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