I thus? No, I could not have played Caprice to please them. I am cursed. I
will never again touch the violin, I swear it. What am I? Do I not live on
the money _lent_ to me regularly by Mademoiselle Thompkins and Mademoiselle
Nickall?"

"You don't, Musa?" Audrey burst out in English.

"Yes, yes!" said Musa violently. "But last month, from Mademoiselle
Nickall--nothing! She is in London; she forgets. It is better like that.
Soon I shall be playing in the Opéra orchestra, fourth desk, one hundred
francs a month. That will be the end. There can be no other."

Instead of admiring the secret charity of Tommy and Nick, which she had
never suspected, Audrey was very annoyed by it. She detested it and
resented it. And especially the charity of Miss Thompkins. She considered
that from a woman with eyes and innuendoes like Tommy's charity amounted to
a sneer.

"It is extremely unsatisfactory," she said, dropping on to Miss Ingate's
sofa.

Not another word was spoken. Audrey tapped her foot. Musa creaked in the
basket chair. He avoided her eyes, but occasionally she glared at him like
a schoolmistress. Then her gaze softened--he looked so ill, so helpless,
so hopeless. She wanted to light a cigarette for him, but she was somehow
bound to the sofa. She wanted him to go--she hated the prospect of his
going. He could not possibly go, alone, to his solitary room. Who would
tend him, soothe him, put him to bed? He was an infant....

Then, after a long while, Miss Ingate entered sharply. Audrey coughed and