people are now in the
+movement."
+
+Audrey went first up massive steps, and, choosing with marked presence of
+mind the right bell, rang it, expecting to see either a butler or a
+footman.
+
+A young woman, however, answered the ring. She wore a rather shabby serge
+frock, but no apron, and she did not resemble any kind of servant. Her
+ruddy, heavy, and slightly resentful face fronted the visitors with a
+steady, challenging stare.
+
+"Does Miss Nickall live here?" asked Audrey.
+
+"Aye! She does!" came the answer, with a northern accent.
+
+"We've come to see how she is."
+
+"Happen ye'd better step inside, then," said the young woman.
+
+They stepped inside to an enormous and obscure interior; the guardian
+banged the door, and negligently led them forward.
+
+"It is a large house," Miss Ingate ventured, against the silent
+intimidation of the place.
+
+"One o' them rich uns," said the guardian. "She lends it to the Cause when
+she doesn't want it herself, to show her sympathy. Saves her a
+caretaker--they all know I'm one to look right well after a house."
+
+Having passed two very spacious rooms and a wide staircase, she opened the
+door of a smaller but still a considerable room.
+
+"Here y'are," she muttered.
+
+This room, like the others, was thoroughly sheeted, and thus presented a
+misty and spectral appearance. All the chairs, the chandelier, and all the
+pictures, were masked in close-fitting pale yellow. The curtains were down,
+the carpet was up, and a dust sheet was spread under the table in the
+middle of the floor.
+
+"Here's some friends of yours," said the guardian, throwing her words
+across the room.
+
+In an easy chair near the fireplace sat Miss Nickall, her arm in splints
+and in a sling. She was very thin and very pallid, and her eyes brightly
+glittered. The customary kind expression of her face was modified, though
+not impaired, by a look of vague apprehension.
+
+"Mind how ye handle her," the guardian gave warning, when Nick yielded
+herself to be embraced.
+
+"You're just a bit of my Paris come to see me," said Nick, with her
+American accent. Then through her tears: "How's Tommy, and how's Musa, and
+how's--how's my studio? Oh! This is Miss Susan Foley, sister of Jane Foley.
+Jane will be here for tea. Susan--Miss Ingate and Mrs. Moncreiff."
+
+Susan gave a grim bob.
+
+"Is Jane Foley coming? Does she live here?" asked Miss Ingate, properly
+impressed by the name of her who was the St. George of Suffragism, and
+perhaps the most efficient of all militants. "Audrey, we are in luck!"
+
+When Nick had gathered items of information about Paris, she burst out:
+
+"I can't believe I've only met you once before. You're just like old
+friends."
+
+"So we are old friends," said Audrey. "Your letters to Winnie have made us
+old friends."
+
+"And when did you come over?"
+
+"Last night," Miss Ingate replied. "We should have called this morning to
+see you, but Mrs. Moncreiff had so much business to do and people to see. I
+don't know what it all was. She's very mysterious."
+
+As a fact, Audrey had had an interview with Mr. Foulger, who, with
+laudable obedience, had come up to town from Chelmsford in response to a
+telegram. Miss Ingate was aware of this, but she was not aware of other and
+more recondite interviews which Audrey had accomplished.
+
+"And how did this happen?" eagerly inquired Miss Ingate, at last, pointing
+to the bandaged arm.
+
+Nick's face showed discomfort.
+
+"Please don't let us talk about that," said Nick. "It was a policeman. I
+don't think he meant it. I had chained myself to the railings of St.
+Margaret's Church."
+
+Susan Foley put in laconically:
+
+"She's not to be worried. I hope ye'll stay for tea. We shall have tea at
+five sharp. Janey'll be in."
+
+"Can't they sleep here, Susan?" Nick whimpered.
+
+"Of course they can, and welcome," said Susan. "There's more empty beds in
+this barracks than they could sleep in if they slept all day and all
+night."
+
+"But we're staying at an hotel. We can't possibly put you to all this
+trouble," Audrey protested.
+
+"No trouble. It's my business. It's what I'm here for," said Susan Foley.
+"I'd sooner have it than mill work any day o' the week."
+
+"You're just going to be very mean if you don't stay here," Nick faltered.
+Tears stood in her eyes again. "You don't know how I feel." She murmured
+something about Betty Burke's doings.
+
+"We will stay! We will stay!" Miss Ingate agreed hastily. And, unperceived
+by Nick, she gave Audrey a glance in which irony and tenderness were
+mingled. It was as if she had whispered, "The nerves of this angel have all
+gone to pieces. We must humour the little sentimental simpleton."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+JANE
+
+
+"We've begun, ye see," said Susan Foley.
+
+It was two minutes past five, and Miss Ingate and Audrey, followed by Nick
+with her slung arm, entered the sheeted living-room. Tremendous feats had
+been performed. All the Moncreiff and Ingate luggage, less than two hours
+earlier lying at the Charing Cross Hotel, was now in two adjoining rooms on
+the third floor of the great house in Paget Gardens. Drivers and loiterers
+had assisted, under the strict and taciturn control of Susan Foley. Also
+Nick, Miss Ingate, and Audrey had had a most intimate conversation, and the
+two latter had changed their attire to suit the station of campers in a
+palace.
+
+"It's lovely to be quite free and independent," Audrey had said, and the
+statement had been acclaimed.
+
+Jane Foley was seated opposite her sister at the small table plainly set
+for five. She rose vivaciously, and came forward with outstretched hand.
+She wore a blue skirt and a white blouse and brown boots. She was
+twenty-eight, but her rather small proportions and her plentiful golden,
+fluffy hair made her seem about twenty. Her face was less homely than
+Susan's, and more mobile. She smiled somewhat shyly, with an extraordinary
+radiant cheerfulness. It was impossible for her to conceal the fact that
+she was very good-natured and very happy. Finally, she limped.
+
+"Susan _will_ have the meals prompt," she said, as they all sat down. "And
+as Susan left home on purpose to look after me, of course she's the
+mistress. As far as that goes, she always was."
+
+Susan was spreading jam on a slice of bread-and-butter for the one-armed
+Nick.
+
+"I dare say you don't remember me playing the barrel organ all down Regent
+Street that day, do you?" said Miss Ingate.
+
+"Oh, yes; quite well. You were magnificent!" answered Jane, with blue eyes
+sparkling.
+
+"Well, though I only just saw you--I was so busy--I should remember you
+anywhere, Miss Foley," said Miss Ingate.
+
+"Do you notice any difference in her?" questioned Susan Foley harshly.
+
+"N-o," said Miss Ingate. "Except, perhaps, she looks even younger."
+
+"Didn't you notice she's lame?"
+
+"Oh, well--yes, I did. But you didn't expect me to mention that, did you? I
+thought your sister had just sprained her ankle, or something."
+
+"No," said Susan. "It's for life. Tell them about it, Jenny. They don't
+know."
+
+Jane Foley laughed lightly.
+
+"It was all in the day's work," she said. "It was at my last visit to
+Holloway."
+
+Audrey, gazing at her entranced, like a child, murmured with awe:
+
+"Have you been to prison, then?"
+
+"Three times," said Jane pleasantly. "And I shall be going again soon. I'm
+only out while they're trying to think of some new way of dealing with me,
+poor things!  I'm generally watched. It must cost them a fearful lot of
+money. But what are they to do?"
+
+"But how were you lamed? I can't eat any tea if you don't tell me--really I
+can't!"
+
+"Oh, all right!" Jane laughed. "It was after that Liberal mass meeting in
+Peel Park, at Bradford. I'd begun to ask questions, as usual, you
+know--questions they can't answer--and then some Liberal stewards, with
+lovely rosettes in their buttonholes, came round me and started cutting my
+coat with their penknives. They cut it all to pieces. You see that was the
+best argument they could think of in the excitement of the moment. I
+believe they'd have cut up every stitch I had, only perhaps it began to
+dawn on them that it might be awkward for them. Then two of them lifted me
+up, one by the feet and the other by the shoulders, and carried me off.
+They wouldn't let me walk. I told them they'd hurt my leg, but they were
+too busy to listen. As soon as they came across a policeman they said they
+had done it all to save me from being thrown into the lake by a brutal and
+infuriated mob. I just had enough breath left to thank them. Of course, the
+police weren't going to stand that, so I was taken that night to London.
+Everything was thought of except my tea. But I expect they forgot that on
+purpose so that I should be properly hungry when I got to Holloway.
+However, I said to myself, 'If I can't eat and drink when _I_ want, I won't
+eat and drink when _they_ want!' And I didn't.
+
+"After I'd paid my respects at Bow Street, and was back at Holloway, I just
+stamped on everything they offered me, and wrote a petition to the Governor
+asking to be treated as a political prisoner. Instead of granting the
+petition he kept sending me more and more beautiful food, and I kept
+stamping on it. Then three magistrates arrived and sat on my case, and
+sentenced me to the punishment cells. They ran off as soon as they'd
+sentenced me. I said I wouldn't go to their punishment cells. I told
+everybody again how lame I was. So five wardresses carried me there, but
+they dropped me twice on the way. It was a very interesting cell, the
+punishment cell was. If it had been in the Tower, everybody would go to
+look at it because of its quaintness. There were two pools of water near to
+the bed. I was three days in the cell, and those pools of water were always
+there; I could see them because from where I lay on the bed the light
+glinted on them. Just one gleam from the tiny cobwebby window high up. I
+hadn't anything to read, of course, but even if I'd had something I
+couldn't see to read. The bed was two planks, just raised an inch or two
+above the water, and the pillow was wooden. Never any trouble about making
+beds like that! The entire furniture of this cosy drawing-room was--you'll
+never guess--a tree-stump, meant for a chair, I think. And on this
+tree-stump was an india-rubber cup. I could just see it across the cell.
+
+"At night the wardresses were struck with pity, or perhaps it was the
+Governor. Anyhow, they brought me a mattress and a rug. They told me to get
+up off the bed, and I told them I couldn't get up, couldn't even turn over.
+So they said, 'Very well, then; you can do without these things,' and they
+took them away. The funny thing was that I really couldn't get up. If I
+tried to move, my leg made me want to shriek.
+
+"After three days they decided to take me to the prison hospital. I
+shrieked all the way--couldn't help it. They laughed. So then I laughed. In
+the hospital, the doctor decided that my left ankle was sprained and my
+right thigh broken. So I had the best of them, after all. They had to admit
+they were wrong. It was most awkward for them. Then I thought I might as
+well begin to eat. But they had to be very careful what they gave me. I
+hadn't had anything for nearly six days, you see. They were in a fearful
+stew. Doctor was there day and night. And it wasn't his fault. I told him
+he had all my sympathies. He said he was very sorry I should be lame for
+life, but it couldn't be helped, as the thigh had been left too long. I
+said, 'Please don't mention it.'"
+
+"But did they keep you after that?"
+
+"Keep me! They implored my friends to take me away. No man was ever more
+relieved that the poor dear Governor of Holloway Prison, and the Home
+Secretary himself, too, when I left in a motor ambulance. The Governor
+raised his hat to two of my friends. He would have eaten out of my hand if
+I'd had a few more days to tame him."
+
+Audrey's childlike and intense gaze had become extremely noticeable. Jane
+Foley felt it upon herself, and grew a little self-conscious. Susan Foley
+noticed it with eager and grim pride, and she made a sharp movement instead
+of saying: "Yes, you do well to stare. You've got something worth staring
+at."
+
+Nick noticed it, with moisture in her glittering, hysteric eyes. Miss
+Ingate noticed it ironically. "You, pretending to be a widow, and so
+knowing and so superior! Why, you're a schoolgirl!" said the expressive
+curve of Miss Ingate's shut lips.
+
+And, in fact, Audrey was now younger than she had ever been in Paris. She
+was the girl of six or seven years earlier, who, at night at school, used
+to insist upon hearing stories of real people, either from a sympathetic
+teacher or from the other member of the celebrated secret society. But she
+had never heard any tale to compare with Jane Foley's. It was incredible
+that this straightforward, simple girl at the table should be the
+world-renowned Jane Foley. What most impressed Audrey in Jane was Jane's
+happiness. Jane was happy, as Audrey had not imagined that anyone could be
+happy. She had within her a supply of happiness that was constantly
+bubbling up. The ridiculousness and the total futility of such matters as
+motor-cars, fine raiment, beautiful boudoirs and correctness smote Audrey
+severely. She saw that there was only one thing worth having, and that was
+the mysterious thing that Jane Foley had. This mysterious thing rendered
+innocuous cruelty, stupidity and injustice, and reduced them to rather
+pathetic trifles.
+
+"But I never saw all this in the papers!" Audrey exclaimed.
+
+"No paper--I mean no respectable paper--would print it. Of course, we
+printed it in our own weekly paper."
+
+"Why wouldn't any respectable paper print it?"
+
+"Because it's not nice. Don't you see that I ought to have been at home
+mending stockings instead of gallivanting round with Liberal stewards and
+policemen and prison governors?"
+
+"And why aren't you mending stockings?" asked Audrey, with a delicious
+quizzical smile that crept gradually through the wonder and admiration in
+her face.
+
+"You pal!" cried Jane Foley impulsively. "I must hug you!" And she did.
+"I'll tell you why I'm not mending' stockings, and why Susan has had to
+leave off mending stockings in order to look after me. Susan and I worked
+in a mill when she was ten and I was eleven. We were 'tenters.' We used to
+get up at four or five in the morning and help with the housework, and then
+put on our clogs and shawls and be at the mill at six. We worked till
+twelve, and then in the afternoon we went to school. The next day we went
+to school in the morning and to the mill in the afternoon. When we were
+thirteen we left school altogether, and worked twelve hours a day in the
+mill. In the evenings we had to do housework. In fact, all our housework
+was done before half-past five in the morning and after half-past six in
+the evening. We had to work just as hard as the men and boys in the mill.
+We got a great deal less money and a great deal less decent treatment; but
+to make up we had to slave in the early morning and late at night, while
+the men either snored or smoked. I was all right. But Susan wasn't. And a
+lot of women weren't, especially young mothers with babies. So I learnt
+typewriting on the quiet, and left it all to try and find out whether
+something couldn't be done. I soon found out--after I'd heard Rosamund
+speak. That's the reason I'm not mending stockings. I'm not blaming
+anybody. It's no one's fault, really. It certainly isn't men's fault. Only
+something has to be altered, and most people detest alterations. Still,
+they do get done somehow in the end. And so there you are!"
+
+"I should love to help," said Audrey. "I expect I'm not much good, but I
+should love to."
+
+She dared not refer to her wealth, of which, in fact, she was rather
+ashamed.
+
+"Well, you can help, all right," said Jane Foley, rising. "Are you a
+member?"
+
+"No. But I will be to-morrow."
+
+"They'll give you something to do," said Jane Foley.
+
+"Oh yes!" remarked Miss Ingate. "They'll keep you busy enough--_and_ charge
+you for it."
+
+Susan Foley began to clear the table.
+
+"Supper at nine," said she curtly.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+THE DETECTIVE
+
+
+Audrey and Miss Ingate were writing letters to Paris. Jane Foley had gone
+forth again to a committee meeting, which was understood to be closely
+connected with a great Liberal demonstration shortly to be held in a
+Midland fortress of Liberalism. Miss Nickall, in accordance with medical
+instructions, had been put to bed. Susan Foley was in the basement, either
+clearing up tea or preparing supper.
+
+Miss Ingate, putting her pen between her teeth and looking up from a
+blotting-pad, said to Audrey across the table:
+
+"Are you writing to Musa?"
+
+"Certainly not!" said Audrey, with fire. "Why should I write to Musa?" She
+added: "But you can write to him, if you like."
+
+"Oh! Can I?" observed Miss Ingate, grinning.
+
+Audrey knew of no reason why she should blush before Miss Ingate, yet she
+began to blush. She resolved not to blush; she put all her individual force
+into the enterprise of resisting the tide of blood to her cheeks, but the
+tide absolutely ignored her, as the tide of ocean might have ignored her.
+
+She rose from the table, and, going into a corner, fidgeted with the
+electric switches, turning certain additional lights off and on.
+
+"All right," said Miss Ingate; "I'll write to him. I'm sure he'll expect
+something. Have you finished your letters?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, what's this one on the table, then?"
+
+"I shan't go on with that one."
+
+"Any message for Musa?"
+
+"You might tell him," said Audrey, carefully examining the drawn curtains
+of the window, "that I happened to meet a French concert agent this morning
+who was very interested in him."
+
+"Did you?" cried Miss Ingate. "Where?"
+
+"It was when I was out with Mr. Foulger. The agent asked me whether I'd
+heard a man named Musa play in Paris. Of course I said I had. He told me he
+meant to take him up and arrange a tour for him. So you might tell Musa he
+ought to be prepared for anything."
+
+"Wonders will never cease!" said Miss Ingate. "Have I got enough stamps?"
+
+"I don't see anything wonderful in it," Audrey sharply replied. "Lots of
+people in Paris know he's a great player, and those Jew concert agents are
+always awfully keen--at least, so I'm told. Well, perhaps, after all, you'd
+better not tell him. It might make him conceited.... Now, look here,
+Winnie, do hurry up, and let's go out and post those letters. I can't stand
+this huge house. I keep on imagining all the empty rooms in it. Hurry up
+and come along."
+
+Shortly afterwards Miss Ingate shouted downstairs into the earth:
+
+"Miss Foley, we're both just going out to post some letters."
+
+The faint reply came:
+
+"Supper at nine."
+
+At the farther corner of Paget Square they discovered a pillar-box standing
+solitary in the chill night among the vast and threatening architecture.
+
+"Do let's go to a cafe," suggested Audrey.
+
+"A cafe?"
+
+"Yes. I want to be jolly. I must break loose somewhere to-night. I can't
+wait till to-morrow. I was feeling splendid till Jane Foley went. Then the
+house began to get on my nerves, not to mention Susan Foley, with her
+supper at nine. Do all people in London fix their meals hours and hours
+beforehand? I suppose they do. We used to at Moze. But I'd forgotten. Come
+_along_, Winnie."
+
+"But there are no cafes in London."
+
+"There must be some cafes somewhere."
+
+"Only public-houses and restaurants. Of course, we could go to a teashop,
+but they're all shut up now."
+
+"Well, then, what do people do in London when they want to be jolly? I
+always thought London was a terrific town."
+
+"They never want to be jolly," said Miss Ingate. "If they feel as if they
+couldn't help being jolly, then they hire a private room somewhere and draw
+the blinds down."
+
+With no more words, Audrey seized Miss Ingate by the arm and they walked
+off, out of the square and into empty and silent streets where highly
+disciplined gas-lamps kept strict watch over the deportment of colossal
+houses. In their rapid stroll they seemed to cover miles, but they could
+not escape from the labyrinth of tremendous and correct houses, which in
+squares and in terraces and in crescents displayed the everlasting
+characteristics of comfort, propriety and self-satisfaction. Now and then a
+wayfarer passed them. Now and then a taxicab sped through the avenues of
+darkness like a criminal pursued by the impalpable. Now and then a red
+light flickered in a porch instead of a white one. But there was no
+surcease from the sinister spell until suddenly they emerged into a long,
+wide, illumined thoroughfare of shut shops that stretched to infinity on
+either hand. And a vermilion motor-bus meandered by, and this motor-bus was
+so sad, so inexpressibly wistful, in the solemn wilderness of the empty
+artery, that the two women fled from the strange scene and penetrated once
+more into the gigantic and fearful maze from which they had for an instant
+stood free. Soon they were quite lost. Till that day and night Audrey had
+had a notion that Miss Ingate, though bizarre, did indeed know every street
+in London. The delusion was destroyed.
+
+"Never mind," said Miss Ingate. "If we keep on we're bound to come to a
+cabstand, and then we can take a taxi and go wherever we like--Regent
+Street, Piccadilly, anywhere. That's the convenience of London. As soon as
+you come to a cabstand you're all right."
+
+And then, in the distance, Audrey saw a man apparently tampering with a
+gate that led to an area.
+
+"Why," she said excitedly, "that's the house we're staying in!"
+
+"Of course it isn't!" said Miss Ingate. "This isn't Paget Gardens, because
+there are houses on both sides of it and there's a big wall on one side of
+Paget Gardens. I'm sure we're at least two miles off our beds."
+
+"Well, then, how is it Nick's hairbrushes are on the window-sill there,
+where she put them when she went to bed? I can see them quite plain. This
+is the side street--what's-its-name?  There's the wall over there at the
+end. Don't you remember--it's a corner house. This is the side of it."
+
+"I believe you're right," admitted Miss Ingate. "What can that man be doing
+there?"
+
+They plainly saw him open the gate and disappear down the area steps.
+
+"It's a burglar," said Audrey. "This part must be a regular paradise for
+burglars."
+
+"More likely a detective," Miss Ingate suggested.
+
+Audrey was thrilled.
+
+"I do hope it is!" she murmured. "How heavenly!  Miss Foley said she was
+being watched, didn't she?"
+
+"What had we better do?" Miss Ingate faltered.
+
+"Do, Winnie?" Audrey whispered, tugging at her arm. "We must run in at the
+front door and tell Supper-at-nine-o'clock."
+
+They kept cautiously on the far side of the street until the end of it,
+when they crossed over, nipped into the dark porch of the house and rang
+the bell.
+
+Susan Foley opened for them. There was no light in the hall.
+
+"Oh, is there?" said Susan Foley, very calmly, when she heard the news. "I
+think I know who it is. I've seen him hanging round my scullery door
+before. How did he climb over those railings?"
+
+"He didn't. He opened the gate."
+
+"Well, I locked the gate myself this afternoon. So he's got a key. I shall
+manage him all right. We'll get the fire-extinguishers. There's about a
+dozen of 'em, I should think, in this house. They're rather heavy, but we
+can do it."
+
+Turning on the light in the hall, she immediately lifted from its hook a
+red-coloured metal cone about twenty inches long and eight inches in
+diameter at the base. "In case of fire drive in knob by hard blow against
+floor, and let liquid play on flames," she read the instructions on the
+side. "I know them things," she said. "It spurts out like a fountain, and
+it's a rather nasty chemistry sort of a fluid. I shall take one downstairs
+to the scullery, and the others we'll have upstairs in the room over Miss
+Nickall's. We can put 'em in the housemaid's lift.... I shall open the
+scullery door and leave it a bit open like, and when he comes in I'll be
+ready for him behind the door with this. If he thinks he can come spying
+after our Janey like this----"
+
+"But----" Miss Ingate began.
+
+"You aren't feeling very well, are ye, miss?" Susan Foley demanded, as she
+put two extinguishers into the housemaid's lift. "Better go and sit down in
+the parlour. You won't be wanted. Mrs. Moncreiff and me can manage."
+
+"Yes, we can!" agreed Audrey enthusiastically. "Run along, Winnie."
+
+After about two minutes of hard labour Susan ran away and brought a key to
+Audrey.
+
+"You sneak out," she said, "and lock the gate on him. I lay he'll want a
+new suit of clothes when I done with him!"
+
+Ecstatically, joyfully, Audrey took the key and departed. Miss Ingate was
+sitting in the hall, staring about her like an undecided bird. Audrey crept
+round into the side street. Nobody was in sight. She could not see over
+the railings, but she could see between them into the abyss of the area.
+The man was there. She could distinguish his dark form against the inner
+wall. With every conspiratorial precaution, she pulled the gate to,
+inserted the key, and locked it.
+
+A light went up in the scullery window, of which the blind was drawn. The
+man peeped at the sides of the blind. Then the scullery door was opened.
+The man started. A piece of wood was thrown out on to the floor of the
+area, and the door swung outwards. Then the light in the scullery was
+extinguished. The man waited a few moments. He had noticed that the door
+was not quite closed, and the interstice irresistibly fascinated him. He
+approached and put his hand against the door. It yielded. He entered. The
+next instant there was a bang and a cry, and a strong spray of white liquid
+appeared, in the middle of which was the man's head. The door slammed and a
+bolt was shot. The man, spluttering, coughing, and swearing, rubbed his
+eyes and wiped water from his face with his hands. His hat was on the
+ground. At first he could not see at all, but presently he felt his way
+towards the steps and began to climb them. Audrey ran off towards the
+corner. She could see and hear him shaking the gate and then trying to get
+a key into it. But as Audrey had left her key in the other side of the
+lock, he failed in the attempt.
+
+The next thing was that a window opened in the high wall-face of the house
+and an immense stream of liquid descended full on the man's head. Susan
+Foley was at the window, but only the nozzle of the extinguisher could be
+seen. The man tried to climb over the railings; he did not succeed; they
+had been especially designed to prevent such feats. He ran down the steps.
+The shower faithfully followed him. In no corner of his hiding did the
+bountiful spray neglect him. As soon as one supply of liquid slackened
+another commenced. Sometimes there were two at once. The man ran up the
+steps again and made another effort to reach the safety of the street.
+Audrey could restrain herself no more. She came, palpitating with joyous
+vitality, towards the area gate with the innocent mien of a passer-by.
+
+"Whatever is the matter?" she exclaimed, stopping as if thunderstruck. But
+in the gloom her eyes were dancing fires. She was elated as she had never
+been.
+
+The man only coughed.
+
+"You oughtn't to take shower-baths like this in the street," she said,
+veiling the laughter in her voice. "It's not allowed. But I suppose you're
+doing it for a bet or something."
+
+The downpour ceased.
+
+"Here, miss," said he, between coughs, "unlock this gate for me. Here's the
+key."
+
+"I shall do no such thing," Audrey replied. "I believe you're a burglar. I
+shall fetch a policeman."
+
+And she turned back.
+
+In the house, Miss Ingate was coming slowly down the stairs, a
+fire-extinguisher in her arms, like a red baby. She had a sardonic smile,
+but there was diffidence in it, which showed, perhaps, that it was directed
+within.
+
+"I've saved one," she said, pointing to an extinguisher, "in case there
+should be a fire in the night."
+
+A little later Susan Foley appeared at the door of the living-room.
+
+"Nine o'clock," she announced calmly. "Supper's ready. We shan't wait for
+Jane."
+
+When Jane Foley arrived, a reconnaissance proved that the martyrised
+detective had contrived to get away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+THE BLUE CITY
+
+
+In the following month, on a Saturday afternoon, Audrey, Miss Ingate, and
+Jane Foley were seated at an open-air cafe in the Blue City.
+
+The Blue City, now no more, was, as may be remembered, Birmingham's reply
+to the White City of London, and the imitative White City of Manchester.
+Birmingham, in that year, was not imitative, and, with its chemical
+knowledge, it had discovered that certain shades of blue would resist the
+effects of smoke far more successfully than any shade of white. And
+experience even showed that these shades of blue were improved, made more
+delicate and romantic, by smoke. The total impression of the show--which it
+need hardly be said was situated in the polite Edgbaston district--was
+ethereal, especially when its minarets and towers, all in accordance with
+the taste of the period, were beheld from a distance. Nor was the
+exhibition entirely devoted to pleasure. It had a moral object, and that
+object was to demonstrate the progress of civilisation in our islands. Its
+official title, indeed, was "The National Progress Exhibition," but the
+citizens of Birmingham and the vicinity never called it anything but the
+Blue City.
+
+On that Saturday afternoon a Cabinet Minister historically hostile to the
+idols of Birmingham was about to address a mass meeting in the Imperial
+Hall of the Exhibition, which held seven thousand people, in order to prove
+to Birmingham that the Government of which he was a member had done far
+more for national progress than any other Government had done for national
+progress in the same length of time. The presence of the Cabinet Minister
+accounted for the presence of Jane Foley; the presence of Jane Foley
+accounted for the presence of Audrey; and the presence of Audrey accounted
+for the presence of Miss Ingate.
+
+Although she was one of the chief organisers of victory, and perhaps--next
+to Rosamund and the family trio whose Christian names were three sweet
+symphonies--the principal asset of the Suffragette Union, Jane Foley had
+not taken an active part in the Union's arrangements for suitably welcoming
+the Cabinet Minister; partly because of her lameness, partly because she
+was writing a book, and partly for secret reasons which it would be unfair
+to divulge. Nearly at the last moment, however, in consequence of news
+that all was not well in the Midlands, she had been sent to Birmingham,
+and, after evading the watch of the police, she had arrived on the previous
+day in Audrey's motor-car, which at that moment was waiting in the
+automobile park outside the principal gates of the Blue City.
+
+The motor-car had been chosen as a means of transit for the reason that the
+railway stations were being watched for notorious suffragettes by members
+of a police force whose reputations were at stake. Audrey owed her
+possession of a motor-car to the fact that the Union officials had seemed
+both startled and grieved when, in response to questions, she admitted that
+she had no car. It was communicated to her that members of the Union as
+rich as she reputedly was were expected to own cars for the general good.
+Audrey thereupon took measures to own a car. Having seen in many
+newspapers an advertisement in which a firm of middlemen implored the
+public thus: "Let us run your car for you. Let us take all the worry and
+responsibility," she interviewed the firm, and by writing out a cheque
+disembarrassed herself at a stroke of every anxiety incident to defective
+magnetos, bad petrol, bad rubber, punctures, driving licences, bursts,
+collisions, damages, and human chauffeurs. She had all the satisfactions of
+owning a car without any of the cares. One of the evidences of progress in
+the Blue City was an exhibit of this very firm of middlemen.
+
+From the pale blue tripod table at which sat the three women could be
+plainly seen the vast Imperial Hall, flanked on one side by the great
+American Dragon Slide, a side-show loudly demonstrating progress, and on
+the other by the unique Joy Wheel side-show. At the doorway of the latter a
+man was bawling proofs of progress through a megaphone.
+
+Immense crowds had been gathering in the Imperial Hall, and the lines of
+political enthusiasts bound thither were now thinning. The Blue City was
+full of rumours, as that the Cabinet Minister was too afraid to come, as
+that he had been smuggled to the hall inside a tea-chest, and as that he
+had walked openly and unchallenged through the whole Exhibition. It was no
+rumour, but a sure fact, that two women had been caught hiding on the roof
+of the Imperial Hall, under natural shelters formed by the beams and
+boarding supporting the pediment of the eastern facade, and that they were
+ammunitioned with flags and leaflets and a silk ladder, and had made a hole
+in the roof exactly over the platform. These two women had been seen in
+charge of policemen at the Exhibition police-station. It was understood by
+many that they were the last hope of militancy that afternoon; many others,
+on the contrary, were convinced that they had been simply a feint.
+
+"Well," said Miss Ingate suddenly, glancing up at the Imperial clock, "I
+think I shall move outside and sit in the car. I think that'll be the best
+place for me. I said that night in Paris that I'd get my arm broken, but
+I've changed my mind about that." She rose.
+
+"Winnie," protested Audrey, "aren't you going to see it out?"
+
+"No," said Miss Ingate.
+
+"Are you afraid?"
+
+"I don't know that I'm afraid. I played the barrel organ all the way down
+Regent Street, and it was smashed to pieces. But I don't want to go to
+prison. Really, I don't _want_ to. If me going to prison would bring the
+Vote a single year nearer, I should say: 'Let it wait a year.' If me not
+going to prison meant no Vote for ever and ever, I should say: 'Well,
+struggle on without the Vote.' I've no objection to other people going to
+prison, if it suits them, but it wouldn't suit me. I know it wouldn't. So I
+shall go outside and sit in the car. If you don't come, I shall know what's
+happened, and you needn't worry about me."
+
+The dame duly departed, her lips and eyes equally ironic about her own
+prudence and about the rashness of others.
+
+"Let's have some more lemonade--shall we?" said Jane Foley.
+
+"Oh, let's!" agreed Audrey, with rapture. "And more sponge-cake, too! You
+do look lovely like that!"
+
+"Do I?"
+
+Jane Foley had her profuse hair tightly bound round her head and powdered
+grey. It was very advisable for her to be disguised, and her bright hair
+was usually the chief symptom of her in those disturbances which so
+harassed the police. She now had the appearance of a neat old lady kept
+miraculously young by a pure and cheerful nature. Audrey, with a plain
+blue frock and hat which had cost more than Jane Foley would spend on
+clothes in twelve months, had a face dazzling by its ingenuous excitement
+and expectation. Her little nose was extraordinarily pert; her forehead
+superb; and all her gestures had the same vivacious charm as was in her
+eyes. The white-aproned, streamered girl who took the order for lemonade
+and sponge-cakes to a covered bar ornamented by advertisements of whisky,
+determined to adopt a composite of the styles of both the customers on her
+next ceremonious Sunday. And a large proportion of the other sippers and
+nibblers and of the endless promenading crowds regarded the pair with
+pleasure and curiosity, never suspecting that one of them was the most
+dangerous woman in England.
+
+The new refreshments, which had been delayed by reason of an altercation
+between the waitress and three extreme youths at a neighbouring table, at
+last arrived, and were plopped smartly down between Audrey and Miss Foley.
+Having received half a sovereign from Audrey, the girl returned to the bar
+for change. "None o' your sauce!" she threw out, as she passed the youths,
+who had apparently discovered new arguments in support of their case.
+Audrey was fired by the vigorous independence of the girl against three
+males.
+
+"I don't care if we are caught!" she murmured low, looking for the future
+through the pellucid tumbler. She added, however: "But if we are, I shall
+pay my own fine. You know I promised that to Miss Ingate."
+
+"That's all right, so long as you don't pay mine, my dear," said Jane Foley
+with an affectionate smile.
+
+"Jenny!" Audrey protested, full of heroine-worship. "How could you think I
+would ever do such a mean thing!"
+
+There came a dull, vague, voluminous sound from the direction of the
+Imperial Hall. It lasted for quite a number of seconds.
+
+"He's beginning," said Jane Foley. "I do feel sorry for him."
+
+"Are we to start now?" Audrey asked deferentially.
+
+"Oh, no!" Jane laughed. "The great thing is to let them think everything's
+all right. And then, when they're getting careless, let go at them full
+bang with a beautiful surprise. There'll be a chance of getting away like
+that. I believe there are a hundred and fifty stewards in the meeting, and
+they'll every one be quite useless."
+
+At intervals a muffled roar issued from the Imperial Hall, despite the fact
+that the windows were closely shut.
+
+In due time Jane Foley quietly rose from the table, and Audrey did
+likewise. All around them stretched the imposing blue architecture of the
+Exhibition, forming vistas that ended dimly either in the smoke of
+Birmingham or the rustic haze of Worcestershire. And, although the Imperial
+Hall was crammed, every vista was thickly powdered with pleasure-seekers
+and probably pleasure-finders. Bands played. Flags waved. Brass glinted.
+Even the sun feebly shone at intervals through the eternal canopy of soot.
+It was a great day in the annals of the Blue City and of Liberalism.
+
+And Jane Foley and Audrey turned their backs upon all that, and--Jane
+concealing her limp as much as possible--sauntered with affected
+nonchalance towards the precincts of the Joy Wheel enclosure. Audrey was
+inexpressibly uplifted. She felt as if she had stepped straight into
+romance. And she was right--she had stepped into the most vivid romance of
+the modern age, into a world of disguises, flights, pursuits, chicane,
+inconceivable adventures, ideals, martyrs and conquerors, which only the
+Renaissance or the twenty-first century could appreciate.
+
+"Lend me that, will you?" said Jane persuasively to the man with the
+megaphone at the entrance to the enclosure.
+
+He was, quite properly, a very loud man, with a loud thick voice, a loud
+purple face, and a loud grey suit. To Audrey's astonishment, he smiled and
+winked, and gave up the megaphone at once.
+
+Audrey paid sixpence at the turnstile, admittance for two persons, and they
+were within the temple, which had a roof like an umbrella over the central,
+revolving portion of it, but which was somewhat open to the skies around
+the rim. There were two concentric enclosing walls, the inner one was
+unscalable, and the outer one about five feet six inches high. A second
+loud man was calling out: "Couples please. Ladies _and_ gentlemen. Couples
+if _you_ please." Obediently, numbers of the crowd disposed themselves in
+pairs in the attitudes of close affection on the circling floor which had
+just come to rest, while the remainder of the numerous gathering gazed upon
+them with sarcastic ecstasy. Then the wheel began slowly to turn, and girls
+to shriek in the plenitude of happiness. And progress was proved
+geometrically.
+
+Jane, bearing the megaphone, slipped by an aperture into the space between
+the two walls, and Audrey followed. Nobody gave attention to them except
+the second loud man, who winked the wink of knowledge. The fact was that
+both the loud men, being unalterable Tories, had been very willing to
+connive at Jane Foley's scheme for the affliction of a Radical Minister.
+
+The two girls over the wall had an excellent and appetising view of the
+upper part of the side of the Imperial Hall, and of its high windows, the
+nearest of which was scarcely thirty feet away.
+
+"Hold this, will you?" said Jane, handing the megaphone to Audrey.
+
+Jane drew from its concealment in her dress a small piece of iron to which
+was attached a coloured streamer bearing certain words. She threw, with a
+strong movement of the left arm, because she was left-handed. She had
+practised throwing; throwing was one of her several specialties. The bit of
+iron, trailing its motto like a comet its tail, flew across space and
+plumped into the window with a pleasing crash and disappeared, having
+triumphed over uncounted police on the outskirts and a hundred and fifty
+stewards within. A roar from the interior of the hall supervened, and
+varied cries.
+
+"Give me the meg," said Jane gently.
+
+The next instant she was shouting through the megaphone, an instrument
+which she had seriously studied:
+
+"Votes for women. Why do you torture women?  Votes for women. Why do you
+torture women?"
+
+The uproar increased and subsided. A masterful voice resounded within the
+interior. Many people rushed out of the hall. And there was a great scurry
+of important and puzzled feet within a radius of a score of yards.
+
+"I think I'll try the next window," said Jane, handing over the megaphone.
+"You shout while I throw."
+
+Audrey's heart was violently beating. She took the megaphone and put it to
+her lips, but no sound would come. Then, as though it were breaking
+through an obstacle, the sound shot forth, and to Audrey it was a gigantic
+voice that functioned quite independently of her will. Tremendously excited
+by the noise, she bawled louder and still louder.
+
+"I've missed," said Jane calmly in her ear. "That's enough, I think. Come
+along."
+
+"But they can't possibly see us," said Audrey, breathless, lowering the
+instrument.
+
+"Come along, dear," Jane Foley insisted.
+
+People with open mouths were crowding at the aperture of the inner wall,
+but, Jane going first, both girls pushed safely through the throng. The
+wheel had stopped. The entire congregation was staring agog, and in two
+seconds everybody divined, or had been nudged to the effect, that Jane and
+Audrey were the authoresses of the pother.
+
+Jane still leading, they made for the exit. But the first loud man rushed
+chivalrously in.
+
+"Perlice!" he cried. "Two bobbies a-coming."
+
+"Here!" said the second loud man. "Here, misses. Get on the wheel. They'll
+never get ye if ye sit in the middle back to back." He jumped on to the
+wheel himself, and indicated the mathematical centre. Jane took the
+suggestion in a flash; Audrey was obedient. They fixed themselves under
+directions, dropping the megaphone. The wheel started, and the megaphone
+rattled across its smooth surface till it was shot off. A policeman ran in,
+and hesitated; another man, in plain clothes, and wearing a rosette, ran
+in.
+
+"That's them," said the rosette. "I saw her with the grey hair from the
+gallery."
+
+The policeman sprang on to the wheel, and after terrific efforts fell
+sprawling and was thrown off. The rosette met the same destiny. A second
+policeman appeared, and with the fearless courage of his cloth, undeterred
+by the spectacle of prostrate forms, made a magnificent dash, and was
+equally floored.
+
+As Audrey sat very upright, pressing her back against the back of Jane
+Foley and clutching at Jane Foley's skirts with her hands behind her--the
+locked pair were obliged thus to hold themselves exactly over the axis of
+the wheel, for the slightest change of position would have resulted in
+their being flung to the circumference and into the blue grip of the
+law--she had visions of all her life just as though she had been drowning.
+She admitted all her follies and wondered what madness could have prompted
+her remarkable escapades both in Paris and out of it. She remembered Madame
+Piriac's prophecy. She was ready to wish the past year annihilated and
+herself back once more in parental captivity at Moze, the slave of an
+unalterable routine imposed by her father, without responsibility, without
+initiative and without joy. And she lived again through the scenes in which
+she had smiled at the customs official, fibbed to Rosamund, taken the
+wounded Musa home in the taxi, spoken privily with the ageing yacht-owner,
+and laughed at the drowned detective in the area of the palace in Paget
+Gardens.
+
+Everything happened in her mind while the wheel went round once, showing
+her in turn to the various portions of the audience, and bringing her at
+length to a second view of the sprawling policemen. Whereupon she thought
+queerly: "What do I care about the vote, really?" And finally she thought
+with anger and resentment: "What a shame it is that women haven't got the
+vote!" And then she heard a gay, quiet sound. It was Jane Foley laughing
+gently behind her.
+
+"Can you see the big one now, darling?" asked Jane roguishly. "Has he
+picked himself up again?"
+
+Audrey laughed.
+
+And at last the audience laughed also. It laughed because the big
+policeman, unconquerable, had made another intrepid dash for the centre of
+the wheel and fallen upon his stomach as upon a huge india-rubber ball. The
+audience did more than laugh--it shrieked, yelled, and guffawed. The
+performance to be witnessed was worth ten times the price of entry. Indeed
+no such performance had ever before been seen in the whole history of
+popular amusement. And in describing the affair the next morning as
+"unique" the _Birmingham Daily Post_ for once used that adjective with
+absolute correctness. The policemen tried again and yet again. They got
+within feet, within inches, of their prey, only to be dragged away by the
+mysterious protector of militant maidens--centrifugal force. Probably never
+before in the annals of the struggle for political freedom had maidens
+found such a protection, invisible, sinister and complete. Had the
+education of policemen in England included a course of mechanics, these
+particular two policemen would have known that they were seeking the
+impossible and fighting against that which was stronger than ten thousand
+policemen. But they would not give up. At each fresh attempt they hoped by
+guile to overcome their unseen enemy, as the gambler hopes at each fresh
+throw to outwit chance. The jeers of the audience pricked them to
+desperation, for in encounters with females like Jane Foley and Audrey they
+had been accustomed to the active sympathy of the public. But centrifugal
+force had rendered them ridiculous, and the public never sympathises with
+those whom ridicule has covered. The strange and side-splitting effects of
+centrifugal force had transformed about a hundred indifferent young men and
+women into ardent and convinced supporters of feminism in its most advanced
+form.
+
+In the course of her slow revolution Audrey saw the rosetted steward
+arguing with the second loud man, no doubt to persuade him to stop the
+wheel. Then out of the tail of her eye she saw the steward run violently
+from the tent. And then while her back was towards the entrance she was
+deafened by a prodigious roar of delight from the mob. The two policemen
+had fled also--probably for reinforcements and appliances against
+centrifugal force. In their pardonable excitement they had, however,
+committed the imprudence of departing together. An elementary knowledge of
+strategy should have warned them against such a mistake. The wheel stopped
+immediately. The second loud man beckoned with laughter to Jane Foley and
+Audrey, who rose and hopefully skipped towards him. Audrey at any rate was
+as self-conscious as though she had been on the stage.
+
+"Here's th' back way," said the second loud man, pointing to a coarse
+curtain in the obscurity of the nether parts of the enclosure.
+
+They ran, Jane Foley first, and vanished from the regions of the Joy Wheel
+amid terrific acclamations given in a strong Midland accent.
+
+The next moment they found themselves in a part of the Blue City which
+nobody had taken the trouble to paint blue. The one blue object was a small
+patch of sky, amid clouds, overhead. On all sides were wooden flying
+buttresses, supporting the boundaries of the Joy Wheel enclosure to the
+south-east, of the Parade Restaurant and Bar to the south-west, and of a
+third establishment of good cheer to the north. Upon the ground were
+brick-ends, cinders, bits of wood, bits of corrugated iron, and all the
+litter and refuse cast out of sight of the eyes of visitors to the
+Exhibition of Progress.
+
+With the fear of the police behind them they stumbled forward a few yards,
+and then saw a small ramshackle door swinging slightly to and fro on one
+hinge. Jane Foley pulled it open. They both went into a narrow passage. On
+the mildewed wall of the passage was pinned up a notice in red ink: "Any
+waitress taking away any apron or cap from the Parade Restaurant and Bar
+will be fined one shilling." Farther on was another door, also ajar. Jane
+Foley pushed against it, and a tiny room of irregular shape was disclosed.
+In this room a stout woman in grey was counting a pile of newly laundered
+caps and aprons, and putting them out of one hamper into another. Audrey
+remembered seeing the woman at the counter of the restaurant and bar.
+
+"The police are after us. They'll be here in a minute," said Jane Foley
+simply.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the woman in grey, with the carelessness of fatigue. "Are
+you them stone-throwing lot?  They've just been in to tell me about it.
