Audrey was extremely depressed in the interval after the Beethoven Concerto and before the Lalo.  But she was not depressed by the news of the accident to the Zacatecas Oil Corporation in which was the major part of her wealth.  The tidings had stunned rather than injured that part of her which was capable of being affected by finance.  She had not felt the blow.  Moreover she was protected by the knowledge that she had thousands of pounds in hand and also the Moze property intact, and further she was already reconsidering her newly-acquired respect for money.  No!  What depressed her was a doubt as to the genius of Musa.  In the long dreadful pause it seemed impossible that he should have genius.  The entire concert presented itself as a grotesque farce, of which she as its creator ought to be ashamed.  She was ready to kill Xavier or his responsible representative.

Then she saw the tall and calm Rosamund, with her grey hair and black attire and her subduing self-complacency, making a way between the rows of stalls towards her.

“I wanted to see you,” said Rosamund, after the formal greetings.  “Very much.”  Her voice was as kind and as unrelenting as the grave.

At this point Miss Ingate ought to have yielded her seat to the terrific Rosamund, but she failed to do so, doubtless by inadvertence.

“Will you come into the foyer for a moment?” Rosamund inflexibly suggested.

“Isn’t the interval nearly over?” said Audrey.

“Oh, no!”

And as a fact there was not the slightest sign of the interval being nearly over.  Audrey obediently rose.  But the invitation had been so conspicuously addressed to herself that Miss Ingate, gathering her wits, remained in her chair.

The foyer—­decorated in the Cracovian taste—­was dotted with cigarette smokers and with those who had fled from the interval.  Rosamund did not sit down; she did not try for seclusion in a corner.  She stepped well into the foyer, and then stood still, and absently lighted a cigarette, omitting to offer a cigarette to Audrey.  Rosamund’s air of a deaconess made the cigarette extremely remarkable.

“I wanted to tell you about Jane Foley,” began Rosamund quietly.  “Have you heard?”

“No!  What?”

“Of course you haven’t.  I alone knew.  She has run away to England.”

“Run away!  But she’ll be caught!”

“She may be.  But that is not all.  She has run away to get married.  She dared not tell me.  She wrote me.  She put the letter in the manuscript of the last chapter but one of her book, which I am revising for her.  She will almost certainly be caught if she tries to get married in her own name.  Therefore she will get married in a false name.  All this, however, is not what I wanted to tell you about.”

“Then you shouldn’t have begun to talk about it,” said Audrey suddenly.  “Did you expect me to let you leave it in the middle!  Jane getting married!  I do think she might have told me....  What next, I wonder!  I suppose you’ve—­er—­lost her now?”