And yet Musa, whom Audrey considered that she understood as profoundly as any mother had ever understood any child—­even Musa could surprise.

He said, without any preparation: 

“I calculate that I shall have 3,040 francs in hand after the concerts, assuming that I receive only the minimum.  That is, after paying the expenses of my living.”

“But do you know how much it costs you to live?” Audrey demanded, with careless superiority.

“Assuredly.  I write all my payments down in a little book.  I have done so since some years.”

“Every sou?”

“Yes.  Every sou.”

“But do you save, Musa?”

“Save!” he repeated the word ingenuously.  “Till now to save has been impossible for me.  But I have always kept in hand one month’s subsistence.  I could not do more.  Now I shall save.  You reproached me with having spent money in order to come to see you in England.  But I regarded the money so spent as part of the finance of the concerts.  Without seeing you I could not practise.  Without practice I could not play.  Without playing I could not earn money.  Therefore I spent money in order to get money.  Such, Madame, was the commercial side.  What a beautiful lawn for tennis you have in your garden!”

Audrey was more than surprised, she was staggered by the revelation of the attitude of genius towards money.  She had not suspected it.  Then she remembered the simple natural tome in which Musa had once told her that both Tommy and Nick contributed to his income.  She ought to have comprehended from that avowal more than she, in fact, had comprehended.  And now the first hopes of worldly success were strongly developing that unsuspected trait in the young man’s character.  Audrey was aware of a great fear.  Could he be a genius, after all?  Was it conceivable that an authentic musical genius should enter up daily in a little book every sou he spent?

A rapid, spitting, explosive sound, close behind the car and a little to the right, took her mind away from Musa and back to the adventure.  She looked round, half expecting what she should see—­and she saw it, namely, the detective on a motor-cycle.  It was an “Indian” machine and painted red.  And as she looked, the car, after taking a corner, got into a straight bit of the splendid road and the motor-bicycle dropped away from it.

“Can’t you shake off that motor-bicycle thing?” Audrey rather superciliously asked the chauffeur.

Having first looked at his mirror, the chauffeur, who, like a horse, could see in two directions at once, gazed cautiously at the road in front and at the motor-bicycle behind, simultaneously.

“I doubt it, madam,” he said.  And yet his tone and glance expressed deep scorn of the motor-bicycle.  “As a general rule you can’t.”

“I should have thought you could beat a little thing like that,” said Audrey.

“Them things can do sixty when they’ve a mind to,” said the chauffeur, with finality, and gave all his attention to the road.