INTERVAL
The most sinister feature of entertainments organised by Xavier was the
intervals. Xavier laid stress on intervals; they gave repose, and in many
cases they saved money. All Paris managers are inclined to give to the
interval the importance of a star turn, and Xavier in this respect
surpassed his rivals, though he perhaps regarded his cloak-rooms, which
were organised to cause the largest possible amount of inconvenience to the
largest possible number of people, as his surest financial buttress. Xavier
could or would never see the close resemblance of intervals to wet
blankets, extinguishers, palls and hostile critics. The Allegro movement of
the Concerto was a real success, and the audience as a whole would have
applauded even more if the gallery in particular had not applauded so much.
The second or Larghetto movement was also a success, but to a less degree.
As for the third and last movement, it put the gallery into an ecstasy
while leaving the floor in possession of full critical faculties. Musa
retired and had to return, and when he returned the floor good-humouredly
joined the vociferous gallery in laudations, and he had to return again.
Then the interminable interval. Silence! Murmurings! Silence! Creepings
towards exits! And in many, very many hearts the secret trouble question:
"Why are we here? What have we come for? What is all this pother about art
and genius? Honestly, shall we not be glad and relieved when the solemn old
thing is over?"... And the desolating, cynical indifference of the
conductor and the orchestra! Often there is a clearer vision of the truth
during the intervals of a classical concert than on a deathbed.
Audrey was extremely depressed in the interval after the Beethoven Concerto
and before the Lalo. But she was not depressed by the news of the accident
to the Zacatecas Oil Corporation in which was the major part of her wealth.
The tidings had stunned rather than injured that part of her which was
capable of being affected by finance. She had not felt the blow. Moreover
she was protected by the knowledge that she had thousands of pounds in hand
and also the Moze property intact, and further she was already
reconsidering her newly-acquired respect for money. No! What depressed her
was a doubt as to the genius of Musa. In the long dreadful pause it seemed
impossible that he should have genius. The entire concert presented itself
as a grotesque farce, of which she as its creator ought to be ashamed. She
was ready to kill Xavier or his responsible representative.
Then she saw the tall and calm Rosamund, with her grey hair and black
attire and her subduing self-complacency, making a way between the rows of
stalls towards her.
"I wanted to see you," said Rosamund, after the formal greetings. "Very
much." Her voice was as kind and as unrelenting as the grave.
At this point Miss Ingate ought to have yielded her seat to the terrific
Rosamund, but she failed to do so, doubtless by inadvertence.
"Will you come into the foyer for a moment?" Rosamund inflexibly suggested.
"Isn't the interval nearly over?" said Audrey.
"Oh, no!"
And as a fact there was not the slightest sign of the interval being nearly
over. Audrey obediently rose. But the invitation had been so conspicuously
addressed to herself that Miss Ingate, gathering her wits, remained in her
chair.
The foyer--decorated in the Cracovian taste--was dotted with cigarette
smokers and with those who had fled from the interval. Rosamund did not sit
down; she did not try for seclusion in a corner. She stepped well into the
foyer, and then stood still, and absently lighted a cigarette, omitting to
offer a cigarette to Audrey. Rosamund's air of a deaconess made the
cigarette extremely remarkable.
"I wanted to tell you about Jane Foley," began Rosamund quietly. "Have you
heard?"
"No! What?"
"Of course you haven't. I alone knew. She has run away to England."
"Run away! But she'll be caught!"
"She may be. But that is not all. She has run away to get married. She
dared not tell me. She wrote me. She put the letter in the manuscript of
the last chapter but one of her book, which I am revising for her. She will
almost certainly be caught if she tries to get married in her own name.
Therefore she will get married in a false name. All this, however, is not
what I wanted to tell you about."
"Then you shouldn't have begun to talk about it," said Audrey suddenly.
"Did you expect me to let you leave it in the middle! Jane getting married!
