ENTR'ACTE - The Lion's Share

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An aged and repellent Jew came into sight. He raised Madame Foa's hand to his odious lips and kissed it, and Audrey wondered how Madame Foa could tolerate the formality.

"Well, Monsieur Xavier?"

Xavier shrugged his round shoulders.

"Do not say," said he, in a hoarse voice to the company, "do not say that I have not done my best on this occasion." He lifted his eyes heavenward, and as he did so his passing glance embraced Audrey, and she violently hated him.

"Winnie," said she, "I think we ought to be getting back to our seats."

"But," cried Madame Foa, "we are going round with Dauphin to the artists' room. You do not come with us, Madame Moncreiff?"

"In your place ..." muttered Xavier discouragingly, with a look at Dauphin, and another shrug of the shoulders. "I have been ..."

"Ah!" said Dauphin, in a strange new tone. And then very brightly to Audrey: "Now, as to Saturday, dear lady----"

Xavier engaged in private converse with Foa, and his demeanour to Foa was extremely deferential, whereas he almost ignored the Oriental critic. And Audrey puzzled her head once again to discover why the Foas should exert such influence upon the fate of music in Paris. The enigma was only one among many.

CHAPTER XLIV

		Friends are those estrange beings that ask us how we are and await to hear the answer. Ed Cunningham