England -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Mothers and daughters -- Fiction; Paris (France) -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
Audrey got away from the group in front of the restaurant with stammering
words and crimson confusion. She ran. She stopped a taxi and stumbled into
it. There remained with her vividly the vision of the startled, entirely
puzzled face of Mr. Gilman, who in an instant had been transformed from a
happy, dignified and excusably self-satisfied human male into an outraged
rebel whose grievance had overwhelmed his dignity. She had said hurriedly:
"Please excuse me not coming with you. But Tommy says something's happened
to Musa, and I must go and see. It's very important." And that was all she
had said. Had she asked him to drive her to Musa's, Mr. Gilman would have
been very pleased to do so; but she did not think of that till it was too
late. Her precipitancy had been terrible, and had staggered even Tommy. She
had no idea how the group would arrange itself. And she had no very clear
idea as to what was wrong with Musa or how matters stood in regard to the
concert. Tommy had asserted that she did not know whether the orchestra and
its conductor meant to be at their desks in the evening just as though
nothing whatever had occurred at the rehearsal. All was vague, and all was
disturbing. She had asked Tommy the authority for her assertion that she,
Audrey, was financing the concert. To which Tommy had replied that she had
"guessed, of course." And seeing that Audrey had only interviewed a concert
agent once--and he a London concert agent with relations in Paris--and
that she had never uttered a word about the affair to anybody except Mr.
Foulger, who had been keeping an eye on the expenditure, it was not
improbable that Tommy had just guessed. But she had guessed right. She was
an uncanny woman. "Have you ever spoken to Musa about--it?" Audrey had
passionately demanded; and Tommy had answered also passionately: "Of course
not. I'm a white woman all through. Haven't you learnt that yet?"
The taxi, although it was a horse-taxi and incapable of moving at more than
five miles an hour, reached the Rue Cassette, which was on the other side
of the river and quite a long way off, in no time. That is to say, Audrey
was not aware that any time had passed. She had received the address from
Tommy, for it was a new address, Musa having admittedly risen in the world.
The house was an old one; it had a curious staircase, with china knobs on
the principal banisters of the rail, and crimson-tasselled bell cords at
all the doors of the flats. Musa lived at the summit of it. Audrey arrived
there short of breath, took the crimson-tasselled cord in her hand to pull,
and then hesitated in order to think.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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