ie 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 Mus