Particulars of the programme followed.

Paris was being familiarised with Musa. His four letters looked down upon
the fever of the thoroughfares; they were perused by tens of thousands of
sitters in cafes and in front of cafes; they caught the eye of men and
women fleeing from the wrath to come in taxicabs; they competed
successfully with newspaper placards; and on that Thursday--for the
Thursday in question had already run more than half its course--they had so
entered into the sub-conscious brain of Paris that no habitue of the
streets, whatever his ignorant indifference to the art of music, could have
failed to reply with knowledge, on hearing Musa mentioned, "Oh, yes!"
implying that he was fully acquainted with the existence of the said Musa.

Tommy was right: there did seem to be a certain unreality about the thing,
yet it was utterly real.

All the women turned to glance at the name through the window, and some of
them murmured sympathetic and interested exclamations and bright hopes.
There were five women: Miss Thompkins, Miss Nickall, Madame Piriac, Miss
Ingate and Audrey. And there was one man--Mr. Gilman. And the six were
seated at a round table in the historic Parisian restaurant. Mr. Gilman had
the air triumphant, and he was entitled to it. The supreme moment of his
triumph had come. Having given a luncheon to these ladies, he had just
asked, with due high negligence, for the bill. If there was one matter in
which Mr. Gilman was a truly great expert, it was the matter of giving a
meal in a restaurant. He knew how to dress for such an affair--with strict
conventionality but a touch of devil-may-care youthfulness in the necktie.
He knew how to choose the restaurant; he had about half a dozen in his
repertoire--all of the first order and for the most part combining the
exclusive with the amusing--entirely different in kind from the pandemonium
where Audrey had eaten on the night of her first arrival in Paris; he knew
how to get the best out of head-waiters and waiters, who in these
restaurants were not head-waiters and waiters but worldly priests and
acolytes; his profound knowledge of cookery sprang from a genuine interest
in his stomach, and he could compose a menu in a fashion to command the
respect of head-waiters and to excite the envy of musicians composing a
sonata; he had the wit to look in early and see to the flowers; above all
he was aware what women liked in the way of wine, and since this was never