FLIGHT - The Lion's Share

Page 133 of 228

FLIGHT

"Fast, madam, did you say?" asked the chauffeur, bending his head back from the wheel as the car left the gates of Flank Hall.

"Fast."

"The Colchester road?"

"Yes."

"It's really just as quick to take the Frinton road for Colchester--it's so much straighter."

"No, no, no! On no account. Don't go near Frinton."

Audrey leaned back in the car. And as speed increased the magnificence of the morning again had its effect on her. The adventure pleased her far more than the perils of it, either for herself or for other people, frightened her. She knew that she was doing a very strange thing in thus leaving the Spatts and her luggage without a word of explanation before breakfast; but she did not care. She knew that for some reason which she did not comprehend the police were after her, as they had been after nearly all the great ones of the movement; but she did not care. She was alive in the rushing car amid the magnificence of the morning. Musa sat next to her. She had more or less incompletely explained the situation to him--it was not necessary to tell everything to a boy who depended upon you absolutely for his highest welfare--such boys must accept, thankfully, what they received. And Musa had indeed done so. He appeared to be quite happy and without anxieties. That was the worst He had wanted to be with her, and he was with her, and he cared for nothing else. He had no interest in what might happen next. He yielded himself utterly to the enjoyment of her presence and of the magnificent morning.

And yet Musa, whom Audrey considered that she understood as profoundly as any mother had ever understood any child--even Musa could surprise.

He said, without any preparation:

"I calculate that I shall have 3,040 francs in hand after the concerts, assuming that I receive only the minimum. That is, after paying the expenses of my living."

"But do you know how much it costs you to live?" Audrey demanded, with careless superiority.

"Assuredly. I write all my payments down in a little book. I have done so since some years."

"Every sou?"

"Yes. Every sou."

"But do you save, Musa?"

"Save!" he repeated the word ingenuously. "Till now to save has been impossible for me. But I have always kept in hand one month's subsistence. I could not do more. Now I shall save. You reproached me with having spent money in order to come to see you in England. But I regarded the money so spent as part of the finance of the concerts. Without seeing you I could not practise. Without practice I could not play. Without playing I could not earn money. Therefore I spent money in order to get money. Such, Madame, was the commercial side. What a beautiful lawn for tennis you have in your garden!"

Audrey was more than surprised, she was staggered by the revelation of the attitude of genius towards money. She had not suspected it. Then she remembered the simple natural tome in which Musa had once told her that both Tommy and Nick contributed to his income. She ought to have comprehended from that avowal more than she, in fact, had comprehended. And now the first hopes of worldly success were strongly developing that unsuspected trait in the young man's character. Audrey was aware of a great fear. Could he be a genius, after all? Was it conceivable that an authentic musical genius should enter up daily in a little book every sou he spent?

		The great knowledge breeds great doubts. Arist teles

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