The incident might not have ended there had not Madame Piriac appeared in the entrance-hall out of the interior of the hotel.

“He exacted my coming,” said Madame Piriac privately to Audrey.  “You know how he is strange.  He asks for a quiet wedding, but at the same time it must be all that is most correct.  There are things, he says, which demand a woman....  I know four times nothing of the English etiquette.  I have abandoned my husband.  And here I am. Voila!  Listen.  She has great skill with him, cette Tommy.  Nevertheless, I have the intention to counsel her about her complexion.  Impossible to keep any man with a complexion like hers!”

They saw Mr. Gilman himself enter the hotel.  He was very nervous and very important.  As soon as he caught sight of Miss Thompkins he said to the door-keeper: 

“Tell my chauffeur to wait.”

He was punctiliously attentive to Miss Thompkins, and held her hand for two seconds after he had practically finished with it.

“Are you ready, dear?” he said.  “You’ll be sorry to hear that my liver is all wrong again.  I knew it was because I slept so heavily.”

These words were distinctly heard by Audrey herself.

“I think I’ll slip upstairs now,” she murmured to Madame Piriac.  And vanished, before Mr. Gilman had observed her presence.

She thought: 

“How he has aged!”

Scarcely ten minutes later, when Audrey was upstairs in her sitting-room, waiting idly for the luggage and her husband to arrive, and thinking upon the case of Lady Southminster, the telephone bell rang out startlingly.

“Mr. Shinner to see you.”

“Mr. Shinner?  Oh!  Mr. Shinner.  Send him up, please.”

This Mr. Shinner was the concert agent with connections in Paris whom Audrey had first consulted in the enterprise of launching Musa upon the French public.  He was a large, dark man, black moustached and bearded, with heavy limbs and features, and an opaque, pimpled skin.  In spite of these characteristics, he entered the room soft-footed as a fairy, ingratiating as a dog aware of his own iniquity, reassuring as applause.

“Well, Mr. Shinner.  But how did you know we were here?  As a matter of fact we aren’t here.  My husband has not arrived yet.”

“Madam,” said Mr. Shinner, “I happened to hear that you had telegraphed for rooms, and as I was in the neighbourhood I thought I would venture to call.”

“But who told you we had telegraphed for rooms?”

“The manager is a good friend of mine, and as you are now famous——­” Ah!  I have heard all about the German tour.  I mean I have read about it.  I subscribe to the German musical papers.  One must, in my profession.  Also I have had direct news from my correspondents in Germany.  It was a triumph there, was it not?”

“Yes,” said Audrey.  “After Dusseldorf.  My husband did not make much money——­”