+What d'ye do it for?"
+
+"We do it for you--amongst others," Jane Foley smiled.
+
+"Nay! That ye don't!" said the woman positively. "I've got a vote for the
+city council, and I want no more."
+
+"Well, you don't want us to get caught, do you?"
+
+"No, I don't know as I do. Ye look a couple o' bonny wenches."
+
+"Let's have two caps and aprons, then," said Jane Foley smoothly. "We'll
+pay the shilling fine." She laughed lightly. "And a bit more. If the police
+get in here we shall have to struggle, you know, and they'll break the
+place up."
+
+Audrey produced another half-sovereign.
+
+"But what shall ye do with yer hats and coats?" the woman demanded.
+
+"Give them to you, of course."
+
+The woman regarded the hats and coats.
+
+"I couldn't get near them coats," she said. "And if I put on one o' them
+there hats my old man 'ud rise from the grave--that he would. Still, I
+don't wish ye any harm."
+
+She shut and locked the door.
+
+In about a minute two waitresses in aprons and streamered caps of
+immaculate purity emerged from the secret places of the Parade Restaurant
+and Bar, slipped round the end of the counter, and started with easy
+indifference to saunter away into the grounds after the manner of
+restaurant girls who have been gifted with half an hour off. The tabled
+expanse in front of the Parade erection was busy with people, some sitting
+at the tables and supporting the establishment, but many more merely taking
+advantage of the pitch to observe all possible exciting developments of the
+suffragette shindy.
+
+And as the criminals were modestly getting clear, a loud and imperious
+voice called:
+
+"Hey!"
+
+Audrey, lacking experience, hesitated.
+
+"Hey there!"
+
+They both turned, for the voice would not be denied. It belonged to a man
+sitting with another man at a table on the outskirts of the group of
+tables. It was the voice of the rosetted steward, who beckoned in a not
+unfriendly style.
+
+"Bring us two liqueur brandies, miss," he cried. "And look slippy, if ye
+please."
+
+The sharp tone, so sure of obedience, gave Audrey a queer sensation of
+being in reality a waitress doomed to tolerate the rough bullying of
+gentlemen urgently desiring alcohol. And the fierce thought that
+women--especially restaurant waitresses--must and should possess the Vote
+surged through her mind more powerfully than ever.
+
+"I'll never have the chance again," she muttered to herself. And marched
+to the counter.
+
+"Two liqueur brandies, please," she said to the woman in grey, who had left
+her apron calculations. "That's all right," she murmured, as the woman
+stared a question at her. Then the woman smiled to herself, and poured out
+the liqueur brandies from a labelled bottle with startling adroitness, and
+dashed the full glasses on to a brass tray.
+
+As Audrey walked across the gravel carefully balancing the tray, she
+speculated whether the public eye would notice the shape of her small
+handbag, which was attached by a safety pin to her dress beneath the apron,
+and whether her streamers were streaming out far behind her head.
+
+Before she could put the tray down on the table, the rosetted steward, who
+looked pale, snatched one of the glasses and gulped down its entire
+contents.
+
+"I wanted it!" said he, smacking his lips. "I wanted it bad. They'll catch
+'em all right. I should know the young 'un again anywhere. I'll swear to
+identify her in any court. And I will. Tasty little piece o' goods, too!...
+But not so good-looking as you," he added, gazing suddenly at Audrey.
+
+"None o' your sauce," snapped Audrey, and walked off, leaving the tray
+behind.
+
+The two men exploded into coarse but amiable laughter, and called to her to
+return, but she would not. "You can pay the other young lady," she said
+over her shoulder, pointing vaguely to the counter where there was now a
+bevy of other young ladies.
+
+Five minutes later Miss Ingate, and the chauffeur also, received a very
+appreciable shock. Half an hour later the car, having called at the
+telegraph office, and also at the aghast lodgings of the waitresses to
+enable them to reattire and to pack, had quitted Birmingham.
+
+That night they reached Northampton. At the post office there Jane Foley
+got a telegram. And when the three were seated in a corner of the curtained
+and stuffy dining-room of the small hotel, Jane said, addressing herself
+specially to Audrey:
+
+"It won't be safe for us to return to Paget Gardens to-morrow. And perhaps
+not to any of our places in London."
+
+"That won't matter," said Audrey, who was now becoming accustomed to the
+world of conspiracy and chicane in which Jane Foley carried on her
+existence with such a deceiving air of the matter-of-fact. "We'll go
+anywhere, won't we, Winnie?"
+
+And Miss Ingate assented.
+
+"Well," said Jane Foley. "I've just had a telegram arranging for us to go
+to Frinton."
+
+"You don't mean Frinton-on-Sea?" exclaimed Miss Ingate, suddenly excited.
+
+"It _is_ on the sea," said Jane. "We have to go through Colchester. Do you
+know it?"
+
+"Do I know it!" repeated Miss Ingate. "I know everybody in Frinton, except
+the Germans. When I'm at home I buy my bacon at Frinton. Are you going to
+an hotel there?"
+
+"No," said Jane. "To some people named Spatt."
+
+"There's nobody that is anybody named Spatt living at Frinton," said Miss
+Ingate.
+
+"They haven't been there long."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Miss Ingate. "Of course if that's it...! I can't guarantee
+what's happened since I began my pilgrimages. But I think I shall wriggle
+off home quietly as soon as we get to Colchester. This afternoon's business
+has been too feverish for me. When the policeman held up his hand as we
+came through Ellsworth I thought you were caught. I shall just go home."
+
+"I don't care much about going to Frinton, Jenny," said Audrey.
+
+Indeed, Moze lay within not many miles of Frinton-on-Sea.
+
+Then Audrey and Miss Ingate observed a phenomenon that was both novel and
+extremely disturbing. Tears came into the eyes of Jane Foley.
+
+"Don't say it, Audrey, don't say it!" she appealed in a wet voice. "I shall
+have to go myself. And you simply can't imagine how I hate going all alone
+into these houses that we're invited to. I'd much sooner be in lodgings, as
+we were last night. But these homes in quiet places here and there are very
+useful sometimes. They all belong to members of the Union, you know; and we
+have to use them. But I wish we hadn't. I've met Mrs. Spatt once. I didn't
+think you'd throw me over just at the worst part. The Spatts will take all
+of us and be glad."
+
+("They won't take me," said Miss Ingate under her breath.)
+
+"I shall come with you," said Audrey, caressing the recreant who, while
+equal to trifles such as policemen, magistrates, and prisons, was miserably
+afraid of a strange home. In fact Audrey now liked Jane much more than
+ever, liked her completely--and perhaps admired her rather less, though her
+admiration was still intense. And the thought in Audrey's mind was: "Never
+will I desert this girl! I'm a militant, too, now, and I shall stick by
+her." And she was full of a happiness which she could not understand and
+which she did not want to understand.
+
+The next morning all the newspaper posters in Northhampton bore the words:
+"Policemen and suffragettes on Joy Wheel," or some variation of these
+words. And they bore nothing else. And in all the towns and many of the
+villages through which they passed on the way to Colchester, the same
+legend greeted their flying eyes. Audrey and Miss Ingate, in the motor-car,
+read with great care all the papers. Audrey blushed at the descriptions of
+herself, which were flattering. It seemed that the Cabinet Minister's
+political meeting had been seriously damaged by the episode, for the reason
+that rumours of the performance on the Joy Wheel had impaired the spell of
+eloquence and partially emptied the hall. And this was the more
+disappointing in that the police had been sure that nothing untoward would
+occur. It seemed also that the police were on the track of the criminals.
+
+"Are they!" exclaimed Jane Foley with a beautiful smile.
+
+Then the car approached a city of towers on a hill, and as it passed by the
+station, which was in the valley, Miss Ingate demanded a halt. She got out
+in the station yard and transferred her belongings to a cab.
+
+"I shall drive home from here," she said. "I've often done it before. After
+all, I did play the barrel organ all the way down Regent Street. Surely I
+can rest on the barrel organ, can't I, Miss Foley--at my age? ... What a
+business I shall have when I _do_ get home, and nobody expecting me!"
+
+And when certain minor arrangements had been made, the car mounted the hill
+into Colchester and took the Frinton road, leaving Miss Ingate's fly far
+behind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+THE SPATTS
+
+
+The house of the Spatts was large, imposing and variegated. It had
+turrets, balconies, and architectural nooks in such quantity that the
+unaided individual eye could not embrace it all at once. It overlooked,
+from a height, the grounds of the Frinton Sports Club, and a new member of
+this club, upon first beholding the residence, had made the immortal
+remark: "It wants at least fourteen people to look at it." The house stood
+in the middle of an unfinished garden, which promised ultimately to be as
+heterogeneous as itself, but which at present was merely an expanse of
+sorely wounded earth.
+
+The time was early summer, and therefore the summer dining-room of the
+Spatts was in use. This dining-room consisted of one white, windowed wall,
+a tiled floor, and a roof of wood. The windows gave into the winter
+dining-room, which was a white apartment, sparsely curtained and cushioned
+with chintz, and containing very few pieces of furniture or pictures. The
+Spatts considered, rightly, that furniture and pictures were unhygienic and
+the secret lairs of noxious germs. Had the Spatts flourished twenty-five
+years earlier their dining-room would have been covered with brown paper
+upon which would have hung permanent photographs of European masterpieces
+of graphic art, and there would have been a multiplicity of draperies and
+specimens of battered antique furniture, with a warming-pan or so suspended
+here and there in place of sporting trophies. But the Spatts had not begun
+to flourish twenty-five years ago. They flourished very few years ago and
+they still flourish.
+
+As the summer dining-room had only one wall, it follows that it was open to
+the powers of the air. This result had been foreseen by the Spatts--had
+indeed been expressly arranged, for they believed strongly in the powers of
+the air, as being beneficent powers. It is true that they generally had
+sniffling colds, but their argument was that these maladies had no
+connection whatever with the powers of the air, which, according to their
+theory, saved them from much worse.
+
+They and their guests were now seated at dinner. Twilight was almost lost
+in night. The table was illuminated by four candles at the corners, and
+flames of these candles flickered in the healthful evening breeze, dropping
+pink wax on the candlesticks. They were surrounded by the mortal remains of
+tiny moths, but other tiny moths would not heed the warning and continually
+shot themselves into the flames. On the outskirts of the table moved with
+silent stealth the forms of two middle-aged and ugly servants.
+
+Mrs. Spatt was very tall and very thin, and the simplicity of her pale
+green dress--sole reminder of the brown-paper past--was calculated to draw
+attention to these attributes. She had an important reddish nose, and a
+mysterious look of secret confidence, which never left her even in the most
+trying crises. Mr. Spatt also was very tall and very thin. His head was
+several sizes too small, and part of his insignificant face, which one was
+apt to miss altogether in contemplating his body, was hidden under a short
+grey beard. Siegfried Spatt, the sole child of the union, though but
+seventeen, was as tall and as thin as his father and his mother; he had a
+pale face and red hands.
+
+The guests were Audrey, Jane Foley, and a young rubicund gentleman,
+beautifully clothed, and with fair curly locks, named Ziegler. Mr. Ziegler
+was far more perfectly at ease than anybody else at the table, which indeed
+as a whole was rendered haggard and nervous by the precarious state of the
+conversation, expecting its total decease at any moment. At intervals
+someone lifted the limp dying body--it sank back--was lifted
+again--struggled feebly--relapsed. Young Siegfried was excessively
+tongue-tied and self-conscious, and his demeanour frankly admitted it. Jane
+Foley, acknowledged heroine in certain fields, sat like a schoolgirl at her
+first dinner-party. Audrey maintained her widowhood, but scarcely with
+credit. Mr. and Mrs. Spatt were as usual too deeply concerned about the
+awful condition of the universe to display that elasticity of mood which
+continuous chatter about nothing in particular demands. And they were too
+worshipful of the best London conventions not to regard silence at table as
+appalling. In the part of the country from which Jane Foley sprang, hosts
+will sit mute through a meal and think naught of it. But Mr. and Mrs. Spatt
+were of different stuff. All these five appeared to be in serious need of
+conversation pills. Only Mr. Ziegler beheld his companions with a satisfied
+equanimity that was insensible to spiritual suffering. Happily at the most
+acute moments the gentle night wind, meandering slowly from the east across
+leagues of North Sea, would induce in one or another a sneeze which gave
+some semblance of vitality and vigour to the scene.
+
+After one of these sneezes it was that Jane Foley, conscience-stricken,
+tried to stimulate the exchanges by an effort of her own.
+
+"And what are the folks like in Frinton?" she demanded, blushing, and
+looking up. As she looked up young Siegfried looked down, lest he might
+encounter her glance and be utterly discountenanced.
+
+Jane Foley's question was unfortunate.
+
+"We know nothing of them," said Mrs. Spatt, pained. "Of course I have
+received and paid a few purely formal calls. But as regards friends and
+acquaintances, we prefer to import them from London. As for the
+holiday-makers, one sees them, naturally. They appear to lead an
+exclusively physical existence."
+
+"My dear," put in Mr. Spatt stiffly. "The residents are no better. The
+women play golf all day on that appalling golf course, and then after tea
+they go into the town to change their library books. But I do not believe
+that they ever read their library books. The mentality of the town is truly
+remarkable. However, I am informed that there are many towns like it."
+
+"You bet!" murmured Siegfried Spatt, and then tried, vainly, to suck back
+the awful remark whence it had come.
+
+Mr. Ziegler, speaking without passion or sorrow, added his views about
+Frinton. He asserted that it was the worst example of stupid waste of
+opportunities he had ever encountered, even in England. He pointed out that
+there was no band, no pier, no casino, no shelters--and not even a tree;
+and that there were no rules to govern the place. He finished by remarking
+that no German state would tolerate such a pleasure resort. In this
+judgment he employed an excellent English accent, with a scarcely
+perceptible thickening of the t's and thinning of the d's.
+
+Mr. Ziegler left nothing to be said.
+
+Then the conversation sighed and really did expire. It might have survived
+had not the Spatts had a rule, explained previously to those whom it
+concerned, against talking shop. Their attachment to this rule was heroic.
+In the present instance shop was suffragism. The Spatts had developed into
+supporters of militancy in a very curious way. Mrs. Spatt's sister, a
+widow, had been mixed up with the Union for years. One day she was fined
+forty shillings or a week's imprisonment for a political peccadillo
+involving a hatpin and a policeman. It was useless for her to remind the
+magistrate that she, like Mrs. Spatt, was the daughter of the celebrated
+statesman B----, who in the fifties had done so much for Britain. (Lo!  The
+source of that mysterious confidence that always supported Mrs. Spatt!) The
+magistrate had no historic sense. She went to prison. At least she was on
+the way thither when Mr. Spatt paid the fine in spite of her. The same
+night Mr. Spatt wrote to his favourite evening paper to point out the
+despicable ingratitude of a country which would have imprisoned a daughter
+of the celebrated B----, and announced that henceforward he would be an
+active supporter of suffragism, which hitherto had interested him only
+academically. He was a wealthy man, and his money and his house and his pen
+were at the service of the Union--but always with discretion.
+
+Audrey and Jane Foley had learnt all this privately from Mrs. Spatt on
+their arrival, after they had told such part of their tale as Jane Foley
+had deemed suitable, and they had further learnt that suffragism would not
+be a welcome topic at their table, partly on account of the servants and
+partly on account of Mr. Ziegler, whose opinions were quite clearly opposed
+to the movement, but whom they admired for true and rare culture. He was a
+cousin of German residents in First Avenue and, visiting them often, had
+been discovered by Mr. Spatt in the afternoon-tea train.
+
+And just as the ices came to compete with the night wind, the postman
+arrived like a deliverer. The postman had to pass the dining-room _en
+route_ by the circuitous drive to the front door, and when dinner was afoot
+he would hand the letters to the parlourmaid, who would divide them into
+two portions, and, putting both on a salver, offer the salver first to Mrs.
+and then to Mr. Spatt, while Mr. or Mrs. Spatt begged guests, if there were
+any, to excuse the quaint and indeed unusual custom, pardonable only on the
+plea that any tidings from London ought to be savoured instantly in such a
+place as Frinton.
+
+After leaving his little pile untouched for some time, Mr. Spatt took
+advantage of the diversion caused by the brushing of the cloth and the
+distribution of finger-bowls to glance at the topmost letter, which was
+addressed in a woman's hand.
+
+"She's coming!" he exclaimed, forgetting to apologise in the sudden
+excitement of news, "Good heavens!" He looked at his watch. "She's here. I
+heard the train several minutes ago! She must be here! The letter's been
+delayed."
+
+"Who, Alroy?" demanded Mrs. Spatt earnestly. "Not that Miss Nickall you
+mentioned?"
+
+"Yes, my dove." And then in a grave tone to the parlourmaid: "Give this
+letter to your mistress."
+
+Mr. Spatt, cheered by the new opportunity for conversation, and in his
+eagerness abrogating all rules, explained how he had been in London on the
+previous day for a performance of Strauss's _Elektra_, and according to his
+custom had called at the offices of the Suffragette Union to see whether he
+could in any manner aid the cause. He had been told that a house in Paget
+Gardens lent to the Union had been basely withdrawn from service by its
+owner on account of some embroilment with the supreme police authorities at
+Scotland Yard, and that one of the inmates, a Miss Nickall, the poor young
+lady who had had her arm broken and was scarcely convalescent, had need of
+quietude and sea air. Mr. Spatt had instantly offered the hospitality of
+his home to Miss Nickall, whom he had seen in a cab and who was very sweet.
+Miss Nickall had said that she must consult her companion. It now appeared
+that the companion was gone to the Midlands. This episode had occurred
+immediately before the receipt of the telegram from head-quarters asking
+for shelter for Miss Jane Foley and Mrs. Moncreiff.
+
+Mr. Spatt's excitement had now communicated itself to everybody except Mr.
+Ziegler and Siegfried Spatt. Jane Foley almost recovered her presence of
+mind, and Mrs. Spatt was extraordinarily interested to learn that Miss
+Nickall was an American painter who had lived long in Paris, and that
+Audrey had first made her acquaintance in Paris, and knew Paris well.
+Audrey's motor-car had produced a considerable impression on Aurora Spatt,
+and this impression was deepened by the touch about Paris. After breathing
+mysterious orders into the ear of the parlourmaid Mrs. Spatt began to talk
+at large about music in Paris, and Mr. Spatt made comparisons between the
+principal opera houses in Europe. He proclaimed for the Scala at Milan; but
+Mr. Ziegler, who had methodically according to a fixed plan lived in all
+European capitals except Paris--whither he was soon going, said that Mr.
+Spatt was quite wrong, and that Milan could not hold a candle to Munich.
+Mrs. Spatt inquired whether Audrey had heard Strauss's _Elektra_ at the
+Paris Opera House. Audrey replied that Strauss's _Elektra_ had not been
+given at the Paris Opera House.
+
+"Oh!" said Mrs. Spatt. "This prejudice against the greatest modern
+masterpieces because they are German is a very sad sign in Paris. I have
+noticed it for a long time."
+
+Audrey, who most irrationally had begun to be annoyed by the blandness of
+Mr. Ziegler's smile, answered with a rival blandness:
+
+"In Paris they do not reproach Strauss because he is German, but because he
+is vulgar."
+
+Mrs. Spatt had a martyrised expression. In her heart she felt a sick
+trembling of her religious belief that _Elektra_ was the greatest opera
+ever composed. For Audrey had the prestige of Paris and of the automobile.
+Mrs. Spatt, however, said not a word. Mr. Ziegler, on the other hand, after
+shuffling some seconds for utterance, ejaculated with sublime anger:
+
+"Vulgar!"
+
+His rubicundity had increased and his blandness was dissolved. A terrible
+sequel might have occurred, had not the crunch of wheels on the drive been
+heard at that very instant. The huge, dim form of a coach drawn by a
+ghostly horse passed along towards the front door, just below the diners.
+Almost simultaneously the electric light above the front door was turned
+on, casting a glare across a section of the inchoate garden, where no
+flower grew save the dandelion. Everybody sprang up. Host and hostess,
+urged by hospitality, spun first into the drive, and came level with the
+vehicle precisely as the vehicle opened its invisible interior. Jane Foley
+and Audrey saw Miss Nickall emerge from it rather slowly and cautiously,
+with her white kind face and her arm all swathed in white.
+
+"Well, Mr. Spatt," came the American benevolent voice of Nick. "How glad I
+am to see you. And this is Mrs. Spatt? Mrs. Spatt! Delighted. Your husband
+is the kindest, sweetest man, Mrs. Spatt, that I've met in years. It is
+perfectly sweet of you to have me. I shouldn't have inflicted myself on
+you--no, I shouldn't--only you know we have to obey orders. I was told to
+come here, and here I've come, with a glad heart."
+
+Audrey was touched by the sight and voice of grey-haired Nick, with her
+trick of seeing nothing but the best in everybody, transforming everybody
+into saints, angels, and geniuses. Her smiles and her tones were
+irresistible. They were like the wand of some magical princess come to
+break a sinister thrall. They nearly humanised the gaunt parlourmaid, who
+stood grimly and primly waiting until these tedious sentimental
+preliminaries should cease from interfering with her duties in regard to
+the luggage.
+
+"We have friends of yours here, Miss Nickall," simpered Mrs. Spatt, after
+she had given a welcome. She had seen Jane Foley and Audrey standing
+expectant just behind Mr. Spatt, and outside the field of the electric
+beam.
+
+Nick glanced round, hesitated, and then with a sudden change of all her
+features rushed at the girls regardless of her arm. Her joy was enchanting.
+
+"I was afraid--I was afraid----" she murmured as she kissed them. Her eyes
+softly glistened.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, after a moment. "And I _have_ got a surprise for you!
+I have just! You may say it's some surprise." She turned towards the cab.
+"Musa, now do come out of that wagon."
+
+And from the blackness of the cab's interior gingerly stepped Musa, holding
+a violin case in his hand.
+
+"Mrs. Spatt," said Nick. "Let me introduce Mr. Musa. Mr. Musa is perhaps
+the greatest violinist in Paris--or in Europe. Very old friend of ours. He
+came over to London unexpectedly just as I was starting for Liverpool
+Street station this afternoon. So I did the only thing I could do. I
+couldn't leave him there--I brought him along, and we want Mr. Spatt to
+recommend us an hotel in Frinton for him." And while Musa was shyly in his
+imperfect English greeting Mr. and Mrs. Spatt, she whispered to Audrey:
+"You don't know. You'd never guess. A big concert agent in Paris has taken
+him up at last. He's going to play at a lot of concerts, and they actually
+paid him two thousand five hundred francs in advance. Isn't it a perfect
+dream?"
+
+Audrey, who had seen Musa's trustful glance at Nick as he descended from
+the cab, was suddenly aware of a fierce pang of hate for the benignant
+Nick, and a wave of fury against Musa. The thing was very disconcerting.
+
+After self-conscious greetings, Musa almost dragged Audrey away from the
+others.
+
+"It's you I came to London to see," he muttered in an unusual voice.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MUTE
+
+
+It was upon this evening that Audrey began alarmingly to develop the
+quality of being incomprehensible--even to herself. Like most young women
+and men, she had been convinced from an early age that she was mysteriously
+unlike all other created beings, and--again like most young men and
+women--she could find, in the secrecy of her own heart, plenty of proof of
+a unique strangeness. But now her unreason became formidable. There she sat
+with her striking forehead and her quite unimportant nose, in the large
+austere drawing-room of the Spatts, which was so pervaded by artistic
+chintz that the slightest movement in it produced a crackle--and wondered
+why she was so much queerer than other girls could possibly be.
+
+Neither the crackling of chintz nor the aspect of the faces in the
+drawing-room was conducive to clear psychological analysis. Mr. Ziegler,
+with a glass of Pilsener by his side on a small table and a cigar in his
+richly jewelled hand, reposed with crossed legs in an easy chair. He had
+utterly recovered from the momentary irritation caused by Audrey's attack
+on Strauss, and his perfect beaming satisfaction with himself made a
+spectacle which would have distracted an Indian saint from the
+contemplation of eternity and nothingness. Mr. and Mrs. Spatt, seated as
+far as was convenient from one another on a long sofa, their emaciated
+bodies very upright and alert, gazed with intense expectation at Musa. Musa
+stood in the middle of the room, tuning his violin with little twangs and
+listening to the twangs as to a secret message.
+
+Miss Nickall, being an invalid, had excusably gone to bed, and Jane Foley,
+sharer of her bedroom, had followed. The happy relief on Jane's face as
+she said good night to her hosts had testified to the severity of the
+ordeal of hospitality through which she had so heroically passed. She
+might have been going out of prison instead of going out of the most
+intellectual drawing-room in Frinton.
+
+Audrey, too, would have liked to retire, for automobiles and sensations had
+exhausted her; but just at this point her unreason had begun to operate.
+She would not leave Musa alone, because Miss Nickall was leaving him alone.
+Yet she did not feel at all benevolent towards Musa. She was angry with him
+for having quitted Paris. She was angry with him for having said to her, in
+such a peculiar tone: "It's you I came to London to see." She was angry
+with him for not having found an opportunity, during the picnic meal
+provided for the two new-comers after the regular dinner, to explain why he
+had come to London to see her. She was angry with him for that dark
+hostility which he had at once displayed towards Mr. Ziegler, though she
+herself hated the innocent Mr. Ziegler with the ferocity of a woman of the
+Revolution. And further, she was glad, ridiculously glad, that Musa had
+come to London to see her. Lastly she was aware of a most irrational
+objection to the manner in which Miss Nickall and Musa said good night to
+one another, and the obvious fact that Musa in less than an hour had
+reached terms of familiarity with Jane Foley.
+
+She thought:
+
+"I haven't the faintest idea why he has given up his practising in Paris to
+come to see me. But if it is what I feel sure it is, there will be
+trouble.... Why do I stay in this ghastly drawing-room? I am dying to go to
+sleep, and I simply detest everybody in the room. I detest Musa more than
+all, because as usual he has been acting like a child.... Why can't you
+smile at him, Audrey Moze? Why frown and pretend you're cross when you know
+you aren't, Audrey Moze? ... I am cross, and he shall suffer. Was this a
+time to leave his practising--and the concerts soon coming on? I positively
+prefer this Ziegler man to him. Yes, I do." So ran her reflections, and
+they annoyed her.
+
+"What would you wish me to play?" asked Musa, when he had definitely
+finished twanging. Audrey noticed that his English accent was getting a
+little less French. She had to admit that, though his appearance was
+extravagantly un-British, it was distinguished. The immensity of his black
+silk cravat made the black cravat of Mr. Spatt seem like a bootlace round
+his thin neck.
+
+"Whatever you like, Mr. Musa," replied Aurora Spatt. "_Please!_"
+
+And as a fact the excellent woman, majestic now in spite of her red nose
+and her excessive thinness, did not care what Musa played. He had merely to
+play. She had decided for herself, from the conversation, that he was a
+very celebrated performer, and she had ascertained, by direct questioning,
+that he had never performed in England. She was determined to be able to
+say to all comers till death took her that "Musa--the great Musa, you
+know--first played in England in my own humble drawing-room." The thing
+itself was actually about to occur; nothing could stop it from occurring;
+and the thought of the immediate realisation of her desire and ambition
+gave Mrs. Spatt greater and more real pleasure than she had had for years;
+it even fortified her against the possible resentment of her cherished Mr.
+Ziegler.
+
+"French music--would you wish?" Musa suggested.
+
+"Is there any French music? That is to say, of artistic importance?" asked
+Mr. Ziegler calmly. "I have never heard of it."
+
+He was not consciously being rude. Nor was he trying to be funny. His
+question implied an honest belief. His assertion was sincere. He glanced,
+blinking slightly, round the room, with a self-confidence that was either
+terrible or pathetic, according to the degree of your own self-confidence.
+
+Audrey said to herself.
+
+"I'm glad this isn't my drawing-room." And she was almost frightened by the
+thought that that skull opposite to her was absolutely impenetrable, and
+that it would go down to the grave unpierced with all its collection of
+ideas intact and braggart.
+
+As for Mr. and Mrs. Spatt they were both in the state of not knowing where
+to look. Immediately their gaze met another gaze it leapt away as from
+something dangerous or obscene.
+
+"I will play Debussy's Toccata for violin solo," Musa announced tersely. He
+had blushed; his great eyes were sparkling. And he began to play.
+
+And as soon as he had played a few bars, Audrey gave a start, fortunately
+not a physical start, and she blushed also. Musa sternly winked at her.
+Frenchmen do not make a practice of winking, but he had learnt the
+accomplishment for fun from Miss Thompkins in Paris. The wink caused
+Audrey surreptitiously to observe Mr. and Mrs. Spatt. It was no relief to
+her to perceive that these two were listening to Debussy's Toccata for solo
+violin with the trained and appreciative attention of people who had heard
+it often before in the various capitals of Europe, who knew it by heart,
+and who knew at just what passages to raise the head, to give a nod of
+recognition or a gesture of ecstasy. The bare room was filled with the
+sound of Musa's fiddle and with the high musical culture of Mr. and Mrs.
+Spatt. When the piece was over they clapped discreetly, and looked with
+soft intensity at Audrey, as if murmuring: "You, too, are a cultured
+cosmopolitan. You share our emotion." And across the face of Mrs. Spatt
+spread a glow triumphant, for Musa now positively had played for the first
+time in England in her drawing-room, and she foresaw hundreds of occasions
+on which she could refer to the matter with a fitting air of casualness.
+The glow triumphant, however, paled somewhat as she felt upon herself the
+eye of Mr. Ziegler.
+
+"Where is Siegfried, Alroy?" she demanded, after having thanked Musa. "I
+wouldn't have had him miss that Debussy for anything, but I hadn't noticed
+that he was gone. He adores Debussy."
+
+"I think it is like bad Bach," Mr. Ziegler put in suddenly. Then he raised
+his glass and imbibed a good portion of the beer specially obtained and
+provided for him by his hostess and admirer, Mrs. Spatt.
+
+"Do you _really_?" murmured Mrs. Spatt, with deprecation.
+
+"There's something in the comparison," Mr. Spatt admitted thoughtfully.
+
+"Why not like good Bach?" Musa asked, glaring in a very strange manner at
+Mr. Ziegler.
+
+"Bosh!" ejaculated Mr. Ziegler with a most notable imperturbability. "Only
+Bach himself could com-pose good Bach."
+
+Musa's breathing could be heard across the drawing-room.
+
+"_Eh bien!_" said Musa. "Now I will play for you Debussy's Toccata. I was
+not playing it before. I was playing the Chaconne of Bach, the most famous
+composition for the violin in the world."
+
+He did not embroider the statement. He left it in its nakedness. Nor did he
+permit anybody else to embroider it. Before a word of any kind could be
+uttered he had begun to play again. Probably in all the annals of artistic
+snobbery, no cultured cosmopolitan had ever been made to suffer a more
+exquisite moral torture of humiliation than Musa had contrived to inflict
+upon Mr. and Mrs. Spatt in return for their hospitality. Their sneaped
+squirmings upon the sofa were terrible to witness. But Mr. Ziegler's
+sensibility was apparently quite unaffected. He continued to smile, to
+drink, and to smoke. He seemed to be saying to himself: "What does it
+matter to me that this miserable Frenchman has caught me in a mistake?  I
+could eat him, and one day I shall eat him."
+
+After a little while Musa snatched out of his right-hand lower waistcoat
+pocket the tiny wooden "mute" which all violinists carry without fail upon
+all occasions in all their waistcoats; and, sticking it with marvellous
+rapidity upon the bridge of the violin, he entered upon a pianissimo, but
+still lively, episode of the Toccata. And simultaneously another melody
+faint and clear could be heard in the room. It was Mr. Ziegler humming "The
+Watch on the Rhine" against the Toccata of Debussy. Thus did it occur to
+Mr. Ziegler to take revenge on Musa for having attempted to humiliate him.
+Not unsurprisingly, Musa detected at once the competitive air. He continued
+to play, gazing hard at his violin and apparently entranced, but edging
+little by little towards Mr. Ziegler. Audrey desired either to give a cry
+or to run out of the room. She did neither, being held to inaction by the
+spell of Mr. Ziegler's perfect unconcern as, with the beer glass lifted
+towards his mouth, he proceeded steadily to work through "The Watch on the
+Rhine," while Musa lilted out the delicate, gay phrases of Debussy. The
+enchantment upon the whole room was sinister and painful. Musa got closer
+to Mr. Ziegler, who did not blench nor cease from his humming. Then
+suddenly Musa, lowering his fiddle and interrupting the scene, snatched the
+mute from the bridge of the violin.
+
+"I have put it on the wrong instrument," he said thickly, with a very
+French intonation, and simultaneously he shoved the mute with violence into
+the mouth of Mr. Ziegler. In doing so, he jerked up Mr. Ziegler's elbow,
+and the remains of the beer flew up and baptised Mr. Ziegler's face and
+vesture. Then he jammed the violin into its case, and ran out of the room.
+
+"_Barbare! Imbecile! Sauvage!_" he muttered ferociously on the threshold.
+
+The enchantment was broken. Everybody rose, and not the least precipitately
+the streaming Mr. Ziegler, who, ejecting the mute with much spluttering,
+and pitching away his empty glass, sprang towards the door, with
+justifiable homicide in every movement.
+
+"Mr. Ziegler!" Audrey appealed to him, snatching at his dress-coat and
+sticking to it.
+
+He turned, furious, his face still dripping the finest Pilsener beer.
+
+"If your dress-coat is not wiped instantly, it will be ruined," said
+Audrey.
+
+"_Ach! Meiner Frack!_" exclaimed Mr. Ziegler, forgetting his deep knowledge
+of English. His economic instincts had been swiftly aroused, and they
+dominated all the other instincts. "_Meiner Frack!_ Vill you vipe it?" His
+glance was imploring.
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Spatt will attend to it," said Audrey with solemnity, and walked
+out of the room into the hall. There was not a sign of Musa; the
+disappearance of the violinist was disquieting; and yet it made her
+glad--so much so that she laughed aloud. A few moments later Mr. Ziegler
+stalked forth from the house which he was never to enter again, and his
+silent scorn and the grandeur of his displeasure were terrific. He entirely
+ignored Audrey, who had nevertheless been the means of saving his _Frack_
+for him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+NOCTURNE
+
+
+Soon afterwards Audrey, who had put on a hat, went out with Mr. Spatt to
+look for Musa. Not until shortly before the musical performance had the
+Spatts succeeded in persuading Musa to "accept their hospitality for the
+night." (The phrase was their own. They were incapable of saying "Let us
+put you up.") Meanwhile his bag had been left in the hall. This bag had now
+vanished. The parlourmaid, questioned, said frigidly that she had not
+touched it because she had received no orders to touch it. Musa himself
+must therefore have removed it. With bag in one hand and fiddle case in the
+other, he must have fled, relinquishing nothing but the mute in his flight.
+He knew naught of England, naught of Frinton, and he was the least
+practical creature alive. Hence Audrey, who was in essence his mother, and
+who knew Frinton as some people know London, had said that she would go and
+look for him. Mr. Spatt, ever chivalrous, had impulsively offered to
+accompany her. He could indeed do no less. Mrs. Spatt, overwhelmed by the
+tragic sequel to her innocent triumphant, had retired to the first floor.
+
+The wind blew, and it was very dark, as Audrey and her squire passed along
+Third Avenue to the front. They did not converse--they were both too shy,
+too impressed by the peculiarity of the predicament. They simply peered.
+They peered everywhere for the truant form of Musa balanced on one side by
+a bag and on the other by a fiddle case. From the trim houses, each without
+exception new, twinkled discreet lights, with glimpses of surpassingly
+correct domesticity, and the wind rustled loudly through the foliage of the
+prim gardens, ruffling them as it might have ruffled the unwilling hair of
+the daughters of an arch-deacon. Nobody was abroad. Absurd thoughts ran
+through Audrey's head. A letter from Mr. Foulger had followed her to
+Birmingham, and in the letter Mr. Foulger had acquainted her with the fact
+that Great Mexican Oil shares had just risen to L2 3s. apiece. She knew
+that she had 180,000 of them, and now under the thin protection of Mr.
+Spatt she tried to reckon 180,000 times L2 3s. She could not do the sum. At
+any rate she could not be sure that she did it correctly. However, she was
+fairly well convinced beneath the dark, impenetrable sky that the answer
+totalled nearly L400,000, that was, ten million francs. And the
+ridiculousness of an heiress who owned over ten million francs wandering
+about a place like Frinton with a man like Mr. Spatt, searching for another
+man like Musa, struck her as exceeding the bounds of the permissible. She
+considered that she ought to have been in a magnificent drawing-room of her
+own in Park Lane or the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, welcoming counts,
+princes, duchesses, diplomats and self-possessed geniuses of finished
+manners, with witty phrase that displayed familiarity with all that was
+profoundest and most brilliant in European civilisation. Life seemed to be
+disappointing her, and assuredly money was not the thing that she had
+imagined it to be.
+
+She thought:
+
+"If this walking lamp-post does not say something soon I shall scream."
+
+Mr. Spatt said:
+
+"It seems to be blowing up for rain."
+
+She screamed in the silent solitude of Frinton.
+
+"I'm so sorry," she apologised quickly. "I thought I saw something move."
+
+"One does," faltered Mr. Spatt.
+
+They were now in the shopping street, where in the mornings the elect
+encounter each other on expeditions to purchase bridge-markers, chocolate,
+bathing costumes and tennis balls. It was a black and empty canyon through
+which the wind raced.
+
+"He may be down--down on the shore," Mr. Spatt timidly suggested. He seemed
+to be suggesting suicide.
+
+They turned and descended across the Greensward to the shore, which was
+lined with hundreds of bathing huts, each christened with a name, and each
+deserted, for the by-laws of the Frinton Urban District Council judiciously
+forbade that the huts should be used as sleeping-chambers. The tide was
+very low. They walked over the wide flat sands, and came at length to the
+sea's roar, the white tumbling of foamy breakers, and the full force of the
+south-east wind. Across the invisible expanse of water could be discerned
+the beam of a lightship. And Audrey was aware of mysterious sensations such
+as she had not had since she inhabited Flank Hall and used to steal out at
+nights to watch the estuary. And she thought solemnly: "Musa is somewhere
+near, existing." And then she thought: "What a silly thought! Of course he
+is!"
+
+"I see somebody coming!" Mr. Spatt burst out in a dramatic whisper. But the
+precaution of whispering was useless, because the next instant, in spite of
+himself, he loudly sneezed.
+
+And about two hundred yards off on the sands Audrey made out a moving
+figure, which at that distance did in fact seem to have vague appendages
+that might have resembled a bag and a fiddle case. But the atmosphere of
+the night was deceptive, and the figure as it approached resolved itself
+into three figures--a black one in the middle of two white ones. A girl's
+coarse laugh came down the wind. It could not conceivably have been the
+laugh of any girl who went into the shopping street to buy bridge-markers,
+chocolate, bathing costumes or tennis balls. But it might have been--it not
+improbably was--the laugh of some girl whose mission was to sell such
+things. The trio meandered past, heedless. Mr. Spatt said no word, but he
+appreciably winced. The black figure in the midst of the two white ones was
+that of his son Siegfried, reputedly so fond of Debussy. As the group
+receded and faded, a fragment of a music-hall song floated away from it
+into the firmament.
+
+"I'm afraid it's not much use looking any longer," said Mr. Spatt weakly.
+"He--he may have gone back to the house. Let us hope so."
+
+At the chief garden gate of the Spatt residence they came upon Miss
+Nickall, trying to open it. The sling round her arm made her unmistakable.
+And Miss Nickall having allowed them to recover from a pardonable
+astonishment at the sight of her who was supposed to be exhausted and in
+bed, said cheerfully:
+
+"I've found him, and I've put him up at the Excelsior Hotel."
+
+Mrs. Spatt had related the terrible episode to her guest, who had wilfully
+risen at once. Miss Nickall had had luck, but Audrey had to admit that
+these American girls were stupendously equal to an emergency. And she hated
+the angelic Nick for having found Musa.
+
+"We tried first to find a cafe," said Nick. "But there aren't any in this
+city. What do you call them in England--public-houses, isn't it?"
+
+"No," agreed Mr. Spatt in a shaking voice. "Public-houses are not permitted
+in Frinton, I am glad to say." And he began to form an intention, subject
+to Aurora's approval, to withdraw altogether from the suffrage movement,
+which appeared to him to be getting out of hand.
+
+As they were all separating for the night Audrey and Nick hesitated for a
+moment in front of each other, and then they kissed with a quite unusual
+effusiveness.
+
+"I don't think I've ever really liked her," said Audrey to herself.
+
+What Nick said to herself is lost to history.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+IN THE GARDEN
+
+
+The next morning, after a night spent chiefly in thought, Audrey issued
+forth rather early. Indeed she was probably the first person afoot in the
+house of the Spatts, the parlour-maid entering the hall just as Audrey had
+managed to open the front door. As the parlour-maid was obviously not yet
+in that fullness and spruceness of attire which parlour-maids affect when
+performing their mission in life, Audrey decided to offer no remark,
+explanatory or otherwise, and passed into the garden with nonchalance as
+though her invariable habit when staying in strange houses was to get up
+before anybody else and spy out the whole property while the helpless hosts
+were yet in bed and asleep.
+
+Now it was a magnificent morning: no wind, no cloud, and the sun rising
+over the sea; not a trace of the previous evening's weather. Audrey had not
+been in the leafy street more than a moment when she forgot that she was
+tired and short of sleep, and also very worried by affairs both private and
+public. Her body responded to the sun, and her mind also. She felt almost
+magically healthy, strong and mettlesome, and, further, she began to feel
+happy; she rather blamed herself for this tendency to feel happy, calling
+herself heedless and indifferent. She did not understand what it is to be
+young. She had risen partly because of the futility of bed, but more
+because of a desire to inspect again her own part of the world after the
+unprecedented absence from it.
+
+Frinton was within the borders of her own part of the world, and, though
+she now regarded it with the condescending eyes of a Parisian and Londoner,
+she found pleasure in looking upon it and in recognising old landmarks and
+recent innovations. She saw, on the Greensward separating the promenade
+from the beach, that a rustic seat had been elaborately built by the
+Council round the great trunk of the only tree in Frinton; and she decided
+that there had been questionable changes since her time. And in this way
+she went on. However, the splendour and reality of the sun, making such an
+overwhelming contrast with the insubstantial phenomena of the gloomy night,
+prevented undue cerebral activity. She reflected that Frinton on a dark
+night and Frinton on a bright morning were not like the same place, and she
+left it at that, and gazed at the facade of the Excelsior Hotel, wondering
+for an instant why she should be interested in it, and then looking swiftly
+away.
+
+She had to glance at all the shops, though none of them was open except the
+dairy-shop; and in the shopping street, which had a sunrise at one end and
+the railway station at the other, she lit on the new palatial garage.
+
+"My car may be in there," she thought.
+
+After the manner of most car-owners on tour, she had allowed the chauffeur
+to disappear with the car in the evening where he listed, confident that
+the next morning he and it would reappear cleansed and in good running
+order.
+
+The car was in the garage, almost solitary on a floor of asphalt under a
+glass roof. An untidy youth, with the end of a cigarette clinging to his
+upper lip in a way to suggest that it had clung there throughout the night
+and was the last vestige of a jollification, seemed to be dragging a length
+of hose from a hydrant towards the car, the while his eyes rested on a
+large notice: "Smoking absolutely prohibited. By order."
+
+Then from the other extremity of the garage came a jaunty, dapper,
+quasi-martial figure, in a new grey uniform, with a peaked grey cap, bright
+brown leggings, and bright brown boots to match--the whole highly brushed,
+polished, smooth and glittering. This being pulled out of his pocket a
+superb pair of kid gloves, then a silver cigarette-case, and then a silver
+match-box, and he ignited a cigarette--the unrivalled, wondrous first
+cigarette of the day--casting down the match with a large, free gesture. At
+sight of him the untidy youth grew more active.
+
+"Look 'ere," said the being to the youth, "what the 'ell time did I tell
+you to have that car cleaned by, and you not begun it!"
+
+Pointing to the clock, he lounged magnificently to and fro, spreading smoke
+around the intimidated and now industrious youth. The next second he caught
+sight of Audrey, and transformed himself instantaneously into what she had
+hitherto imagined a chauffeur always was; but in those few moments she had
+learnt that the essence of a chauffeur is godlike, and that he toils not,
+neither does he swab.
+
+"Good morning, madam," in a soft, courtly voice.
+
+"Good morning."
+
+"Were you wanting the car, madam?"
+
+She was not, but the suggestion gave her an idea.
+
+"Can we take it as it is?"
+
+"Yes, madam. I'll just look at the petrol gauge ... But ... I haven't had
+my breakfast, madam."
