"Why did you cry this afternoon, Musa?"

Musa made no reply.

Audrey was lighting the big lamp in the Moncreiff-Ingate studio. It made
exactly the same moon as it had made on the night in the previous autumn
when Audrey had first seen it. She had brought Musa to the studio because
she did not care to take him to his own lodgings. (As a fact, nobody that
she knew, except Musa, had ever seen Musa's lodgings.) This was almost the
first moment they had had to themselves since the visit of the little
American doctor from the Rue Servandoni. The rumour of Musa's misfortune
had spread through the Quarter like the smell of a fire, and various
persons of both sexes had called to inspect, to sympathise, and to take
tea, which Audrey was continually making throughout the late afternoon.
Musa had had an egg for his tea, and more than one girl had helped to
spread the yolk and the white on pieces of bread-and-butter, for the victim
of destiny had his right arm in a sling. Audrey had let them do it, as a
mother patronisingly lets her friends amuse her baby.

In the end they had all gone; Tommy had enigmatically looked in and gone,
and Miss Ingate had gone to dine at the favourite restaurant of the hour in
the Rue Léopold Robert. Audrey had refused to go, asserting that which was
not true; namely, that she had had an enormous tea, including far too many
_petits fours_. Miss Ingate in departing had given a glance at her sketch
(fixed on the easel), and another at Audrey, and another at Musa, all
equally ironic and kindly.

Musa also had declined dinner, but he had done nothing to indicate that he