More interpretation.  More laughter, but this time an impressed laughter.  And Audrey perceived that just as she was regarding the Polish woman as romantic, so the whole company was regarding herself and Miss Ingate as romantic.  She could feel the polite, curious eyes of twenty men upon her; and her mind seemed to stiffen into a formidable resolve.  She grew conscious of the lifting of all depression, all anxiety.  Her conscience was at rest.  She had been thinking for more than a week past:  “I ought to go to London.”  How often had she not said to herself:  “If any woman should be in this movement, I should be in this movement.  I am a coward as long as I stay here, dallying my time away.”  Now the decision was made, absolutely.

The Oriental musical critic turned to glance upward behind his chair.  Then he vacated it.  The next instant Madame Piriac was sitting in his place.

She said: 

“Are you really going to London to-morrow, Madame?”

“Yes, Madame, really!” answered Audrey firmly, without the least hesitation.

“How I regret it!  For this reason.  I wished so much to make your acquaintance.  I mean—­to know you a little.  You go perhaps in the afternoon?  Could you not do me the great pleasure of coming to lunch with me?  I inhabit the Quai Voltaire.  It is all that is most convenient.”

Audrey was startled and suspicious, but she could not deny the persuasiveness of the invitation.

“Ah!  Madame!” she said.  “I know not at what hour we go.  But even if it should be in the afternoon there is the packing—­you know—­in a word....”

“Listen,” Madame Piriac proceeded, bending even more intimately towards her.  “Be very, very kind.  Come to see me to-night.  Come in my car.  I will see that you reach the Rue Delambre afterwards.”

“But Madame, we are at the Hotel du Danube.  I have my own car.  You are very amiable.”

Madame Piriac was a little taken aback.

“So much the better,” she said, in a new tone.  “The Hotel du Danube is nearer still.  But come in my car.  Mademoiselle Ingate can return in yours.  Do not desolate me.”

“Does she know who I am?” thought Audrey, and then:  “What do I care if she does?”

And she said aloud: 

“Madame, it is I who would be desolated to deprive myself of this pleasure.”

A considerable period elapsed before they could leave, because of the complex discussion concerning feminism which was delicately raging round the edge of the table.  The animation was acute, but it was purely intellectual.  The guests discussed the psychology of English suffragettes, sympathetically, admiringly; they were even wonderstruck; yet they might have been discussing the psychology of the ancient Babylonians, so perfect was their detachment, so completely unclouded by any prejudice was their desire to reach the truth.  Many of the things which they imperturbably and politely said made Audrey feel glad that she was a widow.  Had she not been a widow, possibly they would not have been uttered.