+
+"What time do you have it?"
+
+"Well, madam, when you have yours."
+
+"That's all right, then. You've got hours yet. I want you to take me to
+Flank Hall."
+
+"Flank Hall, madam?" His tone expressed the fact that his mind was a blank
+as to Flank Hall.
+
+As soon as Audrey had comprehended that the situation of Flank Hall was not
+necessarily known to every chauffeur in England, and that a stay of one
+night in Frinton might not have been enough to familiarise this particular
+one with the geography of the entire district, she replied that she would
+direct him.
+
+They were held up by a train at the railway crossing, and a milk-cart and a
+young pedestrian were also held up. When Audrey identified the pedestrian
+she wished momentarily that she had not set out on the expedition. Then she
+said to herself that really it did not matter, and why should she be
+afraid... etc., etc. The pedestrian was Musa. In French they greeted each
+other stiffly, like distant acquaintances, and the train thundered past.
+
+"I was taking the air, simply, Madame," said Musa, with his ingenuous shy
+smile.
+
+"Take it in my car," said Audrey with a sudden resolve. "In one hour at
+the latest we shall have returned."
+
+She had a great deal to say to him and a great deal to listen to, and there
+could not possibly be any occasion equal to the present, which was ideal.
+
+He got in; the chauffeur manoeuvred to oust the milk-cart from its rightful
+precedence, the gates opened, and the car swung at gathering speed into the
+well-remembered road to Moze. And the two passengers said nothing to each
+other of the slightest import. Musa's escape from Paris was between them;
+the unimaginable episode at the Spatts was between them; the sleepless
+night was between them.  (And had she not saved him by her presence of mind
+from the murderous hand of Mr. Ziegler?) They had a million things to
+impart. And yet naught was uttered save a few banalities about the weather
+and about the healthfulness of being up early. They were bashful,
+constrained, altogether too young and inexperienced. They wanted to behave
+in the grand, social, easeful manner of a celebrated public performer and
+an heiress worth ten million francs. And they could only succeed in being a
+boy and a girl. The chauffeur alone, at from thirty to forty miles an hour,
+was worthy of himself and his high vocation. Both the passengers regretted
+that they had left their beds. Happily the car laughed at the alleged
+distance between Frinton and Moze. In a few minutes, as it seemed, with
+but one false turning, due to the impetuosity of the chauffeur, the vehicle
+drew up before the gates of Flank Hall. Audrey had avoided the village of
+Moze. The passengers descended.
+
+"This is my house," Audrey murmured.
+
+The gates were shut but not locked. They creaked as Audrey pushed against
+them. The drive was covered with a soft film of green, as though it were
+gradually being entombed in the past. The young roses, however, belonged
+emphatically to the present. Dewdrops hung from them like jewels, and their
+odour filled the air. Audrey turned off the main drive towards the garden
+front of the house, which had always been the aspect that she preferred,
+and at the same moment she saw the house windows and the thrilling
+perspective of Mozewater. One of the windows was open. She was glad,
+because this proved that the perfect Aguilar, gardener and caretaker, was
+after all imperfect. It was his crusty perfection that had ever set Audrey,
+and others, against Aguilar. But he had gone to bed and forgotten a
+window--and it was the French window. While, in her suddenly revived
+character of a harsh Essex inhabitant, she was thinking of some sarcastic
+word to say to Aguilar about the window, another window slowly opened from
+within, and Aguilar's head became visible. Once more he had exasperatingly
+proved his perfection. He had not gone to bed and forgotten a window.  But
+he had risen with exemplary earliness to give air to the house.
+
+"'d mornin', miss," mumbled the unsmiling Aguilar, impassively, as though
+Audrey had never been away from Moze.
+
+"Well, Aguilar."
+
+"I didn't expect ye so early, miss."
+
+"But how could you be expecting me at all?"
+
+"Miss Ingate come home yesterday. She said you couldn't be far off, miss."
+
+"Not Miss ... _Mrs._--Moncreiff," said Audrey firmly.
+
+"I beg your pardon, madam," Aguilar responded with absolute
+imperturbability. "She never said nothing about that."
+
+And he proceeded mechanically to the next window.
+
+The yard-dog began to bark. Audrey, ignoring Musa, went round the shrubbery
+towards the kennel. The chained dog continued to bark, furiously, until
+Audrey was within six feet of him, and then he crouched and squirmed and
+gave low whines and his tail wagged with extreme rapidity. Audrey bent
+down, trembling.... She could scarcely see.... There was something about
+the green film on the drive, about the look of the house, about the sheeted
+drawing-room glimpsed through the open window, about the view of
+Mozewater...! She felt acutely and painfully sorry for, and yet envious of,
+the young girl in a plain blue frock who used to haunt the house and the
+garden, and who had somehow made the house and the garden holy for evermore
+by her unhappiness and her longings.... Audrey was crying.... She heard a
+step and stood upright. It was Musa's step.
+
+"I have never seen you so exquisite," said Musa in a murmur subdued and yet
+enthusiastic. All his faculties seemed to be dwelling reflectively upon her
+with passionate appreciation.
+
+They had at last begun to talk, really--he in French, and she partly in
+French and partly in English. It was her tears, or perhaps her gesture in
+trying to master them, that had loosed their tongues. The ancient dog was
+forgotten, and could not understand why. Audrey was excusably startled by
+Musa's words and tone, and by the sudden change in his attitude. She
+thought that his personal distinction at the moment was different from and
+superior to any other in her experience. She had a comfortable feeling of
+condescension towards Nick and towards Jane Foley. And at the same time she
+blamed Musa, perceiving that as usual he was behaving like a child who
+cannot grasp the great fact that life is very serious.
+
+"Yes," she said. "That's all very fine, that is. You pretend this, that,
+and the other. But why are you here?  Why aren't you at work in Paris?
+You've got the chance of a lifetime, and instead of staying at home and
+practising hard and preparing yourself, you come gadding over to England
+simply because there's a bit of money in your pocket!"
+
+She was very young, and in the splendour of the magnificent morning she
+looked the emblem of simplicity; but in her heart she was his mother, his
+sole fount of wisdom and energy and shrewdness.
+
+Pain showed in his sensitive features, and then appeal, and then a hot
+determination.
+
+"I came because I could not work," he said.
+
+"Because you couldn't work? Why couldn't you work?" There was no yielding
+in her hard voice.
+
+"I don't know! I don't know! I suppose it is because you are not there,
+because you have made yourself necessary to me; or," he corrected quickly,
+"because _I_ have made you necessary to myself. Oh! I can practise for so
+many hours per day. But it is useless. It is not authentic practice. I
+think not of the music. It is as if some other person was playing, with my
+arm, on my violin. I am not there. I am with you, where you are. It is the
+same day after day, every day, every day. I am done for. I am convinced
+that I am done for. These concerts will infallibly be my ruin, and I shall
+be shamed before all Paris."
+
+"And did you come to England to tell me this?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She was relieved, for she had thought of another explanation of his
+escapade, and had that explanation proved to be the true one, she was very
+ready to make unpleasantness to the best of her ability. Nevertheless,
+though relieved in one direction, she was gravely worried in another. She
+had undertaken the job of setting Musa grandiosely on his artistic career,
+and the difficulties of it were growing more and more complex and
+redoubtable.
+
+She said:
+
+"But you seemed so jolly when you arrived last night. Nobody would have
+guessed you had a care in the world."
+
+"I had not," he replied eagerly, "as soon as I saw you. The surprise of
+seeing you--it was that.... And you left Paris without saying good-bye! Why
+did you leave Paris without saying good-bye? Never since the moment when I
+learnt that you had gone have I had the soul to practise. My violin became
+a wooden box; my fingers, too, were of wood."
+
+He stopped. The dog sniffed round.
+
+Audrey was melting in bliss. She could feel herself dissolving. Her
+pleasure was terrible. It was true that she had left Paris without saying
+good-bye to Musa. She had done it on purpose. Why? She did not know.
+Perhaps out of naughtiness, perhaps.... She was aware that she could be
+hard, like her father. But she was glad, intensely glad, that she had left
+Paris so, because the result had been this avowal. She, Audrey, little
+Audrey, scarcely yet convinced that she was grown up, was necessary to the
+genius whom all the Quarter worshipped! Miss Thompkins was not necessary to
+him, Miss Nickall was not necessary to him, though both had helped to
+provide the means to keep him alive. She herself alone was necessary to
+him. And she had not guessed it. She had not even hoped for it. The effect
+of her personality upon Musa was mysterious--she did not affect to
+understand it--but it was obviously real and it was vital. If anything in
+the world could surpass the pleasure, her pride surpassed it. All tears
+were forgotten. She was the proudest young woman in the world; and she was
+the wisest, and the most harassed, too. But the anxieties were delicious to
+her.
+
+"I am essential to him," she thought ecstatically. "I stand between him and
+disaster. When he has succeeded his success will be my work and nobody
+else's. I have a mission. I must live for it.... If anyone had told me a
+year ago that a great French genius would be absolutely dependent upon me,
+and that I meant for him all the difference between failure and triumph, I
+should have laughed.... And yet!..." She looked at him surreptitiously.
+"He's an angel. But he's also a baby." The feelings of motherhood were as
+naught compared to hers.
+
+Then she remarked harshly, icily:
+
+"Well, I shall be much obliged if you will go back to Paris at
+once--to-day. _Somebody_ must have a little sense."
+
+Just at this point Aguilar interrupted. He came slouching round the corner
+of the clipped bushes, untidy, shabby, implacable, with some set purpose in
+his hard blue eyes. She could have annihilated him with satisfaction, but
+the fellow was indestructible as well as implacable.
+
+"Could I have a word with ye, madam?" he mumbled, putting on his well-known
+air of chicane.
+
+With the unexplained Musa close by her she could not answer: "Wait a
+little. I'm engaged." She had to be careful. She had to make out especially
+that she and the young man were up to nothing in particular, nothing that
+had the slightest importance.
+
+"What is it, Aguilar?" she questioned, inimically.
+
+"It's down here," said Aguilar, who recked not of the implications of a
+tone. And by the mere force of his glance he drew his mistress away, out of
+sight of Musa and the dog.
+
+"Is that your motor-car at the gates, madam?" he demanded gloomily and
+confidentially, his gaze now fixed on the ground or on his patched boots.
+
+"Of course it is," said Audrey. "Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"That's all right then," said he. "But I thought it might belong to another
+person, and I had to make sure. Now if ye'll just step along a bit
+farther, I've a little thing as I want to point out to ye, madam. It's my
+duty to point it out, let others say _what_ they will."
+
+He walked ahead doggedly, and Audrey crossly came after, until they arrived
+nearly at the end of the hedge which, separating the upper from the lower
+garden, hid from those immediately behind it all view of the estuary.
+Here, still sheltered by the hedge, he stopped and Audrey stopped, and
+Aguilar absently plucked up a young plantain from the turf and dropped it
+into his pocket.
+
+"There's been a man a-hanging round this place since yesterday mornin',"
+said Aguilar intimately. "I call him a suspicious character--at least, I
+_did_, till last night. He ain't slept in the village, that I do know, but
+he's about again this morning."
+
+"Well," said Audrey with impatience. "Why don't you tell Inspector Keeble?
+Or have you quarrelled with Inspector Keeble again?"
+
+"It's not that as would ha' stopped me from acquainting Inspector Keeble
+with the circumstances if I thought it my duty so to do," replied Aguilar.
+"But the fact is I saw the chap talking to Inspector Keeble yesterday
+evening. He don't know as I saw him. It was that as made me think; now is
+he a suspicious character or ain't he? Of course Keeble's a rare
+simple-minded 'un, as we all know."
+
+"And what do you want me to do?"
+
+"I thought you might like to have a look at him yeself, madam. And if
+you'll just peep round the end of this hedge casual-like, ye'll see him
+walking across the salting from Lousey Hard. He's a-comin' this way.
+Casual-like now--and he won't see ye."
+
+Audrey had to obey. She peeped casual-like, and she did in fact see a man
+on the salting, and this man was getting nearer. She could see him very
+plainly in the brilliant clearness of the summer morning. After the
+shortest instant of hesitation she recognised him beyond any doubt. It was
+the detective who had been so plenteously baptised by Susan Foley in the
+area of the house at Paget Gardens. Aguilar looked at Audrey, and Audrey
+annoyed herself somewhat by blushing. However, an agreeable elation quickly
+overcame the blush.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+ENCOUNTER
+
+
+"Good morning," Audrey cried, very gaily, to the still advancing detective,
+who, after the slightest hesitation in the world, responded gaily:
+
+"Good morning."
+
+The man's accent struck her. She said to herself, with amusement:
+
+"He's Irish!"
+
+Audrey had left the astonished but dispassionate gardener at the hedge, and
+was now emerging from the scanty and dishevelled plantation close to the
+boundary wall of the estate. She supposed that the police must have been on
+her track and on the track of Jane Foley, and that by some mysterious skill
+they had hunted her down. But she did not care. She was not in the least
+afraid. The sudden vision of a jail did not affright her. On the contrary
+her chief sensation was one of joyous self-confidence, which sensation had
+been produced in her by the remarks and the attitude of Musa. She had
+always known that she was both shy and adventurous, and that the two
+qualities were mutually contradictory; but now it appeared to her that
+diffidence had been destroyed, and that that change which she had ever
+longed for in her constitution had at least really come to pass.
+
+"You don't seem very surprised to see me," said Audrey.
+
+"Well, madam," said the detective, "I'm not paid to be surprised--in my
+business."
+
+He had raised his hat. He was standing on the dyke, and from that height he
+looked somewhat down upon Audrey leaning against the wall. The watercourse
+and the strip of eternally emerald-green grass separated them. Though
+neither tall nor particularly handsome, he was a personable man, with a
+ready smile and alert, agile movements. Audrey was too far off to judge of
+his eyes, but she was quite sure that they twinkled. The contrast between
+this smart, cheerful fellow and the half-drowned victim in the area of the
+house in Paget Gardens was quite acute.
+
+"Now I've a good mind to hold a meeting for your benefit," said Audrey,
+striving to recall the proper phrases of propaganda which she had heard in
+the proper quarters in London during her brief connection with the cause.
+However, she could not recall them, "But there's no need to," she added. "A
+gentleman of your intelligence must be of our way of thinking."
+
+"About what?"
+
+"About the vote, of course. And so your conduct is all the more shocking."
+
+"Why!" he exclaimed, laughing. "If it comes to that, your own sex is
+against you."
+
+Audrey had heard this argument before, and it had the same effect on her as
+on most other stalwarts of the new political creed. It annoyed her, because
+there was something in it.
+
+"The vast majority of women are with us," said she.
+
+"My wife isn't."
+
+"But your wife isn't the vast majority of women," Audrey protested.
+
+"Oh yes, she is," said the detective, "so far as I'm concerned. Every wife
+is, so far as her husband is concerned. Sure, you ought to know that!" In
+his Irish way he doubled the "r" of the word "sure," and somehow this trick
+made Audrey like him still more. "My wife believes," he concluded, "that
+woman's sphere is the home."
+
+("His wife is stout," Audrey decided within herself, on no grounds
+whatever. "If she wasn't, she couldn't be a vast majority.")
+
+Aloud she said:
+
+"Well, then, why can't you leave them alone in their sphere, instead of
+worrying them and spying on them down areas?"
+
+"D'ye mean at Paget Gardens?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Oh!" he laughed. "That wasn't professional--if you'll excuse me being so
+frank. That was just due to human admiration. It's not illegal to admire a
+young woman, I suppose, even if she is a suffragette."
+
+"What young woman are you talking about?"
+
+"Miss Susan Foley, of course. I won't tell you what I think of her, in
+spite of all she did, because I've learnt that it's a mistake to praise one
+woman to another. But I don't mind admitting that her going off to the
+north has made me life a blank. If I'd thought she'd go, I should never
+have reported the affair at the Yard. But I was annoyed, and I'm rather
+hasty." He paused, and ended reflectively: "I committed follies to get a
+word with the young lady, and I didn't get it, but I'd do the same again."
+
+"And you a married man!" Audrey burst out, startled, and diverted, at the
+explanation, but at the same time outraged by a confession so cynical.
+
+The detective pulled a silky moustache.
+
+"When a wife is very strongly convinced that her sphere is the home," he
+retorted slowly and seriously, "you're tempted at times to let her have the
+sphere all to herself. That's the universal experience of married men, and
+ye may believe me, miss--madam."
+
+Audrey said:
+
+"And now Miss Foley's gone north, you've decided to come and admire _me_ in
+_my_ home!"
+
+"So it is your home!" murmured the detective with an uncontrolled quickness
+which wakened Audrey's old suspicions afresh--and which created a new
+suspicion, the suspicion that the fellow was simply playing with her. "I
+assure you I came here to recover; I'd heard it was the finest climate in
+England."
+
+"Recover?"
+
+"Yes, from fire-extinguishers. D'ye know I coughed for twenty-four hours
+after that reception?... And you should have seen my clothes! The doctor
+says my lungs may never get over it.... That's what comes of admiration."
+
+"It's what comes of behaving as no married man ought to behave."
+
+"Did I say I was married?" asked the detective with an ingenuous air.
+"Well, I may be. But I dare say I'm only married just about as much as you
+are yourself, madam."
+
+Upon this remark he raised his hat and departed along the grassy summit of
+the sea-wall.
+
+Audrey flushed for the second time that morning, and more strikingly than
+before. She was extremely discontented with, and ashamed of, herself, for
+she had meant to be the equal of the detective, and she had not been. It
+was blazingly clear that he had indeed played with her--or, as she put it
+in her own mind: "He just stuffed me up all through."
+
+She tried to think logically. Had he been pursuing the motor-car all the
+way from Birmingham? Obviously he had not, since according to Aguilar he
+had been in the vicinity of Moze since the previous morning. Hence he did
+not know that Audrey was involved in the Blue City affair, and he did not
+know that Jane Foley was at Frinton. How he had learnt that Audrey belonged
+to Moze, and why and what he had come to investigate at Moze, she could not
+guess. Nor did these problems appear to her to have an importance at all
+equal to the importance of hiding from the detective that she had been
+staying at Frinton. If he followed her to Frinton he would inevitably
+discover that Jane Foley was at Frinton, and the sequel would be more
+imprisonment for Jane. Therefore Audrey must not return to Frinton. Having
+by a masterly process of ratiocination reached this conclusion, she began
+to think rather better of herself, and ceased blushing.
+
+"Aguilar," she demanded excitedly, having gone back through the plantation.
+"Did Miss Ingate happen to say where I was staying last night?"
+
+"No, madam."
+
+"I must run into the house and write a note to her, and you must take it
+down instantly." In her mind she framed the note, which was to condemn Miss
+Ingate to the torture of complete and everlasting silence about the episode
+at the Blue City and the flight eastwards.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+FLIGHT
+
+
+"Fast, madam, did you say?" asked the chauffeur, bending his head back from
+the wheel as the car left the gates of Flank Hall.
+
+"Fast."
+
+"The Colchester road?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's really just as quick to take the Frinton road for Colchester--it's so
+much straighter."
+
+"No, no, no! On no account. Don't go near Frinton."
+
+Audrey leaned back in the car. And as speed increased the magnificence of
+the morning again had its effect on her. The adventure pleased her far more
+than the perils of it, either for herself or for other people, frightened
+her. She knew that she was doing a very strange thing in thus leaving the
+Spatts and her luggage without a word of explanation before breakfast; but
+she did not care. She knew that for some reason which she did not
+comprehend the police were after her, as they had been after nearly all the
+great ones of the movement; but she did not care. She was alive in the
+rushing car amid the magnificence of the morning. Musa sat next to her. She
+had more or less incompletely explained the situation to him--it was not
+necessary to tell everything to a boy who depended upon you absolutely for
+his highest welfare--such boys must accept, thankfully, what they received.
+And Musa had indeed done so. He appeared to be quite happy and without
+anxieties. That was the worst He had wanted to be with her, and he was with
+her, and he cared for nothing else. He had no interest in what might happen
+next. He yielded himself utterly to the enjoyment of her presence and of the
+magnificent morning.
+
+And yet Musa, whom Audrey considered that she understood as profoundly as
+any mother had ever understood any child--even Musa could surprise.
+
+He said, without any preparation:
+
+"I calculate that I shall have 3,040 francs in hand after the concerts,
+assuming that I receive only the minimum. That is, after paying the
+expenses of my living."
+
+"But do you know how much it costs you to live?" Audrey demanded, with
+careless superiority.
+
+"Assuredly. I write all my payments down in a little book. I have done so
+since some years."
+
+"Every sou?"
+
+"Yes. Every sou."
+
+"But do you save, Musa?"
+
+"Save!" he repeated the word ingenuously. "Till now to save has been
+impossible for me. But I have always kept in hand one month's subsistence.
+I could not do more. Now I shall save. You reproached me with having spent
+money in order to come to see you in England. But I regarded the money so
+spent as part of the finance of the concerts. Without seeing you I could
+not practise. Without practice I could not play. Without playing I could
+not earn money. Therefore I spent money in order to get money. Such,
+Madame, was the commercial side. What a beautiful lawn for tennis you have
+in your garden!"
+
+Audrey was more than surprised, she was staggered by the revelation of the
+attitude of genius towards money. She had not suspected it. Then she
+remembered the simple natural tome in which Musa had once told her that
+both Tommy and Nick contributed to his income. She ought to have
+comprehended from that avowal more than she, in fact, had comprehended. And
+now the first hopes of worldly success were strongly developing that
+unsuspected trait in the young man's character. Audrey was aware of a great
+fear. Could he be a genius, after all? Was it conceivable that an authentic
+musical genius should enter up daily in a little book every sou he spent?
+
+A rapid, spitting, explosive sound, close behind the car and a little to
+the right, took her mind away from Musa and back to the adventure. She
+looked round, half expecting what she should see--and she saw it, namely,
+the detective on a motor-cycle. It was an "Indian" machine and painted red.
+And as she looked, the car, after taking a corner, got into a straight bit
+of the splendid road and the motor-bicycle dropped away from it.
+
+"Can't you shake off that motor-bicycle thing?" Audrey rather
+superciliously asked the chauffeur.
+
+Having first looked at his mirror, the chauffeur, who, like a horse, could
+see in two directions at once, gazed cautiously at the road in front and at
+the motor-bicycle behind, simultaneously.
+
+"I doubt it, madam," he said. And yet his tone and glance expressed deep
+scorn of the motor-bicycle. "As a general rule you can't."
+
+"I should have thought you could beat a little thing like that," said
+Audrey.
+
+"Them things can do sixty when they've a mind to," said the chauffeur, with
+finality, and gave all his attention to the road.
+
+At intervals he looked at his mirror. The motor-bicycle had vanished into
+the past, and as it failed to reappear he gradually grew confident and
+disdainful. But just as the car was going down the short hill into the
+outskirts of Colchester the motor-bicycle came into view once more.
+
+"Where to, madam?" inquired the chauffeur.
+
+"This is Colchester, isn't it?" she demanded nervously, though she knew
+perfectly well that it was Colchester.
+
+"Yes, madam."
+
+"Straight through! Straight through!"
+
+"The London road?"
+
+"Yes. The London road," she agreed. London was, of course, the only
+possible destination.
+
+"But breakfast, madam?"
+
+"Oh! The usual thing," said Audrey. "You'll have yours when I have mine."
+
+"But we shall run out of petrol, madam."
+
+"Never mind," said Audrey sublimely.
+
+The chauffeur, with characteristic skill, arranged that the car should run
+out of petrol precisely in front of the best hotel in Chelmsford, which was
+about half-way to London. The motor-bicycle had not been seen for several
+miles. But scarcely had they resumed the journey, by the Epping road, when
+it came again into view--in front of them. How had the fellow guessed that
+they would take the longer Epping road instead of the shorter Romford road?
+
+"When shall we be arriving in Frinton?" Musa inquired, beatific.
+
+"We shan't be arriving in Frinton any more," said Audrey. "We must go
+straight to London."
+
+"It is like a dream," Musa murmured, as it were in ecstasy. Then his
+features changed and he almost screamed: "But my violin! My violin! We must
+go back for it."
+
+"Violin!" said Audrey. "That's nothing! I've even come without gloves." And
+she had.
+
+She reassured Musa as to the violin, and the chauffeur as to the abandoned
+Gladstone bag containing the chauffeur's personal effects, and herself as
+to many things. An hour and twenty minutes later the car, with three people
+in it, thickly dusted even to the eyebrows, drew up in the courtyard of
+Charing Cross railway station, and the motor-cycle was visible, its glaring
+red somewhat paled, in the Strand outside. The time was ten-fifteen.
+
+"We shall take the eleven o'clock boat train for Paris," she said to Musa.
+
+"You also?"
+
+She nodded. He was in heaven. He could even do without his violin.
+
+"How nice it is not to be bothered with luggage," she said.
+
+The chauffeur was pacified with money, of which Audrey had a sufficiency.
+
+And all the time Audrey kept saying to herself:
+
+"I'm not going to Paris to please Musa, so don't let him think it! I'm only
+going so as to put the detective off and keep Jane Foley out of his
+clutches, because if I stay in London he'll be bound to find everything
+out."
+
+While Musa kept watch for the detective at the door of the telegraph office
+Audrey telegraphed, as laconically as possible, to Frinton concerning
+clothes and the violin, and then they descended to subterranean marble
+chambers in order to get rid of dust, and they came up to earth again, each
+out of a separate cellar, renewed. And, lastly, Audrey slipped into the
+Strand and bought a pair of gloves, and thereafter felt herself to be
+completely equipped against the world's gaze.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+ARIADNE
+
+
+A few days later an automobile--not Audrey's but a large limousine--bumped,
+with slow and soft dignity, across the railway lines which diversify the
+quays of Boulogne harbour and, having hooted in a peculiar manner, came to
+a stop opposite nothing in particular.
+
+"Here we are," said Mr. Gilman, reaching to open the door. "You can see her
+masthead light."
+
+It was getting dark. Behind, over the station, a very faint flush lightened
+the west, and in front, across the water, and reflected in the water, the
+thousand lamps of the town rose in tiers to the lofty church which stood
+out a dark mass against the summer sky. On the quays the forms of men moved
+vaguely among crates and packages, and on the water, tugs and boats flitted
+about, puffing, or with the plash of oars, or with no sound whatever. And
+from the distance arrived the reverberation of electric trams running their
+courses in the maze of the town.
+
+Madame Piriac and Audrey descended, after Mr. Gilman, from the car and Mr.
+Gilman turned off the electric light in the interior and shut the door.
+
+"Do not trouble about the luggage, I beg you," said Mr. Gilman, breathing,
+as usual, rather noticeably. "_Bon soir_, Leroux. Don't forget to meet the
+nine-thirty-five." This last to the white-clad chauffeur, who saluted
+sharply.
+
+At the same moment two sailors appeared over the edge of the quay, and a
+Maltese cross of light burst into radiance at the end of a sloping gangway,
+whose summit was just perched on the solid masonry of the port. The sailors
+were clothed in blue, with white caps, and on their breasts they bore the
+white-embroidered sign: "_Ariadne, R.T.Y.C._"
+
+"Look lively, lads, with the luggage," said Mr. Gilman.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Then another figure appeared under the Maltese cross. It was clad in white
+ducks, with a blue reefer ornamented in gold, and a yachting cap crowned in
+white: a stoutish and middle-aged figure, much like Mr. Gilman himself in
+bearing and costume, except that Mr. Gilman had no gold on his jacket.
+
+"Well, skipper!" greeted Mr. Gilman, jauntily and spryly. In one moment, in
+one second, Mr. Gilman had grown at least twenty years younger.
+
+"Captain Wyatt," he presented the skipper to the ladies. "And this is Mr.
+Price, my secretary, and Doctor Cromarty," as two youths, clothed exactly
+to match Mr. Gilman, followed the skipper up the steep incline of the
+gangway.
+
+And now Audrey could see the _Ariadne_ lying below, for it was only just
+past low water and the tide was scarcely making. At the next berth higher
+up, with lights gleaming at her innumerable portholes and two cranes hard
+at work producing a mighty racket on her, lay a Channel steamer, which, by
+comparison with the yacht, loomed enormous, like an Atlantic liner. Indeed,
+the yacht seemed a very little and a very lowly and a very flimsy flotation
+on the dark water, and her illuminated deck-house was no better than a toy.
+On the other hand, her two masts rose out of the deep high overhead and had
+a certain impressiveness, though not quite enough.
+
+Audrey thought:
+
+"Is this what we're going on? I thought it was a big yacht." And she had a
+qualm.
+
+And then a bell rang twice, extremely sweet and mellow, somewhere on the
+yacht. And Audrey was touched by the beauty of its tone.
+
+"Two bells. Nine o'clock," said Mr. Gilman. "Will you come aboard? I'll
+show you the way." He tripped down the gangway like a boy. Behind could be
+heard the sailors giving one another directions about the true method of
+handling luggage.
+
+Audrey had met Madame Piriac by sheer hazard in a corset shop in the Rue de
+la Chaussee-d'Antin. The fugitive from justice had been obliged, in the
+matter of wardrobe, to begin life again on her arrival trunkless in Paris,
+and the business of doing so was not disagreeable. Madame Piriac had
+greeted her with most affectionate warmth. One of her first suggestions had
+been that Audrey should accompany her on a short yachting trip projected by
+Mr. Gilman. She had said that though the excellent Gilman was her uncle,
+and her adored uncle, he was not her real uncle, and that therefore, of
+course, she was incapable of going unaccompanied, though she would hate to
+disappoint the dear man. As for Monsieur Piriac, the destiny of France was
+in his hands, and the moment being somewhat critical, he would not quit the
+Ministry of Foreign Affairs without leaving a fixed telegraphic address.
+
+On the next day Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac had called on Audrey at the
+Hotel du Danube, and the invitation became formal. It was pressing and
+flattering. Why refuse it? Mr. Gilman was obviously prepared to be her
+slave. She accepted, with enthusiasm. And she said to herself that in doing
+so she was putting yet another spoke in the wheel of the British police.
+Immediately afterwards she learnt that Musa also had been asked. Madame
+Piriac informed her, in reply to a sort of protest, that Musa's first
+concert was postponed by the concert agency until the autumn. "I never
+heard of that!" Audrey had cried. "And why should you have heard of it?
+Have you not been in England?" Madame Piriac had answered, a little
+surprised at Audrey's tone. Whereupon Audrey had said naught. The chief
+point was that Musa could take a holiday without detriment to his career.
+Moreover, Mr. Gilman, who possessed everything, possessed a marvellous
+violin, which he would put at the disposal of Musa on the yacht if Musa's
+own violin had not been found in the meantime. The official story was that
+Musa's violin had been mislaid or lost on the Metropolitain Railway, and
+the fact that he had been to England somehow did not transpire at all.
+
+Mr. Gilman had gone forward in advance to make sure that his yacht was in a
+state worthy to receive two such ladies, and he had insisted on meeting
+them in his car at Abbeville on the way to Boulogne. He had not insisted on
+meeting Musa similarly. He was a peculiar and in some respects a
+stiff-necked man. He had decided, in his own mind, that he would have the
+two women to himself in the car, and so indeed it fell out. Nevertheless
+his attitude to Musa, and Madame Piriac's attitude to Musa, and everybody's
+attitude to Musa, had shown that the mere prospect of star-concerts in a
+first-class hall had very quickly transformed Musa into a genuine Parisian
+lion. He was positively courted. His presence on the yacht was deemed an
+honour, and that was why Mr. Gilman had asked him. Audrey both resented the
+remarkable change and was proud of it--as a mother perhaps naturally would
+do and be. The admitted genius was to arrive the next morning.
+
+On boarding the _Ariadne_ in the wake of Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac, the
+first thing that impressed Audrey was the long gangway itself. It was made
+of thin resilient steel, and the handrails were of soft white rope, almost
+like silk, and finished off with fancy knots; and at the beginning of the
+gangway, on the dirty quay, lay a beautiful mat bearing the name of the
+goddess, while at the end, on the pale, smooth deck, was another similar
+mat. The obvious costliness of that gangway and those superlative mats made
+Audrey feel poor, in spite of her ten million francs. And the next thing
+that impressed her was that immediately she got down on deck the yacht, in
+a very mysterious manner, had grown larger, and much larger. At the forward
+extremity of the deck certain blue figures lounging about seemed to be
+quite a long way off, indeed in another world. Here and there on the deck
+were circles of yellow or white rope, coiled as precisely and perfectly as
+Audrey could coil her own hair. Mr. Gilman led them to the door of the
+deck-house and they gazed within. The sight of the interior drew out of the
+ravished Audrey an ecstatic exclamation: "What a darling!" And at the words
+she saw that Mr. Gilman, for all his assumed nonchalant spryness, almost
+trembled with pleasure. The deck-house was a drawing-room whose walls were
+of carved and inlaid wood. Orange-shaded electric bulbs hung on short, silk
+cords from the ceiling, and flowers in sconces showed brilliantly between
+the windows, which were draped with curtains of silk matching the thick
+carpet. Several lounge chairs and a table of bird's-eye maple completed the
+place, and over the table were scattered newspapers and illustrated
+weeklies. Everything, except the literature, was somewhat diminished in
+size, but the smallness of the scale only intensified the pleasure derived
+from the spectacle.
+
+Then they went "downstairs," as Audrey said; but Mr. Gilman corrected her
+and said "below," whereupon Audrey retorted that she should call it the
+"ground floor," and Mr. Gilman laughed as she had never heard a man of his
+age laugh. The sight of the ground floor still further increased Audrey's
+notion of the dimensions of the yacht, whose corridors and compartments
+appeared to stretch away endlessly in two directions. At the foot of the
+curving staircase Mr. Gilman, pulling aside a curtain, announced: "This is
+the saloon." When she heard the word Audrey expected a poky cubicle, but
+found a vast drawing-room with more books than she had ever seen in any
+other drawing-room, many pictures, an open piano, with music on it; sofas
+in every quarter, and about a thousand cupboards and drawers, each with a
+silver knob or handle. Above all was a dome of multi-coloured glass, and
+exactly beneath the dome a table set for supper, with the finest napery,
+cutlery and crystal. The apartment was dazzlingly lighted, and yet not a
+single lamp could be detected in the act of illumination. A real
+parlourmaid suddenly appeared at the far end of the room, and behind her
+two stewards in gilt-buttoned white Eton jackets and black trousers. Mr.
+Gilman, with seriousness, bade the parlourmaid take charge of the ladies
+and show them the sleeping-cabins.
+
+"Choose any cabins you like," said he, as Madame Piriac and Audrey rustled
+off.
+
+There might have been hundreds of sleeping-cabins. And there did, in fact,
+appear to be quite a number of them, to say nothing of two bathrooms. They
+inspected all of them save one, which was locked. In an awed voice the
+parlourmaid said, "That is the owner's cabin." At another door she said, in
+a different, disdainful voice, "That only leads to the galley and the
+crew's quarters." Audrey wondered what a galley could be, and the mystery
+of that name, and the mystery of the two closed doors, merely made the
+whole yacht perfect. The sleeping-cabins surpassed all else--they were so
+compact, so complex, so utterly complete. No large bedchamber, within
+Audrey's knowledge, held so much apparatus, and offered so much comfort and
+so much wardrobe room as even the least of these cabins. It was impossible,
+to be sure, that in one's amused researches one had not missed a cupboard
+ingeniously disguised somewhere. And the multiplicity of mirrors, and the
+message of the laconic monosyllable "Hot" on silver taps, and the
+discretion of the lighting, all indicated that the architect and creator of
+these marvellous microcosms had "understood." The cosy virtue of
+littleness, and the entire absurdity of space for the sake of space, were
+strikingly proved, and the demonstration amounted, in Audrey's mind, to a
+new and delicious discovery.
+
+The largest of the cabins had two berths at right angles to one another,
+each a lovely little bed with a running screen of cashmere. Having admired
+it once, they returned to it.
+
+"Do you know, my dear," said Madame Piriac in French, "I have an idea. You
+will tell me if it is not good.... If we shared this cabin...! In this so
+curious machine one feels a satisfaction, somehow, in being very near the
+one to the other. The ceiling is so low.... That gives you
+sensations--human sensations.... I know not if you experience the same...."
+
+"Oh! Let's!" Audrey exclaimed impulsively in English. "Do let's!"
+
+When the parlourmaid had gone, and before the luggage had come down, Madame
+Piriac caught Audrey to her and kissed her fervently on both cheeks, amid
+the glinting confusion of polished woods and draperies and silver mountings
+and bevelled glass.
+
+"I am so content that you came, my little one!" murmured Madame Piriac.
+
+The next minute the cabin and the corridor outside were full of open trunks
+and bags, over which bent the forms of Madame Piriac, Audrey and the
+parlourmaid. And all the drawers were gaping, and the doors of all the
+cupboards swinging, and the narrow beds were hidden under piles of
+variegated garments. And while they were engaged in the breathless business
+of installing themselves in the celestial domain, strange new thoughts
+flitted about like mice in Audrey's head. She felt as though she were in a
+refuge from the world, and as though her conscience was being narcotised.
+In that cabin, firm as solid land and yet floating on the water, with Mr.
+Gilman at hand her absolute slave--in that cabin the propaganda of women's
+suffrage presented itself as a very odd and very remote phenomenon, a
+phenomenon scarcely real. She had positively everything she wanted without
+fighting for it. The lion's share of life was hers. Comfort and luxury were
+desirable and beautiful things, not to be cast aside nor scorned. Madame
+Piriac was a wise woman and a good woman. She was a happy woman.... There
+was a great deal of ugliness in sitting on Joy Wheels and being chased by
+policemen. True, as she had heard, a crew of nineteen human beings was
+necessary to the existence of Mr. Gilman and his guests on board the yacht.
+Well, what then? The nineteen were undoubtedly well treated and in clover.
+And the world was the world; you had to take it as you found it.... And
+then in her mind she had a glimpse of the blissful face of Jane
+Foley--blissful in a different way from any other face she had met in all
+her life. Disconcerting, this glimpse, for an instant, but only for an
+instant! She, Audrey, was blissful, too. The intense desire for joy and
+pleasure surged up in her.... The bell which she had previously heard
+struck three; its delicate note vibrated long through the yacht, unwilling
+to expire. Half-past nine, and supper and the chivalry of Mr. Gilman
+waiting for them in the elegance of the saloon!
+
+As the two women approached the _portiere_ which screened the forward
+entrance to the saloon, they heard Mr. Gilman say, in a weary and resigned
+voice:
+
+"Well, I suppose there's nothing better than a whisky and soda."
+
+And the vivacious reply of a steward:
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+The owner was lounging in a corner, with a gloomy, bored look on his face.
+But as soon as the _portiere_ stirred and he saw the smiles of Madame
+Piriac and Audrey upon him, his whole demeanour changed in an instant. He
+sprang up, laughed, furtively smoothed his waistcoat, and managed to convey
+the general idea that he had a keen interest in life, and that the keenest
+part of that interest was due to a profound instinctive desire to serve
+these two beautiful benefactors of mankind--the idea apparently being that
+the charming creatures had conferred a favour on the human race by
+consenting to exist. He cooed round them, he offered them cushions, he
+inquired after their physical condition, he expressed his fear lest the
+cabins had not contained every convenience that caprice might expect. He
+was excited; surely he was happy! Audrey persuaded herself that this must,
+after all, be his true normal condition while aboard the yacht, and that
+the ennui visible on his features a moment earlier could only have been
+transient and accidental.
+
+"I am sure the piano is as wonderful as all else on board," said Madame
+Piriac.
+
+"Do play!" he entreated. "I love to hear music here. My secretary plays
+for me when I am alone."
+
+"I, who do not adore music!" Madame Piriac protested against the
+invitation. But she sat down on the clamped music stool and began a waltz.
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. Gilman, dropping into a seat by Audrey. "I wish I danced!"
+
+"But you don't mean to say you don't," said Audrey, with fascination. She
+felt that she could fascinate him, and that it was her duty to fascinate
+him.
+
+Mr. Gilman responded to the challenge.
+
+"I suppose I do," he said modestly. "We must have a dance on deck one
+night. I'll tell my secretary to get the gramophone into order. I have a
+pretty good one."
+
+"How lovely!" Audrey agreed. "I do think the _Ariadne's_ the most heavenly
+thing, Mr. Gilman! I'd no idea what a yacht was! I hope you'll tell me the
+proper names for all the various parts--you know what I mean. I hate to
+use the wrong words. It's not polite on a yacht, is it?"
+
+His smile was entranced.
+
+"You and I will go round by ourselves to-morrow morning, Mrs. Moncreiff,"
+he said.
+
+Just then the steward appeared with the whisky and soda, but Mr. Gilman
+dismissed him with a sharp gesture, and he vanished back into the
+unexplored parts of the vessel. The implication was that the society of
+Audrey made whisky and soda a superfluity for Mr. Gilman. Although she was
+so young, he treated her with exactly the same deference as he lavished on
+Madame Piriac, indeed with perhaps a little more. If Madame Piriac was for
+him the incarnation of sweetness and balm and majesty, so also was Audrey,
+and Audrey had the advantage of novelty. She was growing, morally, every
+minute. The confession of Musa had filled her with a good notion of
+herself. The impulsive flattery of Madame Piriac in the joint cabin, and
+now the sincere, grave homage of Mr. Gilman, caused her to brim over with
+consciousness that she was at last somebody.
+
+An automobile hooted on the quay, and at the disturbing sound Madame Piriac
+ceased to play and swung round on the stool.
+
+"That--that must be our other lady guest," said Mr. Gilman, who had
+developed nervousness; his cheeks flushed darkly.
+
+"Ah?" cautiously smiled Madame Piriac, who was plainly taken aback.
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Gilman. "Miss Thompkins. Before I knew for certain that
+Mrs. Moncreiff could come with you, Hortense, I asked Miss Thompkins if she
+would care to come. I only got her answer this morning--it was delayed. I
+meant to tell you.... You are a friend of Miss Thompkins, aren't you?" He
+turned to Audrey.
+
+Audrey replied gaily that she knew Tommy very well.
+
+"I'd better go up," said Mr. Gilman, and he departed, and his back, though
+a nervous back, seemed to be defying Madame Piriac and Audrey to question
+in the slightest degree his absolute right to choose his own guests on his
+own yacht.
+
+"Strange man!" muttered Madame Piriac. It was a confidence to Audrey, who
+eagerly accepted it as such. "Imagine him inviting Mees Thompkins without
+a word to us, without a word! But, you know, my dear uncle was always
+bizarre, mysterious. Yet--is he mysterious, or is he ingenuous?"
+
+"But how did he come to know Miss Thompkins?" Audrey demanded.
+
+"Ah! You have not heard that? Miss Thompkins gave a--a musical tea in her
+studio, to celebrate these concerts which are to occur. Musa asked the Foas
+to come. They consented. It was understood they should bring friends. Thus
+I went also, and Monsieur Gilman being at my orders that afternoon, he went
+too. Never have I seen so strange a multitude! But it was amusing. And all
+Paris has begun to talk of Musa. Miss Thompkins and my uncle became friends
+on the instant. I assume that it was her eyes. Also those Americans have
+vivacity, if not always distinction. Do you not think so?"
+
+"Oh, yes! And do you mean to say that on the strength of that he asked her
+to go yachting?"
+
+"Well, he had called several times."
+
+"Aren't you surprised she accepted?" asked Audrey.
+
+"No," said Madame Piriac. "It is another code, that is all. It is a
+surprise, but she will be amusing."
+
+"I'm sure she will," Audrey concurred. "I'm frightfully fond of her
+myself."
+
+They glanced at each other very intimately, like long-established allies
+who fear an aggression--and are ready for it.
+
+Then steps were heard. Miss Thompkins entered.
+
+"Well," drawled Miss Thompkins, gazing first at Audrey and then at Madame
+Piriac. "Of all the loveliest shocks----Say, Musa----"
+
+Behind her stood Musa. It appeared that he had been able to get away by the
+same train as Tommy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+THE NOSTRUM
+
+
+The hemisphere of heaven was drenched in moonlight, and--rare happening
+either on British earth or on the waters surrounding it, in mid-summer--the
+night was warm. In the midst of the glittering sea the yacht moved without
+the appearance of motion; only by leaning over the rail and watching the
+bubbles glide away from her could you detect her progress. There were no
+waves, no ripples, nothing but a scarcely perceptible swell. The gentle
+breeze, unnoticeable on deck, was abaft; all the sails had been lowered and
+stowed except the large square sail bent on a yard to the mainmast and
+never used except with such a wind. The _Ariadne_ had a strong flood tide
+under her, and her 200-h.p. twin motors were stopped. Hence there was no
+tremor in the ship and no odour of paraffin in the nostrils of those who
+chanced to wander aft of the engine-room. The deck awning had been rolled
+up to the centre, and at the four corners of its frame had been hung four
+temporary electric lights within Chinese lanterns. A radiance ascended from
+the saloon skylight; the windows of the deck-house blazed as usual, but the
+deck-house was empty; a very subdued glow indicated where the binnacle was.
