“Ah!” said Musa. “Once I told you that Tommy and Nick lent me the money with which to live. For me, since then, you have never been the same being. How stupid I was to tell you! You could not comprehend such a thing. Your soul is too low to comprehend it. Permit me to say that I have already repaid Nick. And at the first moment I shall repay Tommy. My position is secure. I have only to wait. But you will not wait. You are a bourgeoise of the most terrible sort. Opulence fascinates you. Mr. Gilman has opulence. He has nothing else. But he has opulence, and for you that is all.”
In an instant her indifference, self-control, wisdom vanished. It was a sad exhibition of frailty; but she enjoyed it, she revelled in it, giving play to everything in herself that was barbaric. The marsh around them was probably as it had been before the vikings had sailed into it, and Audrey rushed back with inconceivable speed into the past and became the primeval woman of twenty centuries earlier. Like almost all women she possessed this wondrous and affrighting faculty.
“You are telling a wicked untruth!” she exploded in English. “And what’s more, you know you are. You disgust me. You know as well as I do I don’t care anything for money—anything. Only you’re a horrid, spoilt beast. You think you can upset me, but you can’t. I won’t have it, either from you or from anybody else. It’s a shame, that’s what it is. Now you’ve got to apologise to me. I absolutely insist on it. You aren’t going to bully me, even if you think you are. I’ll soon show you the sort of girl I am, and you make no mistake! Are you going to apologise or aren’t you?”
The indecorous creature was breathing as loudly as Mr. Gilman himself.
“I admit it,” said Musa yielding.
“Ah!”
“I demand your pardon. I knew that what I said was not true. I am outside myself. But what would you? It is stronger than I. This existence is terrible, on the yacht. I cannot support it. I shall become mad. I am ruined. My jealousy is intolerable.”
“It is!” said Audrey, using French again, more calmly, having returned to the twentieth century.
“It is intolerable to me.” Then Musa’s voice changed and grew persuasive, rather like a child’s. “I cannot live without you. That is the truth. I am an artist, and you are necessary to me and to my career.” He lifted his head. “And I can offer you everything that is most brilliant.”
“And what about my career?” Audrey questioned inimically.