, Audrey, little
Audrey, scarcely yet convinced that she was grown up, was necessary to the
genius whom all the Quarter worshipped! Miss Thompkins was not necessary to
him, Miss Nickall was not necessary to him, though both had helped to
provide the means to keep him alive. She herself alone was necessary to
him. And she had not guessed it. She had not even hoped for it. The effect
of her personality upon Musa was mysterious--she did not affect to
understand it--but it was obviously real and it was vital. If anything in
the world could surpass the pleasure, her pride surpassed it. All tears
were forgotten. She was the proudest young woman in the world; and she was
the wisest, and the most harassed, too. But the anxieties were delicious to
her.

"I am essential to him," she thought ecstatically. "I stand between him and
disaster. When he has succeeded his success will be my work and nobody
else's. I have a mission. I must live for it.... If anyone had told me a
year ago that a great French genius would be absolutely dependent upon me,
and that I meant for him all the difference between failure and triumph, I
should have laughed.... And yet!..." She looked at him surreptitiously.
"He's an angel. But he's also a baby." The feelings of motherhood were as
naught compared to hers.

Then she remarked harshly, icily:

"Well, I shall be much obliged if you will go back to Paris at
once--to-day. _Somebody_ must have a little sense."

Just at this point Aguilar interrupted. He came slouching round the corner
of the clipped bushes, untidy, shabby, implacable, with some set purpose in
his hard blue eyes. She could have annihilated him with satisfaction, but
the fellow was indestructible as well as implacable.

"Could I have a word with ye, madam?" he mumbled, putting on his well-known
air of chicane.

With the unexplained Musa close by her she could not answer: "Wait a
little. I'm engaged." She had to be careful. She had to make out especially
that she and the young man were up to nothing in particular, nothing that
had the slightest importance.

"What is it, Aguilar?" she questioned, inimically.

"It's down here," said Aguilar, who recked not of the implications of a
tone. And by the mere force of his glance he drew his mistress away, out of
sight of Musa and the dog.

"Is that your motor-car at the gates, madam?" he demanded gloomily and
confidentially, his gaze now fixed on the ground or on his patched boots.

"Of cou