+And, answering these signs of existence, could be distinguished the red and
+green lights of steamers, the firm rays of lighthouses, and the red or
+white warnings of gas-buoys run by clockwork.
+
+The figures of men and women--the women in pale gowns, the men in
+blue-and-white--lounged or strolled on the spotless deck which unseen hands
+swabbed and stoned every morning at 6 o'clock; and among these figures
+passed the figure of a steward with a salver, staying them with flagons,
+comforting them with the finest exotic fruit. Occasionally the huge square
+sail gave an idle flap. "Get that lead out, 'Orace," commanded a grim voice
+from the wheel. A splash followed, as a man straddled himself over the
+starboard bow, swung a weighted line to and fro and threw it from him.
+"Four." Another splash. "Four." Another splash. "Four." Another splash.
+"Three-half." Another splash. "Three-half." Another splash. "Three."
+Another splash. "Two-half." Another splash. "Three." Another splash.
+"Five." "That'll do, 'Orace," came the voice from the wheel. Then an
+entranced silence.
+
+The scene had the air of being ideal. And yet it was not. Something lacked.
+That something was the owner. The owner lay indisposed in the sacred
+owner's cabin. And this was a pity because a dance had been planned for
+that night. It might have taken place without the owner, but the strains of
+the gramophone and especially the shuffling of feet on the deck would have
+disturbed him. True, he had sent up word by Doctor Cromarty that he was not
+to be considered. But the doctor had delivered the message without any
+conviction, and the unanimous decision was that the owner must, at all
+costs, be considered.
+
+It was Ostend, on top of the owner's original offer to Audrey, that had
+brought about the suggestion of a dance. They had coasted up round
+Gris-Nez from Boulogne to Ostend, and had reached the harbour there barely
+in time to escape from the worst of a tempest that had already begun to
+produce in the minds of sundry passengers a grave doubt whether yachting
+was, after all, the most delightful of pursuits. Some miles before the
+white dome of the Kursaal was sighted the process of moral decadence had
+set in, and passengers were lying freely to each other, and boastfully
+lying, just as though somebody had been accusing them of some dreadful
+crime of cowardice or bad breeding instead of merely inquiring about the
+existence of physical symptoms over which they admittedly had no control
+whatever. The security of a harbour, with a railway station not fifty
+yards from the yacht's bowsprit, had restored them, by dint of calming
+secret fears, to their customary condition of righteousness and rectitude.
+Several days of gusty rainstorms had elapsed at Ostend, and the passengers
+had had the opportunity to study the method of managing a yacht, and to
+visit the neighbourhood. The one was as wondrous as the other. They found
+letters and British and French newspapers on their plates at breakfast. And
+the first object they had seen on the quay, and the last object they saw
+there, was the identical large limousine which they had left on the quay at
+Boulogne. It would have taken them to Ghent but for the owner's powerful
+objection to their eating any meal off the yacht. Seemingly he had a great
+and sincere horror of local viands and particularly of local water. He was
+their slave; they might demand anything from him; he was the very symbol of
+hospitality and chivalry, but somehow they could not compass a meal away
+from the yacht. Similarly, he would have them leave the Kursaal not later
+than ten o'clock, when the evening had not veritably begun. They did not
+clearly understand by what means he imposed his will, but he imposed it.
+
+The departure from Ostend was accomplished after the glass had begun to
+rise, but before it had finished rising, and there were apprehensions in
+the saloon and out of it, when the spectacle of the open sea, and the feel
+of it under the feet, showed that, as of old, water was still unstable. The
+process of moral decadence would have set in once more but for the prudence
+and presence of mind of Audrey, who had laid in a large stock of the
+specific which had been of such notable use to herself and Miss Ingate on
+previous occasions. Praising openly its virtues, confessing frankly her own
+weakness and preaching persuasively her own faith, she had distributed the
+nostrum, and in about a quarter of an hour had established a justifiable
+confidence. Mr. Gilman alone would not partake, and indeed she had hardly
+dared to offer the thing to so experienced a sailor. The day had favoured
+her. The sea grew steadily more tranquil, and after skirting the Belgian
+and French coasts for some little distance the _Ariadne_, under orders, had
+turned her nose boldly northward for the estuary of the Thames. The
+_Ariadne_ was now in the midst of that very complicated puzzle of deeps and
+shallows. The passengers, in fact, knew that they were in the region of the
+North Edinburgh, but what or where the North Edinburgh was they had only
+the vaguest idea. The blot on the voyage had been the indisposition of Mr.
+Gilman, who had taken to his berth early, and who saw nobody but his
+doctor, through whom he benignantly administered the world of the yacht.
+Doctor Cromarty had a face which imparted nothing and yet implied
+everything. He said less and meant more than even the average pure-blooded
+Scotsman. It was imparted that Mr. Gilman had a chronic complaint. The
+implications were vast and baffling.
+
+"We shall dance after all," said Miss Thompkins, bending with a mysterious
+gesture over Audrey, who reclined in a deck-chair near the companion
+leading to the deserted engine-room. Miss Thompkins was dressed in lacy
+white, with a string of many tinted beads round her slim neck. Her tawny
+hair was arranged in a large fluffiness, and the ensemble showed to a
+surprised Audrey what Miss Thompkins could accomplish when she deemed the
+occasion to be worthy of an effort.
+
+"Shall we? What makes you think so, dear?" absently asked Audrey, in whom
+the scene had induced profound reflections upon life and the universe.
+
+"He'll come up on deck," said Miss Thompkins, disclosing her teeth in an
+inscrutable smile that the moonbeams made more strange than it actually
+was. "Like to know how I know? Sure you'd like to know, Mrs. Simplicity?"
+Her beads rattled above Audrey's insignificant upturned nose. "Isn't a
+yacht the queerest little self-contained state you ever visited? It's as
+full of party politics as Massachusetts; and that's some. Well, I didn't
+use all my medicine you gave me. Didn't need it. So I've shared it with
+_him_. I got the empty packet with all the instructions on it, and I put
+two of my tablets in it, and if he hasn't swallowed them by this time my
+name isn't Anne Tuckett Thompkins."
+
+"But you don't mean he's been----"
+
+"Audrey, you're making a noise like a goose. 'Course I do."
+
+"But how did you manage to----"
+
+"I gave them to Mr. Price, with instructions to leave them by
+the--er--bedside. Mr. Price is a friend. I hope I've made that plain these
+days to everybody, including Mr. Gilman. Mr. Price is a good sample of
+what painters are liable to come to after they've found out they don't care
+for the smell of oil-tubes. I knew him when he always said 'Puvis' instead
+of 'Puvis de Chavannes.' He's cured now. If I hadn't happened to know he'd
+be on board I shouldn't have dared to come. He's my lifebuoy."
+
+"But I assure you, Tommy, Mr. Gilman refused the stuff from me. He did."
+
+"Oh! Dove! Wood-pigeon! Of course he refused it. He was bound to. Owner of
+a two-hundred-and-fifty-ton yacht taking a remedy for sea-sickness in
+public on the two-hundred-and-fifty-ton yacht! The very idea makes you
+shiver. But he'll take it down there. And he won't ask any questions. And
+he'll hide it from the doctor. And he'll pretend, and he'll expect
+everybody else to pretend, that he's never been within a mile of the
+stuff."
+
+"Tommy, I don't believe you."
+
+"And he's a lovely man, all the same."
+
+"Tommy, I don't believe you."
+
+"Yes, you do. You'd like not to, but you can't help it. I sometimes do
+bruise people badly in their organ of illusions-about-human-nature, but it
+is fun, after all, isn't it?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Getting down to the facts."
+
+Accompanied by the tattoo of her necklace, Miss Thompkins moved away in the
+direction of Madame Piriac, who was engaged with Musa.
+
+"Admit I'm rather brilliant to-night," she threw over her shoulder.
+
+The dice seem to be always loaded in favour of the Misses Thompkins of
+society. Less than a quarter of an hour later Doctor Cromarty, showing his
+head just above the level of the deck, called out:
+
+"Price, ye can wind up that box o' yours. Mr. Gilman is coming on deck.
+He's wonderful better."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+BY THE BINNACLE
+
+
+The owner was at the wheel. But he had not got there at once. This singular
+man, who strangely enough was wearing one of his most effulgent and
+heterogeneous club neckties, had begun by dancing. He danced with all three
+ladies, one after the other; and he did not merely dance--he danced
+modernly, he danced the new dances to the new tunes, given off like
+intoxicating gas from the latest of gramophones. He knew how to hold the
+arm of a woman above her head, while coiling his own around it in the
+manner of a snake, and he knew how to make his very body a vast
+syncopation. The effect of his arrival was as singular as himself. Captain
+Wyatt, Doctor Cromarty and Mr. Price withdrew to that portion of the deck
+about the wheel which convention had always roped off for them with
+invisible ropes. The captain, by custom, messed by himself, whereas the
+other two had their meals in the saloon, entering and leaving quickly and
+saying little while at table. But apart from meals the three formed a
+separate clan on the yacht. The indisposition of the owner had dissolved
+this clan into the general population of the saloon. The recovery of the
+owner re-created it. Mr. Price had suddenly begun to live arduously for the
+gramophone alone. And when summoned by the owner to come and form half of
+the third couple for dancing, Doctor Cromarty had the air of arousing
+himself from a meditation upon medicine. Also, the passengers themselves
+danced with conscientiousness, with elaborate gusto and with an earnest
+desire to reach a high standard. And between dances everybody went up to
+Mr. Gilman and said how lovely it all was. And it really was lovely.
+
+Mr. Gilman had taken the wheel after about the sixth dance. Approaching
+Audrey, who owed him the next dance, he had said that the skipper had
+hinted something about his taking the wheel and he thought he had better
+oblige the old fellow, if Audrey was quite, quite sure she didn't mind, and
+would she come and sit by him instead--for one dance?  ... As soon as two
+sailors had fixed cushions for Audrey, and the skipper had given the owner
+the course, all persons seemed to withdraw respectfully from the pair, who
+were in the shadow of a great spar, with the glimmer of the binnacle just
+in front of them. The square sail had been lowered, and the engines
+started, and a steady, faint throb kept the yacht mysteriously alive in
+every plank of her. The gramophone and the shuffle of feet continued,
+because Mr. Gilman had expressly desired that his momentary defection with
+a lady and in obedience to duty should not bring the ball to an end.
+Laughter and even giggles came from the ballroom. Males were dancing
+together. The power of the moon had increased. The binnacle-light, however,
+threw up a radiance of its own on to Mr. Gilman's lowered face, the face of
+a kind, a good, and a dependably expert individuality who was watching over
+the safety, the welfare and the highest interests of every soul on board.
+
+"I was very sorry to be laid up to-day," Mr. Gilman began suddenly, in a
+very quiet voice, frowning benevolently at the black pointer on the
+compass. "But, of course, you know my great enemy."
+
+"No, I don't," said Audrey gently.
+
+"Hasn't Doc told you?"
+
+"Doctor Cromarty? No, he doesn't tell much."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Gilman, looking round quickly and shyly, rather in the
+manner of a boy, "it's liver."
+
+Audrey seemed to read in his face, first, that Doctor Cromarty had received
+secret orders never to tell anybody anything, and, second, that the great
+enemy was not liver. And she thought: "So this is human nature! Mature
+men, wise men, dignified men, do descend to these paltry deceits just in
+order to keep up appearances, though they must know quite well that they
+don't deceive anyone who is worth deceiving." The remarkable fact was that
+she did not feel in the least shocked or disdainful. She merely
+decided--and found a certain queer pleasure in the decision--that human
+nature was a curious phenomenon, and that there must be a lot of it on
+earth. And she felt kindly towards Mr. Gilman.
+
+"If you'd said gout----" she remarked. "I always understood that men
+generally had gout." And she consciously, with intention, employed a
+simple, innocent tone, knowing that it misled Mr. Gilman, and wanting it to
+mislead him.
+
+"No!" he went on. "Liver. All sailors suffer from it, more or less. It's
+the bugbear of the sea. I have a doctor on board because, with a score or
+so of crew, it's really a duty to have a doctor."
+
+"I quite see that," Audrey agreed, thinking mildly: "You only have a doctor
+on board because you're always worrying about your own health."
+
+"However," said Mr. Gilman, "he's not much use to me personally. He doesn't
+understand liver. Scotsmen never do. Fortunately, I have a very good doctor
+in Paris. I prefer French doctors. And I'm sure they're right on the great
+liver question. All English doctors tell you to take plenty of violent
+exercise if you want to shake off a liver attack. Quite wrong. Too much
+exercise tires the body and so it tires the liver as well--obviously.
+What's the result? You can see, can't you? The liver works worse than ever.
+Now, a French doctor will advise complete rest until the attack is over.
+_Then_ exercise, if you like; but not before. Of course, _you_ don't know
+you've got a liver, and I dare say you think it's very odd of me to talk
+about my liver. I'm sure you do."
+
+"I don't, honestly. I like you to talk like that. It's very interesting."
+And she thought: "Suppose Tommy was wrong, after all! ... She's very
+spiteful."
+
+"That's you all over, Mrs. Moncreiff. You understand men far better than
+any other woman I ever saw, unless, perhaps, it's Madame Piriac."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Gilman! How can you say such a thing?"
+
+"It's not the first time you've heard it, I wager!" said Mr. Gilman. "And
+it won't be the last! Any man who knows women can see at once that you are
+one of the women who understand. Otherwise, do you imagine I should have
+begun upon my troubles?"
+
+Now, at any rate, he was sincere--she was convinced of that. And he looked
+very smart as he spied the horizon for lights and peered at the compass,
+and moved the wheel at intervals with a strong, accustomed gesture. And,
+assuredly, he looked very experienced. Audrey blushed. She just had to
+believe that there must be something in what he said concerning her talent.
+She had noticed it herself several times.
+
+In an interval of the music the sea washed with a long sound against the
+bow of the yacht; then silence.
+
+"I do love that sudden wash against the yacht," said Audrey.
+
+"Yes," agreed Mr. Gilman, "so do I. All doctors tell me that I should be
+better if I gave up yachting. But I won't. I couldn't. Whatever it costs in
+health, yachting's worth it."
+
+"Oh! It must be!" cried Audrey, with enthusiasm. "I've never been on a
+yacht before, but I quite agree with you. I feel as if I could live on a
+yacht for ever--always going to new places, you know; that's how I feel."
+
+"You do?" Mr. Gilman exclaimed and gazed at her for a moment with a sort of
+ecstasy. Audrey instinctively checked herself. "There's a freemasonry among
+those who like yachting." His eyes returned to the compass. "I've kept
+your secret. I've kept it like something precious. I've enjoyed keeping
+it. It's been a comfort to me. Now I wonder if you'll do the same for me,
+Mrs. Moncreiff?"
+
+"Do what?" Audrey asked weakly, intimidated.
+
+"Keep a secret. I shouldn't dream of telling it to Madame Piriac. Will you?
+May I tell you?"
+
+"Yes, if you think you can trust me," said Audrey, concealing, with amazing
+ease and skill, her excitement and her mighty pleasure in the scene.... "He
+wouldn't dream of telling it to Madame Piriac." ...It is doubtful whether
+she had ever enjoyed anything so much, and yet she was as prim as a nun.
+
+"I'm not a happy man, Mrs. Moncreiff. Materially, I've everything a man can
+want, I suppose. But I'm not happy. You may laugh and say it's my liver.
+But it isn't. You're a woman of the world; you know what life is; and yet
+experience hasn't spoilt you. I could say anything to you; anything! And
+you wouldn't be shocked, would you?"
+
+"No," said Audrey, hoping, nevertheless, that he would not say "anything,
+anything," but somehow simultaneously hoping that he would. It was a
+disconcerting sensation.
+
+"I want you always to remember that I'm unhappy and never to tell anybody,"
+Mr. Gilman resumed.
+
+"But why?"
+
+"It will be a kindness to me."
+
+"I mean, why are you unhappy?"
+
+"My opinions have all changed. I used to think I could be independent of
+women. Not that I didn't like women!  I did. But when I'd left them I was
+quite happy. You know what the facts of life are, Mrs. Moncreiff. Young as
+you are you are older than me in some respects, though I have a long life
+before me. It's just because I have a long life before me--dyspeptics are
+always long-lived--that I'm afraid for the future. It wouldn't matter so
+much if I was an old man."
+
+"But," asked Audrey adventurously, "why should you be unhappy because your
+opinions have changed? What opinions?" She endeavoured to be perfectly
+judicial and indifferent, and yet kind.
+
+"What opinions? Well, about Woman Suffrage, for instance. You remember that
+night at the Foas', and what I remarked afterwards about what you all
+said?"
+
+"Yes, I remember," said Audrey. "But can _you_ remember it? Fancy you
+remembering a thing like that!"
+
+"I remember every word that was said. It changed me.... Not at first. Oh,
+no! Not for several days, perhaps weeks. I fought against it. Then I said
+to myself, 'How absurd to fight against it!' ... Well, I've come to believe
+in women having the vote. You've no more stanch supporter than I am. I
+_want_ women to have the vote. And you're the first person I've ever said
+that to. I want _you_ to have the vote."
+
+He smiled at her, and she saw scores and scores of excellent qualities in
+his smile; she could not believe that he had any defect whatever. His
+secret was precious to her. She considered that he had confided it to her
+in a manner both distinguished and poetical. He had shown a quality which
+no youth could have shown. Youths were inferior, crude, incomplete. Not
+that Mr. Gilman was not young! Emphatically he was young, but her
+conception of the number of years comprised in youthfulness had been
+enlarged. She saw, as in a magical enlightenment, that forty was young,
+fifty was young, any age was young provided it had the right gestures. As
+for herself, she was without age. The obvious fact that Mr. Gilman was her
+slave touched her; it saddened her, but sweetly; it gave her a new sense of
+responsibility.
+
+She said:
+
+"I still don't see why this change of view should make you unhappy. I
+should have thought it would have just the opposite effect."
+
+"It has altered all my desires," he replied. "Do you know, I'm not really
+interested in this new yacht now! And that's the truth."
+
+"Mr. Gilman!" she checked him. "How can you say such a thing?"
+
+It now appeared that she was not a nice girl. If she had been a nice girl
+she would not have comprehended what Mr. Gilman was ultimately driving at.
+The word "marriage" would never have sounded in her brain. And she would
+have been startled and shocked had Mr. Gilman even hinted that there was
+such a word in the dictionary. But not being, after all, a nice girl, she
+actually dwelt on the notion of marriage with somebody exactly like Mr.
+Gilman. She imagined how fine and comfortable and final it would be. She
+admitted that despite her riches and her independence she would be and
+could be simply naught until she possessed a man and could show him to the
+world as her own. Strange attitude for a wealthy feminist, but she had the
+attitude! And, moreover, she enjoyed having it; she revelled in it. She
+desired, impatiently, that Mr. Gilman should proceed further. She thirsted
+for his next remark. And her extremely deceptive features displayed only a
+blend of simplicity and soft pity. Those features did not actually lie, for
+she was ingenuous without being aware of it and her pity for the
+fellow-creature whose lot she could assuage with a glance was real enough.
+But they did suppress about nine-tenths of the truth.
+
+"I tell you," said Mr. Gilman, "there is nothing I could not say to you.
+And--and--of course, you'll say I scarcely know you--yet----"
+
+Clearly he was proceeding further. She waited as in a theatre one waits for
+a gun to go off on the stage. And then the gun did go off, but not the gun
+she was expecting.
+
+Skipper Wyatt's head popped up like a cannon shot out of a hole in the
+forward deck, and it gazed sharply and apprehensively around the calm,
+moonlit sea. Mr. Gilman was, beyond question, perturbed by the movements of
+that head, though he could not see the expression of the eyes. This was
+the first phenomenon. The second phenomenon was a swirling of water round
+the after part of the ship, and this swirling went on until the water was
+white with a thin foam.
+
+"Reverse those d----d engines!" shouted Captain Wyatt, quite regardless of
+the proximity of refined women. He had now sprung clear of the hole and
+was running aft. The whole world of the yacht could not but see that he
+was coatless and that his white shirtsleeves, being rather long, were kept
+in position by red elastic rings round his arms. "Is that blithering
+engineer asleep?" continued Captain Wyatt, ignoring the whole system of
+yacht etiquette. "She's getting harder on every second!"
+
+"Ay, ay, skipper!" came a muffled voice from the engine-room.
+
+"And not too soon either!" snapped the captain.
+
+The yacht throbbed more violently; the swirling increased furiously. The
+captain stared over the rail. Then, after an interval, he stamped on the
+deck in disgust.
+
+"Shut off!" he yelled. "It's no good."
+
+The yacht ceased to throb. The swirling came to an end, and the thin white
+foam faded into flat sombre water. Whereupon Captain Wyatt turned back to
+the wheel, which, in his extreme haste, he had passed by.
+
+"You've run her on to the sand, sir," said he to Mr. Gilman, respectfully
+but still accusingly.
+
+"Oh, no! Impossible!" Mr. Gilman defended himself, pained by the charge.
+
+"She's hard on, anyhow, sir. And many a good yacht's left her bones on this
+Buxey."
+
+"But you gave me the course," protested Mr. Gilman, with haughtiness.
+
+Captain Wyatt bent down and looked at the binnacle. He was contentedly
+aware that the compass of a yacht hard aground cannot lie and cannot be
+made to lie. The camera can lie; the speedometer of an automobile after an
+accident can lie--or can conceal the truth and often does, but the compass
+of a yacht aground is insusceptible to any blandishment; it shows the
+course at the moment of striking and nothing will persuade it to alter its
+evidence.
+
+"What course did I give you, sir?" asked Captain Wyatt.
+
+And as Mr. Gilman hesitated in his reply, the skipper pointed silently to
+the compass.
+
+"Where's the chart? Let me see the chart," said Mr. Gilman with sudden
+majesty.
+
+The chart in its little brass frame was handy. Mr. Gilman examined it in a
+hostile manner; one might say that he cross-examined it, and with it the
+horizon. "Ah!" he muttered at length, peering at the print under the chart,
+"'Corrected 1906.' Out of date. Pity they don't re-issue these charts
+oftener."
+
+His observations had no relation whatever to the matter in hand; considered
+as a contribution to the unravelling of the matter in hand they were merely
+idiotic. Nevertheless, such were the exact words he uttered, and he
+appeared to get great benefit and solace from them. They somehow enabled
+him to meet, quite satisfactorily, the gaze of his guests who had now
+gathered in the vicinity of the wheel.
+
+Audrey alone showed a desire to move away from the wheel. The fact was that
+the skipper had glanced at her in a peculiar way and his eyes had seemed to
+say, with disdain: "Women! Women again!" Nothing but that!  The
+implications, however, were plain. Audrey may have been discountenanced by
+the look in the captain's eyes, but at the same time she had an inward
+pride, because it was undeniable that Mr. Gilman, owing to his extreme and
+agitated interest in herself, had put the yacht off the course and was
+thereby imperilling numerous lives. Audrey liked that. And she exonerated
+Mr. Gilman, and she hated the captain for daring to accuse him, and she
+mysteriously nursed the wounded dignity of Mr. Gilman far better than he
+could nurse it himself.
+
+Her feelings were assuredly complex, and they grew more complex when the
+sense of danger began to dominate them. The sense of danger came to her out
+of the demeanour of her companions and out of the swift appearance on deck
+of every member of the crew, including the parlourmaid, and including three
+men who were incompletely clothed. The yacht was no longer a floating
+hotel, automobile and dancing-saloon; it was a stranded wreck. Not a
+passenger on board knew whether the tide was making or ebbing, but,
+secretly, all were convinced that it was ebbing and that they would be left
+on the treacherous sand and ultimately swallowed up therein, even if a
+storm did not supervene and smash the craft to bits in the classical
+manner. The skipper's words about the bones of many a good yacht had
+escaped no ear.
+
+Further, not a passenger knew where the yacht was or whither, exactly, she
+was bound or whether the glass was rising or falling, for guests on yachts
+seldom concern themselves about details. Of course, signals might be made
+to passing ships, but signals were often, according to maritime history,
+unheeded, and the ocean was very large and empty, though it was only the
+German Ocean.... Musa was nervous and angry. Audrey knew from her intimate
+knowledge of him that he was angry and she wondered why he should be angry.
+Madame Piriac, on the other hand, was entirely calm. Her calmness seemed to
+say to those responsible, and even to the not-responsible passenger: "You
+got me into this and it is inconceivable that you should not get me out of
+it. I have always been looked after and protected, and I must be looked
+after and protected now. I absolutely decline to be worried." But Miss
+Thompkins was worried, she was very seriously alarmed; fear was in her
+face.
+
+"I do think it's a shame!" she broke out almost loudly, in a trembling
+voice, to Audrey. "I do think it's a shame you should go flirting with poor
+Mr. Gilman when he's steering." And she meant all she said.
+
+"Me flirting!" Audrey exclaimed, passionately resentful.
+
+Withal, the sense of danger continued to increase. Still there were the
+boats. There were the motor-launch, the cutter and the dinghy. The sea
+was--for the present--calm and the moon encouraging.
+
+"Lower the dinghy there and look lively now!" cried the captain.
+
+This command more than ever frightened all the passengers who, in their
+nervousness and alarm, had tried to pretend to themselves that nervousness
+and alarm were absurd, and that first-class yachts never did, and could
+not, get wrecked. The command was a thunderstroke. It proved that the
+danger was immediate and intense. And the thought of all the beautiful food
+and drink on board, and all the soft cushions and the electric hair-curlers
+and the hot-water supply and the ice gave no consolation whatever. The
+idea of the futility and wickedness of luxury desolated the guests and made
+them austere, and yet even in that moment they speculated upon what goods
+they might take with them.
+
+And why the dinghy, though it was a dinghy of large size? Why not the
+launch?
+
+After the dinghy had been dropped into the sea an old sail was carefully
+spread amidships over her bottom and she was lugged, by her painter,
+towards the bow of the yacht where, with much grating of windlasses and of
+temperaments and voices, an anchor was very gently lowered into her and
+rested on the old sail. The anchor was so immense that it sank the dinghy
+up to Her gunwale, and then she was rowed away to a considerable distance,
+a chain grinding after her, and in due time the anchor was pitched with a
+great splash into the water. The sound of orders and of replies vibrated
+romantically over the surface of the water. Then a windlass was connected
+with the engine, and the passengers comprehended that the intention was to
+drag the yacht off the sand by main force. The chain clacked and strained
+horribly. The shouting multiplied, as though the vessel had been a great
+beast that could be bullied into obedience. The muscles of all passengers
+were drawn taut in sympathy with the chain, and at length there was a lurch
+and the chain gradually slackened.
+
+"She's off!" breathed the captain. "We've saved a good half-hour."
+
+"She'd have floated off by herself," said Mr. Gilman grandly.
+
+"Yes, sir," said the captain. "But if it had happened to be the ebb, sir--"
+He left it at that and began on a new series of orders, embracing the
+dinghy, the engines, the anchor and another anchor.
+
+And all the passengers resumed their courage and their ancient notions
+about the excellence of luxury, and came to the conclusion that navigation
+was a very simple affair, and in less than five minutes were sincerely
+convinced that they had never known fear.
+
+Later, the impressive sight was witnessed of Madame Piriac, on her
+shoulders such a cloak as certainly had never been seen on a yacht before,
+bearing Mr. Gilman's valuable violin like a jewel casket. She had found it
+below and brought it up on deck.
+
+The _Ariadne_, was now passing to port those twinkling cities of delight,
+Clacton and Frinton, and the long pier of Walton stretched out towards it,
+a string of topazes. The moon was higher and brighter than ever, but clouds
+had heaped themselves up to windward, and the surface of the water was
+rippled. Moreover, the yacht was now working over a strong, foul tide. The
+company, with the exception of Mr. Gilman, who had gone below--apparently
+in order to avoid being on the same deck with Captain Wyatt--had decided
+that Musa should be asked to play. Although the sound of his practising had
+escaped occasionally through the porthole of a locked cabin, he had not
+once during the cruise performed for the public benefit. Dancing was
+finished. Why should not the yacht profit by the presence of a great genius
+on board? The doctor and the secretary were of one mind with the women that
+there was no good answer to this question, and even the crew obviously felt
+that the genius ought to show what he was made of.
+
+"Dare we ask you?" said Madame Piriac to the youth, offering him the violin
+case. Her supplicatory tone and attitude, though they were somewhat
+assumed, proved to what a height Musa had recently risen as a personage.
+
+He hesitated, leaning against the rail and nervously fingering it.
+
+"I know it is a great deal to ask. But you would give us so much pleasure,"
+said Madame Piriac.
+
+Musa replied in a dry, curt voice:
+
+"I should prefer not to play."
+
+"Oh! But Musa--" There was a general protest.
+
+"I cannot play," Musa exclaimed with impatience, and moved almost savagely
+away.
+
+The experience was novel for Madame Piriac, left standing there, as it
+were, respectfully presenting the violin case to the rail. This beautiful
+and not unpampered lady was accustomed to see her commands received as an
+honour; and when she condescended to implore, the effect usually was to
+produce a blissful and deprecatory confusion in the person besought. Her
+husband and Mr. Gilman had for a number of years been teaching her that
+whatever she desired was the highest good and the most complete felicity to
+everybody concerned in the fulfilment of the desire. She bore the blow from
+Musa admirably, keeping both her smile and her dignity, and with one
+gesture excusing Musa to all beholders as a capricious and a sensitive
+artist in whom moodiness was lawful. It was exquisitely done. It could not
+have been better done. But not even Madame Piriac's extreme skill could
+save the episode from having the air of a social disaster. The gaiety which
+had been too feverishly resumed after the salvage of the yacht from the
+sandbank expired like a pricked balloon. People silently vanished, and only
+Audrey was left on the after deck.
+
+It was after a long interval that she became aware of the reappearance of
+Musa. Seemingly, he had been in the engine-room; since the beginning of the
+cruise he had shown a fancy for both the engine-room and the engineer. To
+her surprise, he marched straight towards her deckchair.
+
+"I must speak to you," he said with emotion.
+
+"Must you?" Audrey replied, full of hot resentment. "I think you've been
+horrid, Musa. Perfectly horrid! But I suppose you have your own notions of
+politeness now. Everything has been done for you, and--"
+
+"What is that?" he stopped her. "Everything has been done for me. What is
+it that has been done for me? I play for years, I am ignored. Then I
+succeed. I am noticed. Men of affairs offer me immense sums.  But am I
+surprised? Not the least in the world. It is the contrary which would have
+surprised me. It was inevitable that I should succeed. But note well--it is
+I myself who succeed. It is not my friends. It is not the concert agent. Do
+I regard the concert agent as a benefactor? Again, not the least in the
+world. You say everything has been done for me. Nothing has been done for
+me, Madame."
+
+"Yes, yes," faltered Audrey, who was in a dilemma, and therefore more
+resentful than ever. "I--I only mean your friends have always stood by
+you." She gathered courage, sat up erect in her deck-chair, and finished
+haughtily: "And now you're conceited. You're insufferably conceited."
+
+"Because I refused to play?" He laughed stridently and grimly. "No. I
+refused to play because I could not, because I was outside myself with
+jealousy. Yes, jealousy. You do not know jealousy. Perhaps you are
+incapable of it. But permit me to tell you, Madame, that jealousy is one of
+the finest and most terrible emotions. And that is why I must speak to
+you. I cannot live and see you flirt so seriously with that old idiot. I
+cannot live."
+
+Audrey jumped up from the chair.
+
+"Musa! I shall never speak to you again.... Me ... flirt.... And you call
+Mr. Gilman an old idiot!"
+
+"What words would you employ, Madame? He was so agitated by your intimate
+conversation that he brought us all near to death, in any case. Moreover,
+it jumps to the eyes that the decrepit satyr is mad about you. Mad!"
+
+And Musa's voice broke. In the midst of all her fury Audrey was relieved
+that it did break, for the reason that it was getting very loud, and the
+wheel, with Captain Wyatt thereat, was not far off.
+
+There was one thing to do, and Audrey did it. She walked away rapidly. And,
+as she did so, she was startled to discover a sob in her throat. The drawn,
+highly emotionalised face of Musa remained with her. She was angry,
+indignant, infuriated, and yet her feelings were not utterly unpleasant,
+though she wanted them to be so. In the first place, they were exciting.
+And in the second place--what was it?--well, she had the strange, sweet
+sensation of being, somehow, the mainspring of the universe, of being
+immensely important in the scheme of things.
+
+She thought her cup was full. It was not. Staring blankly over the side of
+the ship she saw a buoy float slowly by. She saw it with the utmost
+clearness, and on its round black surface was painted in white letters the
+word "Flank." There could not be two Flank buoys. It was the Flank buoy of
+the Mozewater navigable channel. ... She glanced around. The
+well-remembered shores of Mozewater were plainly visible under the moon. In
+the distance, over the bowsprit, she could discern the mass of the tower of
+Mozewater church. She could not distinguish Flank Hall, but she knew it was
+there. Why were they threading the Mozewater channel? It had been
+distinctly given out that the yacht would make Harwich harbour. Almost
+unconsciously she turned in the direction of the wheel, where Captain Wyatt
+was. Then, controlling herself, she moved away. She knew that she could not
+speak to the captain. She went below, and, before she could escape, found
+the saloon populated.
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Moncreiff!" cried Madame Piriac. "It is a miraculous coincidence.
+You will never guess. One tells me we are going to the village of Moze for
+the night; it is because of the tide. You remember, I told you. It is where
+lives my little friend, Audrey Moze. To-morrow I visit her, and you must
+come with me. I insist that you come with me. I have never seen her. It
+will be all that is most palpitating."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+AGUILAR'S DOUBLE LIFE
+
+Madame Piriac came down into the saloon the next afternoon.
+
+"Oh! You are still hiding yourself here!" she murmured gaily to Audrey, who
+was alone among the cushions.
+
+"I was just resting," said Audrey. "Remember what a night we had!"
+
+It was true that the yacht had not been berthed at Lousey Hard until
+between two and three o'clock in the morning, and that no guest had slept
+until after the job was done, though more than one had tried to sleep. It
+was also true that in consequence the saloon breakfast had been abrogated,
+that even the saloon lunch lacked vicacity, and that at least one passenger
+was at that moment dozing in his cabin. But not on account of fatigue and
+somnolence was Audrey remaining in the saloon instead of taking the
+splendid summer afternoon on deck under the awning. She felt neither tired
+nor sleepy. The true secret was that she feared the crowd of village
+idlers, quidnuncs, tattlers and newsmongers who all day gazed from Lousey
+Hard at the wonder-yacht.
+
+Examining the line of faces as well as she could through portholes, she
+recognised nearly every one of them, and was quite sure that every one of
+them would recognise her face. To go ashore or to stay prominently on deck
+would, therefore, be to give away her identity and to be forced, sooner or
+later, to admit that she had practised a long and naughty deception. She
+could conceive some of those villagers greeting her loudly from the Hard if
+she should appear; for Essex manners were marked by strange freedoms. Her
+situation would be terrible. It, in fact, was terrible. Risks surrounded
+her like angry dogs. Musa, for example, ought surely to have noticed that
+the estuary in which the yacht lay was the same estuary which he had seen
+not long before from the garden of the house stated by Audrey to be her
+own, and he ought to have commented eagerly on the marvellous coincidence.
+Happily, he had not yet done so--no doubt because he had spent most of the
+time in bed. If and when he did so there would naturally be an excited
+outcry and a heavy rain of amazed questions which simply could not be
+answered.
+
+"I am going almost at once to call on my little friend Audrey Moze, at
+Flank Hall," said Madame Piriac. "The house looks delicious from the deck.
+If you will come up I will show it to you. It is precisely like the picture
+post card which the dear little one sent to me last year. Are you ready to
+come with me?"
+
+"But, darling, hadn't you better go alone?"
+
+"But certainly not, darling! You are not serious. The meeting will be very
+agitating. With a third person, however, it will be less so. I count on you
+absolutely, as I have said already. Nay, I insist. I invoke your
+friendship."
+
+"She may be out. She may be away altogether."
+
+"In that case we shall return," said Madame Piriac briefly, and, not giving
+Audrey time to reply further, she vanished, with a firm carriage and an
+obstinate look in her eyes, towards the sleeping-cabins.
+
+The next instant Mr. Gilman himself entered the saloon.
+
+"Mrs. Moncreiff," he started nervously, in a confidential and deprecating
+tone, "this is the first chance I have had to tell you. We came into
+Mozewater without my orders. I won't say against my orders, but certainly
+not with them. On the plea that I had retired, Captain Wyatt changed our
+destination last night without going through the formality of consulting
+me. We ought to have made Harwich, but I am now told that we were running
+short of paraffin, and that if we had continued to Harwich we should have
+had the worst of the tide against us, whereas in coming up Mozewater the
+tide helped us; also that Captain Wyatt did not care about trying to get
+into Harwich harbour at night with the wind in its present quarter, and
+rising as it was then. Of course, Wyatt is responsible for the safety of
+the ship, and it is true that I had her designed with a very light draught
+on purpose for such waters as Mozewater; but he ought to have consulted me.
+We might get away again on this tide, but Hortense will not hear of it. She
+has a call to pay, she says. I can only tell you how sorry I am. And I do
+hope you will forgive me." The sincerity and alarm of his manly apology
+were touching.
+
+"But, Mr. Gilman," said Audrey, with the simplicity which more and more she
+employed in talking to her host, "there is nothing to forgive. What can it
+matter to me whether we come here or go to Harwich?"
+
+"I thought, I was afraid--" Mr. Gilman hesitated.
+
+"In short ... your secret, Mrs. Moncreiff, which you asked me to keep, and
+which I have kept. It was here, at this very spot, with my old barge-yacht,
+that I first had the pleasure of meeting you. And I thought ... perhaps
+you had reasons.... However, your secret is safe."
+
+"How nice you are, Mr. Gilman!" Audrey said, with a gentle smile. "You're
+kindness itself. But there is nothing to trouble about, really. Keep my
+little secret by all means, if you don't mind. As for anything else--that's
+perfectly all right.... Shall we go on deck?"
+
+He thanked her without words.
+
+She was saying to herself, rather desperately:
+
+"After all, what do I care? I haven't committed a crime. It's nobody's
+business but my own. And I'm worth ten million francs. And if the fat's in
+the fire, and anything is found out, and people don't like it--well, they
+must do the other thing."
+
+Thus she went on deck, and her courage was rewarded by the discovery of a
+chair on the starboard side of the deck-house, from which she could not
+possibly be seen by any persons on the Hard. She took this chair like a
+gift from heaven. The deck was busy enough. Mr. Price, the secretary, was
+making entries in an account book. Dr. Cromarty was pacing to and fro,
+expectant. Captain Wyatt was arguing with the chauffeur of a vast motor-van
+from Clacton, and another motor-van from Colchester was also present on the
+Hard. Rows of paraffin cans were ranged against the engine-room hatchway,
+and the odour of paraffin was powerfully conflicting with the odour of
+ozone and possibly ammonia from the marshes. Parcels kept coming down by
+hand from the village of Moze. Fresh water also came in barrels on a lorry,
+and lumps of ice in a dog-cart. The arrival of six bottles of aspirin,
+brought by a heated boy on a bicycle, from Clacton, and seized with gusto
+by Dr. Cromarty, completed the proof that money will not only buy anything,
+but will infallibly draw it to any desired spot, however out of the way the
+spot may be. The probability was that neither paraffin nor ice nor aspirin
+had ever found itself on Lousey Hard before in the annals of the world. Yet
+now these things forgathered with ease and naturalness owing to the magic
+of the word "yacht" in telegrams.
+
+And over the scene floated the wavy, inspiring folds of the yacht's immense
+blue ensign, with the Union Jack in the top inside corner.
+
+Mr. Price went into the deck-house and began to count money.
+
+"Mr. Price," demanded Mr. Gilman urgently, "did you look up the facts about
+this village?"
+
+"I was just looking up the place in 'East Coast Tours,' sir, when the
+paraffin arrived," replied Mr. Price. "It says that Moze is mentioned in
+'Green's Short History of the English People.'"
+
+"Ah! Very interesting. That work is a classic. It really treats of the
+English people, and not solely of their kings and queens. Dr. Cromarty, Mr.
+Price is busy, will you mind bringing me the catalogue of the library up
+here?"
+
+Dr. Cromarty obeyed, and Mr. Gilman examined the typewritten, calf-bound
+volume.
+
+"Yes," said he. "Yes. I thought we had Green on board, and we have. I
+should like extremely to know what Green says about Moze. It must have been
+in the Anglo-Saxon or Norman period. Dr. Cromarty, will you mind bringing
+me up the first three volumes of Green? You will find them on shelf Z8.
+Also the last volume, for the index."
+
+A few moments later Mr. Gilman, with three volumes of Green on his knees
+and one in his hand, said reproachfully to Mr. Price:
+
+"Mr. Price, I requested you to see that the leaves of all our books were
+cut. These volumes are absolutely uncut."
+
+"Well, sir, I'm working through them as fast as I can. But I haven't got
+to shelf Z8 yet."
+
+"I cannot stop to cut them now," said Mr. Gilman, politely displeased.
+"What a pity! It would have been highly instructive to know what Green says
+about Moze. I always like to learn everything I can about the places we
+stop at. And this place must be full of historic interest. Wyatt, have you
+had that paraffin counted properly?" He spoke very coldly to the captain.
+
+It thus occurred that what John Richard Green said about Moze was never
+known on board the yacht _Ariadne_.
+
+Audrey listened to the episode in a reverie. She was thinking about Musa's
+intractability and inexcusable rudeness, and about what she should do in
+the matter of Madame Piriac's impending visit to Audrey Moze at Flank Hall,
+and through the texture of these difficult topics she could see, as it
+were, shining the sprightly simplicity, the utter ingenuousness, the
+entirely reliable fidelity of Mr. Gilman. She felt, rather than
+consciously realised, that he was a dull man. But she liked his dullness;
+it reassured her; it was tranquillising; it was even adorable. She liked
+also his attitude towards Moze. She had never suspected, no one had ever
+hinted to her, that Moze was full of historic interest. But looking at it
+now from the yacht which had miraculously wafted her past the Flank buoy at
+dead of night, she perceived Moze in a quite new aspect--a pleasure which
+she owed to Mr. Gilman's artless interest in things. (Not that he was
+artless in all affairs! No; in the great masculine affairs he must be far
+from artless, for had he not made all his money himself?)
+
+Then Madame Piriac appeared on deck, armed and determined. Audrey found,
+as hundreds of persons had found, that it was impossible to deny Madame
+Piriac. Beautiful, gracious, elegant, kind, when she would have a thing she
+would have it. Audrey had to descend and prepare herself. She had to
+reascend ready for the visit. But at the critical and dreadful moment of
+going ashore to affront the crowd she had a saving idea. She pointed to
+Flank Hall and its sloping garden, and to the sea-wall against which the
+high spring tide was already washing, and she suggested that they should be
+rowed thither in the dinghy instead of walking around by the sea-wall or
+through' the village.
+
+"But we cannot climb over that dyke," Madame Piriac protested.
+
+"Oh, yes, we can," said Audrey. "I can see steps in it from here, and I can
+see a gate at the bottom of the garden."
+
+"What a vision you have, darling!" murmured Madame Piriac. "As you wish,
+provided we get there."
+
+The dinghy, at Audrey's request, was brought round to the side of the yacht
+opposite from the Hard, and, screening her face as well as she could with
+an open parasol, she tripped down by the steps into it. If only Aguilar was
+away from the premises she might be saved, for the place would be shut up,
+and there would be nothing to do but return. Should Madame Piriac suggest
+going into the village to inquire--well, Audrey would positively refuse to
+go into the village. Yes, she would refuse!
+
+As the boat moved away from the yacht, Musa showed himself on deck. Madame
+Piriac signalled to him a salutation of the finest good humour. She had
+forgotten his pettishness. By absolutely ignoring it she had made it as
+though it had never existed. This was her art. Audrey, observing the
+gesture, and Musa's smiling reply to it, acquired wisdom. She saw that she
+must treat Musa as Madame Piriac treated him. She had undertaken the
+enterprise of launching him on a tremendous artistic career, and she must
+carry it through. She wanted to make a neat, clean job of the launching,
+and she would do it dispassionately, like a good workwoman. He had
+admitted--nay, he had insisted--that she was necessary to him. Her pride in
+that fact had a somewhat superior air. He might be the most marvellous of
+violinists, but he was also a child, helpless without her moral support.
