Audrey sat with Miss Ingate modestly and inconspicuously in the fifth row of the stalls. Miss Ingate, prodigious in crimson, was in a state of beatitude, because she never went to concerts and imagined that she had inadvertently slipped into heaven. The mere size of the orchestra so overwhelmed her that she was convinced that it was an orchestra specially enlarged to meet the unique importance of Musa’s genius. “They must think highly of him!” she said. She employed the time in looking about her. She had already found, besides many other Anglo-Saxon acquaintances, Rosamund, in black, Tommy with Nick, and Mr. Cowl, who was one seat to Audrey’s left in the sixth row of the stalls. Also Mr. Gilman and Madame Piriac and Monsieur Piriac in a double box. Audrey and herself ought to have been in that box, and had the afternoon developed otherwise they probably would have been in that box. Fortunately at the luncheon, Audrey, who had bought various lots of seats, had with the strange cautiousness of a young girl left herself free to utilise or not to utilise the offered hospitality of Mr. Gilman’s double box, and Mr. Gilman had not pressed her for a decision. Was it not important that the hall should seem as full as possible? When Miss Ingate, pushing her investigations farther, had discovered not merely Monsieur Dauphin, but Mr. Ziegler, late of Frinton and now resident in Paris, her cup was full.
“It’s vehy wonderful, vehy wonderful!” said she.
But it was Audrey who most deeply had the sense of the wonderfulness of the thing. For it was Audrey who had created it. Having months ago comprehended that a formal and splendid debut was necessary for Musa if he was to succeed within a reasonable space of time, she had willed the debut within her own brain. She alone had thought of it. And now the realisation seemed to her to be absolutely a miracle. Had she read of such an affair a year earlier in a newspaper—with the words “Paris,” “tout Paris,” “young genius,” and so on—she would have pictured it as gloriously, thrillingly romantic, and it indeed was gloriously and thrillingly romantic. She thought: “None of these people sitting around me know that I have brought it about, and that it is all mine.” The thought was sweet. She felt like an invisible African genie out of the Thousand and One Nights.
And yet what had she done to bring it about? Nothing, simply nothing, except to command it! She had not even signed cheques. Mr. Foulger had signed the cheques! Mr. Foulger, who set down the whole enterprise as incomprehensible lunacy! Mr. Foulger, who had never been to aught but a smoking-concert in his life, and who could not pronounce the name of Beethoven without hesitations! The great deed had cost money, and it would cost more money; it would probably cost four hundred pounds ere it was finished with. An extravagant sum, but Xavier had motor-cars and toys even more expensive than motor-cars to keep up! Audrey, however, considered it a small sum, compared to the terrific spectacular effect obtained. And she was right. The attributes of money seemed entirely magical to her. And she was right again. She respected money with a new respect. And she respected herself for using money with such large grandeur.
And withal she was most horribly nervous, just as nervous as though it was she who was doomed to face the indifferent and exacting audience with nothing but a violin bow for weapon. She was so nervous that she could not listen, could not even follow Miss Ingate’s simple remarks; she heard them as from a long distance, and grasped them after a long interval. Still, she was uplifted, doughty, and proud. The humiliation of the afternoon had vanished like a mist. Nay, she felt glad that Musa had behaved to her just as he did behave. His mien pleased her; his wounding words, each of which she clearly remembered, were a source of delight. She had never admired him so much. She had now no resentment against him. He had proved that her hopes of him were, after all, well justified. He would succeed. Only some silly and improbable accident could stop him from succeeding. She was not nervous about his success. She was nervous for him. She became him. She tuned his fiddle, gathered herself together and walked on to the platform, bowed to the dim multitudinous heads in front of him, looked at the conductor, waited for the opening bars, drew his bow across his strings at precisely the correct second, and heard the resulting sound under her ear. And all that before the conductor had appeared! Such were the manifestations of her purely personal desire for the achievement of a neat, clean job.
“See!” said Miss Ingate. “Mr. Gilman is bowing to us. He does look splendid, and isn’t Madame Piriac lovely? I must say I don’t care so much for these French husbands.”
Audrey had to turn and join Miss Ingate in acknowledging the elaborate bow. At any rate, then, Mr. Gilman had not been utterly estranged by her capricious abandonment of him. And why should he be? He was a man of sense; he would understand perfectly when she explained to-morrow. Further, he was her slave. She was sure of him. She would apologise to him. She would richly recompense him by smiles and honey and charming persuasive simplicity. And he would see that with all her innocent and modest ingenuousness she was capable of acting seriously and effectively in a sudden crisis. She would rise higher in his esteem. As for the foreseen proposal, well——
A sporadic clapping wakened her out of those reflections. The conductor was approaching his desk. The orchestra applauded him. He tapped the desk and raised his stick. And there was a loud noise, the thumping of her heart. The concert had begun. Musa was still invisible—what was he doing at that instant, somewhere behind?—but the concert had begun. Stars do not take part in the first item of an orchestral concert. There is a convention that they shall be preluded; and Musa was preluded by the overture to Die Meistersinger. In the soft second section of the overture, a most noticeable babble came from a stage-box. “Oh! It’s the Foas,” muttered Miss Ingate. “What a lot of people are fussing around them!” “Hsh!” frowned Audrey, outraged by the interruption. Madame Foa took about fifty bars in which to settle herself, and Monsieur Foa chattered to people behind him as freely as if he had been in a café Nobody seemed to mind.
The overture was applauded, but Madame Foa, instead of applauding, leaned gracefully back, smiling, and waved somebody to the seat beside her.
Violent demonstrations from the gallery!... He was there, tripping down the stepped pathway between the drums. The demonstrations grew general. The orchestra applauded after its own fashion. He reached the conductor, smiled at the conductor and bowed very admirably. He seemed to be absolutely at his ease. Then there was a delay. The conductor’s scores had got themselves mixed up. It was dreadful. It was enough to make a woman shriek.