“I can’t help that.”

“But you can’t come.  What on earth shall you do?”

“I dare say I shall go to bed.  Or I might shoot myself.  But if you think that I’m going outside this room in this dress, you’re a perfect simpleton, Audrey.  I don’t mind being a fool, but I won’t look one.”

Audrey heard Musa enter the drawing-room.

She pulled the door to, keeping her hand on the knob.

“Very well, Winnie,” she said coldly, and swept into the drawing-room.

As she and Musa left the pink rose-shaded flat, she heard a burst of tears from Elise in the bedroom.

“21 Rue d’Aumale,” she curtly ordered the chauffeur, who sat like a god obscurely in front of the illuminated interior of the carriage.  Musa’s violin case lay amid the cushions therein.

The chauffeur approvingly touched his hat.  The Rue d’Aumale was a good street.

“I wonder what his surname is?” Audrey thought curiously.  “And whether he’s in love or married, and has children.”  She knew nothing of him save that his Christian name was Michel.

She was taciturn and severe with Musa.

CHAPTER XVII

SOIREE

“Monsieur Foa—­which floor?” Audrey asked once again of the aged concierge in the Rue d’Aumale.  This time she got an answer.  It was the fifth or top floor.  Musa said nothing, permitting himself to be taken about like a parcel, though with a more graceful passivity.  There was no lift, but at each floor a cushioned seat for travellers to use and a palm in a coloured pot in a niche for travellers to gaze upon as they rested.  The quality of the palms, however, deteriorated floor by floor, and on the fourth and fifth floors the niches were empty.  A broad embroidered bell-pull, twitched, gave rise to one clanging sound within the abode of the Foas, and the clanging sound reacted upon a small dog which yapped loudly and continued to yap until the visitors had entered and the door been closed again.  Monsieur came out of a room into the small entrance-hall, accompanied by a considerable noise of conversation.  He beamed his ravishment; he kissed hands; he helped with the dark blue cloak.

“I brought Monsieur Musa in my car,” said Audrey.  “The weather——­”

Monsieur Foa bowed low to Monsieur Musa, and Monsieur Musa bowed low to Monsieur Foa.

“Monsieur!”

“Monsieur!”

“Monsieur, your accident I hope....”

And so on.

Cloak, overcoat, hat, stick—­everything except the violin case—­were thrown pell-mell on to a piece of furniture in the entrance-hall.  Monsieur Foa, instead of being in evening dress, was in exactly the same clothes as he had worn at his first meeting with Audrey.

Madame Foa appeared in the doorway.  She was a slim blonde Italian of pure descent, whereas only the paternal grandfather of Monsieur Foa had been Italian.  Madame Foa, who had called on Audrey at the Danube, exhibited the same symptoms of pleasure as her husband.