performer Musa was.  They had no hope of being pleased by him.  Indeed they knew beforehand that he was yet another false star, but they had to ascertain the truth for themselves, because—­you see—­there was a slight chance that he might be a genuine star, in which case their careers would have been ruined had they not been able to say to succeeding generations:  “I was at his first concert.  It was a memorable,” etc. etc.  They were an emaciated tribe, and in fact had the air of mummies temporarily revived and escaped out of museums.  They were shabby, but not with the gallery shabbiness; they were shabby because shabbiness was part of their unworldly refinement; and it did not matter—­they would have got their free seats even if they had come in sacks and cerements.

The second main division of the audience—­and the larger—­consisted of the jolly pleasure seekers, who had dined well, who respected Beethoven no more than Oscar Straus, and who demanded only one boon—­not to be bored.  They had full dimpled cheeks, and they were adequately attired, and they dropped cigarettes with reluctance in the foyer, and they entered adventurously with marked courage, well aware that they had come to something queer and dangerous, something that was neither a revue nor a musical comedy, and, while hoping optimistically for the best, determined to march boldly out again in the event of the worst.  They had seven mortal evenings a week to dispose of somehow, and occasionally they were obliged to take risks.  Their expressions for the most part had that condescension which is characteristic of those who take a risk without being paid for it.

All around the hall ran a horseshoe of private boxes, between the balcony and the gallery.  These boxes gradually filled.  At a quarter-past nine over half of them were occupied; which fact, combined with the stylishness of the hats in them, proved that Xavier had immense skill in certain directions, and that on that night, for some reason or other, he had been doing his very best.

At twenty minutes past nine the audience had coalesced and become an entity, and the group from the Quarter was stamping an imitation of the first bars of the C minor Symphony, to indicate that further delay might involve complications.

Audrey sat with Miss Ingate modestly and inconspicuously in the fifth row of the stalls.  Miss Ingate, prodigious in crimson, was in a state of beatitude, because she never went to concerts and imagined that she had inadvertently slipped into heaven.  The mere size of the orchestra so overwhelmed her that she was convinced that it was an orchestra specially enlarged to meet the unique importance of Musa’s genius.  “They must think highly of him!” she said.  She employed the time in looking about her.  She had already found, besides many other Anglo-Saxon acquaintances, Rosamund, in black, Tommy with Nick, and Mr. Cowl, who was one seat to Audrey’s left in the sixth row of the