+She would act accordingly. It was absurd to be angry with a child, no
+matter what his vagaries.... At this juncture of her reflections she
+noticed that Mr. Gilman and Miss Thompkins had quitted the yacht together
+and were walking seawards. They seemed very intimate, impregnated with
+mutual understanding. And Audrey was sorry that Mr. Gilman was quite so
+simple, quite so straightforward and honest.
+
+When the dinghy arrived at the sea-wall Audrey won the stalled admiration
+of the sailor in charge of the boat by pointing at once to the best--if not
+the only--place fit for a landing. The sailor was by no means accustomed to
+such _flair_ in a yacht's guests. Indeed, it had often astonished him that
+people who, as a class, had so little notion of how to get into or out of a
+dinghy could have succeeded, as they all apparently had, in any department
+of life.
+
+With continuing skill, Audrey guided Madame Piriac over the dyke and past
+sundry other obstacles, including a watercourse, to a gate in the wall
+which formed the frontier of the grounds of Flank Hall. The gate seemed at
+first to be unopenably fastened, but Audrey showed that she possessed a
+genius with gates, and opened it with a twist of the hand. They wandered
+through a plantation and then through an orchard, and at length saw the
+house. There was not a sign of Aguilar, but the unseen yard-dog began to
+bark, hearing which, Madame Piriac observed in French: "The property seems
+a little neglected, but there must be someone at home."
+
+"Aguilar is bound to come now!" thought Audrey. "And I am lost!" Then she
+added to herself: "And I don't care if I _am_ lost. What an unheard-of
+lark!" And to Madame Piriac she said lightly: "Well, we must explore."
+
+The blinds were nearly all up on the garden front. And one window--the
+French window of the drawing-room--was wide open.
+
+"The crisis will be here in one minute at the latest," thought Audrey.
+
+"Evidently Miss Moze is at home," said Madame Piriac, gazing at the house.
+"Yes, it is distinguished. It is what I had expected.... But ought we not
+to go to the front door?"
+
+"I think we ought," Audrey agreed.
+
+They went round the side of the house, into the main drive, and without
+hesitation Madame Piriac rang the front door bell, which they could plainly
+hear. "I must have my cards ready," said she, opening her bag. "One always
+hears how exigent you are in England about such details, even in the
+provinces. And, indeed, why not?"
+
+There was no answer to the bell. Madame Piriac rang again, and there was
+still no answer. And the dog had ceased to bark.
+
+"_Mon Dieu!_" she muttered. "Have you observed, darling, that all the
+blinds are down on this facade?"
+
+She rang a third time. Then, without a word, they returned slowly to the
+garden front.
+
+"How mysterious! _Mon Dieu!_ How English it all is!" muttered Madame
+Piriac. "It gives me fear."
+
+Audrey had almost decided definitely that she was saved when she happened
+to glance through the open window of the drawing-room. She thought she saw
+a flicker within. She looked again. She could not be mistaken. Then she
+noticed that all the dust sheets had been removed from the furniture, that
+the carpet had been laid, that a table had been set for tea, that there
+were flowers and china and a teapot and bread-and-butter and a kettle and a
+spirit-lamp on the table. The flicker was the flicker of the blue flame of
+the spirit-lamp. The kettle over it was puffing out steam.
+
+Audrey exclaimed, within herself:
+
+"Aguilar!"
+
+She had caught him at last. There were two cups and saucers--the best
+ancient blue-and-white china, out of the glass-fronted china cupboard in
+that very room! The celibate Aguilar, never known to consort with anybody
+at all, was clearly about to entertain someone to tea, and the aspect of
+things showed that he meant to do it very well. True, there was no cake,
+but the bread-and-butter was expertly cut and attractively arranged. Audrey
+felt sure that she was on the track of Aguilar's double life, and that a
+woman was concerned therein. She was angry, but she was also enormously
+amused and uplifted. She no longer cared the least bit about the imminent
+danger threatening her incognito. Her sole desire was to entrap Aguilar,
+and with deep joy she pictured his face when he should come into the room
+with his friend and find the mistress of the house already installed.
+
+"I think we had better go in here, darling," she said to Madame Piriac,
+with her hand on the French window. "There is no other entrance."
+
+Madame Piriac looked at her.
+
+"_Eh bien!_ It is your country, not mine. You know the habits. I follow
+you," said Madame Piriac calmly. "After all, my dear little Audrey ought
+to be delighted to see me. I have several times told her that I should
+come. All the same, I expected to announce myself.... What a charming
+room! So this is the English provinces!"
+
+The room was certainly agreeable to the eye. And Audrey seemed to see it
+afresh, to see it for the first time in her life. And she thought: "Can
+this be the shabby old drawing-room that I hated so?"
+
+The kettle continued to puff vigorously.
+
+"If they don't come soon," said Audrey, "the water will be all boiled away
+and the kettle burnt. Suppose we make the tea?"
+
+Madame Piriac raised her eyebrows.
+
+"It is your country," she repeated. "That appears to be singular, but I
+have not the English habits."
+
+And she sat down, smiling.
+
+Audrey opened the tea caddy, put three spoonfuls of tea into the pot, and
+made the tea.
+
+The clock struck on the mantelpiece. The clock was actually going. Aguilar
+was ever thorough in his actions.
+
+"Four minutes to brew, and if they don't come we'll have tea," said Audrey,
+tranquil in the assurance that the advent of Aguilar could not now be long
+delayed.
+
+"Do you take milk and sugar, darling?" she asked Madame Piriac at the end
+of the four minutes, which they had spent mainly in a curious silence. "I
+believe you do."
+
+Madame Piriac nodded.
+
+"A little bread-and-butter? I'm sorry there's no cake or jam."
+
+It was while Madame Piriac was stirring her first cup that the drawing-room
+door opened, and at once there was a terrific shriek.
+
+"Audrey!"
+
+The invader was Miss Ingate. Close behind Miss Ingate came Jane Foley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+THE TANK-ROOM
+
+
+"Did you get my letter?" breathed Miss Ingate weakly, after she had a
+little recovered from the shock, which had the appearance of being
+terrific.
+
+"No," said Audrey. "How could I? We're yachting. Madame Piriac, you know
+Miss Ingate, don't you? And this is my friend Jane Foley." She spoke quite
+easily and naturally, though Miss Ingate in her intense agitation had
+addressed her as Audrey, whereas the Christian name of Mrs. Moncreiff, on
+the rare occasions when a Christian name became necessary or advisable, had
+been Olivia--or, infrequently, Olive.
+
+"Yachting!"
+
+"Yes. Haven't you seen the yacht at the Hard?"
+
+"No! I did hear something about it, but I've been too busy to run after
+yachts. We've been too busy, haven't we, Miss Foley? I even have to keep my
+dog locked up. I don't know what you'll say. Aud--Mrs. Moncreiff! I really
+don't! But we acted for the best. Oh! How dreadfully exciting my life does
+get at times! Never since I played the barrel organ all the way down Regent
+Street have I--! Oh! dear!"
+
+"Have my tea, and do sit down, Winnie, and remember you're an Essex woman!"
+Audrey adjured her, going to the china cupboard to get more cups.
+
+"_I'll_ just tell you all about it, Mrs. Moncreiff, if you'll let me," Jane
+Foley began with a serene and happy smile, as she limped to a chair. "I'm
+quite ready to take all the consequences. It's the police again, that's
+all. I don't know how exactly they got on the track of the Spatts at
+Frinton. But I dare say you've seen that the police have seized a lot of
+documents at our head-quarters. Perhaps that explains it. Anyway I caught
+sight of our old friend at Paget Gardens nosing about, and so as soon as it
+was dark I left the Spatts. It's a horrid thing to say, but I never was so
+glad about anything as I was at leaving the Spatts. I didn't tell them
+where I was going, and they didn't ask. I'm sure the poor things were very
+relieved to have me go. Miss Ingate tells me to-day she's heard they've
+both resigned from the Union. Mr. Spatt went up to London on purpose to do
+it. And can you be surprised?"
+
+"Yes, you can, and yet you can't!" exclaimed Miss Ingate. "You can, and yet
+you can't!"
+
+"I met Miss Ingate on Frinton front," Jane Foley proceeded. "She was just
+getting into her carriage. I had my bag and I asked her to drive me to the
+station. 'To the station?' she said. 'What for? There's no train
+to-night.'"
+
+"No more there wasn't!" Miss Ingate put in, "I'd been dining at the
+Proctors' and it was after ten, I know it was after ten because they never
+let me leave until after ten, in spite of the long drive I have. Fancy
+there being a train from Frinton after ten! So of course I brought Miss
+Foley along. Oh! It was vehy interesting. Vehy interesting. You see we had
+to think of the police. I didn't want the police coming poking round my
+house. It would never do, in a little place like Moze. I should never hear
+the last of it. So I--I thought of Flank Hall. I----"
+
+Jane Foley went on:
+
+"Miss Ingate was sure you wouldn't mind, Mrs. Moncreiff. And personally I
+was quite certain you wouldn't mind. We left the carriage at Miss Ingate's,
+and carried the bag in turns. And I stood outside while Miss Ingate woke up
+Mr. Aguilar. It was soon all right."
+
+"I must say Aguilar was vehy reasonable," said Miss Ingate. "Vehy
+reasonable. And he's got a great spite against my dear Inspector Keeble. He
+suggested everything. He never asked any questions, so I told him. You do,
+you know. He suggested Miss Foley should have a bed in the tank-room, so
+that if there was any trouble all the bedrooms should look innocent."
+
+"Did he tell you I'd come here to see him not long since?" Audrey demanded.
+
+"And why didn't you pop in to see _me?_ I was hurt when I got your note."
+
+"Did he tell you?"
+
+"Of course he didn't. He never tells anybody anything. That sort of
+thing's very useful at times, especially when it's combined with a total
+lack of curiosity. He fixed every, thing up. And he keeps the gates locked,
+so that people can't wander in."
+
+"He didn't lock the gate at the bottom of the garden, because it won't
+lock," said Audrey. "And so he didn't keep me from wandering in." She felt
+rather disappointed that Aguilar should once more have escaped her reproof
+and that the dream of his double life should have vanished away, but she
+was determined to prove that he was not perfect.
+
+"Well, I don't know about that," said Miss Ingate. "It wouldn't startle me
+to hear that he knew you were intending to come. All I know is that Miss
+Foley's been here for several days. Not a soul knows except me and Aguilar.
+And it seems to get safer every day. She does venture about the house now,
+though she never goes into the garden while it's light. It was Aguilar had
+the idea of putting this room straight for her."
+
+"And it was he who cut the bread-and-butter," added Jane Foley.
+
+"And this was to be our first tea-party!" Miss Ingate half shrieked. "I'd
+come--I do come, you know, to keep an eye on things as you asked me--I'd
+come, and we were just having a cosy little chat in the tank-room.
+Aguilar's gone to Colchester to get a duplicate key of the front gates. He
+left me his, so I could get in and lock up after myself, and he put the
+water on to boil before leaving. I said to Miss Foley, I said, up in the
+tank-room: 'Was that a ring at the door?' But she said it wasn't."
+
+"I've been a little deaf since I was in prison," said Jane Foley.
+
+"And now we come down and find you here! I--I hope I've done right." This,
+falteringly, from Miss Ingate.
+
+"Of course you have, you silly old thing," Audrey reassured her. "It's
+splendid!"
+
+"Whenever I think of the police I laugh," said Miss Ingate in an unsettled
+voice. "I can't help it. They can't possibly suspect. And they're looking
+everywhere, everywhere!  I can't help laughing." And suddenly she burst
+into tears.
+
+"Oh! Now! Winnie, dear. Don't spoil it all!" Audrey protested, jumping up.
+
+Madame Piriac, who had hitherto maintained the most complete passivity,
+restrained her.
+
+"Leave her tranquil!" murmured Madame Piriac in French. "She is not
+spoiling it. On the contrary! One is content to see that she is a woman!"
+
+And then Miss Ingate laughed, and blushed, and called herself names.
+
+"And so you haven't had my letter," said she. "I wish you had had it. But
+what is this yachting business? I never heard of such goings-on. Is it your
+yacht? This world is getting a bit too wonderful for me."
+
+The answer to these questions was cut short by rather heavy masculine
+footsteps approaching the door of the drawing-room. Miss Ingate grew
+instantly serious. Audrey and Jane looked at each other, and Jane Foley
+went quickly but calmly to the door and opened it.
+
+"Oh! It's Mr. Aguilar--returned!" she said, quietly. "Is anything the
+matter, Mr. Aguilar?"
+
+Aguilar, hat in hand, entered the room.
+
+"Good afternoon, Aguilar," Audrey greeted him.
+
+"'Noon, madam," he responded, exactly as though he had been expecting to
+find the mistress there. "It's like this. I've just seen Inspector Keeble
+and that there detective as was here afore--_you_ know, madam" (nodding to
+Audrey) "and I fancy they're a-coming this way, so I thought I'd better cut
+back and warn ye. I don't think they saw me. I was too quick for 'em. Was
+the bread-and-butter all right, Miss Ingate? Thank ye."
+
+Miss Ingate had risen.
+
+"I ought to go home," she said. "I feel sure it would be wiser for me to go
+home. I never could talk to detectives."
+
+Jane Foley snatched at one of the four cups and saucers on the table, and
+put it back, all unwashed, into the china cupboard.
+
+"Three cups will be enough for them to see, if they come," she said, with a
+bright, happy smile to Audrey. "Yes, Miss Ingate, you go home. I'm ever so
+much obliged to you. Now, I'll go upstairs and Aguilar shall lock me in the
+tank-room and push the key under the door. We are causing you a lot of
+trouble, Mrs. Moncreiff, but you won't mind. It might have been so much
+worse." She laughed as she went.
+
+"And suppose I meet those police on the way out, what am I to say to them?"
+asked Miss Ingate when Jane Foley and Aguilar had departed.
+
+"If they're very curious, tell them you've been here to have tea with me
+and that Aguilar cut the bread-and-butter," Audrey replied. "The detective
+will be interested to see me. He chased me all the way to London not long
+since. Au revoir, Winnie."
+
+"Dear friend," said Madame Piriac, with admirable though false calm. "Would
+it not be more prudent to fly back at once to the yacht--if in truth this
+is the same police agent of whom you recounted to me with such drollness
+the exploits? It is not that I am afraid----"
+
+"Nor I," said Audrey. "There is no danger except to Jane Foley."
+
+"Ah! You cannot abandon her. That is true. Nevertheless I regret ..."
+
+"Well, darling," Audrey exclaimed. "You would insist on my coming!"
+
+The continuing presence of Miss Ingate, who had lost one glove and her
+purse, rendered this brief conversation somewhat artificial. And no sooner
+had Miss Ingate got away--by the window, for the sake of dispatch--than a
+bell made itself heard, and Aguilar came back to the drawing-room in the
+role of butler.
+
+"Inspector Keeble and a gentleman to see you, madam."
+
+"Bring them in," said Audrey.
+
+Aguilar's secret glance at Inspector Keeble as he brought in the visitors
+showed that his lifelong and harmless enemy had very little to hope from
+his goodwill.
+
+"Wait a moment, you!" called the detective as Aguilar, like a perfect
+butler, was vanishing. "Good afternoon, ladies. Excuse me, I wish to
+question this man." He indicated Aguilar with a gesture of apologising for
+Aguilar.
+
+Inspector Keeble, an overgrown mass of rectitude and kindliness, greeted
+Audrey with that constraint which always afflicted him when he was beneath
+any roof more splendid than that of his own police-station.
+
+"Now, Aguilar," said the detective, "it's you that'll be telling me. Ye've
+got a woman concealed in the house. Where is she?"
+
+He knew, then, this ferreting and divinatory Irishman!  Of course Miss
+Ingate must have committed some indiscretion, or was it that Aguilar was
+less astute than he gave the impression of being? Audrey considered that
+all was lost, and she was aware of a most unpleasant feeling of
+helplessness and inefficiency. Then she seemed to receive inspiration and
+optimism from somewhere. She knew not exactly from where, but perhaps it
+was from the shy stiffness of the demeanour of her old acquaintance,
+Inspector Keeble. Moreover, the Irishman's twinkling eyes were a challenge
+to her.
+
+"Oh! Aguilar!" she exclaimed. "I'm very sorry to hear this. I knew women
+were always your danger, but I never dreamt you would start carrying on in
+my absence."
+
+Aguilar fronted her, and their eyes met. Audrey gazed at him steadily.
+There was no smile in Audrey's eyes, but there was a smile glimmering
+mysteriously behind them, and after a couple of seconds this phenomenon
+aroused a similar phenomenon behind the eyes of Aguilar. Audrey had the
+terrible and god-like sensation of lifting a hired servant to equality with
+herself. She imagined that she would never again be able to treat him as
+Aguilar, and she even feared that she would soon begin to cease to hate
+him. At the same time she observed slight signs of incertitude in the
+demeanour of the detective.
+
+Aguilar replied coldly, not to Audrey, but to the police:
+
+"If Inspector Keeble or anybody else has been mixing my name up with any
+scandal about females, I'll have him up for slander and libel and damages
+as sure as I stand here."
+
+Inspector Keeble looked away, and then looked at the detective--as if for
+support in peril.
+
+"Do you mean to say, Aguilar, that you haven't got a woman hidden in the
+house at this very moment?" the detective demanded.
+
+"I'll thank ye to keep a civil tongue in your head," said Aguilar. "Or I'll
+take ye outside and knock yer face sideways. Pardon me, madam. Of course I
+ain't got no woman concealed on the premises. And mark ye, if I lose my
+place through this ye'll hear of it. And I shall put a letter in the
+_Gardeners' Chronicle_, too."
+
+"Well, ye can go," the detective responded.
+
+"Yes," sneered Aguilar. "I can go. Yes, and I shall go. But not so far but
+what I can protect my interests. And I'll make this village too hot for
+Keeble before I've done, police or no police."
+
+And with a look at Audrey like the look of a knight at his lady after a
+joust, Aguilar turned to leave the room.
+
+"Aguilar," Audrey rewarded him. "You needn't be afraid about your place."
+
+"Thank ye, m'm."
+
+"May I ask what your name is?" Audrey inquired of the detective as soon as
+Aguilar had shut the door.
+
+"Hurley," replied the detective.
+
+"I thought it might be," said Audrey, sitting down, but not offering seats.
+"Well, Mr. Hurley, after all your running after Miss Susan Foley, don't you
+think it's rather unfair to say horrid things about a respectable man like
+Aguilar? You were funny about that stout wife of yours last time I saw you,
+but you must remember that Aguilar can't be funny about his wife, because
+he hasn't got one."
+
+"I really don't know what you're driving at, miss," said Mr. Hurley simply.
+
+"Well, what were you driving at when you followed me all the way to London
+the other day?"
+
+"Madam," said Mr. Hurley, "I didn't follow you to London. I only happened
+to arrive at Charing Cross about twenty seconds after you, that was all. As
+a matter of fact, nearly half of the way you were following me."
+
+"Well, I hope you were satisfied."
+
+"I only want to know one thing," the detective retorted. "Am I speaking to
+Mrs. Olivia Moncreiff?"
+
+Audrey hesitated, glancing at Madame Piriac, who, in company with the vast
+Inspector Keeble, was carefully inspecting the floor. She invoked wisdom
+and sagacity from heaven, and came to a decision.
+
+"Not that I know of," she answered.
+
+"Then, if you please, who are you?"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Audrey. "You're in the village of Moze itself and you ask
+who I am. Everybody knows me. My name is Audrey Moze, of Flank Hall, Moze,
+Essex. Any child in Moze Street will tell you that. Inspector Keeble knows
+as well as anybody."
+
+Madame Piriac proceeded steadily with the inquiry into the carpet. Audrey
+felt her heart beating.
+
+"Unmarried?" pursued the detective.
+
+"Most decidedly," said Audrey with conviction.
+
+"Then what's the meaning of that ring on your finger, if you don't mind my
+asking?" the detective continued.
+
+Certainly Audrey was flustered, but only for a moment.
+
+"Mr. Hurley," said she; "I wear it as a protection from men of all ages who
+are too enterprising."
+
+She spoke archly, with humour; but now there was no answering humour in the
+features of Mr. Hurley, who seemed to be a changed man, to be indeed no
+longer even an Irishman. And Audrey grew afraid. Did he, after all, know of
+her share in the Blue City enterprise? She had long since persuaded herself
+that the police had absolutely failed to connect her with that affair, but
+now uncertainty was born in her mind.
+
+"I must search the house," said the detective.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I have to arrest a woman named Jane Foley," answered Mr. Hurley, adding
+somewhat grimly: "The name will be known to ye, I'm thinking.... And I have
+reason to believe that she is now concealed on these premises."
+
+The directness of the blow was terrific. It was almost worse than the blow
+itself. And Audrey now believed everything that she had ever heard or read
+about the miraculous ingenuity of detectives. Still, she did not regard
+herself as beaten, and the thought of the yacht lying close by gave her a
+dim feeling of security. If she could only procure delay!...
+
+"I'm not going to let you search my house," she said angrily. "I never
+heard of such a thing! You've got no right to search my house."
+
+"Oh yes, I have!" Mr. Hurley insisted.
+
+"Well, let me see your paper--I don't know what you call it. But I know you
+can't do anything-without a paper. Otherwise any bright young-man might
+walk into my house and tell me he meant to search it. Keeble, I'm really
+surprised at _you_."
+
+Inspector Keeble blushed.
+
+"I'm very sorry, miss," said he contritely. "But the law's the law. Show
+the lady your search-warrant, Mr. Hurley." His voice resembled himself.
+
+Mr. Hurley coughed. "I haven't got a search-warrant yet," he remarked. "I
+didn't expect----"
+
+"You'd better go and get one, then," said Audrey, calculating how long it
+would take three women to transport themselves from the house to the yacht,
+and perpending upon the probable behaviour of Mr. Gilman under a given set
+of circumstances.
+
+"I will," said Mr. Hurley. "And I shan't be long. Keeble, where is the
+nearest justice of the peace?... You'd better stay here or hereabouts."
+
+"I got to go to the station to sign on my three constables," Inspector
+Keeble protested awkwardly, looking at his watch, which also resembled
+himself.
+
+"You'd better stay here or hereabouts," repeated Mr. Hurley, and he moved
+towards the door. Inspector Keeble, too, moved towards the door.
+
+Audrey let them get into the passage, and then she was vouchsafed a new
+access of inspiration.
+
+"Mr. Hurley," she called, in a bright, unoffended tone. "After all, I see
+no reason why you shouldn't search the house. I don't really want to put
+you to any unnecessary trouble. It is annoying, but I'm not going to be
+annoyed." The ingenuous young creature expected Mr. Hurley to be at once
+disarmed and ashamed by this kind offer. She was wrong. He was evidently
+surprised, but he gave no evidence of shame or of the sudden death in his
+brain of all suspicions.
+
+"That's better," he said calmly. "And I'm much obliged."
+
+"I'll come with you," said Audrey. "Madame Piriac," she addressed Hortense
+with averted eyes. "Will you excuse me for a minute or two while I show
+these gentlemen the house?" The fact was that she did not care just then to
+be left alone with Madame Piriac.
+
+"Oh! I beg you, darling! "Madame Piriac granted the permission with
+overpowering sweetness.
+
+The procedure of Mr. Hurley was astonishing to Audrey; nay, it was
+unnerving. First he locked the front door and the garden door and pocketed
+the keys. Then he locked the drawing-room on the passage side and pocketed
+that key. He instructed Inspector Keeble to remain in the hall at the foot
+of the stairs. He next went into the kitchen and the sculleries and locked
+the outer doors in that quarter. Then he descended to the cellars, with
+Audrey always in his wake. Having searched the cellars and the ground
+floor, he went upstairs, and examined in turn all the bedrooms with a
+thoroughness and particularity which caused Audrey to blush. He left
+nothing whatever to chance, and no dust sheet was undisturbed. Audrey said
+no word. The detective said no word. But Audrey kept thinking: "He is
+getting nearer to the tank-room." A small staircase led to the attic floor,
+upon which were only servants' bedrooms and the tank-room. After he had
+mounted this staircase and gone a little way along the passage he swiftly
+and without warning dashed back and down the staircase. But nothing seemed
+to happen, and he returned. The three doors of the three servants' bedrooms
+were all ajar. Mr. Hurley passed each of them with a careless glance
+within. At the end of the corridor, in obscurity, was the door of the
+tank-room.
+
+"What's this?" he asked abruptly. And he knocked nonchalantly on the door
+of the tank-room.
+
+Audrey was acutely alarmed lest Jane Foley should respond, thinking the
+knock was that of a friend. She saw how idiotic she had been not to warn
+Jane by means of loud conversation with the detective.
+
+"That's the tank-room," she said loudly. "I'm afraid it's locked."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Mr. Hurley negligently, and he turned the searchlight of his
+gaze upon the three bedrooms, which he examined as carefully as he had
+examined anything in the house. The failure to discover in any cupboard or
+corner even the shadow of a human being did not appear to discourage him in
+the slightest degree. In the third bedroom--that is to say, the one nearest
+the head of the stairs and farthest from the tank-room--he suddenly
+beckoned to Audrey, who was standing in the doorway. She went within the
+room and he pushed the door to, without, however, quite shutting it.
+
+"Now about the tank-room, Miss Moze," he began quietly. "You say it's
+locked?"
+
+"Yes," said the quaking Audrey.
+
+"As a matter of form I'd better just look in. Will you kindly let me have
+the key?"
+
+"I can't," said Audrey.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Audrey acquired tranquillity as she went on: "It's at Frinton. Friends of
+mine there keep a punt on Mozewater, and I let them store the sail and
+things in the tank-room. There's plenty of room. I give them the key
+because that's more satisfactory. The tank-room isn't wanted at all, you
+see, while I'm away from home."
+
+"Who are these friends?"
+
+"Mr. and Mrs. Spatt," said Audrey at a venture.
+
+"I see," said the detective.
+
+They came downstairs, and the detective made it known that he would
+re-visit the drawing-room. Inspector Keeble followed them. In that room
+Audrey remarked:
+
+"And now I hope you're satisfied."
+
+Mr. Hurley merely said:
+
+"Will you please ring for Aguilar?"
+
+Audrey complied. But she had to ring three times before the gardener's
+footsteps were heard on the uncarpeted stone floor of the hall.
+
+"Aguilar," Mr. Hurley demanded. "Where is the key of the tank-room?"
+
+Audrey sank into a chair, knowing profoundly that all was lost.
+
+"It's at Mrs. Spatt's at Frinton," replied Aguilar glibly. "Mistress lets
+her have that room to store some boat-gear in. I expected she'd ha' been
+over before this to get it out. But the yachting season seems to start
+later and later every year these times."
+
+Audrey gazed at the man as at a miracle-worker.
+
+"Well, I think that's all," said Mr. Hurley.
+
+"No, it isn't," Audrey corrected him. "You've got all my keys in your
+pocket--except one."
+
+When the police had gone Audrey said to Aguilar in the hall:
+
+"Aguilar, how on earth did you----"
+
+But she was in such a state of emotion at the realisation of dangers
+affronted and past that she could not finish.
+
+"I'm sorry I was so long answering the bell, m'm," replied Aguilar
+strangely. "But I'd put my list slippers on--them as your father made me
+wear when I come into the house, mornings, to change the plants, and I
+thought it better to put my boots on again before I come.... Shall I put
+the keys back in the doors, madam?"
+
+So saying he touched his front hair, after his manner, and took the keys
+and retired. Audrey was as full of fear as of gratitude. Aguilar daunted
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE THIRD SORT OF WOMAN
+
+
+"It was quite true what I told the detective. So I suppose you've finished
+with me for evermore!" Audrey burst out recklessly, as soon as she and
+Madame Piriac were alone together. The supreme moment had come, and she
+tried to grasp it like a nettle. Her adventurous rashness was, she
+admitted, undeniable. She had spoken the truth to the police officer about
+her identity and her spinsterhood because with unusual wisdom she judged
+that fibs or even prevarication on such a subject to such an audience might
+entangle her in far more serious difficulties later on. Moreover, with
+Inspector Keeble present, she could not successfully have gone very far
+from the truth. It was a pity that Madame Piriac had witnessed the scene,
+for really, when Audrey came to face it, the deception which she had
+practised upon Madame Piriac was of a monstrous and inexcusable kind. And
+now that Madame Piriac knew the facts, many other people would have to know
+the facts--including probably Mr. Gilman. The prospect of explanations was
+terrible. In vain Audrey said to herself that the thing was naught, that
+she had acted within her rights, and that anyhow she had long ago ceased to
+be diffident and shy!... She was intimidated by her own enormities. And she
+also thought: "How could I have been silly enough to tell that silly tale
+about the Spatts? More complications. And poor dear Inspector Keeble will
+be so shocked."
+
+After a short pause Madame Piriac replied, in a grave but kind tone:
+
+"Why would you that I should have finished with you for ever? You had the
+right to call yourself by any name you wished, and to wear any ring-that
+pleased your caprice. It is the affair of nobody but yourself."
+
+"Oh! I'm so glad you take it like that," said Audrey with eager relief.
+"That's just what _I_ thought all along!"
+
+"But it _is_ your affair!" Madame Piriac finished, with a peculiar
+inflection of her well-controlled voice. "I mean," she added, "you cannot
+afford to neglect it."
+
+"No--of course not," Audrey agreed, rather dashed, and with a vague new
+apprehension. "Naturally I shall tell you everything, darling. I had my
+reasons. I----"
+
+"The principal question is, darling," Madame Piriac stopped her. "What are
+you going to do now? Ought we not to return to the yacht?"
+
+"But I must look after Jane Foley!" cried Audrey. "I can't leave her here."
+
+"And why not? She has Miss Ingate."
+
+"Yes, worse luck for her! Winnie would make the most dreadful mess of
+things if she wasn't stopped. If Winnie was right out of it, and Jane Foley
+had only herself and Aguilar to count on, there might be a chance. But not
+else."
+
+"It is by pure hazard that you are here. Nobody expected you. What would
+this young girl Mees Foley have done if you had not been here?"
+
+"It's no good wasting time about that, darling, because I _am_ here, don't
+you see?" Audrey straightened her shoulders and put her hands behind her
+back.
+
+"My little one," said Madame Piriac with a certain solemnity. "You remember
+our conversation in my boudoir. I then told you that you would find
+yourself in a riot within a month, if you continued your course. Was I
+right?  Happily you have escaped from that horrible complication. Go no
+farther. Listen to me. You were not created for these adventures. It is
+impossible that you should be happy in them."
+
+"But look at Jane Foley," said Audrey eagerly. "Is she not happy? Did you
+ever see anybody as happy as Jane?  I never did."
+
+"That is not happiness," replied Madame Piriac. "That is exaltation. It is
+morbid. I do not say that it is not right for her. I do not say that she is
+not justified, and that that which she represents is not justified. But I
+say that a role such as hers is not your role. To commence, she does not
+interest herself in men. For her there are no men in the world--there are
+only political enemies. Do you think I do not know the type? We have it,
+_chez nous_. It is full of admirable qualities--but it is not your type.
+For you, darling, the world is inhabited principally by men, and the time
+will come--perhaps soon--when for you it will be inhabited principally by
+one man. If you remain obdurate, there must inevitably arrive a quarrel
+between that man and these--these riotous adventures."
+
+"No man that I could possibly care for," Audrey retorted, "would ever
+object to me having an active interest in--er--politics."
+
+"I agree, darling," said Madame Piriac. "He would not object. It is you who
+would object. The quarrel would occur within your own heart. There are two
+sorts of women--individualists and fanatics. It was always so. I am a
+woman, and I know what I'm saying. So do you. Well, you belong to the first
+sort of woman."
+
+"I don't," Audrey protested. Nevertheless she recollected her thoughts on
+the previous night, near the binnacle and Mr. Gilman, about the
+indispensability of a man and about the futility of the state of not owning
+and possessing a man. The memory of these thoughts only rendered her more
+obstinate.
+
+"But you will not have the courage to tell me that you are a fanatic?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then what?"
+
+"There is a third sort of woman."
+
+"Darling, believe me, there is not."
+
+"There's going to be, anyhow!" said Audrey with decision, and in English.
+"And I won't leave Jane Foley in the lurch, either!... Now I'll just run up
+and have a talk with her, if you don't mind waiting a minute or two."
+
+"But what are you going to do?" Madame Piriac demanded.
+
+"Well," said Audrey. "It is obvious that there is only one safe thing to
+do. I shall take Jane on board the yacht. We shall sail off, and she'll be
+safe."
+
+"On the yacht!" repeated Madame Piriac, truly astounded. "But my poor oncle
+will never agree. You do not know him. You do not know how peculiar he is.
+Never will he agree! Besides----"
+
+"Darling," said Audrey quietly and confidently. "If he does not agree, I
+undertake to go into a convent for the rest of my days."
+
+Madame Piriac was silent.
+
+Just as she was opening the door to go upstairs, Audrey suddenly turned
+back into the room.
+
+"Darling," she said, kissing Madame Piriac. "How calmly you've taken it!"
+
+"Taken what?"
+
+"About me not being Mrs. Moncreiff nor a widow nor anything of that kind."
+
+"But, darling," answered Madame Piriac with exquisite tranquillity. "Of
+course I knew it before."
+
+"You knew it before!"
+
+"Certainly. I knew it the first time I saw you, in the studio of
+Mademoiselle Nickall. You were the image of your father! The image, I
+repeat--except perhaps the nose. Recollect that as a child I saw your
+father. I was left with my mother's relatives, until matters should be
+arranged; but he came to Paris. Then before matters could be arranged my
+mother died, and I never saw him again. But I could never forget him....
+Then also, in my boudoir that night, you blushed--it was very amusing--when
+I mentioned Essex and Audrey Moze. And there were other things."
+
+"For instance?"
+
+"Darling, you were never quite convincing as a widow--at any rate to a
+Frenchwoman. You may have deceived American and English women. But not
+myself. You did not say the convincing things when the conversation took
+certain turns. That is all."
+
+"You knew who I was, and you never told me!" Audrey pouted.
+
+"Had I the right, darling? You had decided upon your identity. It would
+have been inexcusable on my part to inform you that you were mistaken in so
+essential a detail."
+
+Madame Piriac gently returned Audrey's kiss.
+
+"So that was why you insisted on me coming with you to-day!" murmured
+Audrey, crestfallen. "You are a marvellous actress, darling."
+
+"I have several times been told so," Madame Piriac admitted simply.
+
+"What on earth did you expect would happen?"
+
+"Not that which has happened," said Madame Piriac.
+
+"Well, if you ask me," said Audrey with gaiety and a renewal of
+self-confidence. "I think it's all happened splendidly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+IN THE DINGHY
+
+
+When the pair got back to the sea-wall the tide had considerably ebbed, and
+where the dinghy had floated there was nothing more liquid than exquisitely
+coloured mud. Nevertheless water still lapped the yacht, whereas on the
+shore side of the yacht was now no crowd. The vans and carts had all
+departed, and the quidnuncs and observers of human nature, having gazed
+steadily at the yacht for some ten hours, had thought fit to depart also.
+The two women looked about rather anxiously, as though Mr. Gilman had
+basely marooned them.
+
+"But what must we do?" demanded Madame Piriac.
+
+"Oh! We can walk round on the dyke," said Audrey superiorly. "Unless the
+stiles frighten you."
+
+"It is about to rain," said Madame Piriac, glancing at the high curved
+heels of her shoes.
+
+The sky, which was very wide and variegated over Mozewater, did indeed seem
+to threaten.
+
+At that moment the dinghy appeared round the forefoot of the _Ariadne_. Mr.
+Gilman and Miss Thompkins were in it, and Mr. Gilman was rowing with
+gentleness and dignity. They had, even afar off, a tremendous air of
+intimacy; each leaned towards the other, face to face, and Tommy had her
+chin in her hands and her elbows on her knees. And in addition to an air of
+intimacy they had an air of mystery. It was surprising, and perhaps a
+little annoying, to Audrey that those two should have gone on living to
+themselves, in their own self-absorbed way, while such singular events had
+been happening to herself in Flank Hall. She put several fingers in her
+mouth and produced a piercing long-distance whistle which effectively
+reached the dinghy.
+
+"My poor little one!" exclaimed Madame Piriac, shocked in spite of her
+broadmindedness by both the sound and the manner of its production.
+
+"Oh! I learnt that when I was twelve," said Audrey. "It took me four
+months, but I did it. And nobody except Miss Ingate knows that I can do
+it."
+
+The occupants of the dinghy were signalling their intention to rescue, and
+Mr. Gilman used his back nobly.
+
+"But we cannot embark here!" Madame Piriac complained.
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Audrey. "You see those white stones? ... It's quite easy."
+
+When the dinghy had done about half the journey Madame Piriac murmured:
+
+"By the way, who are you, precisely, for the present?  It would be prudent
+to decide, darling."
+
+Audrey hesitated an instant.
+
+"Who am I? ... Oh! I see. Well, I'd better keep on being Mrs. Moncreiff for
+a bit, hadn't I?"
+
+"It is as you please, darling."
+
+The fact was that Audrey recoiled from a general confession, though
+admitting it to be ultimately inevitable. Moreover, she had a slight fear
+that each of her friends in turn might make a confession ridiculous by
+saying: "We knew all along, of course."
+
+The dinghy was close in.
+
+"My!" cried Tommy. "Who did that whistle? It was enough to beat the cars."
+
+"Wouldn't you like to know!" Audrey retorted.
+
+The embarkation, under Audrey's direction, was accomplished in safety, and,
+save for one tiny French scream, in silence. The silence, which persisted,
+was peculiar. Each pair should have had something to tell the other, yet
+nothing was told, or even asked. Mr. Gilman rowed with careful science, and
+brought the dinghy alongside the yacht in an unexceptionable manner. Musa
+stood on deck apart, acting indifference. Madame Piriac, having climbed
+into the _Ariadne_, went below at once. Miss Thompkins, seeing her friend
+Mr. Price half-way down the saloon companion, moved to speak to him, and
+they vanished together. Mr. Gilman was respectfully informed by the
+engineer that the skipper and Dr. Cromarty were ashore.
+
+"How nice it is on the water!" said Audrey to Mr. Gilman in a low, gentle
+voice. "There is a channel round there with three feet of water in it at
+low tide." She sketched a curve in the air with her finger. "Of course you
+know this part," said Mr. Gilman cautiously and even apprehensively. His
+glance seemed to be saying: "And it was you who gave that fearful whistle,
+too! Are you, can you be, all that I dreamed?"
+
+"I do," Audrey answered. "Would you like me to show it you."
+
+"I should be more than delighted," said Mr. Gilman.
+
+With a gesture he summoned a man to untie the dinghy again and hold it, and
+the man slid down into the dinghy like a monkey.
+
+"I'll pull," said Audrey, in the boat.
+
+The man sprang out of the dinghy.
+
+"One instant!" Mr. Gilman begged her, standing up in the sternsheets, and
+popping his head through a porthole of the saloon. "Mr. Price!"
+
+"Sir?" From the interior.
+
+"Will you be good enough to play that air with thirty-six variations, of
+Beethoven's? We shall hear splendidly from the dinghy."
+
+"Certainly, sir."
+
+And Audrey said to herself: "You don't want him to flirt with Tommy while
+you're away, so you've given him something to keep him busy."
+
+Mr. Gilman remarked under his breath to Audrey: "I think there is nothing
+finer than to hear Beethoven on the water."
+
+"Oh! There isn't!" she eagerly concurred.
+
+Ignoring the thirty-six variations of Beethoven, Audrey rowed slowly away,
+and after about a hundred yards the boat had rounded a little knoll which
+marked the beginning of a narrow channel known as the Lander Creek. The
+thirty-six variations, however, would not be denied; they softly
+impregnated the whole beautiful watery scene.
+
+"Perhaps," said Mr. Gilman suddenly, "perhaps your ladyship was not quite
+pleased at me rowing-about with Miss Thompkins--especially after I had
+taken her for a walk." He smiled, but his voice was rather wistful. Audrey
+liked him prodigiously in that moment.
+
+"Foolish man!" she replied, with a smile far surpassing his, and she rested
+on her oars, taking care to keep the boat in the middle of the channel. "Do
+you know why I asked you to come out? I wanted to talk to you quite
+privately. It is easier here."
+
+"I'm so glad!" he said simply and sincerely. And Audrey thought: "Is it
+possible to give so much pleasure to an important and wealthy man with so
+little trouble?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "Of course you know who I really am, don't you, Mr.
+Gilman?"
+
+"I only know you're Mrs. Moncreiff," he answered.
+
+"But I'm not! Surely you've heard something? Surely it's been hinted in
+front of you?"
+
+"Never!" said he.
+
+"But haven't you asked--about my marriage, for instance?"
+
+"To ask might have been to endanger your secret," he said.
+
+"I see!" she murmured. "How frightfully loyal you are, Mr. Gilman! I do
+admire loyalty. Well, I dare say very, very few people do know. So I'll
+tell you. That's my home over there." And she pointed to Flank Hall, whose
+chimneys could just be seen over the bank.
+
+"I admit that I had thought so," said Mr. Gilman.
+
+"But naturally that was your home as a girl, before your marriage."
+
+"I've never been married, Mr. Gilman," she said. "I'm only what the French
+call a _jeune fille_."
+
+His face changed; he seemed to be withdrawing alarmed into himself.
+
+"Never--been married?"
+
+"Oh! You _must_ understand me!" she went on, with an appealing vivacity. "I
+was all alone. I was in mourning for my father and mother. I wanted to see
+the world. I just had to see it! I expect I was very foolish, but it was
+so easy to put a ring on my finger and call myself Mrs. And it gave me
+such advantages. And Miss Ingate agreed. She was my mother's oldest
+friend.... You're vexed with me."
+
+"You always seemed so wise," Mr. Gilman faltered.
+
+"Ah! That's only the effect of my forehead!"
+
+"And yet, you know, I always thought there was something very innocent
+about you, too."
+
+"I don't know what _that_ was," said Audrey. "But honestly I acted for the
+best. You see I'm rather rich. Supposing I'd only gone about as a young
+marriageable girl--what frightful risks I should have run, shouldn't I?
+Somebody would be bound to have married me for my money. And look at all I
+should have missed--without this ring! I should never have met you in
+Paris, for instance, and we should never have had those talks.... And--and
+there's a lot more reasons--I shall tell you another time--about Madame
+Piriac and so on. Now do say you aren't vexed!"
+
+"I think you've been splendid," he said, with enthusiasm. "I think the
+girls of to-day _are_ splendid! I've been a regular old fogey, that's what
+it is."
+
+"Now there's one thing I want you not to do," Audrey proceeded. "I want you
+not to alter the way you talk to me. Because I'm really just the same girl
+I was last night. And I couldn't bear you to change."
+
+"I won't! I won't! But of course----"
+
+"No, no! No buts. I won't have it. Do you know why I told you just this
+afternoon? Well, partly because you were so perfectly sweet last night. And
+partly because I've got a favour to ask you, and I wouldn't ask it until
+I'd told you."
+
+"You can't ask me a favour," he replied, "because it wouldn't be a favour.
+It would be my privilege."
+
+"But if you put it like that I can't ask you."
+
+"You must!" he said firmly.
+
+Then she told him something of the predicament of Jane Foley. He listened
+with an expression of trouble. Audrey finished bluntly: "She's my friend.
+And I want you to take her on the yacht to-night after it's dark. Nobody
+but you can save her. There! I've asked you!"
+
+"Jane Foley!" he murmured.
+
+She could see that he was aghast. The syllables of that name were notorious
+throughout Britain. They stood for revolt, damage to property, defiance of
+law, injured policemen, forcible feeding, and all sorts of phenomena that
+horrified respectable pillars of society.
+
+"She's the dearest thing!" said Audrey. "You've no idea. You'd love her.
+And she's done as much for Women's Suffrage as anybody in the world. She's
+a real heroine, if you like. You couldn't help the cause better than by
+helping her. And I know how keen you are to help." And Audrey said to
+herself: "He's as timid as a girl about it. How queer men are, after all!"
+
+"But what are we to do with her afterwards?" asked Mr. Gilman. There was
+perspiration on his brow.
+
+"Sail straight to France, of course. They couldn't touch her there, you
+see, because it's political. It _is_ political, you know," Audrey insisted
+proudly.
+
+"And give up all our cruise?"
+
+Audrey bent forward, as she had seen Tommy do. She smiled enchantingly. "I
+quite understand," she said, with a sort of tenderness. "You don't want to
+do it. And it was a shame of me even to suggest it."
