etraced her steps and made a grand
entry into the drawing-room from her own bedroom. She meant to dispose of
Musa immediately. A meeting between him and Mr. Gilman on her hearthrug
might involve the most horrible complications.

The young man and the young woman shook hands. But it was the handshaking
of bruisers when they enter the ring, and before the blood starts to flow.

"Won't you please sit down?" said Audrey. He was obliged now to obey her,
as she had been obliged to obey him on the previous afternoon in the Rue
Cassette.

If Audrey looked as though the whole world was on her shoulders, Musa's
face seemed to contradict hers and to say that the world, far from being on
anybody's shoulders, had come to an end. All the expression of the
violinist showed that in his honest conviction a great mundane calamity had
occurred, the calamity of course being that his violin bow had not caused
catgut to vibrate in such a way as to affect the ears of a particular set
of people in a particular manner. But in addition to this sense of a
calamity he was under the influence of another emotion--angry resentment.
However, he sat down, holding firmly his hat, gloves, and stick.

"I saw my agent this morning," said he, in a grating voice, in French. He
was pale.

"Yes?" said Audrey. She suddenly guessed what was coming, and she felt a
certain alarm, which nevertheless was not entirely disagreeable.

"Why did you pay for that concert, and the future concerts, without telling
me, Madame?"

"Paid for the concerts?" she repeated, rather weakly.

"Yes, Madame. To do so was to make me ridiculous--not to the world, but to
myself. For I believed all the time that I had succeeded in gaining the
genuine interest of an agent who was prepared to risk money upon the proper
exploitation of my talent. I worked in that belief. In spite of your
attitude to me I did work. Your antipathy was bad for me; but I conquered
myself, and I worked. I had confidence in myself. If last night I did not
have a triumph, it was not because I did not work, but because I had been
upset--and again by you, Madame. Even after the misfortune of last night I
still had confidence, for I knew that the reasons of my failure were
accidental and temporary. But I now know that I was living in a fool's
paradise, which you had kindly created for me. You have money. Apparently
you have too much money. And with money you possess the arrogance of
wealth. You knew that I had a