"Musa!" called Monsieur Dauphin, espying the youth on the staircase. Then
he made a gesture to the orchestra: "Give him a violin!"

Audrey stood by Musa while he played a dance that nobody danced to, and
when he had finished she was rather ashamed, under the curtain of wild
cheering, because with her Essex incredulity she had not sufficiently
believed in Musa's greatness.

"Permit your host to introduce himself," said a voice behind her, not in
the correct English of a linguistic Frenchman, but in utterly English
English. She had now descended to the floor of the studio.

Emile Dauphin raised his glossy hat, and then asked to be allowed to put it
on again, as the company had decided that it was part of his costume. He
had a delicious smile, at once respectful and intimate. Audrey had read
somewhere that really great men were always simple and unaffected--indeed
that it was often impossible to guess from their demeanour that, etc.,
etc.--and this experience of the first celebrity with whom she had ever
spoken (except Musa, who was somehow only Musa) confirmed the statement,
and confirmed also her young instinctive belief that what is printed must
be true. She was beginning to feel the stealthy on-comings of fatigue, and
certainly she was very nervous, but Monsieur Dauphin's quite particularly
sympathetic manner, and her own sudden determination not to be a little
blushing fool gave her new power.

"I can't express to you," he said, moving towards the dais and mesmerising
her to keep by his side. "I can't express to you how sorry I was to be so
late." He made the apology with lightness, but with sincerity. Audrey knew
how polite the French were. "But truly circumstances were too much for me.
Those two Russian princesses--they came to me through a mutual friend, a