England -- Fiction; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Mothers and daughters -- Fiction; Paris (France) -- Fiction; Women -- Fiction
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."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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