ccepted assistance from good friends. And you
thought in your arrogance that you might launch me without informing me of
your intention. You thought it would amuse you to make a little fairy-tale
in real life. It was a negligent gesture on the part of a rich and idle
woman. It cost you nothing save a few bank-notes, of which you had so many
that it bored you to count them. How amusing to make a reputation! How
charitable to help a starving player! But you forgot one thing. You forgot
my dignity and my honour. It was nothing to you that you exposed these to
the danger of the most grave affront. It was nothing to you that I was
received just as though I had been a child, and that for months I was made,
without knowing it, to fulfil the role of a conceited jackanapes. When one
is led to have confidence in oneself one is tempted to adopt a certain tone
and to use certain phrases, which may or may not be justified. I yielded to
the temptation. I was wrong, but I was also victimised. This morning, with
a moment's torture under the impertinent tongue of a rascally impresario, I
paid for all the spurious confidence which I have felt and for all the
proud words I have uttered. I came to-day in order to lay at your feet my
thanks for the unique humiliation which I owe to you."

His mien was undoubtedly splendid. It ought to have cowed and shamed
Audrey. But it did not. She absolutely refused to acknowledge, even within
her own heart, that she had committed any wrong. On the contrary, she
remembered all the secret sympathy which she had lavished on Musa, all her
very earnest and single-minded desires for his apotheosis at the hands of
the Parisian public; and his ingratitude positively exasperated her. She
was aroused. But she tried to hide the fact that she was roused, speaking
in a guarded and sardonic voice.

"And did this agent of yours--I do not know his name--tell you that I was
paying for the concert--I mean, the concerts?" she demanded with an air of
impassivity. "He did not give your name."

"That's something," Audrey put in, her body trembling. "I am much obliged
to him."

"But he clearly indicated that money had been paid--that he had not paid it
himself--that the enterprise was not genuine. He permitted himself to sneer
until I corrected him. He then withdrew what he had said and told me that I
had misunderstood. But he was not convincing. It was too late. And I had
not misunderstood. Far from that, I had understood.