+
+"But I do want to do it," he protested with splendid despairful resolve. "I
+was only thinking of you--and the cruise. I do want to do it. I'm
+absolutely at your disposal. When you ask me to do a thing, I'm only too
+proud. To do it is the greatest happiness I could have."
+
+Audrey replied softly:
+
+"You deserve the Victoria Cross."
+
+"Whatever do you mean?" he demanded nervously.
+
+"I don't know exactly what I mean," she said. "But you're the nicest man I
+ever knew."
+
+He blushed.
+
+"You mustn't say that to me," he deprecated.
+
+"I shall, and I shall."
+
+The sound of the thirty-six variations still came very faintly over the
+water. The sun sent cataracts of warm light across all the estuary. The
+water lapped against the boat, and Audrey was overwhelmed by the
+inexplicable marvel of being alive in the gorgeous universe.
+
+"I shall have to back water," she said, low. "There's no room to turn round
+here."
+
+"I suppose we'd better say as little about it as possible," he ventured.
+
+"Oh! Not a word! Not a word till it's done."
+
+"Yes, of course." He was drenched in an agitating satisfaction.
+
+Five bells rang clear from the yacht, overmastering the thirty-six
+variations.
+
+Audrey thought:
+
+"So he'd never agree, wouldn't he, Madame Piriac!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+
+AFLOAT
+
+That night, which was an unusually dark night for the time of year, Audrey
+left the yacht, alone, to fetch Jane Foley. She had made a provisional
+plan with Jane and Aguilar, and the arrangement with Mr. Gilman had been of
+the simplest, necessitating nothing save a brief order from the owner to
+the woman whom Audrey could always amuse Mr. Gilman by calling the
+"parlourmaid," but who was more commonly known as the stewardess. This
+young married creature had prepared a cabin. For the rest little had been
+said. The understanding between Mr. Gilman and Audrey was that Mrs.
+Moncreiff should continue to exist, and that not a word as to the arrival
+of Jane Foley should escape either of them until the deed was accomplished.
+It is true that Madame Piriac knew of the probable imminence of the affair,
+but Madame Piriac was discretion elegantly attired, and from the moment
+they had left Flank Hall together she had been wise enough not even to
+mention Jane Foley to Audrey. Madame Piriac appreciated the value of
+ignorance in a questionable crisis. Mr. Gilman had been less guarded.
+Indeed he had shown a tendency to discuss the coming adventure with Audrey
+in remote corners--a tendency which had to be discouraged because it gave
+to both of them a too obvious air of being tremendous conspirators, Also
+Audrey had had to dissuade him from accompanying her to the Hall. He had
+rather conventional ideas about women being abroad alone after dark, and he
+abandoned them with difficulty even now.
+
+As there were no street lamps alight in summer in the village of Moze,
+Audrey had no fear of being recognised; moreover, recognition by her former
+fellow-citizens could now have no sinister importance; she did not much
+care who recognised her. The principal gates of Flank Hall were slightly
+ajar, as arranged with Aguilar, and she passed with a suddenly aroused
+heart up the drive towards the front entrance of the house. In spite of
+herself she could not get rid of an absurd fear that either Mr. Hurley or
+Inspector Keeble or both would jump out of the dark bushes and slip
+handcuffs upon her wrists. And the baffling invisibility of the sky further
+affected her nerves. There ought to have been a lamp in the front hall, but
+no ray showed through the eighteenth century fanlight over the door. She
+rang the bell cautiously. She heard the distant ting. Aguilar, according to
+the plan, ought to have opened; but he did not open; nobody opened. She was
+instantly sure that she knew what had happened. Mr. Hurley had been to
+Frinton and ascertained that the Spatt story as to the tank-room was an
+invention, and had returned with a search warrant and some tools. But in
+another ten seconds she was equally sure that nothing of the sort could
+have happened, for it was an axiom with her that Aguilar's masterly lying,
+based on masterly listening at an attic door, had convinced Mr. Hurley of
+the truth of the story about the tank-room.
+
+Accidentally pushing against the front door with an elbow in the deep
+obscurity, she discovered that it was not latched. This was quite contrary
+to the plan. She stepped into the house. The unforeseeing simpleton had
+actually come on the excursion without a box of matches! She felt her way,
+aided by the swift returning memories of childhood, to the foot of the
+stairs, and past the stairs into the kitchen, for in ancient days a
+candlestick with a box of matches in it had always been kept on the ledge
+of the small square window that gave light to the passage between the hall
+and the kitchen. Her father had been most severely particular about that
+candlestick (with matches) being-always ready on that ledge in case of his
+need. Ridiculous, of course, to expect a candlestick to be still there!
+Times change so. But she felt for it, and there it was, and the matches
+too! She lit the candle. The dim scene thus revealed seemed strange enough
+to her after the electricity of the Hotel du Danube and of the yacht. It
+made her want to cry....
+
+She was one of those people who have room in their minds for all sorts of
+things at once. And thus she could simultaneously be worried to an extreme
+about Jane Foley, foolish and sad about her immensely distant childhood,
+and even regretful that she had admitted the fraudulence of the
+wedding-ring on her hand. On the last point she had a very strong sense of
+failure and disillusion. When she had first donned a widow's bonnet she had
+meant to have wondrous adventures and to hear marvellous conversations as a
+widow. And what had she done with her widowhood after all? Nothing. She
+could not but think that she ought to have kept it a little longer, on the
+chance....
+
+Aguilar made a practice of sleeping in the kitchen; he considered that a
+house could only be well guarded at night from the ground floor. There was
+his bed, in the corner against the brush and besom cupboard, all made up.
+Its creaselessness, so characteristic of Aguilar, had not been disturbed.
+The sight of the narrow bed made Audrey think what a strange existence was
+the existence of Aguilar. ... Then, with a boldness that was half bluster,
+she went upstairs, and the creaking of the woodwork was affrighting.
+
+"Jane! Jane, dear!" she called out, as she arrived at the second-storey
+landing. The sound of her voice was uncanny in the haunted stillness. All
+Audrey's infancy floated up the well of the stairs and wrapped itself round
+her and tightened her throat. She went along the passage to the door of the
+tank-room.
+
+"Jane, Jane!"
+
+No answer! The door was locked. She listened. She put her ear against the
+door in order to catch the faintest sound of life within. But she could
+only hear the crude, sharp ticking of the cheap clock which, as she knew,
+Aguilar had supplied to Jane Foley. The vision of Jane lying unconscious or
+dead obsessed her. Then she thrust it away and laughed at it. Assuredly
+Aguilar and Jane must have received some alarm as to a reappearance of the
+police; they must have fled while there had yet been time. Where could they
+have gone? Of course, through the garden and plantation and down to the
+sea-wall, whence Jane might steal to the yacht. Audrey turned back towards
+the stairs, and the vast intimidating emptiness of the gloomy house, lit by
+a single flickering candle, assaulted her. She had to fight it before she
+could descend. The garden door was latched, but not locked. Extinguishing
+the candle, she went forth. The gusty breeze from the estuary was now damp
+on her cheek with the presage of rain. She hurried, fumbling as it were,
+through the garden. When she achieved the hedge the spectacle of the yacht,
+gleaming from stem to stern with electricity, burst upon her; it shone like
+something desired and unattainable. Carefully she issued from the grounds
+by the little gate and crossed the intervening space to the dyke. A dark
+figure moved in front of her, and her heart violently jumped.
+
+"Is that you, madam?"
+
+It was the cold, imperturbable voice of Aguilar. At once she felt
+reassured.
+
+"Where is Miss Foley?" she demanded in a whisper.
+
+"I've got her down here, ma'am," said Aguilar. "I presume as you've been to
+the house. We had to leave it."
+
+"But the door of the tank-room was locked!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. I locked it a-purpose.... I thought as it would keep the
+police employed a bit when they come. I seen my cousin Sarah when I went to
+tell Miss Ingate as you instructed me. My cousin Sarah seen Keeble. They
+been to Frinton to Mrs. Spatt's, and they found out about _that_. And now
+the 'tec's back, or nearly. I reckon it was the warrant as was delaying
+him. So I out with Miss Foley. I thought I could take her across to the
+yacht from here. It wouldn't hardly be safe for her to walk round by the
+dyke. Hurley may have several of his chaps about by this time."
+
+"But there's not water enough, Aguilar."
+
+"Yes, madam. I dragged the old punt down. She don't draw three inches.
+She's afloat now, and Miss Foley's in her. I was just a-going off. If you
+don't mind wetting your feet----"
+
+In one minute Audrey had splashed into the punt. Jane Foley took her hand
+in silence, and she heard Jane's low, happy laugh.
+
+"Isn't it funny?" Jane whispered.
+
+Audrey squeezed her hand.
+
+Aguilar pushed off with an oar, and he continued to use the oar as a
+punt-pole, so that no sound of their movement should reach the bank. Water
+was pouring into the old sieve, and they touched ground once. But Aguilar
+knew precisely what he was about and got her off again. They approached
+the yacht with the slow, sure inexorability of Aguilar's character. A beam
+from the portholes of the saloon caught Aguilar's erect figure. He sat
+down, poling as well as he could from the new position. When they were a
+little nearer he stopped dead, holding the punt firm by means of the pole
+fixed in the mud.
+
+"He's there afore us!" he murmured, pointing.
+
+Under the Maltese cross of electric lights at the inner end of the gangway
+could clearly be seen the form of Mr. Hurley, engaged in conversation with
+Mr. Gilman. Mr. Hurley was fairly on board.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+
+IN THE UNIVERSE
+
+When Audrey, having been put ashore in execution of a plan arranged with
+those naturally endowed strategists, Aguilar and Jane Foley, arrived at the
+Hard by way of the sea-wall, Mr. Hurley was still in parley with Mr.
+Gilman under the Maltese cross of electric lights. From the distance Mr.
+Gilman had an air of being somewhat intimidated by the Irishman, but as
+soon as he distinguished the figure of Audrey at the shore end of the
+gangway his muscles became mysteriously taut, and his voice charged with
+defiance.
+
+"I have already told you, sir," Audrey heard him say, "there is no such
+person aboard the yacht. And I most certainly will not allow you to search.
+You have no right whatever to search, and you know it. You have my word.
+My name is Gilman. You may have heard of me. I'm chairman of the Board of
+Foodstuffs, Limited. Gilman, sir. And I shall feel obliged if you will
+leave my decks."
+
+"Are you sailing to-night?" asked Mr. Hurley placidly.
+
+"What the devil has that got to do with you, sir?" replied Mr. Gilman
+gloriously.
+
+Audrey, standing behind the detective and unseen by him, observed the
+gloriousness of Mr. Gilman's demeanour and also Mr. Gilman's desire that
+she should note the same and appreciate it. She nodded violently several
+times to Mr. Gilman, to urge him to answer the detective in the
+affirmative.
+
+"Ye-es, sir. Since you are so confoundedly inquisitive, I am sailing
+to-night. I shall sail as soon as the tide serves," said Mr. Gilman
+hurriedly and fiercely, and then glanced again at Audrey for further
+approval.
+
+"Where for?" Mr. Hurley demanded.
+
+"Where I please, sir," Mr. Gilman snorted. By this time he evidently
+imagined that he was furious, and was taking pleasure in his fury.
+
+Mr. Hurley, having given a little ironic bow, turned to leave and found
+himself fronting Audrey, who stiffly ignored his salute. The detective
+gone, Mr. Gilman walked to and fro, breathing more loudly than ever, and
+unsuccessfully pretending to a scattered audience, which consisted of the
+skipper, Mr. Price, Dr. Cromarty, and sundry deck-hands, that he had done
+nothing in particular and was not a hero. As Audrey approached him he
+seemed to lay all his glory with humble pride at her feet.
+
+"Well, he brought that on himself!" said Audrey, smiling.
+
+"He did," Mr. Gilman concurred, gazing at the Hard with inimical scorn.
+
+"She can't come--now," said Audrey. "It wouldn't be safe. He means to stay
+on the Hard till we're gone. He's a very suspicious man."
+
+Mr. Hurley was indeed lingering just beyond the immediate range of the
+_Ariadne's_ lamps.
+
+"Can't come! What a pity! What a pity!" murmured Mr. Gilman, with an accent
+that was not a bit sincere. The news was the best he had heard for hours.
+"But I suppose," he added, "we'd better sail just the same, as I've said we
+should?" He did not want to run the risk of getting Jane Foley after all.
+
+"Oh! Do!" Audrey exclaimed. "It will be lovely! If it doesn't rain--and
+even if it does rain! We all like sailing at night.... Are the others in
+the saloon? I'll run down."
+
+"Mr. Wyatt," the owner sternly accosted the captain. "When can we get
+off?"
+
+"Oh! About midnight," Audrey answered quickly, before Mr. Wyatt could
+compose his lips.
+
+The men gazed at each other surprised by this show of technical knowledge
+in a young widow. By the time Mr. Wyatt had replied, Audrey was descending
+into the saloon. It was Aguilar who, having ascertained the _Ariadne's_
+draught, had made the calculation as to the earliest possible hour of
+departure.
+
+And in the saloon Musa was, as it were, being enveloped and kept
+comfortable in the admiring sympathy of Madame Piriac and Miss Thompkins.
+Mr. Gilman's violin lay across his knees--perhaps he had been tuning
+it--and the women inclined towards him, one on either side. It was a sight
+that somewhat annoyed Audrey, who told herself that she considered it
+silly. Admitting that Musa had genius, she could not understand this soft
+flattery of genius. She never flattered genius herself, and she did not
+approve of others doing so. Certainly Musa was now being treated on the
+yacht as a celebrity of the first order, and Audrey could find no
+explanation of the steady growth in the height and splendour of his throne.
+Her arrival dissolved the spectacle. Within one minute, somehow, the saloon
+was empty and everybody on deck again.
+
+And then, drawing her away, Musa murmured to Audrey in a disconcerting tone
+that he must speak to her on a matter of urgency, and that in order that he
+might do so, they must go ashore and walk seawards, far from interruption.
+She consented, for she was determined to prove to him at close quarters
+that she was a different creature from the other two. They moved to the
+gangway amid discreet manifestations from the doctor and the
+secretary--manifestations directed chiefly to Musa and indicative of his
+importance as a notability. Audrey was puzzled. For her, Musa was more than
+ever just Musa, and less than ever a personage.
+
+"I shall not return to the yacht," he said, with an excited bitterness,
+after they had walked some distance along one of the paths leading past low
+bushes into the wilderness of the marsh land that bounded the estuary to
+the south. The sky was still invisible, but there was now a certain amount
+of diffused light, and the pale path could easily be distinguished amid the
+sombreness of green. The yacht was hidden behind one of the knolls. No
+sound could be heard. The breeze had died. That which was around them--on
+either hand, above, below--was the universe. They knew that they stood
+still in the universe, and this idea gave their youth the sensation of
+being very important.
+
+"What is that which you say?" Audrey demanded sharply in French, as Musa
+had begun in French. She was aware, not for the first time with Musa, of
+the sudden possibilities of drama in a human being. She could scarcely make
+out his face, but she knew that he was in a mood for high follies; she knew
+that danger was gathering; she knew that the shape of the future was
+immediately to be moulded by her and him, and chiefly by herself. She liked
+it. The sensation of her importance was reinforced.
+
+"I say I shall never return to the yacht," he repeated.
+
+She thought compassionately:
+
+"Poor foolish thing!"
+
+She was incalculably older and wiser than this irrational boy. She was the
+essence of wisdom.
+
+She said, with acid detachment:
+
+"But your luggage, your belongings? What an idea to leave in this manner!
+It is so polite, so sensible!"
+
+"I shall not return."
+
+"Of course," she said, "I do not at all understand why you are going. But
+what does that matter? You are going." Her indifference was superb. It was
+so superb that it might have driven some men to destroy her on the spot.
+
+"Yes, you understand! I told you last night," said Musa, overflowing with
+emotion.
+
+"Oh! You told me? I forget."
+
+"Naturally Monsieur Gilman is rich. I am not rich, though I shall be. But
+you can't wait," Musa sneered.
+
+"I do not know what you mean," said Audrey.
+
+"Ah!" said Musa. "Once I told you that Tommy and Nick lent me the money
+with which to live. For me, since then, you have never been the same being.
+How stupid I was to tell you! You could not comprehend such a thing. Your
+soul is too low to comprehend it. Permit me to say that I have already
+repaid Nick. And at the first moment I shall repay Tommy. My position is
+secure. I have only to wait. But you will not wait. You are a bourgeoise
+of the most terrible sort. Opulence fascinates you. Mr. Gilman has
+opulence. He has nothing else. But he has opulence, and for you that is
+all."
+
+In an instant her indifference, self-control, wisdom vanished. It was a sad
+exhibition of frailty; but she enjoyed it, she revelled in it, giving play
+to everything in herself that was barbaric. The marsh around them was
+probably as it had been before the vikings had sailed into it, and Audrey
+rushed back with inconceivable speed into the past and became the primeval
+woman of twenty centuries earlier. Like almost all women she possessed this
+wondrous and affrighting faculty.
+
+"You are telling a wicked untruth!" she exploded in English. "And what's
+more, you know you are. You disgust me. You know as well as I do I don't
+care anything for money--anything. Only you're a horrid, spoilt beast. You
+think you can upset me, but you can't. I won't have it, either from you or
+from anybody else. It's a shame, that's what it is. Now you've got to
+apologise to me. I absolutely insist on it. You aren't going to bully me,
+even if you think you are. I'll soon show you the sort of girl I am, and
+you make no mistake! Are you going to apologise or aren't you?"
+
+The indecorous creature was breathing as loudly as Mr. Gilman himself.
+
+"I admit it," said Musa yielding.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"I demand your pardon. I knew that what I said was not true. I am outside
+myself. But what would you? It is stronger than I. This existence is
+terrible, on the yacht. I cannot support it. I shall become mad. I am
+ruined. My jealousy is intolerable."
+
+"It is!" said Audrey, using French again, more calmly, having returned to
+the twentieth century.
+
+"It is intolerable to me." Then Musa's voice changed and grew persuasive,
+rather like a child's. "I cannot live without you. That is the truth. I am
+an artist, and you are necessary to me and to my career." He lifted his
+head. "And I can offer you everything that is most brilliant."
+
+"And what about my career?" Audrey questioned inimically.
+
+"Your career?" He seemed at a loss.
+
+"Yes. My career. It has possibly not occurred to you that I also may have a
+career."
+
+Musa became appealing.
+
+"You understand me," he said. "I told you you do not comprehend, but you
+comprehend everything. It is that which enrages me. You have had
+experience. You know what men are. You could teach me so much. I hate young
+girls. I have always hated them. They are so tasteless, so insufferably
+innocent. I could not talk to a young girl as I talk to you. It would be
+absurd. Now as to my career--what I said----"
+
+"Musa," she interrupted him, with a sinister quietude, "I want to tell you
+something. But you must promise to keep it secret. Will you?"
+
+He assented, impatient.
+
+"It is not possible!" he exclaimed, when she had told him that she belonged
+to precisely the category of human beings whom he hated and despised.
+
+"Isn't it?" said she. "Now I hope you see how little you know, really,
+about women." She laughed.
+
+"It is not possible!" he repeated. And then he said with deliberate
+ingenuousness: "I am so content. I am so happy. I could not have hoped for
+it. It is overwhelming. I am everything you like of the most idiotic,
+blind, stupid. But now I am happy. Could I ever have borne that you had
+loved before I knew you? I doubt if I could have borne it. Your innocence
+is exquisite. It is intoxicating to me."
+
+"Musa," she remarked dryly; "I wish you would remember that you are in
+England. People do not talk in that way in England. It simply is not done.
+And I will not listen to it." Her voice grew a little tender. "Why can we
+not just be friends?"
+
+"It is folly," said he, with sudden disgust. "And it would kill me."
+
+"Well, then," she replied, receding. "You're entitled to die."
+
+He advanced towards her. She kept him away with a gesture.
+
+"You want me to marry you?" she questioned.
+
+"It is essential," he said, very seriously. "I adore you. I can't do
+anything because of you. I can't think of anything but you. You are more
+marvellous than anyone can be. You cannot appreciate what you are to me!"
+
+"And suppose you are nothing to me?"
+
+"But it is necessary that you should love me!"
+
+"Why? I see no necessity. You want me--because you want me. That's all. I
+can't help it if you're mad. Your attitude is insulting. You have not given
+one thought to my feelings. And if I said 'yes' to you, you'd marry me
+whatever my feelings were. You think only of yourself. It is the old
+attitude. And when I offer you my friendship, you instantly decline it.
+That shows how horribly French you are. Frenchmen can't understand the idea
+of friendship between a man and a girl. They sneer at it. It shows what
+brutes you all are. Why should I marry you? I should have nothing to gain
+by it. You'll be famous. Well, what do I care? Do you think it would be
+very amusing for me to be the wife of a famous man that was run after by
+every silly creature in Paris or London or New York?  Not quite! And I
+don't see myself. You don't like young girls. I don't like young men.
+They're rude and selfish and conceited. They're like babies."
+
+"The fact is," Musa broke in, "you are in love with the old Gilman."
+
+"He is not old!" cried Audrey. "In some ways he is much less worn out than
+you are. And supposing I am in love with Mr. Gilman? Does it regard you? Do
+not be rude. Mr. Gilman is at any rate polite. He is not capricious. He is
+reliable. You aren't reliable. You want someone upon whom you can rely. How
+nice for your wife! You play the violin. True. You are a genius. But you
+cannot always be on the platform. And when you are not on the platform...!
+Heavens! If I wish to hear you play I can buy a seat and come and hear you
+and go away again. But your wife, responsible for your career--she will
+never be free. Her life will be unbearable. What anxiety!  Misery, I should
+say rather! You would have the lion's share of everything. Now for myself I
+intend to have the lion's share. And why shouldn't I? Isn't it about time
+some woman had it? You can't have the lion's share if you are not free. I
+mean to be free. If I marry I shall want a husband that is not a prison....
+Thank goodness I've got money.... Without that----!"
+
+"Then," said Musa, "you have no feeling for me."
+
+"Love?" she laughed exasperatingly.
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"Not that much!" She snapped her fingers. "But"--in a changed tone--"I
+_should_ like to like you. I shall be very disgusted if your concerts are
+not a tremendous success. And they will not be if you don't keep control
+over yourself and practise properly. And it will be your fault."
+
+"Then, good-bye!" he said, coldly ignoring all her maternal suggestions.
+And turned away.
+
+"Where are you going to?"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"I do not know. But if I do not deceive myself I have already informed you
+that in certain circumstances I should not return to the yacht."
+
+"You are worse than a schoolboy."
+
+"It is possible."
+
+"Anyway, _I_ shan't explain on the yacht. I shall tell them that I know
+nothing about it."
+
+"But no one will believe you," he retorted maliciously over his shoulder.
+And then he was gone.
+
+She at any rate was no longer surrounded by the largeness of the universe.
+He might still be, but she was not. She was in mind already on the yacht
+trying to act a surprise equal to the surprise of the others when Musa
+failed to reappear. She was very angry with him, not because he had been a
+rude schoolboy and was entirely impossible as a human being, but because
+she had allowed herself to leave the yacht with him and would therefore be
+compelled sooner or later to answer questions about him. She seriously
+feared that Mr. Gilman might refuse to sail unless she confessed to him her
+positive knowledge that Musa would not be seen again, and that thus she
+might have to choose between the failure of her plans for Jane Foley and
+her own personal discomfiture.
+
+Instead of being in the mighty universe she was struggling amid the
+tiresome littleness of society on a yacht. She hated yachts for their very
+cosiness and their quality of keeping people close together who wanted to
+be far apart. And as she watched the figure of Musa growing fainter she was
+more than ever impressed by the queerness of men. Women seemed to be so
+logical, so realistic, so understandable, so calculable, whereas men were
+enigmas of waywardness and unreason. At just that moment her feet reminded
+her that they had been wetted by the adventure in the punt, and she said to
+herself sagely that she must take precautions against a chill.
+
+And then she thought she detected some unusual phenomenon behind a clump of
+bushes to the right which hid a plank-bridge across a waterway. She would
+have been frightened if she had not been very excited. And in her
+excitement she marched straight up to the clump, and found Mr. Hurley in a
+crouching posture. She started, and recovered.
+
+"I might have known!" she said disdainfully.
+
+"We all make mistakes," said Mr. Hurley defensively. "We all make
+mistakes. I knew I'd made a mistake as soon as I got here, but I couldn't
+get away quietly enough. And you talked so loud. Ye'll admit I had just
+cause for suspicion. And being a very agreeable lady ye'll pardon me."
+
+She blushed, and then ceased blushing because it was too dark for him to
+perceive the blush, and she passed on without a word. When, across the
+waste, she had come within sight of the yacht again, she heard footsteps
+behind her, and turned to withstand the detective. But the overtaker was
+Musa.
+
+"It is necessary that I should return to the yacht," he said savagely. "The
+thought of you and Monsieur Gilman together, without me.... No! I did not
+know myself. ... I did not know myself.... It is impossible for me to
+leave."
+
+She made no answer. They boarded the yacht as though they had been for a
+stroll. Few could have guessed that they had come back from the universe
+terribly scathed. Accepting deferential greetings as a right, Musa
+vanished rapidly to his cabin.
+
+Several hours later Audrey and Mr. Gilman, alone among the passengers, were
+standing together, both tarpaulined, on the starboard bow, gazing seaward
+as the yacht cautiously felt her way down Mozewater. Captain Wyatt, and not
+Mr. Gilman, was at the binnacle. A little rain was falling and the night
+was rather thick but not impenetrable.
+
+"There's the light!" said Audrey excitedly.
+
+"What sharp eyes you have!" said Mr. Gilman. "I can see it, too." He spoke
+a word to the skipper, and the skipper spoke, and then the engine went
+still more slowly.
+
+The yacht approached the Flank buoy dead slow, scarcely stemming the tide.
+The Moze punt was tied up to the buoy, and Aguilar held a lantern on a
+boathook, while Jane Foley, very wet, was doing a spell of baling. Aguilar
+dropped the boathook and, casting off, brought the punt alongside the
+yacht. The steps were lowered and Jane Foley, with laughing, rain-sprinkled
+face, climbed up. Aguilar handed her bag which contained nearly everything
+she possessed on earth. She and Audrey kissed calmly, and Audrey presented
+Mr. Gilman to a suddenly shy Jane. In the punt Miss Foley had been seen to
+take an affectionate leave of Aguilar. She now leaned over the rail.
+
+"Good-bye!" she said, with warmth. "Thanks ever so much. It's been
+splendid. I do hope you won't be too wet. Can you row all the way home?"
+She shivered.
+
+"I shall go back on the tide, Miss Foley," answered Aguilar.
+
+He touched his cap to Audrey, mumbled gloomily a salutation, and loosed his
+hold on the yacht; and at once the punt felt the tide and began to glide
+away in the darkness towards Moze. The yacht's engine quickened. Flank buoy
+faded.
+
+Mr. Gilman and the two girls made a group.
+
+"You're wonderful! You really are!" said Mr. Gilman, addressing apparently
+the pair of them. He was enthusiastic. ... He added with grandeur, "And
+now for France!"
+
+"I do hope Mr. Hurley is still hanging about Moze," said Audrey. "Mr.
+Gilman, shall I show Miss Foley her cabin? She's rather wet."
+
+"Oh, do! Oh, do, please! But don't forget that we are to have supper
+together. I insist on supper."
+
+And Audrey thought: "How agreeable he is! How kind-hearted! He hasn't got
+any 'career' to worry about, and I adore him, and he's as simple as
+knitting."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+THE IMMINENT DRIVE
+
+
+"Oh!" cried Miss Thompkins. "You can see it from here. It's funny how
+unreal it seems, isn't it?"
+
+She pointed at one of the large white-curtained windows of the restaurant,
+through which was visible a round column covered with advertisements of
+theatres, music-halls, and concert-halls, printed in many colours and
+announcing superlative delights. Names famous wherever pleasure is
+understood gave to their variegated posters a pleasant air of distinguished
+familiarity--names of theatres such as "Varietes," "Vaudeville,"
+"Chatelet," "Theatre Francais," "Folies-Bergere," and names of persons such
+as "Sarah Bernhardt," "Huegenet," "Le Bargy," "Litvinne," "Lavalliere." But
+the name in the largest type--dark crimson letters on rose paper--the name
+dominating all the rest, was the name of Musa. The ingenuous stranger to
+Paris was compelled to think that as an artist Musa was far more important
+than anybody else. Along the length of all the principal boulevards, and in
+many of the lesser streets, the ingenuous stranger encountered, at regular
+distances of a couple of hundred yards or so, one of these columns planted
+on the kerb; and all the scores of them bore exactly the same legend; they
+all spoke of nothing but blissful diversions, and they all put Musa ahead
+of anybody else in the world of the stage and the platform. Sarah Bernhardt
+herself, dark blue upon pale, was a trifle compared to Musa on the columns.
+And it had been so for days. Other posters were changed daily--changed by
+mysterious hands before even bread-girls were afoot with their yards of
+bread--but the space given to Musa repeated always the same tidings, namely
+that Musa ("the great violinist") was to give an orchestral concert at the
+Salle Xavier, assisted by the Xavier orchestra, on Thursday, September 24,
+at 9 P.M. Particulars of the programme followed.
+
+Paris was being familiarised with Musa. His four letters looked down upon
+the fever of the thoroughfares; they were perused by tens of thousands of
+sitters in cafes and in front of cafes; they caught the eye of men and
+women fleeing from the wrath to come in taxicabs; they competed
+successfully with newspaper placards; and on that Thursday--for the
+Thursday in question had already run more than half its course--they had so
+entered into the sub-conscious brain of Paris that no habitue of the
+streets, whatever his ignorant indifference to the art of music, could have
+failed to reply with knowledge, on hearing Musa mentioned, "Oh, yes!"
+implying that he was fully acquainted with the existence of the said Musa.
+
+Tommy was right: there did seem to be a certain unreality about the thing,
+yet it was utterly real.
+
+All the women turned to glance at the name through the window, and some of
+them murmured sympathetic and interested exclamations and bright hopes.
+There were five women: Miss Thompkins, Miss Nickall, Madame Piriac, Miss
+Ingate and Audrey. And there was one man--Mr. Gilman. And the six were
+seated at a round table in the historic Parisian restaurant. Mr. Gilman had
+the air triumphant, and he was entitled to it. The supreme moment of his
+triumph had come. Having given a luncheon to these ladies, he had just
+asked, with due high negligence, for the bill. If there was one matter in
+which Mr. Gilman was a truly great expert, it was the matter of giving a
+meal in a restaurant. He knew how to dress for such an affair--with strict
+conventionality but a touch of devil-may-care youthfulness in the necktie.
+He knew how to choose the restaurant; he had about half a dozen in his
+repertoire--all of the first order and for the most part combining the
+exclusive with the amusing--entirely different in kind from the pandemonium
+where Audrey had eaten on the night of her first arrival in Paris; he knew
+how to get the best out of head-waiters and waiters, who in these
+restaurants were not head-waiters and waiters but worldly priests and
+acolytes; his profound knowledge of cookery sprang from a genuine interest
+in his stomach, and he could compose a menu in a fashion to command the
+respect of head-waiters and to excite the envy of musicians composing a
+sonata; he had the wit to look in early and see to the flowers; above all
+he was aware what women liked in the way of wine, and since this was never
+what he liked in the way of wine, he would always command a half-bottle of
+the extra dry for himself, but would have it manipulated with such
+discretion that not a guest could notice it. He paid lavishly and
+willingly, convinced by hard experience that the best is inestimable, but
+he felt too that the best was really quite cheap, for he knew that there
+were imperfectly educated people in the world who thought nothing of paying
+the price of a good meal for a mere engraving or a bit of china. Withal,
+he never expected his guests truly to appreciate the marvels he offered
+them. They could not, or very rarely. Their twittering ecstatic praise,
+which was without understanding, sufficed for him, though sometimes he
+would give gentle diffident instruction. This trait in him was very
+attractive, proving the genuineness of his modesty.
+
+The luncheon was partly to celebrate the return of various persons to
+Paris, but chiefly in honour of Musa's concert. Musa could not be present,
+for distinguished public performers do not show themselves on the day of an
+appearance. Mr. Gilman had learnt this from Madame Piriac, whom he had
+consulted as to the list of guests. It is to be said that he bore the
+absence of Musa from his table with stoicism. For the rest, Madame Piriac
+knew that he wanted no other men, and she had suggested none. She had
+assumed that he desired Audrey, and had pointed out that Audrey could not
+well be invited without Miss Ingate, who, sick of her old Moze, had
+rejoined Audrey in the splendour of the Hotel du Danube. Mr. Gilman had
+somehow mentioned Miss Thompkins, whereupon Madame Piriac had declared that
+Miss Thompkins involved Miss Nickall, who after a complete recovery from
+the broken arm had returned for a while to her studio. And then Mr. Gilman
+had closed the list, saying that six was enough, and exactly the right
+number.
+
+"At what o'clock are you going for the drive?" asked Madame Piriac in her
+improved, precise English. She looked equally at her self-styled uncle and
+at Audrey.
+
+"I ordered the car for three o'clock," answered Mr. Gilman. "It is not yet
+quite three."
+
+The table with its litter of ash-trays, empty cups, empty small glasses,
+and ravaged sweets, and the half-deserted restaurant, and the polite
+expectant weariness of the priests and acolytes, all showed that the hour
+was in fact not quite three--an hour at which such interiors have
+invariably the aspect of roses overblown and about to tumble to pieces.
+
+And immediately upon the reference to the drive everybody at the table
+displayed a little constraint, avoiding the gaze of everybody else, thus
+demonstrating that the imminent drive was a delicate, without being a
+disagreeable, topic. Which requires explanation.
+
+Mr. Gilman had not been seen by any of his guests during the summer. He had
+landed them at Boulogne from the _Ariadne_--sound but for one casualty.
+That casualty was Jane Foley, suffering from pneumonia, which had
+presumably developed during the evening of exposure spent with Aguilar in
+the leaking punt and in rain showers. Madame Piriac and Audrey took her to
+Wimereux and there nursed her through a long and sometimes dangerous
+illness. Jane possessed no constitution, but she had obstinacy, which
+saved her. In her convalescence, part of which she spent alone with Audrey
+(Madame Piriac having to pay visits to Monsieur Piriac), she had proceeded
+with the writing of a book, and she had also received in conclave the
+rarely seen Rosamund, who like herself was still a fugitive from British
+justice. These two had been elaborating a new plan of campaign, which was
+to include an incursion by themselves into England, and which had in part
+been confided by Jane to Audrey, who, having other notions in her head, had
+been somewhat troubled thereby. Audrey's conscience had occasionally told
+her to throw herself heartily into the campaign, but her individualistic
+instincts had in the end kept her safely on a fence between the campaign
+and something else. The something else was connected with Mr. Gilman.
+
+Mr. Gilman had written to her regularly; he had sent dazzling subscriptions
+to the Suffragette Union; and Audrey had replied regularly. His letters
+were very simple, very modest, and quite touching. They were dated from
+various coastal places. However, he never came near Wimereux, though it was
+a coastal place. Audrey had excusably deemed this odd; but Madame Piriac
+having once said with marked casualness, "I hinted to him that he might
+with advantage stay away," Audrey had concealed her thoughts on the point.
+And one of her thoughts was that Madame Piriac was keeping them apart so as
+to try them, so as to test their mutual feelings. The policy, if it was a
+policy, was very like Madame Piriac; it had the effect of investing Mr.
+Gilman in Audrey's mind with a peculiar romantic and wistful charm, as of a
+sighing and obedient victim. Then Jane Foley and Rosamund had gone off
+somewhere, and Madame Piriac and Audrey had returned to Paris, and had
+found that practically all Paris had returned to Paris too. And on the
+first meeting with Mr. Gilman it had been at once established that his
+feelings and those of Audrey had surmounted the Piriac test. Within
+forty-eight hours all persons interested had mysteriously assumed that Mr.
+Gilman and Audrey were coupled together by fate and that a delicious crisis
+was about to supervene in their earthly progress. And they had become
+objects of exquisite solicitude. They had also become perfect. A circle of
+friends and acquaintances waited in excited silence for a palpitating
+event, as a populace waits for the booming gunfire which is to inaugurate a
+national rejoicing. And when the news exuded that he was taking her for a
+drive to Meudon, which she had never seen, alone, all decided beyond any
+doubt that _he would do it during the drive_.
+
+Hence the nice constraint at the table when the drive grew publicly and
+avowedly imminent.
+
+Audrey, as the phrase is, "felt her position keenly," but not unpleasantly,
+nor with understanding. Not a word had passed of late between herself and
+Mr. Gilman that any acquaintance might not have listened to. Indeed, Mr.
+Gilman had become slightly more formal. She liked him for that, as she
+liked him for a large number of qualities. She did not know whether she
+loved him. And strange to say, the question did not passionately interest
+her. The only really interesting questions were: Would he propose to her?
+And would she accept him? She had no logical ground for assuming that he
+would propose to her. None of her friends had informed her of the general
+expectation that he would propose to her. Yet she knew that everybody
+expected him to propose to her quite soon--indeed within the next couple of
+hours. And she felt that everybody was right. The universe was full of
+mysteries for Audrey. As regards her answer to any proposal, she
+foresaw--another mystery--that it would not depend upon self-examination or
+upon reason, or upon anything that could be defined. It would depend upon
+an instinct over which her mind--nay, even her heart--had no control. She
+was quite certainly aware that this instinct would instruct her brain to
+instruct her lips to say "Yes." The idea of saying "No" simply could not be
+conceived. All the forces in the universe would combine to prevent her from
+saying "No."
+
+The one thing that might have countered that enigmatic and powerful
+instinct was a consideration based upon the difference between her age and
+that of Mr. Gilman. It is true that she did not know what the difference
+was, because she did not know Mr. Gilman's age. And she could not ask him.
+No! Such is the structure of society that she could not say to Mr. Gilman,
+"By the way, Mr. Gilman, how old are you?" She could properly ascertain his
+tastes about all manner of fundamental points, such as the shape of
+chair-legs, the correct hour for dining, or the comparative merits of
+diamonds and emeralds; but this trifle of information about his age could
+not be asked for. And he did not make her a present of it. She might have
+questioned Madame Piriac, but she could not persuade herself to question
+Madame Piriac either. However, what did it matter? Even if she learnt his
+age to a day, he would still be precisely the same Mr. Gilman. And let him
+be as old or as young as he might, she was still his equal in age. She was
+far more than six months older than she had been six months ago.
+
+The influence of Madame Piriac through the summer had indirectly matured
+her. For above all Madame Piriac had imperceptibly taught her the
+everlasting joy and duty of exciting the sympathy, admiration and gratitude
+of the other sex. Hence Audrey had aged at a miraculous rate because in
+order to please Mr. Gilman she wished--possibly without knowing it--to undo
+the disparity between herself and him. This may be strange, but it is
+assuredly more true than strange. To the same ends she had concealed her
+own age. Nobody except Miss Ingate knew how old she was. She only made it
+clear, when doubts seemed to exist, that she had passed her majority long
+before. Further, her wealth, magnified by legend, assisted her age. Not
+that she was so impressed by her wealth as she had been. She had met
+American women in Paris compared to whom she was at destitution's door. She
+knew one woman who had kept a 2,000-ton yacht lying all summer in the outer
+harbour at Boulogne, and had used it during that period for exactly eleven
+hours.
+
+Few of these people had an establishment. They would rent floors in hotels,
+or chateaux in Touraine, or yachts, but they had no home, and yet they
+seemed very content and beyond doubt they were very free. And so Audrey did
+not trouble about having a home. She had Moze, which was more than many of
+her acquaintances had. She would not use it, but she had it. And she was
+content in the knowledge of the power to create a home when she felt
+inclined to create one. Not that it would not have been absurd to set about
+creating a home with Mr. Gilman hanging over her like a destiny. It would
+have been rude to him to do so; it would have been to transgress against
+the inter-sexual code as promulgated by Madame Piriac.... She wondered what
+sort of a place Meudon was, and whether he would propose to her while they
+were looking at the view together.... She trembled with the sense of
+adventure, which had little to do with happiness or unhappiness.... But
+_would_ he propose to her? Not improbably the whole conception of the
+situation was false and she was being ridiculous!
+
+Still the nice constraint persisted as the women began to put on their
+gloves, while Mr. Gilman had a word with the chief priest. And Audrey had
+the illusion of being a dedicated victim. As she self-consciously and yet
+proudly handled her gloves she could not help but notice the simple gold
+wedding-ring on a certain finger. She had never removed it. She had never
+formally renounced her claim to the status of a widow. That she was not a
+widow, that she had been guilty of a fraud on a gullible public, was
+somehow generally known; but the facts were not referred to, save perhaps
+in rare hints by Tommy, and she had continued to be known as Mrs.
+Moncreiff. Ignominious close to a daring enterprise! And in the
+circumstances nothing was more out of place than the ring, bought in cold,
+wilful, calculating naughtiness at Colchester.
+
+Just when Miss Ingate was beginning to discuss her own plans for the
+afternoon, Mr. Price entered the restaurant, and as he did so Miss
+Thompkins, saying something about the small type on the poster outside,
+went to the window to examine it. Mr. Price, disguised as a discreet
+dandy-about-town, bore a parcel of music. He removed a most glossy hat; he
+bowed to the whole company of ladies, who responded with smiles in which
+was acknowledge that he was a dandy in addition to being a secretary; and
+lastly with deference he handed the parcel of music to Mr. Gilman.
+
+"So you did get it! What did I tell you?" said Mr. Gilman with negligent
+condescension. "A minute later, and we should have been gone.... Has Mr.
+Price got this right?" he asked Audrey, putting the music respectfully in
+front of her.
+
+It included the reduced score of the Beethoven violin concerto, and other
+items to be performed that night at the Salle Xavier.
+
+"Oh! Thank you, Mr. Price!" said Audrey. The music was so fresh and glossy
+and luscious to the eye that it was like a gift of fruit.
+
+"That'll do, then, Price," said Mr. Gilman. "Don't forget about those
+things for to-night, will you?"
+
+"No, sir. I have a note of all of them."
+
+Mr. Price bowed and turned away, assuming his perfect hat. As he approached
+the door Tommy intercepted him; and said something to him in a low voice,
+to which he uncomfortably mumbled a reply. As they had admittedly been
+friends in Mr. Price's artistic days, exception could not be taken to this
+colloquy. Nevertheless Audrey, being as suspicious as a real widow,
+regarded it ill, thinking all manner of things. And when Tommy, humming,
+came back to her seat on Mr. Gilman's left hand, Audrey thought: "And why,
+after all, should she be on his left hand? It is of course proper that I
+should be on his right, but why should Tommy be on his left? Why not Madame
+Piriac or Miss Ingate?"
+
+"And what am _I_ going to do this afternoon?" demanded Miss Ingate,
+lengthening the space between her nose and her upper lip, and turning down
+the corners of her lower lip.
+
+"You have to try that new dress on, Winnie," said Audrey rather
+reprovingly.
+
+"Alone? Me go alone there? I wouldn't do it. It's not respectable the way
+they look at you and add you up and question you in those trying-on rooms,
+when they've _got_ you."
+
+"Well, take Elise with you."
+
+"Me take Elise? I won't do it, not unless I could keep her mouth full of
+pins all the time. Whenever we're alone, and her mouth isn't full of pins,
+she always talks to me as if I was an actress. And I'm not."
+
+"Well, then," said Miss Nickall kindly, "come with me and Tommy. We haven't
+anything to do, and I'm taking Tommy to see Jane Foley. Jane would love to
+see you."
+
+"She might," replied Miss Ingate. "Oh! She might. But I think I'll walk
+across to the hotel and just go to bed and sleep it off."
+
+"Sleep what off?" asked Tommy, with necklace rattling and orchidaceous eyes
+glittering.
+
+"Oh! Everything! Everything!" shrieked Miss Ingate.
+
+There was one other customer left in the restaurant, a solitary fair, fat
+man, and as Mr. Gilman's party was leaving, Audrey last, this solitary
+fair, fat man caught her eye, bowed, and rose. It was Mr. Cowl, secretary
+of the National Reformation Society. He greeted her with the assurance of
+an old and valued friend, and he called her neither Miss nor Mrs.; he
+called her nothing at all. Audrey accepted his lead.
+
+"And is your Society still alive?" she asked with casual polite disdain.
+
+"Going strong!" said Mr. Cowl. "More flourishing than ever--in spite of our
+bad luck." He lifted his sandy-coloured eyebrows. "Of course I'm here on
+Society business. In fact, I often have to come to Paris on Society
+business." His glance deprecated the appearance of the table over which his
+rounded form was protruding.
+
+"Well, I'm glad to have seen you again," said Audrey, holding out her hand.
