him to drive her to Musa’s, Mr. Gilman would have been very pleased to do so; but she did not think of that till it was too late.  Her precipitancy had been terrible, and had staggered even Tommy.  She had no idea how the group would arrange itself.  And she had no very clear idea as to what was wrong with Musa or how matters stood in regard to the concert.  Tommy had asserted that she did not know whether the orchestra and its conductor meant to be at their desks in the evening just as though nothing whatever had occurred at the rehearsal.  All was vague, and all was disturbing.  She had asked Tommy the authority for her assertion that she, Audrey, was financing the concert.  To which Tommy had replied that she had “guessed, of course.”  And seeing that Audrey had only interviewed a concert agent once—­and he a London concert agent with relations in Paris—­and that she had never uttered a word about the affair to anybody except Mr. Foulger, who had been keeping an eye on the expenditure, it was not improbable that Tommy had just guessed.  But she had guessed right.  She was an uncanny woman.  “Have you ever spoken to Musa about—­it?” Audrey had passionately demanded; and Tommy had answered also passionately:  “Of course not.  I’m a white woman all through.  Haven’t you learnt that yet?”

The taxi, although it was a horse-taxi and incapable of moving at more than five miles an hour, reached the Rue Cassette, which was on the other side of the river and quite a long way off, in no time.  That is to say, Audrey was not aware that any time had passed.  She had received the address from Tommy, for it was a new address, Musa having admittedly risen in the world.  The house was an old one; it had a curious staircase, with china knobs on the principal banisters of the rail, and crimson-tasselled bell cords at all the doors of the flats.  Musa lived at the summit of it.  Audrey arrived there short of breath, took the crimson-tasselled cord in her hand to pull, and then hesitated in order to think.

Why had she come?  The response was clear.  She had come solely because she hated to see a job botched, and there was not a moment to lose if it was not to be botched.  She had come, not because she had the slightest sympathetic interest in Musa—­on the contrary, she was coldly angry with him—­but because she had a horror of fiascos.  She had found a genius who needed financing, and she, possessing some tons of money, had financed him, and she did not mean to see an ounce of her money wasted if she could help it.  Her interest in the affair was artistic and impersonal, and none other.  It was the duty of wealthy magnates to foster art, and she was fostering art, and she would have the thing done neatly and completely, or she would know the reason.  Fancy a rational creature making a scene at a final rehearsal and swearing that he would not play, and then bolting!  It was monstrous!  People really did not do such things.  Assuredly no artist