Audrey experienced once again the sensation—­which latterly was apt to recur in her—­of having too many matters on her mind simultaneously; in a phrase, the sensation of the exceeding complexity of existence.  And she resented it.  The interview with Rosamund was quite enough for one night.  It had been a triumph for her; she had surprised herself in that interview; it had left her with a conviction of freedom; it had uplifted her.  She ought to have been in a state of exaltation after that interview, and she was.  Only, while in a state of exaltation, she was still in the old state of depression—­about the tendency of the concert, of her concert, and about the rumoured disappearance of her fortune.  Also she was preoccupied by the very strange affair of Jane Foley and Aguilar.

And now—­a further intricacy of mood—­came a whole new set of emotions due to the mere spectacle of Mr. Gilman’s august back!  She was intimidated by Mr. Gilman’s back.  She knew horribly that in the afternoon she had treated Mr. Gilman as Mr. Gilman ought never to have been treated.  And, quite apart from intimidation, she had another feeling, a feeling which was ghastly and of which she was ashamed....  Assuming the disappearance of her fortune, would Mr. Gilman’s attitude towards her be thereby changed? ...  She admitted that young girls ought not to have such suspicions against respectable and mature men of established position in the world.  Nevertheless, she could not blow the suspicion away.

But the instant Mr. Gilman’s eye met hers the suspicion vanished, and not the suspicion only, but all her intimidation.  The miracle was produced by something in the gaze of Mr. Gilman as it rested on her, something wistful—­not more definable than that, something which she had noticed in Mr. Gilman’s gaze on other occasions.  It perfectly restored her.  It gave her the positive assurance of a fact which marvellously enheartens young girls of about Audrey’s years—­to wit, that they have a mysterious power surpassing the power of age, knowledge, wisdom, or wealth, that they influence and decide the course of history, and are the sole true mistresses of the world.  Whence the mysterious power sprang she did not exactly know, but she surmised—­rightly—­that it was connected with her youth, with a dimple, with the incredibly soft down on her cheek, with the arch softness of her glance, with a gesture of the hand, with a turn of the shoulder, with a pleat of the skirt....  Anyhow, she possessed it, and to possess it was to wield it.  It transformed her into a delicious tyrant, but a tyrant; it inspired her with exquisite cruelty, but cruelty.  Her thoughts might have been summed up in eight words: 

“Pooh!  He has suffered.  Well, he must suffer.”

Ah!  But she meant to be very kind to him.  He was so reliable, so adorable, and so dependent.  She had genuine affection for him.  And he was at once a rock and a cushion.

“Isn’t it going splendidly—­splendidly, Mr. Gilman?” exclaimed Miss Ingate in her enthusiasm.