“Well, then,” said Nick, “if you’re staying in Paris, I hope you’ll keep an eye on Musa.  He needs it.  Tommy’s going away.  At least I fancy she is.  We both went to see him this morning.”

“Both of you!”

“Well, you see, we’ve always looked after him.  He was in a terrible state about last night.  That’s really one reason why I called.  Not that I’d have gone without kissing you——­”

She stopped.  There was another ring at the bell.  The attendant came in with great rapidity.

“I’m lost!” thought Audrey, disgusted and perturbed.  “Her being here will spoil everything.”

But the attendant handed her a card, and the card bore the name of Musa.  Audrey flushed.  Almost instinctively, without thinking, she passed the card to Nick.

“My land!” exclaimed Nick.  “If he sees me here he’ll think I’ve come on purpose to talk about him and pity him, and he’ll be just perfectly furious.  Can I get out any other way?” She glanced interrogatively at the half-open door of the bedroom.

“But I don’t want to see him, either!” Audrey protested.

“Oh!  You must!  He’ll listen to sense from you, perhaps.  Can I go this way?”

Impelled to act in spite of herself, Audrey took Nick into the bedroom, and as soon as Musa had been introduced into the drawing-room she embraced Nick in silence and escorted her on tiptoe through Miss Ingate’s bedroom to the vestibule and waved an adieu.  Then she retraced 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?”