I do think she might have told me.... What next, I wonder! I suppose
you've--er--lost her now?"
"Not entirely, I believe," said Rosamund. "Certainly not entirely. But of
course I could never trust her again. This is the worst blow I have ever
had. She says--but why go into that? Well, she does say she will work as
hard as ever, nearly; and that her future husband strongly supports us--and
so on." Rosamund smiled with complete detachment.
"And who's he?" Audrey demanded.
"His name is Aguilar," said Rosamund. "So she says."
"Aguilar?"
"Yes. I gather--I say I gather--that he belongs to the industrial class.
But of course that is precisely the class that Jane springs from. Odd! Is
it not? Heredity, I presume." She raised her shoulders.
Audrey said nothing. She was too shocked to speak--not pained or outraged,
but simply shaken. What in the name of Juno could Jane see in Aguilar?
Jane, to whom every man was the hereditary enemy! Aguilar, who had no use
for either man or woman! Aguilar, a man without a Christian name, one of
those men in connection with whom a Christian name is impossibly
ridiculous. How should she, Audrey, address Aguilar in future? Would he
have to be asked to tea? These vital questions naturally transcended all
others in Audrey's mind.... Still (she veered round), it was perhaps after
all just the union that might have been expected.
"And now," said Rosamund at length, "I have a question to put to you."
"Well?"
"I don't want a definite answer here and now." She looked round
disdainfully at the foyer. "But I do want to set your mind on the right
track at the earliest possible moment--before any accidents occur." She
smiled satirically. "You see how frank I am with you. I'll be more frank
still, and tell you that I came to this concert to-night specially to see
you."
"Did you?" Audrey murmured. "Well!"
The older woman looked down upon her from a superior height. Her eyes were
those of an autocrat. It was quite possible to see in them the born leader
who had dominated thousands of women and played a drawn game with the
British Government itself. But Audrey, at the very moment when she was
feeling the overbearing magic of that gaze, happened to remember the scene
in Madame Piriac's automobile on the night of her first arrival in Paris,
when she herself was asleep and Rosamund, not knowing that she was asleep,
had been solemnly addressing her. Miss Ingate's often repeated account of
the scene always made her laugh, and the memory of it now caused her to
smile faintly.
"I want to suggest to you," Rosamund proceeded, "that you begin to work for
me."
"For the suffrage--or for you?"
"It is the same thing," said Rosamund coldly. "I am the suffrage. Without
me the cause would not have existed to-day."
"Well," said Audrey, "of course I will. I have done a bit already, you
know."
"Yes, I know," Rosamund admitted. "You did very well at the Blue City.
That's why I'm approaching you. That's why I've chosen you."
"Chosen me for what?"
"You know that a new great campaign will soon begin. It is all arranged.
It will necessitate my returning to England and challenging the police. You
know also that Jane Foley was to have been my lieutenant-in-chief--for the
active part of the operation. You will admit that I can no longer count on
her completely. Will you take her place?"
"I'll help," said Audrey. "I'll do what I can. I dare say I shan't have
much money, because one of those 'accidents' you mentioned has happened to
me already."
"That need not trouble you," replied Rosamund imperturbable. "I have
always been able to get all the money that was needed."
"Well, I'll help all I can."
"That's not what I ask," said Rosamund inflexibly. "Will you take Jane
Foley's place? Will you give yourself utterly?"
Audrey answered with sudden vehemence:
"No, I won't. You didn't want a definite answer, but there it is."
"But surely you believe in the cause?"
"Yes."
"It's the greatest of all causes."
"I'm rather inclined to think it is."
"Why not give yourself, then? You are free. I have given myself, my child."
"Yes," said Audrey, who resented the appellation of "child." "But, you see,
it's your hobby."
"My hobby, Mrs. Moncreiff!" exclaimed Rosamund.
"Certainly, your hobby," Audrey persisted.
"I have sacrificed everything to it," said Rosamund.