+
+"I wonder," said Mr. Cowl, drawing some tickets from his pocket. "I wonder
+whether you--and your friends--would care to go to a concert to-night at
+the Salle Xavier. The concierge at my hotel is giving tickets away, and I
+took some--rather to oblige him than anything else. For one never knows
+when a concierge may not be useful. I don't suppose it will be anything
+great, but it will pass the time, and--er--strangers in Paris----"
+
+"Thank you, Mr. Cowl, but I'm not a stranger in Paris. I live here."
+
+"Oh! I beg your pardon," said Mr. Cowl. "Excuse me. Then you won't take
+them? Pity! I hate to see anything wasted."
+
+Audrey was both desolated and infuriated.
+
+"Remember me respectfully to Miss Ingate, please," finished Mr. Cowl. "She
+didn't see me as she passed."
+
+He returned the tickets to his pocket.
+
+Outside, Madame Piriac, standing by her automobile, which had rolled up
+with the silence of an hallucination, took leave of Audrey.
+
+"_Eh bien! Au revoir!_" said she shortly, with a peculiar challenging
+half-smile, which seemed to be saying, "Are you going to be worthy of my
+education? Let us hope so."
+
+And Miss Nickall, with her grey hair growing fluffier under a somewhat
+rakish hat, said with a smile of sheer intense watchful benevolence:
+
+"Well, good-bye!"
+
+While Nick was ecstatically thanking Mr. Gilman for his hospitality, Tommy
+called Audrey aside. Madame Piriac's car had vanished.
+
+"Have you heard about the rehearsal this morning?" she asked, in a
+confidential tone, anxious and yet quizzical.
+
+"No! What about it?" Audrey demanded. Various apprehensions were competing
+for attention in her brain. The episode of Mr. Cowl had agitated her
+considerably. And now she was standing right against the column bearing
+Musa's name in those large letters, and other columns up and down the gay,
+busy street echoed clear the name. And how unreal it was!... Tickets being
+given away in half-dozens!... She ought to have been profoundly disturbed
+by such a revelation, and she was. But here was the drive with Mr. Gilman
+insisting on a monopoly of all her faculties. And on the top of
+everything--Tommy with her strange gaze and tone! Tommy carefully hesitated
+before replying.
+
+"He lost his temper and left it in the middle--orchestra and conductor and
+Xavier and all! And he swore he wouldn't play to-night."
+
+"Nonsense!"
+
+"Yes, he did."
+
+"Who told you?"
+
+Already the two women were addressing each other as foes.
+
+"A man I know in the orchestra."
+
+"Why didn't you tell us at once--when you came?"
+
+"Well, I didn't want to spoil the luncheon. But of course I ought to have
+done. You, at any rate, seeing your interest in the concert! I'm sorry."
+
+"My interest in the concert?" Audrey objected.
+
+"Well, my girl," said Tommy, half cajolingly and half threateningly, "you
+aren't going to stand there and tell me to my face that you haven't put up
+that concert for him?"
+
+"Put up the concert! Put up the----" Audrey knew she was blushing.
+
+"Paid for it! Paid for it!" said Tommy, with impatience.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+
+GENIUS AT BAY
+
+Audrey got away from the group in front of the restaurant with stammering
+words and crimson confusion. She ran. She stopped a taxi and stumbled into
+it. There remained with her vividly the vision of the startled, entirely
+puzzled face of Mr. Gilman, who in an instant had been transformed from a
+happy, dignified and excusably self-satisfied human male into an outraged
+rebel whose grievance had overwhelmed his dignity. She had said hurriedly:
+"Please excuse me not coming with you. But Tommy says something's happened
+to Musa, and I must go and see. It's very important." And that was all she
+had said. Had she asked him to drive her to Musa's, Mr. Gilman would have
+been very pleased to do so; but she did not think of that till it was too
+late. Her precipitancy had been terrible, and had staggered even Tommy. She
+had no idea how the group would arrange itself. And she had no very clear
+idea as to what was wrong with Musa or how matters stood in regard to the
+concert. Tommy had asserted that she did not know whether the orchestra and
+its conductor meant to be at their desks in the evening just as though
+nothing whatever had occurred at the rehearsal. All was vague, and all was
+disturbing. She had asked Tommy the authority for her assertion that she,
+Audrey, was financing the concert. To which Tommy had replied that she had
+"guessed, of course." And seeing that Audrey had only interviewed a concert
+agent once--and he a London concert agent with relations in Paris--and
+that she had never uttered a word about the affair to anybody except Mr.
+Foulger, who had been keeping an eye on the expenditure, it was not
+improbable that Tommy had just guessed. But she had guessed right. She was
+an uncanny woman. "Have you ever spoken to Musa about--it?" Audrey had
+passionately demanded; and Tommy had answered also passionately: "Of course
+not. I'm a white woman all through. Haven't you learnt that yet?"
+
+The taxi, although it was a horse-taxi and incapable of moving at more than
+five miles an hour, reached the Rue Cassette, which was on the other side
+of the river and quite a long way off, in no time. That is to say, Audrey
+was not aware that any time had passed. She had received the address from
+Tommy, for it was a new address, Musa having admittedly risen in the world.
+The house was an old one; it had a curious staircase, with china knobs on
+the principal banisters of the rail, and crimson-tasselled bell cords at
+all the doors of the flats. Musa lived at the summit of it. Audrey arrived
+there short of breath, took the crimson-tasselled cord in her hand to pull,
+and then hesitated in order to think.
+
+Why had she come? The response was clear. She had come solely because she
+hated to see a job botched, and there was not a moment to lose if it was
+not to be botched. She had come, not because she had the slightest
+sympathetic interest in Musa--on the contrary, she was coldly angry with
+him--but because she had a horror of fiascos. She had found a genius who
+needed financing, and she, possessing some tons of money, had financed him,
+and she did not mean to see an ounce of her money wasted if she could help
+it. Her interest in the affair was artistic and impersonal, and none other.
+It was the duty of wealthy magnates to foster art, and she was fostering
+art, and she would have the thing done neatly and completely, or she would
+know the reason. Fancy a rational creature making a scene at a final
+rehearsal and swearing that he would not play, and then bolting!  It was
+monstrous! People really did not do such things. Assuredly no artist had
+ever done such a thing before. Artists who had a concert all to themselves
+invariably appeared according to advertised promise. An artist who was only
+one among several in a programme might fall ill and fail to appear, for
+such artists are liable to the accidents of earthly existence. But an
+artist who shared the programme with nobody else was above the accidents of
+earthly existence and magically protected against colds, coughs, influenza,
+orange peel, automobiles, and all the other enemies of mankind. But, of
+course, Musa was peculiar, erratic and unpredictable beyond even the wide
+range granted by society to genius. And yet of late he had been behaving
+himself in a marvellous manner. He had never bothered her. On the voyage
+back to France he had not bothered her. They had separated with punctilious
+cordiality. Neither of them had written to the other, but she knew that he
+was working diligently and satisfactorily. He was apparently cured of her.
+It was perhaps due to the seeming completeness of his cure that her
+relations with Mr. Gilman had been what they were. ... And now, suddenly,
+this!
+
+So with clear conscience she pulled the bell cord.
+
+Musa himself opened the door. He was coatless and in a dressing-gown, under
+which showed glimpses of a new smartness. As soon as he saw her he went
+very pale.
+
+"_Bon jour_," she said.
+
+He repeated the phrase stiffly.
+
+"Can I come in?" she asked.
+
+He silently signified, with a certain annoying resignation, that she might.
+For one instant she was under a tremendous impulse to walk grandly and
+haughtily down the stairs. But she conquered the impulse. He was so pale.
+
+"This way, excuse me," he said, and preceded her along a short, narrow
+passage which ended in an open door leading into a small room. There was no
+carpet on the floor of the passage, and only a quite inadequate rug on the
+floor of the room. The furniture was scanty and poor. There was a table, a
+music stand, a cheap imitation of a Louis Quatorze chair, two other chairs,
+and some piles of music. No curtains to the window! Not a picture on the
+walls!  On the table a dusty disorder of small objects, including
+ash-trays, and towards the back of it a little account book, open, with a
+pencil on it and a low pile of coppers and a silver ten-sou piece on the
+top of the coppers. Nevertheless this interior represented a novel
+luxuriousness for Musa; for previously, as Audrey knew, he had lived in one
+room, and there was no bed here. The flat, indeed, actually comprised three
+rooms. The account book and the pitiful heap of coins touched her. She had
+expended much on the enterprise of launching him to glory, and those coins
+seemed to be all that had filtered through to him. The whole dwelling was
+pathetic, and she thought of the splendours of her own daily life, of the
+absolute unimportance to her of such sums as would keep Musa in content for
+a year or for ten years, and of the grandiose, majestic, dazzling career of
+herself and Mr. Gilman when their respective fortunes should be joined
+together. And she mysteriously saw Mr. Gilman's face again, and that too
+was pathetic. Everything was pathetic. She alone seemed to be hard,
+dominating, overbearing. Her conscience waked to fresh activity. Was she
+losing her soul? Where were her ideals? Could she really work in full
+honesty for the feminist cause as the wife of a man like Mr. Gilman? He was
+adorable: she felt in that moment that she had a genuine affection for him;
+but could Mrs. Gilman challenge the police, retort audaciously upon
+magistrates, and lie in prison? In a word, could she be a martyr? Would Mr.
+Gilman, with all his amenability, consent?  Would she herself consent?
+Would it not be ridiculous? Thus her flying, shamed thoughts in front of
+the waiting Musa!
+
+"Then you aren't ill?" she began.
+
+"Ill!" he exclaimed. "Why do you wish that I should be ill?"
+
+As he answered her he removed his open fiddle case, with the violin inside
+it, from the Louis Quatorze chair, and signed to her to sit down. She sat
+down.
+
+"I heard that--this morning--at the rehearsal----"
+
+"Ah! You have heard that?"
+
+"And I thought perhaps you were ill. So I came to see."
+
+"What have you heard?"
+
+"Frankly, Musa, it is said that you said you would not play to-night."
+
+"Does it concern you?"
+
+"It concerns everyone.... And you have been so good lately."
+
+"Ah! I have been good lately. You have heard that. And did you expect me
+to continue to be good when you returned to Paris and passed all your days
+in public with that antique and grotesque Monsieur Gilman? All the world
+sees you. I myself have seen you. It is horrible."
+
+She controlled herself. And the fact that she was intensely flattered
+helped her to do so.
+
+"Now Musa," she said, firmly and kindly, as on previous occasions she had
+spoken to him. "Do be reasonable. I refuse to be angry, and it is
+impossible for you to insult me, however much you try. But do be
+reasonable. Do think of the future. We are all wishing for your success. We
+shall all be there. And now you say you aren't going to play. It is really
+too much."
+
+"You have perhaps bought tickets," said Musa, and a flush gradually spread
+over his cheeks. "You have perhaps bought tickets, and you are afraid lest
+you have been robbed. Tranquillise yourself, Madame. If you have the least
+fear, I will instruct my agent to reimburse you. And why should I not play?
+Naturally I shall play. Accept my word, if you can." He spoke with an icy
+and convincing decision.
+
+"Oh, I'm so glad!" Audrey murmured.
+
+"What right have you to be glad, Madame? If you are glad it is your own
+affair. Have I troubled you since we last met? I need the sympathy of
+nobody. I am assured of a large audience. My impresario is excessively
+optimistic. And if this is so, I owe it to none but myself. You speak of
+insults. Permit me to say that I regard your patronage as an insult. I have
+done nothing, I imagine, to deserve it. I crack my head to divine what I
+have done to deserve it. You hear some silly talk about a rehearsal and you
+precipitate yourself _chez moi_--"
+
+Without a word Audrey rose and departed. He followed her to the door and
+held it open.
+
+"_Bon jour_, Madame."
+
+She descended the stairs. Perhaps it was his sudden illogical change of
+tone; perhaps it was the memory of his phrase, "assured of a large
+audience," coupled with a picture of the sinister Mr. Cowl unsuccessfully
+trying to give away tickets--but whatever was the origin of the sob, she
+did give a sob. As she walked downcast through the courtyard she heard
+clearly the sounds of Musa's violin, played with savage vigour.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+
+FINANCIAL NEWS
+
+The Salle Xavier, or Xavier Hall, had been built, with other people's
+money, by Xavier in order to force the general public to do something which
+the general public does not want to do and never would do of its own
+accord. Namely, to listen to high-class music. It had not been built, and
+it was not run, strange to say, to advertise a certain brand of piano.
+Xavier was an old Jew, of surpassing ugliness, from Cracow or some such
+place. He looked a rascal, and he was one--admittedly; he himself would
+imply it, if not crudely admit it. He had no personal interest in music,
+either high-class or low-class. But he possessed a gift for languages and
+he had mixed a great deal with musicians in an informal manner. Wagner, at
+Venice, had once threatened Xavier with a stick, and also Xavier had twice
+run away with great exponents of the role of Isolde. His competence as a
+connoisseur of Wagner's music, and of the proper methods of rendering
+Wagner's music, could therefore not be questioned, and it was not
+questioned.
+
+He had a habit of initiating grandiose schemes for opera or concerts and of
+obtaining money therefor from wealthy amateurs. After a few months he would
+return the money less ten per cent. for preliminary expenses and plus his
+regrets that the schemes had unhappily fallen through owing to unforeseen
+difficulties. And wealthy amateurs were so astonished to get ninety per
+cent. of their money back from a rascal that they thought him almost an
+honest man, asked him to dinner, and listened sympathetically to details of
+his next grandiose scheme. The Xavier Hall was one of the few schemes--and
+the only real estate scheme--that had ever gone through. With the hall for
+a centre, Xavier laid daily his plans and conspiracies for persuading the
+public against its will. To this end he employed in large numbers clerks,
+printers, bill posters, ticket agents, doorkeepers, programme writers,
+programme sellers, charwomen, and even artists. He always had some new
+dodge or hope. The hall was let several times a week for concerts or other
+entertainments, and many of them were private speculations of Xavier. They
+were nearly all failures. And the hall, thoroughly accustomed to seeing
+itself half empty, did not pay interest on its capital. How could it? Upon
+occasions there had actually been more persons in the orchestra than in the
+audience. Seated in the foyer, with one eye upon a shabby programme girl
+and another upon the street outside, Xavier would sometimes refer to these
+facts in conversation with a titled patron, and would describe the public
+realistically and without pretence of illusion. Nevertheless, Xavier had
+grown to be a rich man, for percentages were his hourly food; he received
+them even from programme sellers. At nine o'clock the hall was rather less
+than half full, and this was rightly regarded as very promising, for the
+management, like the management of every place of distraction in Paris,
+held it a point of honour to start from twenty to thirty minutes late--as
+though all Parisians had many ages ago decided that in Paris one could not
+be punctual, and that, long since tired of waiting for each other, they had
+entered into a competition to make each other wait, the individual who
+arrived last being universally regarded as the winner. The members of the
+orchestra were filing negligently in from the back of the vast terraced
+platform, yawning, and ravaged by the fearful ennui of eternal high-class
+music. They entered in dozens and scores, and they kept on entering, and as
+they gazed inimically at each other, fingering their instruments, their
+pale faces seemed to be asking: "Why should it be necessary to collect so
+many of us in order to prove that just one single human being can play the
+violin? We can all play the violin, or something else just as good. And we
+have all been geniuses in our time."
+
+In strong contrast to their fatigued and disastrous indifference was the
+demeanour of a considerable group of demonstrators in the gallery. This
+body had crossed the Seine from the sacred Quarter, and, not owning a
+wardrobe sufficiently impressive to entitle it to ask for free seats, it
+had paid for its seats. Hence naturally its seats were the worst in the
+hall. But the group did not care. It was capable of exciting itself about
+high-class music. Moreover it had, for that night, an article of religious
+faith, to wit, that Musa was the greatest violinist that had ever lived or
+ever could live, and it was determined to prove this article of faith by
+sheer force of hands and feet. Therefore it was very happy, and just a
+little noisy.
+
+In the main part of the hall the audience could be divided into two
+species, one less numerous than the other. First, the devotees of music,
+who went to nearly every concert, extremely knowing, extremely blase,
+extremely disdainful and fastidious, with precise views about every musical
+composition, every conductor, and every performer; weary of melodious
+nights at which the same melodies were ever heard, but addicted to them, as
+some people are addicted to vices equally deleterious. These devotees would
+have had trouble with their conscience or their instincts had they not, by
+coming to the concert, put themselves in a position to affirm exactly and
+positively what manner of a performer Musa was. They had no hope of being
+pleased by him. Indeed they knew beforehand that he was yet another false
+star, but they had to ascertain the truth for themselves, because--you
+see--there was a slight chance that he might be a genuine star, in which
+case their careers would have been ruined had they not been able to say to
+succeeding generations: "I was at his first concert. It was a memorable,"
+etc. etc. They were an emaciated tribe, and in fact had the air of mummies
+temporarily revived and escaped out of museums. They were shabby, but not
+with the gallery shabbiness; they were shabby because shabbiness was part
+of their unworldly refinement; and it did not matter--they would have got
+their free seats even if they had come in sacks and cerements.
+
+The second main division of the audience--and the larger--consisted of the
+jolly pleasure seekers, who had dined well, who respected Beethoven no more
+than Oscar Straus, and who demanded only one boon--not to be bored. They
+had full dimpled cheeks, and they were adequately attired, and they dropped
+cigarettes with reluctance in the foyer, and they entered adventurously
+with marked courage, well aware that they had come to something queer and
+dangerous, something that was neither a revue nor a musical comedy, and,
+while hoping optimistically for the best, determined to march boldly out
+again in the event of the worst. They had seven mortal evenings a week to
+dispose of somehow, and occasionally they were obliged to take risks. Their
+expressions for the most part had that condescension which is
+characteristic of those who take a risk without being paid for it.
+
+All around the hall ran a horseshoe of private boxes, between the balcony
+and the gallery. These boxes gradually filled. At a quarter-past nine over
+half of them were occupied; which fact, combined with the stylishness of
+the hats in them, proved that Xavier had immense skill in certain
+directions, and that on that night, for some reason or other, he had been
+doing his very best.
+
+At twenty minutes past nine the audience had coalesced and become an
+entity, and the group from the Quarter was stamping an imitation of the
+first bars of the C minor Symphony, to indicate that further delay might
+involve complications.
+
+Audrey sat with Miss Ingate modestly and inconspicuously in the fifth row
+of the stalls. Miss Ingate, prodigious in crimson, was in a state of
+beatitude, because she never went to concerts and imagined that she had
+inadvertently slipped into heaven. The mere size of the orchestra so
+overwhelmed her that she was convinced that it was an orchestra specially
+enlarged to meet the unique importance of Musa's genius. "They _must_ think
+highly of him!" she said. She employed the time in looking about her. She
+had already found, besides many other Anglo-Saxon acquaintances, Rosamund,
+in black, Tommy with Nick, and Mr. Cowl, who was one seat to Audrey's left
+in the sixth row of the stalls. Also Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac and
+Monsieur Piriac in a double box. Audrey and herself ought to have been in
+that box, and had the afternoon developed otherwise they probably would
+have been in that box. Fortunately at the luncheon, Audrey, who had bought
+various lots of seats, had with the strange cautiousness of a young girl
+left herself free to utilise or not to utilise the offered hospitality of
+Mr. Gilman's double box, and Mr. Gilman had not pressed her for a decision.
+Was it not important that the hall should seem as full as possible? When
+Miss Ingate, pushing her investigations farther, had discovered not merely
+Monsieur Dauphin, but Mr. Ziegler, late of Frinton and now resident in
+Paris, her cup was full.
+
+"It's vehy wonderful, _vehy_ wonderful!" said she.
+
+But it was Audrey who most deeply had the sense of the wonderfulness of the
+thing. For it was Audrey who had created it. Having months ago comprehended
+that a formal and splendid debut was necessary for Musa if he was to
+succeed within a reasonable space of time, she had willed the debut within
+her own brain. She alone had thought of it. And now the realisation seemed
+to her to be absolutely a miracle. Had she read of such an affair a year
+earlier in a newspaper--with the words "Paris," "_tout Paris_," "young
+genius," and so on--she would have pictured it as gloriously, thrillingly
+romantic, and it indeed was gloriously and thrillingly romantic. She
+thought: "None of these people sitting around me know that I have brought
+it about, and that it is all mine." The thought was sweet. She felt like an
+invisible African genie out of the Thousand and One Nights.
+
+And yet what had she done to bring it about? Nothing, simply nothing,
+except to command it! She had not even signed cheques. Mr. Foulger had
+signed the cheques! Mr. Foulger, who set down the whole enterprise as
+incomprehensible lunacy! Mr. Foulger, who had never been to aught but a
+smoking-concert in his life, and who could not pronounce the name of
+Beethoven without hesitations!  The great deed had cost money, and it would
+cost more money; it would probably cost four hundred pounds ere it was
+finished with. An extravagant sum, but Xavier had motor-cars and toys even
+more expensive than motor-cars to keep up! Audrey, however, considered it a
+small sum, compared to the terrific spectacular effect obtained. And she
+was right. The attributes of money seemed entirely magical to her. And she
+was right again. She respected money with a new respect. And she respected
+herself for using money with such large grandeur.
+
+And withal she was most horribly nervous, just as nervous as though it was
+she who was doomed to face the indifferent and exacting audience with
+nothing but a violin bow for weapon. She was so nervous that she could not
+listen, could not even follow Miss Ingate's simple remarks; she heard them
+as from a long distance, and grasped them after a long interval. Still, she
+was uplifted, doughty, and proud. The humiliation of the afternoon had
+vanished like a mist. Nay, she felt glad that Musa had behaved to her just
+as he did behave. His mien pleased her; his wounding words, each of which
+she clearly remembered, were a source of delight. She had never admired him
+so much. She had now no resentment against him. He had proved that her
+hopes of him were, after all, well justified. He would succeed. Only some
+silly and improbable accident could stop him from succeeding. She was not
+nervous about his success. She was nervous for him. She became him. She
+tuned his fiddle, gathered herself together and walked on to the platform,
+bowed to the dim multitudinous heads in front of him, looked at the
+conductor, waited for the opening bars, drew his bow across his strings at
+precisely the correct second, and heard the resulting sound under her ear.
+And all that before the conductor had appeared! Such were the
+manifestations of her purely personal desire for the achievement of a neat,
+clean job.
+
+"See!" said Miss Ingate. "Mr. Gilman is bowing to us. He does look
+splendid, and isn't Madame Piriac lovely?  I must say I don't care so much
+for these French husbands."
+
+Audrey had to turn and join Miss Ingate in acknowledging the elaborate bow.
+At any rate, then, Mr. Gilman had not been utterly estranged by her
+capricious abandonment of him. And why should he be? He was a man of sense;
+he would understand perfectly when she explained to-morrow. Further, he
+was her slave. She was sure of him. She would apologise to him. She would
+richly recompense him by smiles and honey and charming persuasive
+simplicity. And he would see that with all her innocent and modest
+ingenuousness she was capable of acting seriously and effectively in a
+sudden crisis. She would rise higher in his esteem. As for the foreseen
+proposal, well----
+
+A sporadic clapping wakened her out of those reflections. The conductor
+was approaching his desk. The orchestra applauded him. He tapped the desk
+and raised his stick. And there was a loud noise, the thumping of her
+heart. The concert had begun. Musa was still invisible--what was he doing
+at that instant, somewhere behind?--but the concert had begun. Stars do not
+take part in the first item of an orchestral concert. There is a convention
+that they shall be preluded; and Musa was preluded by the overture to _Die
+Meistersinger_. In the soft second section of the overture, a most
+noticeable babble came from a stage-box. "Oh! It's the Foas," muttered Miss
+Ingate. "What a lot of people are fussing around them!" "Hsh!" frowned
+Audrey, outraged by the interruption. Madame Foa took about fifty bars in
+which to settle herself, and Monsieur Foa chattered to people behind him as
+freely as if he had been in a cafe Nobody seemed to mind.
+
+The overture was applauded, but Madame Foa, instead of applauding, leaned
+gracefully back, smiling, and waved somebody to the seat beside her.
+
+Violent demonstrations from the gallery!... He was there, tripping down the
+stepped pathway between the drums. The demonstrations grew general. The
+orchestra applauded after its own fashion. He reached the conductor, smiled
+at the conductor and bowed very admirably. He seemed to be absolutely at
+his ease. Then there was a delay. The conductor's scores had got themselves
+mixed up. It was dreadful. It was enough to make a woman shriek.
+
+"I say!" said a voice in Audrey's ear. She turned as if shot. Mr. Cowl's
+round face was close to hers. "I suppose you saw the _New York Herald_ this
+morning."
+
+"No," answered Audrey impatiently.
+
+The orchestra started the Beethoven violin Concerto. But Mr. Cowl kept his
+course.
+
+"Didn't you?" he said. "About the Zacatecas Oil Corporation? It's under a
+receivership. It's gone smash. I've had an idea for some time it would.
+All due to these Mexican revolutions. I thought you might like to know."
+
+Musa's bow hung firmly over the strings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+
+INTERVAL
+
+The most sinister feature of entertainments organised by Xavier was the
+intervals. Xavier laid stress on intervals; they gave repose, and in many
+cases they saved money. All Paris managers are inclined to give to the
+interval the importance of a star turn, and Xavier in this respect
+surpassed his rivals, though he perhaps regarded his cloak-rooms, which
+were organised to cause the largest possible amount of inconvenience to the
+largest possible number of people, as his surest financial buttress. Xavier
+could or would never see the close resemblance of intervals to wet
+blankets, extinguishers, palls and hostile critics. The Allegro movement of
+the Concerto was a real success, and the audience as a whole would have
+applauded even more if the gallery in particular had not applauded so much.
+The second or Larghetto movement was also a success, but to a less degree.
+As for the third and last movement, it put the gallery into an ecstasy
+while leaving the floor in possession of full critical faculties. Musa
+retired and had to return, and when he returned the floor good-humouredly
+joined the vociferous gallery in laudations, and he had to return again.
+Then the interminable interval. Silence! Murmurings!  Silence! Creepings
+towards exits! And in many, very many hearts the secret trouble question:
+"Why are we here? What have we come for? What is all this pother about art
+and genius? Honestly, shall we not be glad and relieved when the solemn old
+thing is over?"... And the desolating, cynical indifference of the
+conductor and the orchestra! Often there is a clearer vision of the truth
+during the intervals of a classical concert than on a deathbed.
+
+Audrey was extremely depressed in the interval after the Beethoven Concerto
+and before the Lalo. But she was not depressed by the news of the accident
+to the Zacatecas Oil Corporation in which was the major part of her wealth.
+The tidings had stunned rather than injured that part of her which was
+capable of being affected by finance. She had not felt the blow. Moreover
+she was protected by the knowledge that she had thousands of pounds in hand
+and also the Moze property intact, and further she was already
+reconsidering her newly-acquired respect for money. No!  What depressed her
+was a doubt as to the genius of Musa. In the long dreadful pause it seemed
+impossible that he should have genius. The entire concert presented itself
+as a grotesque farce, of which she as its creator ought to be ashamed. She
+was ready to kill Xavier or his responsible representative.
+
+Then she saw the tall and calm Rosamund, with her grey hair and black
+attire and her subduing self-complacency, making a way between the rows of
+stalls towards her.
+
+"I wanted to see you," said Rosamund, after the formal greetings. "Very
+much." Her voice was as kind and as unrelenting as the grave.
+
+At this point Miss Ingate ought to have yielded her seat to the terrific
+Rosamund, but she failed to do so, doubtless by inadvertence.
+
+"Will you come into the foyer for a moment?" Rosamund inflexibly suggested.
+
+"Isn't the interval nearly over?" said Audrey.
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+And as a fact there was not the slightest sign of the interval being nearly
+over. Audrey obediently rose. But the invitation had been so conspicuously
+addressed to herself that Miss Ingate, gathering her wits, remained in her
+chair.
+
+The foyer--decorated in the Cracovian taste--was dotted with cigarette
+smokers and with those who had fled from the interval. Rosamund did not sit
+down; she did not try for seclusion in a corner. She stepped well into the
+foyer, and then stood still, and absently lighted a cigarette, omitting to
+offer a cigarette to Audrey. Rosamund's air of a deaconess made the
+cigarette extremely remarkable.
+
+"I wanted to tell you about Jane Foley," began Rosamund quietly. "Have you
+heard?"
+
+"No! What?"
+
+"Of course you haven't. I alone knew. She has run away to England."
+
+"Run away! But she'll be caught!"
+
+"She may be. But that is not all. She has run away to get married. She
+dared not tell me. She wrote me. She put the letter in the manuscript of
+the last chapter but one of her book, which I am revising for her. She will
+almost certainly be caught if she tries to get married in her own name.
+Therefore she will get married in a false name. All this, however, is not
+what I wanted to tell you about."
+
+"Then you shouldn't have begun to talk about it," said Audrey suddenly.
+"Did you expect me to let you leave it in the middle! Jane getting married!
+I do think she might have told me.... What next, I wonder! I suppose
+you've--er--lost her now?"
+
+"Not entirely, I believe," said Rosamund. "Certainly not entirely. But of
+course I could never trust her again. This is the worst blow I have ever
+had. She says--but why go into that? Well, she does say she will work as
+hard as ever, nearly; and that her future husband strongly supports us--and
+so on." Rosamund smiled with complete detachment.
+
+"And who's he?" Audrey demanded.
+
+"His name is Aguilar," said Rosamund. "So she says."
+
+"Aguilar?"
+
+"Yes. I gather--I say I gather--that he belongs to the industrial class.
+But of course that is precisely the class that Jane springs from. Odd! Is
+it not? Heredity, I presume." She raised her shoulders.
+
+Audrey said nothing. She was too shocked to speak--not pained or outraged,
+but simply shaken. What in the name of Juno could Jane see in Aguilar?
+Jane, to whom every man was the hereditary enemy! Aguilar, who had no use
+for either man or woman! Aguilar, a man without a Christian name, one of
+those men in connection with whom a Christian name is impossibly
+ridiculous. How should she, Audrey, address Aguilar in future? Would he
+have to be asked to tea? These vital questions naturally transcended all
+others in Audrey's mind.... Still (she veered round), it was perhaps after
+all just the union that might have been expected.
+
+"And now," said Rosamund at length, "I have a question to put to you."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I don't want a definite answer here and now." She looked round
+disdainfully at the foyer. "But I do want to set your mind on the right
+track at the earliest possible moment--before any accidents occur." She
+smiled satirically. "You see how frank I am with you. I'll be more frank
+still, and tell you that I came to this concert to-night specially to see
+you."
+
+"Did you?" Audrey murmured. "Well!"
+
+The older woman looked down upon her from a superior height. Her eyes were
+those of an autocrat. It was quite possible to see in them the born leader
+who had dominated thousands of women and played a drawn game with the
+British Government itself. But Audrey, at the very moment when she was
+feeling the overbearing magic of that gaze, happened to remember the scene
+in Madame Piriac's automobile on the night of her first arrival in Paris,
+when she herself was asleep and Rosamund, not knowing that she was asleep,
+had been solemnly addressing her. Miss Ingate's often repeated account of
+the scene always made her laugh, and the memory of it now caused her to
+smile faintly.
+
+"I want to suggest to you," Rosamund proceeded, "that you begin to work for
+me."
+
+"For the suffrage--or for you?"
+
+"It is the same thing," said Rosamund coldly. "I am the suffrage. Without
+me the cause would not have existed to-day."
+
+"Well," said Audrey, "of course I will. I have done a bit already, you
+know."
+
+"Yes, I know," Rosamund admitted. "You did very well at the Blue City.
+That's why I'm approaching you. That's why I've chosen you."
+
+"Chosen me for what?"
+
+"You know that a new great campaign will soon begin. It is all arranged.
+It will necessitate my returning to England and challenging the police. You
+know also that Jane Foley was to have been my lieutenant-in-chief--for the
+active part of the operation. You will admit that I can no longer count on
+her completely. Will you take her place?"
+
+"I'll help," said Audrey. "I'll do what I can. I dare say I shan't have
+much money, because one of those 'accidents' you mentioned has happened to
+me already."
+
+"That need not trouble you," replied Rosamund imperturbable. "I have
+always been able to get all the money that was needed."
+
+"Well, I'll help all I can."
+
+"That's not what I ask," said Rosamund inflexibly. "Will you take Jane
+Foley's place? Will you give yourself utterly?"
+
+Audrey answered with sudden vehemence:
+
+"No, I won't. You didn't want a definite answer, but there it is."
+
+"But surely you believe in the cause?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It's the greatest of all causes."
+
+"I'm rather inclined to think it is."
+
+"Why not give yourself, then? You are free. I have given myself, my child."
+
+"Yes," said Audrey, who resented the appellation of "child." "But, you see,
+it's your hobby."
+
+"My hobby, Mrs. Moncreiff!" exclaimed Rosamund.
+
+"Certainly, your hobby," Audrey persisted.
+
+"I have sacrificed everything to it," said Rosamund.
+
+"Pardon me," said Audrey. "I don't think you've sacrificed anything to it.
+You just enjoy bossing other people above everything, and it gives you
+every chance to boss. And you enjoy plots too, and look at the chances you
+get for that'. Mind you, I like you for it. I think you're splendid. Only
+_I_ don't want to be a monomaniac, and I won't be." Her convictions seemed
+to have become suddenly clear and absolutely decided.
+
+"Do you mean to infer that I am a monomaniac?" asked Rosamund, raising her
+eyebrows--but only a little.
+
+"Well," said Audrey, "as you mentioned frankness--what else would you call
+yourself but a monomaniac?  You only live for one thing--don't you, now?"
+
+"It is the greatest thing."
+
+"I don't say it isn't," Audrey admitted. "But I've been thinking a good
+deal about all this, and at last I've come to the conclusion that one
+thing-isn't enough for me, not nearly enough. And I'm not going to be
+peculiar at any price. Neither a fanatic nor a monomaniac, nor anything
+like that."
+
+"You are in love," asserted Rosamund.
+
+"And what if I am? If you ask me, I think a girl who isn't in love ought to
+be somewhat ashamed of herself, or at least sorry for herself. And I am
+sorry for myself, because I am not in love. I wish I was. Why shouldn't I
+be? It must be lovely to be in love. If I was in love I shouldn't be _only_
+in love. You think you understand what girls are nowadays, but you don't. I
+didn't myself until just lately. But I'm beginning to. Girls were supposed
+to be only interested in one thing--in your time. Monomaniacs, that's what
+they had to be. You changed all that, or you're trying to change it, but
+you only mean women to be monomaniacs about something else. It isn't good
+enough. I want everything, and I'm going to get it--or have a good try for
+it. I'll never be a martyr if I can help it. And I believe I can help it. I
+believe I've got just enough common sense to save me from being a martyr
+--either to a husband or a house or family--or a cause. I want to have a
+husband and a house and a family, and a cause too. That'll be just about
+everything, won't it? And if you imagine I can't look after all of them at
+once, all I can say is I don't agree with you. Because I've got an idea I
+can. Supposing I had all these things, I fancy I could have a tiff with my
+husband and make it up, play with my children, alter a dress, change the
+furniture, tackle the servants, and go out to a meeting and perhaps have a
+difficulty with the police--all in one day. Only if I did get into trouble
+with the police I should pay the fine--you see. The police aren't going to
+have me altogether. Nobody is. Nobody, man or woman, is going to be able to
+boast that he's got me altogether. You think you're independent. But you
+aren't. We girls will show you what independence is."
+
+"You're a rather surprising young creature," observed Rosamund with a
+casual air, unmoved. "You're quite excited."
+
+"Yes. I surprise myself. But these things do come in bursts. I've noticed
+that before. They weren't clear when you began to talk. They're clear now."
+
+"Let me tell you this," said Rosamund. "A cause must have martyrs."
+
+"I don't see it," Audrey protested. "I should have thought common sense
+would be lots more useful than martyrs. And monomaniacs never do have
+common sense."
+
+"You're very young."
+
+"Is that meant for an insult, or is it just a statement?" Audrey laughed
+pleasantly.
+
+And Rosamund laughed too.
+
+"It's just a statement," said she.
+
+"Well, here's another statement," said Audrey. "You're very old. That's
+where I have the advantage of you. Still, tell me what I can do in your
+new campaign, and I'll do it if I can. But there isn't going to be any
+utterly--that's all."
+
+"I think the interval is over," said Rosamund with finality. "Perhaps we'd
+better adjourn."
+
+The foyer had nearly emptied. The distant sound of music could be heard.
+
+As she was re-entering the hall, Audrey met Mr. Cowl, who was coming out.
+
+"I have decided I can't stand any more," Mr. Cowl remarked in a loud
+whisper. "I hope you didn't mind me telling you about the Zacatecas. As I
+said, I thought you might be interested. Good-bye. So pleasant to have met
+you again, dear lady." His face had the same enigmatic smile which had made
+him so formidable at Moze.
+
+Musa had already begun to play the Spanish Symphony of Lalo, without which
+no genius is permitted to make his formal debut on the violin in France.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+
+ENTR'ACTE
+
+After the Spanish Symphony not only the conductor but the entire orchestra
+followed Musa from the platform, and Audrey understood that the previous
+interval had not really been an interval and that the first genuine
+interval was about to begin. The audience seemed to understand this too,
+for practically the whole of it stood up and moved towards the doors.
+Audrey would have stayed in her seat, but Miss Ingate expressed a desire to
+go out and "see the fun" in the foyer, and, moreover, she asserted that the
+Foas from their box had been signalling to her and Audrey an intention to
+meet them in the foyer. Miss Ingate was in excellent spirits. She said it
+beat her how Musa's fingers could get through so many notes in so short a
+time, and also that it made her feel tired even to watch the fingers. She
+was convinced that nobody had ever handled the violin so marvellously
+before. As for success, Musa had been recalled, and the applause from the
+gallery, fired by its religious belief, was obstinate and extremely
+vociferous. Audrey, however, was aware of terrible sick qualms, for she
+knew that Musa was not so far dominating his public. Much of the applause
+had obviously the worst quality that applause can have--it was
+good-natured. Yet she could not accept failure for Musa. Failure would be
+too monstrous an injustice, and therefore it could not happen.
+
+The emptiness of the Foas' box indicated that Miss Ingate might be correct
+in her interpretation of signals, and Audrey allowed herself to be led away
+from the now forlorn auditorium. As they filed along the gangways she had
+to listen to the indifferent remarks of utterly unprejudiced and
+uninterested persons about the performance of genius, and further she had
+to learn that a fair proportion of them were departing with no intention to
+return. In the thronged foyer they saw Mr. Gilman, alone, before he saw
+them. He was carrying a box of chocolates--doubtless one of the little
+things that Mr. Price had had instructions to provide for the evening, Mr.
+Gilman perhaps would not have caught sight of them had it not been for the
+stridency of Miss Ingate's voice, which caused him to turn round.
+
+Audrey experienced once again the sensation--which latterly was apt to
+recur in her--of having too many matters on her mind simultaneously; in a
+phrase, the sensation of the exceeding complexity of existence. And she
+resented it. The interview with Rosamund was quite enough for one night. It
+had been a triumph for her; she had surprised herself in that interview; it
+had left her with a conviction of freedom; it had uplifted her. She ought
+to have been in a state of exaltation after that interview, and she was.
+Only, while in a state of exaltation, she was still in the old state of
+depression--about the tendency of the concert, of her concert, and about
+the rumoured disappearance of her fortune. Also she was preoccupied by the
+very strange affair of Jane Foley and Aguilar.
+
+And now--a further intricacy of mood--came a whole new set of emotions due
+to the mere spectacle of Mr. Gilman's august back! She was intimidated by
+Mr. Gilman's back. She knew horribly that in the afternoon she had treated
+Mr. Gilman as Mr. Gilman ought never to have been treated. And, quite apart
+from intimidation, she had another feeling, a feeling which was ghastly and
+of which she was ashamed.... Assuming the disappearance of her fortune,
+would Mr. Gilman's attitude towards her be thereby changed? ... She
+admitted that young girls ought not to have such suspicions against
+respectable and mature men of established position in the world.
+Nevertheless, she could not blow the suspicion away.
+
+But the instant Mr. Gilman's eye met hers the suspicion vanished, and not
+the suspicion only, but all her intimidation. The miracle was produced by
+something in the gaze of Mr. Gilman as it rested on her, something
+wistful--not more definable than that, something which she had noticed in
+Mr. Gilman's gaze on other occasions. It perfectly restored her. It gave
+her the positive assurance of a fact which marvellously enheartens young
+girls of about Audrey's years--to wit, that they have a mysterious power
+surpassing the power of age, knowledge, wisdom, or wealth, that they
+influence and decide the course of history, and are the sole true
+mistresses of the world. Whence the mysterious power sprang she did not
+exactly know, but she surmised--rightly--that it was connected with her
+youth, with a dimple, with the incredibly soft down on her cheek, with the
+arch softness of her glance, with a gesture of the hand, with a turn of the
+shoulder, with a pleat of the skirt.... Anyhow, she possessed it, and to
+possess it was to wield it. It transformed her into a delicious tyrant, but
+a tyrant; it inspired her with exquisite cruelty, but cruelty. Her thoughts
+might have been summed up in eight words:
+
+"Pooh! He has suffered. Well, he must suffer."
+
+Ah! But she meant to be very kind to him. He was so reliable, so adorable,
+and so dependent. She had genuine affection for him. And he was at once a
+rock and a cushion.
+
+"Isn't it going splendidly--splendidly, Mr. Gilman?" exclaimed Miss Ingate
+in her enthusiasm.
+
+"Apparently," said Mr. Gilman, with comfort in his voice.
+
+At that moment the musical critic with large, dark Eastern eyes, whom
+Audrey had met at the Foas', strolled nonchalantly by, and, perceiving Miss
+Ingate, described a huge and perfect curve in the air with his glossy silk
+hat, which had been tipped at the back of his head. Mr. Gilman had come
+close to Audrey.
+
+"The Foas started down with me," said Mr. Gilman mildly. "But they always
+meet such crowds of acquaintances at these affairs that they seldom get
+anywhere. Hortense would not leave the box. She never will."
+
+"Oh! I'm so glad I've seen you," Audrey began excitedly, but with
+simplicity and compelling sweetness. "You've no idea how sorry I am about
+this afternoon!  I'm frightfully sorry, really! But I was so upset. I
+didn't know what to do. You know how anxious everybody was about Musa for
+to-night. He's the pet of the Quarter, and, of course, I belong to the
+Quarter. At least--I did. I thought he might be ill, or something.
+However, it was all right in the end. I was looking forward tremendously to
+that drive. Are you going to forgive me?"
+
+"Please, please!" he eagerly entreated, with a faint blush. "Of course, I
+quite understand. There's nothing whatever to forgive."
+
+"Oh! but there is," she insisted. "Only you're so good-natured."
+
+She was being magnanimous. She was pretending that she had no mysterious
+power. But her motive was quite pure. If he was good-natured, so was she.
+She honestly wanted to recompense him, and to recompense him richly. And
+she did. Her demeanour was enchanting in its ingenuous flattery. She felt
+happy despite all her anxieties, for he was living up to her ideal of him.
+She felt happy, and her resolve to make him happy to the very limit of his
+dreams was intense. She had a vision of her future existence stretching out
+in front of her, and there was not a shadow on it. She thought he was going
+to offer her the box of chocolates, but he did not.
+
+"I rather wanted to ask your advice," she said.
+
+"I wish you would," he replied.
+
+Just then the Foas arrived, and with them Dauphin, the great and
+fashionable painter and the original discoverer of Musa. And as they all
+began to speak at once Audrey heard the Oriental musical critic say slowly
+to an inquiring Miss Ingate:
+
+"It is not a concert talent that he has."
+
+"You hear! You hear!" exclaimed Monsieur Foa to Monsieur Dauphin and Madame
+Foa, with an impressed air. "You hear what Miquette says. He has not a
+concert talent. He has everything that you like, but not a concert talent."
+
+Foa seemed to be exhibiting the majestic Oriental, nicknamed Miquette, as
+the final arbiter, whose word settled problems like a sword, and Miquette
+seemed to be trying to bear the high role with negligent modesty.
+
+"But, yes, he has! But, yes, he has!" Dauphin protested, sweeping all
+Miquettes politely away. And then there was an urbane riot of greetings,
+salutes, bowings, smilings, cooings and compliments.
+
+Dauphin was magnificent, playing the part of the opulent painter _a la
+mode_ with the most finished skill, the most splendid richness of detail.
+It was notorious that in the evenings he wore the finest silk shirts in
+Paris, and his waistcoat was designed to give scope to these shirts. He
+might have come--he probably had come--straight from the bower of
+archduchesses; but he produced in Audrey the illusion that archduchesses
+were a trifle compared to herself. He had not seen her for a long time.
