The Lion's Share by Arnold Bennett (booksvooks TXT) 📕

catgut to vibrate in such a way as to affect the ears of a particular set of people in a particular manner. But in addition to this sense of a calamity he was under the influence of another emotion--angry resentment. However, he sat down, holding firmly his hat, gloves, and stick.

"I saw my agent this morning," said he, in a grating voice, in French. He was pale.

"Yes?" said Audrey. She suddenly guessed what was coming, and she felt a certain alarm, which nevertheless was not entirely disagreeable.

"Why did you pay for that concert, and the future concerts, without telling me, Madame?"

"Paid for the concerts?" she repeated, rather weakly.

"Yes, Madame. To do so was to make me ridiculous--not to the world, but to myself. For I believed all the time that I had succeeded in gaining the genuine interest of an agent who was prepared to risk money upon the proper exploitation of my talent. I worked in that belief. In spite of your attitude to me I did work. Your antipathy was bad for me; but I conquered myself, and I worked. I had confidence in myself. If last night I did not have a triumph, it was not because I did not work, but because I had been upset--and again by you, Madame. Even after the misfortune of last night I still had confidence, for I knew that the reasons of my failure were accidental and temporary. But I now know that I was living in a fool's paradise, which you had kindly created for me. You have money. Apparently you have too much money. And with money you possess the arrogance of wealth. You knew that I had accepted assistance from good friends. And you thought in your arrogance that you might launch me without informing me of your intention. You thought it would amuse you to make a little fairy-tale in real life. It was a negligent gesture on the part of a rich and idle woman. It cost you nothing save a few bank-notes, of which you had so many that it bored you to count them. How amusing to make a reputation! How charitable to help a starving player! But you forgot one thing. You forgot my dignity and my honour. It was nothing to you that you exposed these to the danger of the most grave affront. It was nothing to you that I was received just as though I had been a child, and that for months I was made, without knowing it, to fulfil the role of a conceited jackanapes. When one is led to have confidence in oneself one is tempted to adopt a certain tone and to use certain phrases, which may or may not be justified. I yielded to the temptation. I was wrong, but I was also victimised. This morning, with a moment's torture under the impertinent tongue of a rascally impresario, I paid for all the spurious confidence which I have felt and for all the proud words I have uttered. I came to-day in order to lay at your feet my thanks for the unique humiliation which I owe to you."

His mien was undoubtedly splendid. It ought to have cowed and shamed Audrey. But it did not. She absolutely refused to acknowledge, even within her own heart, that she had committed any wrong. On the contrary, she remembered all the secret sympathy which she had lavished on Musa, all her very earnest and single-minded desires for his apotheosis at the hands of the Parisian public; and his ingratitude positively exasperated her. She was aroused. But she tried to hide the fact that she was roused, speaking in a guarded and sardonic voice.

"And did this agent of yours--I do not know his name--tell you that I was paying for the concert--I mean, the concerts?" she demanded with an air of impassivity. "He did not give your name."

"That's something," Audrey put in, her body trembling. "I am much obliged to him."

"But he clearly indicated that money had been paid--that he had not paid it himself--that the enterprise was not genuine. He permitted himself to sneer until I corrected him. He then withdrew what he had said and told me that I had misunderstood. But he was not convincing. It was too late. And I had not misunderstood. Far from that, I had understood. At once the truth traversed my mind like a flash of lightning. It was you who had paid."

"And how did you guess that?" She laughed carelessly, though she could not keep her foot from shaking on the carpet.

"I knew because I knew!" cried Musa. "It explained all your conduct, your ways of speaking to me, your attitude of a schoolmistress, everything. How ingenuous I have been not to perceive it before!"

"Well," said Audrey firmly. "You are wrong. It is absolutely untrue that I have ever paid a penny, or ever shall, to any agent on your behalf. Do you hear? Why should I, indeed! And now what have you to reply?"

She was aware of not the slightest remorse for this enormous and unqualified lie. Nay, she held it was not a lie, because Musa deserved to hear it. Strange logic, but her logic! And she was much uplifted and enfevered, and grandly careless of all consequences.

"You are a woman," said Musa curtly and obstinately.

"That, at any rate, is true."

"Therefore I cannot treat you as a man."

"Please do," she said, rising.

