"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."