+Gazing at her, he breathed relief; all his features indicated the sudden,
+unexpected assuaging of eternal and intense desires. He might have been
+travelling through the desert for many days and she might have been the
+oasis--the pool of living water and the palm.
+
+"Now--like that! Just like that!" he said, holding her hand and, as it
+were, hypnotising her in the pose in which she happened to be. He looked
+hard at her. "It is unique. Madame, where did you find that dress?"
+
+"Callot," answered Audrey submissively.
+
+"I thought so. Well, Madame, I can wait no more. I will wait no more. It
+is Dauphin who implores you to come to his studio. To come--it is your
+duty. Madame Foa, you will bring her. I count on you absolutely to bring
+her. Even if it is only to be a sketch--the merest hint. But I must do it."
+
+"Oh, yes, Madame," said Madame Foa with all the Italian charm. "Dauphin
+must paint you. The contrary is unthinkable. My husband and I have often
+said so."
+
+"To-morrow?" Dauphin suggested.
+
+"Ah! To-morrow, my little Dauphin, I cannot," said Madame Foa.
+
+"Nor I," said Audrey.
+
+"The day after to-morrow, then. I will send my auto. What address?
+Half-past eleven. That goes? In any case, I insist. Be kind! Be kind!"
+
+Audrey blushed. Half the foyer was staring at the group. She was flattered.
+She saw herself remarkable. She thought she would look more particularly,
+with perfect detachment, at the mirror that night, in order to decide
+whether her appearance was as striking, as original, as distinguished, as
+Dauphin's attitude implied. There must surely be something in it.
+
+"About that advice--may I call to-morrow?" It was Mr. Gilman's voice at her
+elbow.
+
+"Advice?" She had forgotten her announced intention of asking his advice.
+(The subject was to be Zacatecas.) "Oh, yes. How nice of you! Please do
+call. Come for tea." She was delightful to him, but at the same time there
+was in her tone a little of the condescending casualness proper to the tone
+of a girl openly admired by the confidant and painter of princesses and
+archduchesses, the man who treated all plain women and women past the prime
+with a desolating indifference.
+
+She thought:
+
+"I am a rotten little snob."
+
+Mr. Gilman gave thanksgivings and departed, explaining that he must return
+to Madame Piriac.
+
+Foa and Dauphin and the Oriental resumed the argument about Musa's talent
+and the concert. Miquette would say nothing as to the success of the
+concert. Foa asserted that the concert was not and would not be a success.
+Dauphin pooh-poohed and insisted vehemently that the success was
+unmistakable and increasing. Moreover, he criticised the hall, the choice
+of programme, the orchestra, the conductor. "I discovered Musa," said he.
+"I have always said that he is a great concert player, and that he is
+destined for a great world-success, and to-night I am more sure of it than
+ever." Whereupon Madame Foa said with much sympathy that she hoped it was
+so, and Foa said: "You create illusions for yourself, on purpose." Dauphin
+bore him down with wavy gestures and warm cries of "No! No! No!" And he
+appealed to Audrey as-a woman incapable of illusions. And Audrey agreed
+with Dauphin. And while she was agreeing she kept saying to herself: "Why
+do I pretend to agree with him?  He is not sincere. He knows he is not
+sincere. We all know--except perhaps Winnie Ingate. The concert is a
+failure. If it were not a failure, Madame Foa would not be so sympathetic.
+She is more subtle even than Madame Piriac. I shall never be subtle like
+that. I wish I could be. I wish I was at Moze. I am too Essex for all this.
+And Winnie here is too comic for words."
+
+An aged and repellent Jew came into sight. He raised Madame Foa's hand to
+his odious lips and kissed it, and Audrey wondered how Madame Foa could
+tolerate the formality.
+
+"Well, Monsieur Xavier?"
+
+Xavier shrugged his round shoulders.
+
+"Do not say," said he, in a hoarse voice to the company, "do not say that I
+have not done my best on this occasion." He lifted his eyes heavenward, and
+as he did so his passing glance embraced Audrey, and she violently hated
+him.
+
+"Winnie," said she, "I think we ought to be getting back to our seats."
+
+"But," cried Madame Foa, "we are going round with Dauphin to the artists'
+room. You do not come with us, Madame Moncreiff?"
+
+"In your place ..." muttered Xavier discouragingly, with a look at Dauphin,
+and another shrug of the shoulders. "I have been ..."
+
+"Ah!" said Dauphin, in a strange new tone. And then very brightly to
+Audrey: "Now, as to Saturday, dear lady----"
+
+Xavier engaged in private converse with Foa, and his demeanour to Foa was
+extremely deferential, whereas he almost ignored the Oriental critic. And
+Audrey puzzled her head once again to discover why the Foas should exert
+such influence upon the fate of music in Paris. The enigma was only one
+among many.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+END OF THE CONCERT
+
+
+The first item after the true interval was the Chaconne of Bach, which Musa
+had played upon a memorable occasion in Frinton. He stood upon the platform
+utterly alone, against a background of empty chairs, double-basses and
+drums. He seemed to be unfriended and forlorn. It appeared to Audrey that
+he was playing with despair. She wished, as she looked from Musa to the
+deserted places in the body of the hall, that the piece was over, and that
+the entire concert was over. How could anyone enjoy such an arid maze of
+sounds? The whole theory of classical composition and its vogue was hollow
+and ridiculous. People did not like the classics; they could not and they
+never would. Now a waltz ... after a jolly dinner and wine! ... But the
+Chaconne! But Bach! But culture!  The audience was visibly and audibly
+restless. For about two hundred years the attempt to force this Chaconne
+upon the public had been continuous, and it was still boring them. Of
+course it was! The thing was unnatural.
+
+And she herself was a fool; she was a ninny. And the alleged power of money
+was an immense fraud. She had thought to perform miracles by means of a
+banking account. For a moment she had imagined that the miracles had come
+to pass. But they had not come to pass. The public was too old, too tired,
+and too wary. It could not thus be tricked into making a reputation. The
+forces that made reputations were far less amenable than she had fancied.
+The world was too clever and too experienced for her ingenuous self.
+Geniuses were not lying about and waiting to be picked up. Musa was not a
+genius. She had been a simpleton, and the sacred Quarter had been a
+simpleton. She was rather angry with Musa for not being a genius.  And the
+confidence which he had displayed a few hours earlier was just grotesque
+conceit! And men and women who were supposed to be friendly human hearts
+were not so in truth. They were merely indifferent and callous spectators.
+The Foas, for example, were chattering in their box, apparently oblivious
+of the tragedy that was enacting under their eyes. But then, it was perhaps
+not a tragedy; it was perhaps a farce.
+
+And what would these self-absorbed spectators of existence say and do, if
+and when it was known that she was no longer a young woman of enormous
+wealth? Would Dauphin have sought to compel her to enter his studio had he
+been aware that her fortune had gone tip in smoke?  She was not in a real
+world. She was in a world of shams. And she was a sham in the world of
+shams. She wanted to be back again in the honest realities of Moze, where
+in the churchyard she could see the tombs of her great-great-grandfathers.
+Only one extraneous interest drew her thoughts away from Moze. That
+interest was Mr. Gilman. Mr. Gilman was her conquest and her slave. She
+adored him because he was so wistful and so reliable and so adoring. Mr.
+Gilman sat intent and straight upright in Madame Piriac's box and behaved
+just as though Bach himself was present. He understood nothing of Bach, but
+he could be trusted to behave with benevolence.
+
+The music suddenly ceased. The Chaconne was finished. The gallery of
+enthusiasts still applauded with vociferation, with mystic faith, with
+sublime obstinacy. It was carrying on a sort of religious war against the
+base apathy of the rest of the audience. It was determined to force its
+belief down the throats of the unintelligent mob. It had made up its mind
+that until it had had its way the world should stand still. No encore had
+yet been obtained, and the gallery was set on an encore. The clapping
+fainted, expired, and then broke into new life, only to expire again and
+recommence. A few irritated persons hissed. The gallery responded with
+vigour. Musa, having retired, reappeared, very white, and bowed. The
+applause was feverish and unconvincing. Musa vanished. But the gallery had
+thick soles and hard hands and stout sticks, even serviceable umbrellas. It
+could not be appeased by bows alone. And after about three minutes of
+tedious manoeuvring, Musa had at last to yield an encore that in fact
+nobody wanted. He played a foolish pyrotechnical affair of De Beriot, which
+resembled nothing so much as a joke at a funeral. After that the fate of
+the concert could not be disputed even by the gallery. At the finish of the
+evening there was, in the terrible idiom of the theatre, "not a hand."
+
+Whether Musa had played well or ill, Audrey had not the least idea. Nor did
+that point seem to matter. Naught but the attitude of the public seemed to
+matter. This was strange, because for a year Audrey had been learning
+steadily in the Quarter that the attitude of the public had no importance
+whatever. She suffered from the delusion that the public was staring at her
+and saying to her: "You, you silly little thing, are responsible for this
+fiasco. We condescended to come--and this is what you have offered us. Go
+home, and let your hair down and shorten your skirts, for you are no better
+than a schoolgirl, after all." She was really self-conscious. She despised
+Musa, or rather she threw to him a little condescending pity. And yet at
+the same time she was furious against that group in the foyer for being so
+easily dissuaded from going to see Musa in the artists' room.... Rats
+deserting a sinking ship!... People, even the nicest, would drop a failure
+like a match that was burning out.... Yes, and they would drop her.... No,
+they would not, because of Mr. Gilman. Mr. Gilman was calling-to see her
+to-morrow. He was the rock and the cushion. She would send Miss Ingate out
+for the afternoon. As the audience hurried eagerly forth she spoke sharply
+to Miss Ingate. She was indeed very rude to Miss Ingate. She was
+exasperated, and Miss Ingate happened to be handy.
+
+In the foyer not a trace of the Foa clan nor of Madame Piriac and her
+husband, nor of Mr. Gilman! But Tommy and Nick were there, putting on their
+cloaks, and with them, but not helping them, was Mr. Ziegler. The blond Mr.
+Ziegler greeted Audrey as though the occasion of their previous meeting had
+been a triumph for him. His self-satisfaction, if ever it had been damaged,
+was repaired to perfection. The girls were silent; Miss Ingate was silent;
+but Mr. Ziegler was not silent.
+
+"He played better than I did anticipate," said Mr. Ziegler, lighting a
+cigarette, after he had nonchalantly acknowledged the presentation to him
+of Miss Ingate. "But of what use is this French public? None. Even had he
+succeeded here it would have meant nothing. Nothing. In music Paris does
+not exist. There are six towns in Germany where success means
+vorldt-reputation. Not that he would succeed in Germany. He has not studied
+in Germany. And outside Germany there are no schools. However, we have the
+intention to impose our culture upon all European nations, including
+France. In one year our army will be here--in Paris. I should wait for
+that, but probably I shall be called up. In any case, I shall be present."
+
+"But whatever do you mean?" cried Miss Ingate, aghast.
+
+"What do I mean? I mean our army will be here. All know it in Germany.
+They know it in Paris! But what can they do? How can they stop us?...
+Decadent!..." He laughed easily.
+
+"Oh, my chocolates!" exclaimed Miss Thompkins. "I've left them in the
+hall!"
+
+"No, here they are," said Nick, handing the box.
+
+To Audrey it seemed to be the identical box that Mr. Gilman had been
+carrying. But of course it might not be. Thousands of chocolate boxes
+resemble each other exactly.
+
+Carefully ignoring Mr. Ziegler, Audrey remarked to Tommy with a
+light-heartedness which she did not feel:
+
+"Well, what did you think of Jane this afternoon?"
+
+"Jane?"
+
+"Jane Foley. Nick was taking you to see her, wasn't she?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" said Tommy with a bright smile. "But I didn't go. I went for a
+motor drive with Mr. Gilman."
+
+There was a short pause. At length Tommy said:
+
+"So he's got the goods on you at last!"
+
+"Who?" Audrey sharply questioned.
+
+"Dauphin. I knew he would. Remember my words. That portrait will cost you
+forty thousand francs, not counting the frame."
+
+This was the end of the concert.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+STRANGE RESULT OF A QUARREL
+
+
+The next afternoon Audrey sat nervous and expectant, but highly finished,
+in her drawing-room at the Hotel du Danube. Miss Ingate had gone out,
+pretending to be quite unaware that she had been sent out. The more
+detailed part of Audrey's toilette had been accomplished subsequent to Miss
+Ingate's departure, for Audrey had been at pains to inform Miss Ingate that
+she, Audrey, was even less interested than usual in her appearance that
+afternoon. They were close and mutually reliable friends; but every
+friendship has its reservations. Elise also was out; indeed, Miss Ingate
+had taken her.
+
+Audrey had the weight of all the world on her, and so long as she was alone
+she permitted herself to look as though she had. She had to be wise, not
+only for Audrey Moze, but for others. She had to be wise for Musa, whose
+failure, though the newspapers all spoke (at about twenty francs a line) of
+his overwhelming success, was admittedly lamentable; and she hated Musa;
+she confessed that she had been terribly mistaken in Musa, both as an
+artist and as a man; still, he was on her mind. She had to be wise about
+her share in the new campaign of Rosamund, which, while not on her mind,
+was on her conscience. She had to be wise about the presumable loss of her
+fortune; she had telegraphed to Mr. Foulger early that morning for
+information, and an answer was now due. Finally she had to be wise for Mr.
+Gilman, whose happiness depended on a tone of her voice, on a single
+monosyllable breathed through those rich lips. She looked forward with
+interest to being wise for Mr. Gilman. She felt capable of that. The other
+necessary wisdoms troubled her brow. She seemed to be more full of
+responsibility and sagacity than any human being could have been expected
+to be. She was, however, very calm. Her calmness was prodigious.
+
+Then the bell rang, and she could hear one of the hotel attendants open the
+outer door with his key. Instantly her calmness, of which she had been so
+proud, was dashed to pieces and she had scarcely begun in a hurry to pick
+the pieces up and put them together again when the attendant entered the
+drawing-room. She was afraid, but she thought she was happy.
+
+Only it was not Mr. Gilman the attendant announced. The man said:
+
+"Mademoiselle Nickall."
+
+Audrey said to herself that she must get Nick very quickly away. She was in
+no humour to talk even to Nick, and, moreover, she did not want Nick to
+know that Mr. Gilman was calling upon her.
+
+Miss Nickall was innocent and sweet. Good nature radiated from her soft,
+tired features, and was somehow also entangled in her fluffy grey hair. She
+kissed Audrey with affection.
+
+"I've just come to say good-bye, you dear!" she said, sitting down and
+putting her check parasol across her knees. "How lovely you look!"
+
+"Good-bye?" Audrey questioned. "Do I?"
+
+"I have to cross for England to-night. I've had my orders. Rosamund came
+this morning. What about yours?"
+
+"Oh!" said Audrey. "I don't take orders. But I expect I shall join in, one
+of these days, when I've had everything explained to me properly. You see,
+you and I haven't got the same tastes, Nick. You aren't happy without a
+martyrdom. I am."
+
+Nick smiled gravely and uncertainly.
+
+"It's very serious this time," said she. "Hasn't Rosamund spoken to you
+yet?"
+
+"She's spoken to me. And I've spoken to her. It was deuce, I should say. Or
+perhaps my 'vantage. Anyhow, I'm not moving just yet."
+
+"Well, then," said Nick, "if you're staying in Paris, I hope you'll keep an
+eye on Musa. He needs it. Tommy's going away. At least I fancy she is. We
+both went to see him this morning."
+
+"Both of you!"
+
+"Well, you see, we've always looked after him. He was in a terrible state
+about last night. That's really one reason why I called. Not that I'd have
+gone without kissing you----"
+
+She stopped. There was another ring at the bell. The attendant came in with
+great rapidity.
+
+"I'm lost!" thought Audrey, disgusted and perturbed. "Her being here will
+spoil everything."
+
+But the attendant handed her a card, and the card bore the name of Musa.
+Audrey flushed. Almost instinctively, without thinking, she passed the card
+to Nick.
+
+"My land!" exclaimed Nick. "If he sees me here he'll think I've come on
+purpose to talk about him and pity him, and he'll be just perfectly
+furious. Can I get out any other way?" She glanced interrogatively at the
+half-open door of the bedroom.
+
+"But I don't want to see him, either!" Audrey protested.
+
+"Oh! You must! He'll listen to sense from you, perhaps. Can I go this way?"
+
+Impelled to act in spite of herself, Audrey took Nick into the bedroom, and
+as soon as Musa had been introduced into the drawing-room she embraced Nick
+in silence and escorted her on tiptoe through Miss Ingate's bedroom to the
+vestibule and waved an adieu. Then she retraced her steps and made a grand
+entry into the drawing-room from her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of
+Musa immediately. A meeting between him and Mr. Gilman on her hearthrug
+might involve the most horrible complications.
+
+The young man and the young woman shook hands. But it was the handshaking
+of bruisers when they enter the ring, and before the blood starts to flow.
+
+"Won't you please sit down?" said Audrey. He was obliged now to obey her,
+as she had been obliged to obey him on the previous afternoon in the Rue
+Cassette.
+
+If Audrey looked as though the whole world was on her shoulders, Musa's
+face seemed to contradict hers and to say that the world, far from being on
+anybody's shoulders, had come to an end. All the expression of the
+violinist showed that in his honest conviction a great mundane calamity had
+occurred, the calamity of course being that his violin bow had not caused
+catgut to vibrate in such a way as to affect the ears of a particular set
+of people in a particular manner. But in addition to this sense of a
+calamity he was under the influence of another emotion--angry resentment.
+However, he sat down, holding firmly his hat, gloves, and stick.
+
+"I saw my agent this morning," said he, in a grating voice, in French. He
+was pale.
+
+"Yes?" said Audrey. She suddenly guessed what was coming, and she felt a
+certain alarm, which nevertheless was not entirely disagreeable.
+
+"Why did you pay for that concert, and the future concerts, without telling
+me, Madame?"
+
+"Paid for the concerts?" she repeated, rather weakly.
+
+"Yes, Madame. To do so was to make me ridiculous--not to the world, but to
+myself. For I believed all the time that I had succeeded in gaining the
+genuine interest of an agent who was prepared to risk money upon the proper
+exploitation of my talent. I worked in that belief. In spite of your
+attitude to me I did work. Your antipathy was bad for me; but I conquered
+myself, and I worked. I had confidence in myself. If last night I did not
+have a triumph, it was not because I did not work, but because I had been
+upset--and again by you, Madame. Even after the misfortune of last night I
+still had confidence, for I knew that the reasons of my failure were
+accidental and temporary. But I now know that I was living in a fool's
+paradise, which you had kindly created for me. You have money. Apparently
+you have too much money. And with money you possess the arrogance of
+wealth. You knew that I had accepted assistance from good friends. And you
+thought in your arrogance that you might launch me without informing me of
+your intention. You thought it would amuse you to make a little fairy-tale
+in real life. It was a negligent gesture on the part of a rich and idle
+woman. It cost you nothing save a few bank-notes, of which you had so many
+that it bored you to count them. How amusing to make a reputation! How
+charitable to help a starving player! But you forgot one thing. You forgot
+my dignity and my honour. It was nothing to you that you exposed these to
+the danger of the most grave affront. It was nothing to you that I was
+received just as though I had been a child, and that for months I was made,
+without knowing it, to fulfil the role of a conceited jackanapes. When one
+is led to have confidence in oneself one is tempted to adopt a certain tone
+and to use certain phrases, which may or may not be justified. I yielded to
+the temptation. I was wrong, but I was also victimised. This morning, with
+a moment's torture under the impertinent tongue of a rascally impresario, I
+paid for all the spurious confidence which I have felt and for all the
+proud words I have uttered. I came to-day in order to lay at your feet my
+thanks for the unique humiliation which I owe to you."
+
+His mien was undoubtedly splendid. It ought to have cowed and shamed
+Audrey. But it did not. She absolutely refused to acknowledge, even within
+her own heart, that she had committed any wrong. On the contrary, she
+remembered all the secret sympathy which she had lavished on Musa, all her
+very earnest and single-minded desires for his apotheosis at the hands of
+the Parisian public; and his ingratitude positively exasperated her. She
+was aroused. But she tried to hide the fact that she was roused, speaking
+in a guarded and sardonic voice.
+
+"And did this agent of yours--I do not know his name--tell you that I was
+paying for the concert--I mean, the concerts?" she demanded with an air of
+impassivity. "He did not give your name."
+
+"That's something," Audrey put in, her body trembling. "I am much obliged
+to him."
+
+"But he clearly indicated that money had been paid--that he had not paid it
+himself--that the enterprise was not genuine. He permitted himself to sneer
+until I corrected him. He then withdrew what he had said and told me that I
+had misunderstood. But he was not convincing. It was too late. And I had
+not misunderstood. Far from that, I had understood. At once the truth
+traversed my mind like a flash of lightning. It was you who had paid."
+
+"And how did you guess that?" She laughed carelessly, though she could not
+keep her foot from shaking on the carpet.
+
+"I knew because I knew!" cried Musa. "It explained all your conduct, your
+ways of speaking to me, your attitude of a schoolmistress, everything. How
+ingenuous I have been not to perceive it before!"
+
+"Well," said Audrey firmly. "You are wrong. It is absolutely untrue that I
+have ever paid a penny, or ever shall, to any agent on your behalf. Do you
+hear? Why should I, indeed! And now what have you to reply?"
+
+She was aware of not the slightest remorse for this enormous and
+unqualified lie. Nay, she held it was not a lie, because Musa deserved to
+hear it. Strange logic, but her logic! And she was much uplifted and
+enfevered, and grandly careless of all consequences.
+
+"You are a woman," said Musa curtly and obstinately.
+
+"That, at any rate, is true."
+
+"Therefore I cannot treat you as a man."
+
+"Please do," she said, rising.
+
+"No. If you were a man I should call you out." And Musa rose also. "And I
+should be right. As you are a woman I have told you the truth, and I can do
+no more. I shall not characterise your denial. I have no taste for
+recrimination. Besides, in such a game, no man can be the equal of a woman.
+But I maintain what I have said, and I affirm that I know it to be true,
+and that there is no excuse for your conduct. And so I respectfully take
+leave." He moved towards the door and then stopped. "There never had been
+any excuse for your conduct to me," he added. "It has always been the
+conduct of a rich and capricious woman who amused herself by patronising a
+poor artist."
+
+"You may be interested to know," she said fiercely, "that I am no longer
+rich. Last night I heard that my fortune is gone. If I have amused myself,
+that may amuse you."
+
+"It does amuse me," he retorted grimly and more loudly. "I wish that you
+had never possessed a son. For then I might have been spared many mournful
+hours. All would have been different. Yes! From three days ago when I saw
+you walking intimately in the Tuileries Gardens with the unspeakable
+Gilman--right back to last year when you first, from caprice, did your best
+to make me love you--did it deliberately, so that all the Quarter could
+see!"
+
+In a furious temper Audrey rushed past Musa to the door, and stood with her
+back to it, palpitating. She vaguely recalled a similar movement of hers
+long ago, and the slightly comic figure of Mr. Foulger flitted through her
+memory.
+
+"You shall apologise for that! You shall apologise before you leave this
+room!" she exploded. Her chin was aloft and her mouth remained open. "I say
+you shall apologise for that monstrous untruth!"
+
+He approached her, uttering not a word. She was quite ready to kill him.
+She had no fear of anything whatever. Not once since his arrival had she
+given one thought to the imminent advent of Mr. Gilman.
+
+She said to herself, watching Musa intently:
+
+"Yes, he shall apologise. It is shameful, what he says. It's worse than
+horrid. I am as strong as he is."
+
+Musa dropped his hat, stick and gloves. The hat, being English and hard,
+bounced on the carpet. Then he put his trembling arms around her waist, and
+his trembling lips came nearer and nearer to hers.
+
+She thought, very puzzled:
+
+"What is happening? This is all wrong. I am furious with him! I will never
+speak to him again! What is he doing? This is all wrong. I must stop it.
+I'm saying nothing to him about my career, and my independence, and how
+horrid it is to be the wife of a genius, and all that.... I must stop it."
+
+But she had no volition to stop it.
+
+She thought:
+
+"Am I fainting?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was upon this scene that Mr. Gilman intruded. Mr. Gilman looked from
+one to the other. Perhaps the thought in his mind was that if they added
+their ages together they could not equal his age. Perhaps it was not. He
+continued to look from one to the other, and this needed some ocular
+effort, for they were as far apart as two persons in such a situation
+usually get when they are surprised. Then he caught sight of the hat, stick
+and gloves on the floor.
+
+"I've been expecting you for a long time," said Audrey, with that
+miraculous bland tranquillity of which young girls alone have the secret
+when the conventions are imperilled. "I was just going to order tea."
+
+Mr. Gilman hesitated and then replied:
+
+"How kind of you! But please don't order tea for me. The--er--fact is, I
+have been unexpectedly called away, and I only called to explain
+that--er--I could not call." After all, he was a man of some experience.
+
+She let him go. His demeanour to Musa, like Musa's to him, was a marvel of
+high courtesy.
+
+"Musa," said Audrey, with an intimidated, defiant, proud smile, when the
+door had shut on Mr. Gilman, "I am still frightfully angry with you. If we
+stay here I shall suffocate. Let us go out for a walk. Besides, other
+people might call."
+
+Simultaneously there was another ring. It was a cable. She read:
+
+"Sold Zacatecas at an average of six and a quarter dollars three weeks ago.
+Wrote you at length to Wimereux. Writing again as to new investments.
+
+"FOULGER."
+
+"This comes of having no fixed address," she said, throwing the blue
+cablegram carelessly down in front of Musa. "I'm not quite ruined, after
+all. But I might have known--with Mr. Foulger." Then she explained.
+
+"I wish----" he began.
+
+"No, you don't," she stopped him. "So you needn't start on that line. You
+are brilliant at figures. At least I long since suspected you were. How
+much is one hundred and eighty thousand times six and a quarter?"
+
+Notwithstanding his brilliance, it took two pencils, two heads, and one
+piece of paper to solve the problem. They were not quite certain, but the
+answer seemed to be L225,000 in English money.
+
+"We cannot starve," said Audrey, and then paused.... "Musa, are we
+friends? We shall quarrel horribly. Do you know, I never knew that
+proposals of marriage were made like that!"
+
+"I have not told you one thing," said Musa. "I am going to play in Germany,
+instead of further concerts in Paris. It is arranged."
+
+"Not in Germany," she pleaded, thinking of Ziegler.
+
+"Yes, in Germany," said Musa masterfully. "I have a reputation to make. It
+is the agent who has suggested it."
+
+"But the concerts in London?"
+
+"You are English. I wish not to wound you."
+
+When Audrey stood up again, she had to look at the floor in order to make
+sure that it was there. Once she had tasted absinthe. She had had to take
+the same precaution then.
+
+"Stop! I entreat thee!" said Musa suddenly, just as, all arrayed in her
+finery, she was opening the door for the walk.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+He kissed her, and with his lips almost on hers he murmured:
+
+"Thou shalt not go out without avowing. And if thou art angry--well, I
+adore thy anger. The concerts were ... thy enterprise? I guessed well?"
+
+"You see," she replied like a shot, "you weren't sure, although you
+pretended you were."
+
+In the Rue de Rivoli, and in the resplendent Champs Elysees they passed
+column after column of entertainment posters. But the name of Musa had been
+mysteriously removed from all of them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+AN EPILOGUE
+
+
+Audrey was walking along Piccadilly when she overtook Miss Ingate, who had
+been arrested by a shop window, the window of one of the shops recently
+included in the vast edifice of the Hotel Majestic.
+
+Miss Ingate gave a little squeal of surprise. The two kissed very heartily
+in the street, which was full of spring and of the posters of evening
+papers bearing melodramatic tidings of the latest nocturnal development of
+the terrible suffragette campaign.
+
+"You said eleven, Audrey. It isn't eleven yet."
+
+"Well, I'm behind time. I meant to be all spruced up and receive you in
+state at the hotel. But the boat was three hours late at Harwich. I jumped
+into a cab at Liverpool Street, but I got out at Piccadilly Circus because
+the streets looked so fine and I felt I really must walk a bit."
+
+"And where's your husband?"
+
+"He's at Liverpool Street trying to look after the luggage. He lost some of
+it at Hamburg. He likes looking after luggage, so I just left him at it."
+
+Miss Ingate's lower lip dropped at the corners.
+
+"You've had a tiff."
+
+"Winnie, we haven't."
+
+"Did you go to all his concerts?"
+
+"All. I heard all his practising, and I sat in the stalls at all his
+concerts. Quite contrary to my principles, of course. But, Winnie, it's
+very queer, I _wanted_ to do it. So naturally I did it. We've never been
+apart--until now."
+
+"And it's not exaggerated, what you've written me about his success?"
+
+"Not a bit. I've been most careful not to exaggerate. In fact, I've tried
+to be gloomy. No use, however! It was a triumph.... And how's all this
+business?" Audrey demanded, in a new key, indicating an orange-tinted
+newspaper bill that was being flaunted in front of her.
+
+"Oh! I believe it's dreadful. Of course, you know Rosamund's in prison. But
+they'll have to let her out soon. Jane Foley--she still calls herself
+Foley--hasn't been caught. And that's funny. I doubled my subscription. We
+had to, you see. But that's all I've done. They don't have processions and
+things now, and barrel organs are _quite_ out of fashion. What with that,
+and my rheumatism!... I used to think I should live to vote myself. I feel
+I shan't now. So I've gone back into water-colours. They're very soothing,
+if you let the paper dry after each wash and don't take them seriously....
+Now, I'm a very common-sense woman, Audrey, as you must have noticed, and
+I'm not subject to fancies. Will you just look at the girl on the left hand
+in this window here, and tell me whether I'm dreaming or not?"
+
+Miss Ingate indicated the shop window which had arrested her. The
+establishment was that of a hair specialist, and the window was mainly
+occupied by two girls who sat in arm-chairs with their backs to the glass,
+and all their magnificent hair spread out at length over the backs of the
+chairs for the inspection of the public; the implication being that the
+magnificent hair was due to the specific of the hair specialist. Passers-by
+continually stopped to gaze at the spectacle, but they never stopped long,
+because the spectacle was monotonous.
+
+"Well, what about her?" said Audrey, staring.
+
+"Isn't it Lady Southminster?"
+
+"Good heavens!" Audrey's mind went back to the Channel packet and the rain
+squall and the scenes on the Paris train. "So it is! Whatever can have
+happened to her? Let's go in."
+
+And in they went, Audrey leading, and demanding at once a bottle of the
+specific; Audrey had scarcely spoken when the left-hand girl in the window,
+who, of course, from her vantage had a full view of the shop, screamed
+lightly and jumped down from the window.
+
+"Don't give me away!" she whispered appealingly in Audrey's ear. The next
+moment, not heeding the excitement of the shop manager, she had drawn
+Audrey and Miss Ingate through another door which led into the
+entrance-hall of the Majestic Hotel. The shop was thus contrived to catch
+two publics at once.
+
+"If they knew I was Lady Southminster in there," said Lady Southminster in
+a feverish murmur--she seemed not averse to the sensation caused by her
+hair in the twilight of the hotel--"I expect I should lose my place, and I
+don't want to lose it. _He'll_ be coming by presently, and he'll see me,
+and it'll be a lesson to him. We're always together. Race meetings, dances,
+golf, restaurants, bridge. Twenty-four hours every day. He won't lose sight
+of me. He's that fond of me, you know. I couldn't stand it. I'd as lief be
+in prison--only I'm that fond of him, you know. But I was so homesick, and
+I felt if I didn't have a change I should burst. This is
+Constantinopoulos's old shop, you know, where I used to make cigarettes in
+the window. He's dead, Constantinopoulos is. I don't know what _he'd_ have
+said to hair restorers. I asked for the place, and I showed 'em my hair,
+and I got it. And me sitting there--it's quite like old times. Only
+before, you know, I used to have my face to the street. I don't know which
+I like best. But, anyhow, you can see my profile from the side window. And
+_he_ will. He always looks at that sort of thing. He'll be furious. But it
+will do him no end of good. Well, good-bye. But come back in and buy a
+bottle, or I shall be let in for a shindy. In fact, you might buy two
+bottles."
+
+"So that's love!" said Audrey when the transaction was over and they were
+in the entrance-hall again.
+
+"No," said Miss Ingate. "That's marriage. And don't you forget it....
+Hallo, Tommy!"
+
+"You'd better not let Mr. Gilman hear me called Tommy in this hotel,"
+laughed Miss Thompkins, who was attired with an unusual richness, as she
+advanced towards Miss Ingate and Audrey. "And what are you doing here?" she
+questioned Audrey.
+
+"I'm staying here," said Audrey. "But I've only just arrived. I'm advance
+agent for my husband. How are you? And what are _you_ doing here? I thought
+you hated London."
+
+"I came the day before yesterday," Tommy replied. "And I'm very fit. You
+see, Mr. Gilman preferred us to be married in London. And I'd no objection.
+So here I am. The wedding's to-morrow. You aren't very startled, are you?
+Had you heard?"
+
+"Well," said Audrey, "not what you'd call 'heard.' But I'd a sort of a kind
+of a--"
+
+"You come right over here, young woman."
+
+"But I want to get my number."
+
+"You come right over here right now," Tommy insisted. And in another
+corner of the entrance-hall she spoke thus, and there was both seriousness
+and fun in her voice: "Don't you run away with the idea that I'm taking
+your leavings, young woman. Because I'm not. We all knew you'd lost your
+head about Musa, and it was quite right of you. But you never had a chance
+with Ernest, though you thought you had, after I'd met him. Admit I'm much
+better suited for him than you'd have been. I'd only one difficulty, and
+that was the nice boy Price, who wanted to drown himself for my beautiful
+freckled face. That's all. Now you can go and get your number."
+
+The incident might not have ended there had not Madame Piriac appeared in
+the entrance-hall out of the interior of the hotel.
+
+"He exacted my coming," said Madame Piriac privately to Audrey. "You know
+how he is strange. He asks for a quiet wedding, but at the same time it
+must be all that is most correct. There are things, he says, which demand a
+woman.... I know four times nothing of the English etiquette. I have
+abandoned my husband. And here I am. _Voila_! Listen. She has great skill
+with him, _cette Tommy_. Nevertheless, I have the intention to counsel her
+about her complexion. Impossible to keep any man with a complexion like
+hers!"
+
+They saw Mr. Gilman himself enter the hotel. He was very nervous and very
+important. As soon as he caught sight of Miss Thompkins he said to the
+door-keeper:
+
+"Tell my chauffeur to wait."
+
+He was punctiliously attentive to Miss Thompkins, and held her hand for two
+seconds after he had practically finished with it.
+
+"Are you ready, dear?" he said. "You'll be sorry to hear that my liver is
+all wrong again. I knew it was because I slept so heavily."
+
+These words were distinctly heard by Audrey herself.
+
+"I think I'll slip upstairs now," she murmured to Madame Piriac. And
+vanished, before Mr. Gilman had observed her presence.
+
+She thought:
+
+"How he has aged!"
+
+Scarcely ten minutes later, when Audrey was upstairs in her sitting-room,
+waiting idly for the luggage and her husband to arrive, and thinking upon
+the case of Lady Southminster, the telephone bell rang out startlingly.
+
+"Mr. Shinner to see you."
+
+"Mr. Shinner? Oh! Mr. Shinner. Send him up, please."
+
+This Mr. Shinner was the concert agent with connections in Paris whom
+Audrey had first consulted in the enterprise of launching Musa upon the
+French public. He was a large, dark man, black moustached and bearded, with
+heavy limbs and features, and an opaque, pimpled skin. In spite of these
+characteristics, he entered the room soft-footed as a fairy, ingratiating
+as a dog aware of his own iniquity, reassuring as applause.
+
+"Well, Mr. Shinner. But how did you know we were here? As a matter of fact
+we aren't here. My husband has not arrived yet."
+
+"Madam," said Mr. Shinner, "I happened to hear that you had telegraphed for
+rooms, and as I was in the neighbourhood I thought I would venture to
+call."
+
+"But who told you we had telegraphed for rooms?"
+
+"The manager is a good friend of mine, and as you are now famous----" Ah! I
+have heard all about the German tour. I mean I have read about it. I
+subscribe to the German musical papers. One must, in my profession. Also I
+have had direct news from my correspondents in Germany. It was a triumph
+there, was it not?"
+
+"Yes," said Audrey. "After Dusseldorf. My husband did not make much
+money----"
+
+"That will not trouble you," Mr. Shinner smiled easily.
+
+"But somebody did--the agents did."
+
+"Perhaps not so much as you think, madam, if I may say so. Perhaps not so
+much as you think. And we must all live--unfortunately. Has your husband
+made any arrangements yet for London or for a provincial tour? I have
+reason to think that the season will be particularly brilliant. And I can
+now offer advantages----"
+
+"But, Mr. Shinner, when I last saw you, and it isn't so very long ago, you
+told me that my husband was not a concert-player, which was exactly what I
+had heard in Paris."
+
+"I didn't go quite so far as that, surely, did I?" Mr. Shinner softly
+insinuated. He might have been pouring honey from his mouth. "Surely I
+didn't say quite that?  And perhaps I had been too much influenced by
+Paris."
+
+"Yes, you said he wasn't a concert-player and never would be----"
+
+"Don't rub it in, madam," said Mr. Shinner merrily. "_Peccavi_."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Nothing, nothing, madam," he disclaimed.
+
+"And you said there were far too many violinists on the market, and that it
+was useless for a French player to offer himself to the London musical
+public. And I don't know what you didn't say."
+
+"But I didn't know then that your husband would have such a success in
+Germany."
+
+"What difference does that make?"
+
+"Madam," said Mr. Shinner, "it makes every difference."
+
+"But England and Germany hate each other. At least they despise each other.
+And what's more, nearly everybody in Germany was talking about going to war
+this summer. I was told they are all ready to invade England after they
+have taken Paris and Calais. We heard it everywhere."
+
+"I don't know anything about any war," said Mr. Shinner with tranquillity.
+"But I do know that the London musical public depends absolutely on
+Germany. The only first-class instrumentalist that England has ever
+produced had no success here until he went to Germany and Germanised his
+name and himself and announced that he despised England. Then he came back,
+and he has caused a furore ever since. So far as regards London, a success
+in Karlsruhe, Wiesbaden, Leipzig, Dusseldorf, and so on, is worth far more
+than a success in the Queen's Hall. Indeed--can you get a success in the
+Queen's Hall without a success in these places first? I doubt it. Your
+husband now has London at his feet. Not Paris, though he may capture Paris
+after he has captured London. But London certainly. He cannot find a better
+agent than myself. All artists like me, because I _understand_. You see, my
+mother was harpist to the late Queen."
+
+"But----"
+
+"Your husband is assuredly a genius, madam!" Mr. Shinner stood up in his
+enthusiasm, and banged his left fist with his right palm.
+
+"Yes, I know that," said Audrey. "But you are such an expensive luxury."
+
+Mr. Shinner pushed away the accusation with both hands. "Madam, madam, I
+shall take all the risks. I should not dream, now, of asking for a cheque
+on account. On the contrary, I should guarantee a percentage of the gross
+receipts. Perhaps I am unwise to take risks--I dare say I am--but I could
+not bear to see your husband in the hands of another agent. We professional
+men have our feelings."
+
+"Don't cry, Mr. Shinner," said Audrey impulsively. It was not a proper
+remark to make, but the sudden impetuous entrance of Musa himself, carrying
+his violin case, eased the situation.
+
+"There is a man which is asking for you outside in the corridor," said Musa
+to his wife. "It is the gardener, Aguilar, I think. I have brought all the
+luggage, not excluding that which was lost at Hamburg." He had a glorious
+air, and was probably more proud of his still improving English and of his
+ability as a courier than of his triumphs on the fiddle. "Ah!" Mr. Shinner
+was bowing before him.
+
+"This is Mr. Shinner, the agent, my love," said Audrey. "I'll leave you to
+talk to him. He sees money in you."
+
+In the passage the authentic Aguilar stood with Miss Ingate.
+
+"Here's Mr. Aguilar," said Miss Ingate. "I'm just going into No. 37, Madame
+Piriac's room. Don't you think Mr. Aguilar looks vehy odd in London?"
+
+"Good morning, Aguilar. You in town on business?"
+
+Aguilar touched his forehead. It is possible that he looked very odd in
+London, but he was wearing a most respectable new suit of clothes, and
+might well have passed for a land agent.
+
+"'Mornin', ma'am. I had to come up because I couldn't get delivery of those
+wallpapers you chose. Otherwise all the repairs and alterations are going
+on as well as could be expected."
+
+"And how is your wife, Aguilar?"
+
+"She's nicely, thank ye, ma'am. I pointed out to the foreman that it would
+be a mistake to make the dining-room door open the other way, as the
+architect suggested. But he would do it. However, I've told you, ma'am.
+It'll only have to be altered back. Perhaps I ought to tell you that I took
+the liberty of taking a fortnight's holiday, ma'am. It's the only holiday I
+ever did take, except the annual day off for the Colchester Rose Show,
+which is perhaps more a matter of business with a head gardener than a
+holiday, as ye might say. My wife wanted me in London."
+
+"She's not caught yet?"
+
+"No'm. And I don't think as she will be, not with me about. I never did
+allow myself to be bossed by police, and I always been too much for 'em.
+And as I'm on the matter, ma'am, I should like to give you notice as soon
+as it's convenient. I wouldn't leave on any account till that foreman's off
+the place; he's no better than a fool. But as soon afterwards as you like."
+
+"Certainly, Aguilar. I was quite expecting it. Where are you going to
+live?"
+
+"Well, ma'am, I've got hold of a little poultry run business in the north
+of London. It'll be handy for Holloway in case--And Jane asked me to give
+you this letter, ma'am. I see her this morning."
+
+Audrey read the note. Very short, it was signed "Jane" and "Nick," and
+dated from a house in Fitzroy Street. It caused acute excitement in Audrey.
+
+"I shall come at once," said she.
+
+Getting rid of Aguilar, she knocked at the door of No. 37.
+
+"Read that," she ordered Miss Ingate and Madame Piriac, giving them the
+note jointly.
+
+"And are you going?" said Miss Ingate, nervous and impressed.
+
+"Of course," Audrey answered. "Don't they ask me to go at once? I meant to
+write to my cousins at Woodbridge and my uncles in the colonies, and tell
+them all that I was settling down at last. And I meant to look at those new
+flats in Park Lane with Musa. But I shall have to leave all that for the
+present. Also my lunch."
+
+"But, darling," put in Madame Piriac, who had been standing before the
+dressing-table trying on a hat. "But, darling, it is very serious, this
+matter. What about your husband?"
+
+"He'll keep," said Audrey. "He's had his turn. I must have mine now. I
+haven't had a day off from being a wife for ever so long. And it's a little
+enervating, you know. It spoils you for the fresh air."
+
+"I imagined to myself that you two were happy in an ideal fashion,"
+murmured Madame Piriac.
+
+"So we are!" said Audrey. "Though a certain coolness did arise over the
+luggage this morning. But I don't want to be ideally happy all the time.
+And I won't be. I want--I want all the sensations there are; and I want to
+be everything. And I can be. Musa understands."
+
+"If he does," said Miss Ingate, "he'll be the first husband that ever did."
+Her lips were sardonic.
+
+"Well, of course," said Audrey nonchalantly, "he _is_. Didn't you know
+that?... And didn't you tell me not to forget Lady Southminster?"
+
+"Did I?" said Miss Ingate.
+
+Audrey heard voices in the corridor. Musa was parting from a subservient
+Shinner. Also the luggage was bumping along the carpet. She called her
+husband into No. 37 and kissed him rather violently in front of Madame
+Piriac and Miss Ingate, and showed him the note. Then she whispered to him,
+smiling.
+
+"What's that you're whispering?" Miss Ingate archly demanded.
+
+"Nothing. I was only asking him to come and help me to open my big trunk. I
+want something out of it. Au revoir, you two."
+
+"What do you think of it all, Madame Piriac?" Miss Ingate inquired when the
+pair were alone.
+
+"'All the sensations there are!' 'Everything!'" Madame Piriac repeated
+Audrey's phrases. "One is forced to conclude that she has an appetite for
+life."
+
+"Yes," said Miss Ingate, "she wants the lion's share of it, that's what she
+wants. No mistake. But of course she's young."
+
+"I was never young like that."
+
+"Neither was I! Neither was I!" Miss Ingate asseverated. "But something
+vehy, vehy strange has come over the world, if you ask me."
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lion's Share, by E. Arnold Bennett
+
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