"No. If you were a man I should call you out." And Musa rose also. "And I should be right. As you are a woman I have told you the truth, and I can do no more. I shall not characterise your denial. I have no taste for recrimination. Besides, in such a game, no man can be the equal of a woman. But I maintain what I have said, and I affirm that I know it to be true, and that there is no excuse for your conduct. And so I respectfully take leave." He moved towards the door and then stopped. "There never had been any excuse for your conduct to me," he added. "It has always been the conduct of a rich and capricious woman who amused herself by patronising a poor artist."

"You may be interested to know," she said fiercely, "that I am no longer rich. Last night I heard that my fortune is gone. If I have amused myself, that may amuse you."

"It does amuse me," he retorted grimly and more loudly. "I wish that you had never possessed a son. For then I might have been spared many mournful hours. All would have been different. Yes! From three days ago when I saw you walking intimately in the Tuileries Gardens with the unspeakable Gilman--right back to last year when you first, from caprice, did your best to make me love you--did it deliberately, so that all the Quarter could see!"

In a furious temper Audrey rushed past Musa to the door, and stood with her back to it, palpitating. She vaguely recalled a similar movement of hers long ago, and the slightly comic figure of Mr. Foulger flitted through her memory.

"You shall apologise for that! You shall apologise before you leave this room!" she exploded. Her chin was aloft and her mouth remained open. "I say you shall apologise for that monstrous untruth!"

He approached her, uttering not a word. She was quite ready to kill him. She had no fear of anything whatever. Not once since his arrival had she given one thought to the imminent advent of Mr. Gilman.

She said to herself, watching Musa intently:

"Yes, he shall apologise. It is shameful, what he says. It's worse than horrid. I am as strong as he is."

Musa dropped his hat, stick and gloves. The hat, being English and hard, bounced on the carpet. Then he put his trembling arms around her waist, and his trembling lips came nearer and nearer to hers.

She thought, very puzzled:

"What is happening? This is all wrong. I am furious with him! I will never speak to him again! What is he doing? This is all wrong. I must stop it. I'm saying nothing to him about my career, and my independence, and how horrid it is to be the wife of a genius, and all that.... I must stop it."

But she had no volition to stop it.

She thought:

"Am I fainting?"

* * * * *


It was upon this scene that Mr. Gilman intruded. Mr. Gilman looked from one to the other. Perhaps the thought in his mind was that if they added their ages together they could not equal his age. Perhaps it was not. He continued to look from one to the other, and this needed some ocular effort, for they were as far apart as two persons in such a situation usually get when they are surprised. Then he caught sight of the hat, stick and gloves on the floor.

"I've been expecting you for a long time," said Audrey, with that miraculous bland tranquillity of which young girls alone have the secret when the conventions are imperilled. "I was just going to order tea."

Mr. Gilman hesitated and then replied:

"How kind of you! But please don't order tea for me. The--er--fact is, I have been unexpectedly called away, and I only called to explain that--er--I could not call." After all, he was a man of some experience.

She let him go. His demeanour to Musa, like Musa's to him, was a marvel of high courtesy.

"Musa," said Audrey, with an intimidated, defiant, proud smile, when the door had shut on Mr. Gilman, "I am still frightfully angry with you. If we stay here I shall suffocate. Let us go out for a walk. Besides, other people might call."

Simultaneously there was another ring. It was a cable. She read:

"Sold Zacatecas at an average of six and a quarter dollars three weeks ago. Wrote you at length to Wimereux. Writing again as to new investments.

"FOULGER."

"This comes of having no fixed address," she said, throwing the blue cablegram carelessly down in front of Musa. "I'm not quite ruined, after all. But I might have known--with Mr. Foulger." Then she explained.

"I wish----" he began.

"No, you don't," she stopped him. "So you needn't start on that line. You are brilliant at figures. At least I long since suspected you were. How much is one hundred and eighty thousand times six and a quarter?"

Notwithstanding his brilliance, it took two pencils, two heads, and one piece of paper to solve the problem. They were not quite certain, but the answer seemed to be L225,000 in English money.

"We cannot starve," said Audrey, and then paused.... "Musa, are we friends? We shall quarrel horribly. Do you know, I never knew that proposals of marriage were made like that!"

"I have not told you one thing," said Musa. "I am going to play in Germany, instead of further concerts in Paris. It is arranged."

"Not in Germany," she pleaded, thinking of Ziegler.

"Yes, in Germany," said Musa masterfully. "I have a reputation to make. It is the agent who has suggested it."

"But the concerts in London?"

"You are English. I wish not to wound you."

When Audrey stood up again, she had to look at the floor in