The Lion's Share Part 54

Foa seemed to be exhibiting the majestic Oriental, nicknamed Miquette, as the final arbiter, whose word settled problems like a sword, and Miquette seemed to be trying to bear the high role with negligent modesty.

"But, yes, he has! But, yes, he has!" Dauphin protested, sweeping all Miquettes politely away. And then there was an urbane riot of greetings, salutes, bowings, smilings, cooings and compliments.

Dauphin was magnificent, playing the part of the opulent painter _a la mode_ with the most finished skill, the most splendid richness of detail.

It was notorious that in the evenings he wore the finest silk s.h.i.+rts in Paris, and his waistcoat was designed to give scope to these s.h.i.+rts. He might have come--he probably had come--straight from the bower of archd.u.c.h.esses; but he produced in Audrey the illusion that archd.u.c.h.esses were a trifle compared to herself. He had not seen her for a long time.

Gazing at her, he breathed relief; all his features indicated the sudden, unexpected a.s.suaging of eternal and intense desires. He might have been travelling through the desert for many days and she might have been the oasis--the pool of living water and the palm.

"Now--like that! Just like that!" he said, holding her hand and, as it were, hypnotising her in the pose in which she happened to be. He looked hard at her. "It is unique. Madame, where did you find that dress?"

"Callot," answered Audrey submissively.

"I thought so. Well, Madame, I can wait no more. I will wait no more. It is Dauphin who implores you to come to his studio. To come--it is your duty. Madame Foa, you will bring her. I count on you absolutely to bring her. Even if it is only to be a sketch--the merest hint. But I must do it."

"Oh, yes, Madame," said Madame Foa with all the Italian charm. "Dauphin must paint you. The contrary is unthinkable. My husband and I have often said so."

"To-morrow?" Dauphin suggested.

"Ah! To-morrow, my little Dauphin, I cannot," said Madame Foa.

"Nor I," said Audrey.

"The day after to-morrow, then. I will send my auto. What address?

Half-past eleven. That goes? In any case, I insist. Be kind! Be kind!"

Audrey blushed. Half the foyer was staring at the group. She was flattered.

She saw herself remarkable. She thought she would look more particularly, with perfect detachment, at the mirror that night, in order to decide whether her appearance was as striking, as original, as distinguished, as Dauphin's att.i.tude implied. There must surely be something in it.

"About that advice--may I call to-morrow?" It was Mr. Gilman's voice at her elbow.

"Advice?" She had forgotten her announced intention of asking his advice.

(The subject was to be Zacatecas.) "Oh, yes. How nice of you! Please do call. Come for tea." She was delightful to him, but at the same time there was in her tone a little of the condescending casualness proper to the tone of a girl openly admired by the confidant and painter of princesses and archd.u.c.h.esses, the man who treated all plain women and women past the prime with a desolating indifference.

She thought:

"I am a rotten little sn.o.b."

Mr. Gilman gave thanksgivings and departed, explaining that he must return to Madame Piriac.

Foa and Dauphin and the Oriental resumed the argument about Musa's talent and the concert. Miquette would say nothing as to the success of the concert. Foa a.s.serted that the concert was not and would not be a success.

Dauphin pooh-poohed and insisted vehemently that the success was unmistakable and increasing. Moreover, he criticised the hall, the choice of programme, the orchestra, the conductor. "I discovered Musa," said he.

"I have always said that he is a great concert player, and that he is destined for a great world-success, and to-night I am more sure of it than ever." Whereupon Madame Foa said with much sympathy that she hoped it was so, and Foa said: "You create illusions for yourself, on purpose." Dauphin bore him down with wavy gestures and warm cries of "No! No! No!" And he appealed to Audrey as-a woman incapable of illusions. And Audrey agreed with Dauphin. And while she was agreeing she kept saying to herself: "Why do I pretend to agree with him? He is not sincere. He knows he is not sincere. We all know--except perhaps Winnie Ingate. The concert is a failure. If it were not a failure, Madame Foa would not be so sympathetic.

