And when Madame Piriac and Audrey did rise to go, both host and hostess began to upbraid.  The host, indeed, barred the doorway with his urbane figure.  They were not kind, they were not true friends, to leave so soon.  The morrow had no sort of importance.  The hour was scarcely one o’clock.  Other guests were expected....  Madame Piriac alone knew how to handle the situation; she appealed privately to Madame Foa.  Having appealed to Madame Foa, she disappeared with Madame Foa, and could not be found when Audrey and Miss Ingate were ready to leave.  While these two waited in the antechamber, Monsieur Foa said suddenly in a confidential tone to Audrey: 

“He is charming, Musa, quite charming.”

“Did you like his playing?” Audrey demanded boldly.

She could not understand why it should be necessary for a violinist to play and to succeed at this house before he could capture Paris.  She was delighted excessively with the home, but positively it bore no resemblance to what she had anticipated; nor did it seem to her to possess any of the attributes of influence; for one of her basic ideas about the world was that influential people must be dull and formal, moving about with deliberation in sombrely magnificent interiors.

“Yes,” said Monsieur Foa.  “I like it.  He plays admirably.”  And he spoke sincerely.  Audrey, however, was a little disappointed because Monsieur Foa did not assert that Musa was the most marvellous genius he had ever listened to.

“I am very, very content to have heard him,” said Monsieur Foa.

“Do you think he will succeed in Paris?”

“Ah!  Madame!  There is the Press.  There are the snobs....  In fine....”

“I suppose if he had money?” Audrey murmured.

“Ah!  Madame!  In Paris, if one has money, one has everything.  Paris—­it is not London, where to succeed one must be truly successful.  But he is a player very highly accomplished.  It is miraculous that he should have played so long in a cafe—­Dauphin told me the history.”

Musa appeared, and after him Madame Piriac.  More appeals, more reproaches, more asseverations that friends who left so early as one o’clock in the morning were not friends—­and the host at length consented to open the door.  At that very instant the bell clanged.  Another guest had arrived.

When, after the long descent of the stairs (which, however, unlike the stairs of the Rue Delambre, were lighted), Audrey saw seven automobiles in the street, she veered again towards the possibility that the Foas might after all be influential.  Musa and Mr. Gilman, the yachtsman, had left with the women.  Audrey told Miss Ingate to drive Musa home.  She said not a word to him about her departure the next afternoon, and he made no reference to it.  As the most imposing automobile moved splendidly away, Mr. Gilman held open the door of Madame Piriac’s vehicle.

Mr. Gilman sat down opposite to the women.  In the enclosed space the rumour of his heavy breathing was noticeable.  Madame Piriac began to speak in English—­her own English—­with a unique accent that Audrey at once loved.