scover 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 so