She is more subtle even than Madame Piriac. I shall never be subtle like that. I wish I could be. I wish I was at Moze. I am too Ess.e.x for all this.

And Winnie here is too comic for words."

An aged and repellent Jew came into sight. He raised Madame Foa's hand to his odious lips and kissed it, and Audrey wondered how Madame Foa could tolerate the formality.

"Well, Monsieur Xavier?"

Xavier shrugged his round shoulders.

"Do not say," said he, in a hoa.r.s.e voice to the company, "do not say that I have not done my best on this occasion." He lifted his eyes heavenward, and as he did so his pa.s.sing glance embraced Audrey, and she violently hated him.

"Winnie," said she, "I think we ought to be getting back to our seats."

"But," cried Madame Foa, "we are going round with Dauphin to the artists'

room. You do not come with us, Madame Moncreiff?"

"In your place ..." muttered Xavier discouragingly, with a look at Dauphin, and another shrug of the shoulders. "I have been ..."

"Ah!" said Dauphin, in a strange new tone. And then very brightly to Audrey: "Now, as to Sat.u.r.day, dear lady----"

Xavier engaged in private converse with Foa, and his demeanour to Foa was extremely deferential, whereas he almost ignored the Oriental critic. And Audrey puzzled her head once again to discover why the Foas should exert such influence upon the fate of music in Paris. The enigma was only one among many.

CHAPTER XLIV

END OF THE CONCERT

The first item after the true interval was the Chaconne of Bach, which Musa had played upon a memorable occasion in Frinton. He stood upon the platform utterly alone, against a background of empty chairs, double-ba.s.ses and drums. He seemed to be unfriended and forlorn. It appeared to Audrey that he was playing with despair. She wished, as she looked from Musa to the deserted places in the body of the hall, that the piece was over, and that the entire concert was over. How could anyone enjoy such an arid maze of sounds? The whole theory of cla.s.sical composition and its vogue was hollow and ridiculous. People did not like the cla.s.sics; they could not and they never would. Now a waltz ... after a jolly dinner and wine! ... But the Chaconne! But Bach! But culture! The audience was visibly and audibly restless. For about two hundred years the attempt to force this Chaconne upon the public had been continuous, and it was still boring them. Of course it was! The thing was unnatural.

And she herself was a fool; she was a ninny. And the alleged power of money was an immense fraud. She had thought to perform miracles by means of a banking account. For a moment she had imagined that the miracles had come to pa.s.s. But they had not come to pa.s.s. The public was too old, too tired, and too wary. It could not thus be tricked into making a reputation. The forces that made reputations were far less amenable than she had fancied.

The world was too clever and too experienced for her ingenuous self.

Geniuses were not lying about and waiting to be picked up. Musa was not a genius. She had been a simpleton, and the sacred Quarter had been a simpleton. She was rather angry with Musa for not being a genius. And the confidence which he had displayed a few hours earlier was just grotesque conceit! And men and women who were supposed to be friendly human hearts were not so in truth. They were merely indifferent and callous spectators.

The Foas, for example, were chattering in their box, apparently oblivious of the tragedy that was enacting under their eyes. But then, it was perhaps not a tragedy; it was perhaps a farce.

And what would these self-absorbed spectators of existence say and do, if and when it was known that she was no longer a young woman of enormous wealth? Would Dauphin have sought to compel her to enter his studio had he been aware that her fortune had gone tip in smoke? She was not in a real world. She was in a world of shams. And she was a sham in the world of shams. She wanted to be back again in the honest realities of Moze, where in the churchyard she could see the tombs of her great-great-grandfathers.

Only one extraneous interest drew her thoughts away from Moze. That interest was Mr. Gilman. Mr. Gilman was her conquest and her slave. She adored him because he was so wistful and so reliable and so adoring. Mr.

