had ever done such a thing before.  Artists who had a concert all to themselves invariably appeared according to advertised promise.  An artist who was only one among several in a programme might fall ill and fail to appear, for such artists are liable to the accidents of earthly existence.  But an artist who shared the programme with nobody else was above the accidents of earthly existence and magically protected against colds, coughs, influenza, orange peel, automobiles, and all the other enemies of mankind.  But, of course, Musa was peculiar, erratic and unpredictable beyond even the wide range granted by society to genius.  And yet of late he had been behaving himself in a marvellous manner.  He had never bothered her.  On the voyage back to France he had not bothered her.  They had separated with punctilious cordiality.  Neither of them had written to the other, but she knew that he was working diligently and satisfactorily.  He was apparently cured of her.  It was perhaps due to the seeming completeness of his cure that her relations with Mr. Gilman had been what they were. ...  And now, suddenly, this!

So with clear conscience she pulled the bell cord.

Musa himself opened the door.  He was coatless and in a dressing-gown, under which showed glimpses of a new smartness.  As soon as he saw her he went very pale.

“Bon jour,” she said.

He repeated the phrase stiffly.

“Can I come in?” she asked.

He silently signified, with a certain annoying resignation, that she might.  For one instant she was under a tremendous impulse to walk grandly and haughtily down the stairs.  But she conquered the impulse.  He was so pale.

“This way, excuse me,” he said, and preceded her along a short, narrow passage which ended in an open door leading into a small room.  There was no carpet on the floor of the passage, and only a quite inadequate rug on the floor of the room.  The furniture was scanty and poor.  There was a table, a music stand, a cheap imitation of a Louis Quatorze chair, two other chairs, and some piles of music.  No curtains to the window!  Not a picture on the walls!  On the table a dusty disorder of small objects, including ash-trays, and towards the back of it a little account book, open, with a pencil on it and a low pile of coppers and a silver ten-sou piece on the top of the coppers.  Nevertheless this interior represented a novel luxuriousness for Musa; for previously, as Audrey knew, he had lived in one room, and there was no bed here.  The flat, indeed, actually comprised three rooms.  The account book and the pitiful heap of coins touched her.  She had expended much on the enterprise of launching him to glory, and those coins seemed to be all that had filtered through to him.  The whole dwelling was pathetic, and she thought of the splendours of her own daily life, of the absolute unimportance to her of such sums as would keep Musa in content for a year or for ten years, and of the grandiose, majestic,