"Pardon me," said Audrey. "I don't think you've sacrificed anything to it.
You just enjoy bossing other people above everything, and it gives you
every chance to boss. And you enjoy plots too, and look at the chances you
get for that'. Mind you, I like you for it. I think you're splendid. Only
_I_ don't want to be a monomaniac, and I won't be." Her convictions seemed
to have become suddenly clear and absolutely decided.
"Do you mean to infer that I am a monomaniac?" asked Rosamund, raising her
eyebrows--but only a little.
"Well," said Audrey, "as you mentioned frankness--what else would you call
yourself but a monomaniac? You only live for one thing--don't you, now?"
"It is the greatest thing."
"I don't say it isn't," Audrey admitted. "But I've been thinking a good
deal about all this, and at last I've come to the conclusion that one
thing-isn't enough for me, not nearly enough. And I'm not going to be
peculiar at any price. Neither a fanatic nor a monomaniac, nor anything
like that."
"You are in love," asserted Rosamund.
"And what if I am? If you ask me, I think a girl who isn't in love ought to
be somewhat ashamed of herself, or at least sorry for herself. And I am
sorry for myself, because I am not in love. I wish I was. Why shouldn't I
be? It must be lovely to be in love. If I was in love I shouldn't be _only_
in love. You think you understand what girls are nowadays, but you don't. I
didn't myself until just lately. But I'm beginning to. Girls were supposed
to be only interested in one thing--in your time. Monomaniacs, that's what
they had to be. You changed all that, or you're trying to change it, but
you only mean women to be monomaniacs about something else. It isn't good
enough. I want everything, and I'm going to get it--or have a good try for
it. I'll never be a martyr if I can help it. And I believe I can help it. I
believe I've got just enough common sense to save me from being a martyr
--either to a husband or a house or family--or a cause. I want to have a
husband and a house and a family, and a cause too. That'll be just about
everything, won't it? And if you imagine I can't look after all of them at
once, all I can say is I don't agree with you. Because I've got an idea I
can. Supposing I had all these things, I fancy I could have a tiff with my
husband and make it up, play with my children, alter a dress, change the
furniture, tackle the servants, and go out to a meeting and perhaps have a
difficulty with the police--all in one day. Only if I did get into trouble
with the police I should pay the fine--you see. The police aren't going to
have me altogether. Nobody is. Nobody, man or woman, is going to be able to
boast that he's got me altogether. You think you're independent. But you
aren't. We girls will show you what independence is."
"You're a rather surprising young creature," observed Rosamund with a
casual air, unmoved. "You're quite excited."
"Yes. I surprise myself. But these things do come in bursts. I've noticed
that before. They weren't clear when you began to talk. They're clear now."
"Let me tell you this," said Rosamund. "A cause must have martyrs."
"I don't see it," Audrey protested. "I should have thought common sense
would be lots more useful than martyrs. And monomaniacs never do have
common sense."
"You're very young."
"Is that meant for an insult, or is it just a statement?" Audrey laughed
pleasantly.
And Rosamund laughed too.
"It's just a statement," said she.
"Well, here's another statement," said Audrey. "You're very old. That's
where I have the advantage of you. Still, tell me what I can do in your
new campaign, and I'll do it if I can. But there isn't going to be any
utterly--that's all."
"I think the interval is over," said Rosamund with finality. "Perhaps we'd
better adjourn."
The foyer had nearly emptied. The distant sound of music could be heard.
As she was re-entering the hall, Audrey met Mr. Cowl, who was coming out.
"I have decided I can't stand any more," Mr. Cowl remarked in a loud
whisper. "I hope you didn't mind me telling you about the Zacatecas. As I
said, I thought you might be interested. Good-bye. So pleasant to have met
you again, dear lady." His face had the same enigmatic smile which had made
him so formidable at Moze.
Musa had already begun to play the Spanish Symphony of Lalo, without which
no genius is permitted to make his formal debut on the violin in France.