Gilman sat intent and straight upright in Madame Piriac's box and behaved just as though Bach himself was present. He understood nothing of Bach, but he could be trusted to behave with benevolence.

The music suddenly ceased. The Chaconne was finished. The gallery of enthusiasts still applauded with vociferation, with mystic faith, with sublime obstinacy. It was carrying on a sort of religious war against the base apathy of the rest of the audience. It was determined to force its belief down the throats of the unintelligent mob. It had made up its mind that until it had had its way the world should stand still. No encore had yet been obtained, and the gallery was set on an encore. The clapping fainted, expired, and then broke into new life, only to expire again and recommence. A few irritated persons hissed. The gallery responded with vigour. Musa, having retired, reappeared, very white, and bowed. The applause was feverish and unconvincing. Musa vanished. But the gallery had thick soles and hard hands and stout sticks, even serviceable umbrellas. It could not be appeased by bows alone. And after about three minutes of tedious manoeuvring, Musa had at last to yield an encore that in fact n.o.body wanted. He played a foolish pyrotechnical affair of De Beriot, which resembled nothing so much as a joke at a funeral. After that the fate of the concert could not be disputed even by the gallery. At the finish of the evening there was, in the terrible idiom of the theatre, "not a hand."

Whether Musa had played well or ill, Audrey had not the least idea. Nor did that point seem to matter. Naught but the att.i.tude of the public seemed to matter. This was strange, because for a year Audrey had been learning steadily in the Quarter that the att.i.tude of the public had no importance whatever. She suffered from the delusion that the public was staring at her and saying to her: "You, you silly little thing, are responsible for this fiasco. We condescended to come--and this is what you have offered us. Go home, and let your hair down and shorten your skirts, for you are no better than a schoolgirl, after all." She was really self-conscious. She despised Musa, or rather she threw to him a little condescending pity. And yet at the same time she was furious against that group in the foyer for being so easily dissuaded from going to see Musa in the artists' room.... Rats deserting a sinking s.h.i.+p!... People, even the nicest, would drop a failure like a match that was burning out.... Yes, and they would drop her.... No, they would not, because of Mr. Gilman. Mr. Gilman was calling-to see her to-morrow. He was the rock and the cus.h.i.+on. She would send Miss Ingate out for the afternoon. As the audience hurried eagerly forth she spoke sharply to Miss Ingate. She was indeed very rude to Miss Ingate. She was exasperated, and Miss Ingate happened to be handy.

In the foyer not a trace of the Foa clan nor of Madame Piriac and her husband, nor of Mr. Gilman! But Tommy and Nick were there, putting on their cloaks, and with them, but not helping them, was Mr. Ziegler. The blond Mr.

Ziegler greeted Audrey as though the occasion of their previous meeting had been a triumph for him. His self-satisfaction, if ever it had been damaged, was repaired to perfection. The girls were silent; Miss Ingate was silent; but Mr. Ziegler was not silent.

"He played better than I did antic.i.p.ate," said Mr. Ziegler, lighting a cigarette, after he had nonchalantly acknowledged the presentation to him of Miss Ingate. "But of what use is this French public? None. Even had he succeeded here it would have meant nothing. Nothing. In music Paris does not exist. There are six towns in Germany where success means vorldt-reputation. Not that he would succeed in Germany. He has not studied in Germany. And outside Germany there are no schools. However, we have the intention to impose our culture upon all European nations, including France. In one year our army will be here--in Paris. I should wait for that, but probably I shall be called up. In any case, I shall be present."

"But whatever do you mean?" cried Miss Ingate, aghast.

"What do I mean? I mean our army will be here. All know it in Germany.

They know it in Paris! But what can they do? How can they stop us?...

Decadent!..." He laughed easily.

"Oh, my chocolates!" exclaimed Miss Thompkins. "I've left them in the hall!"