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Spatt had related the terrible episode to her guest, who had wilfully risen at once. Miss Nickall had had luck, but Audrey had to admit that these American girls were stupendously equal to an emergency. And she hated the angelic Nick for having found Musa. "We tried first to find a café," said Nick. "But there aren't any in this city. What do you call them in England public-houses, isn't it?"
I knew it the first time I saw you, in the studio of Mademoiselle Nickall. You were the image of your father! The image, I repeat except perhaps the nose. Recollect that as a child I saw your father. I was left with my mother's relatives, until matters should be arranged; but he came to Paris. Then before matters could be arranged my mother died, and I never saw him again.
"But will you play tennis with me in the gardens of the Luxembourg?" Audrey said she would, and that she would buy a racket. "Tell me about all those artists Miss Nickall spoke of," she said. "I must know about all the artists, and all the musicians, and all the authors. I must know all about them at once. I shan't sleep until I know all their names and I can talk French. I shan't sleep."
Gilman had somehow mentioned Miss Thompkins, whereupon Madame Piriac had declared that Miss Thompkins involved Miss Nickall, who after a complete recovery from the broken arm had returned for a while to her studio. And then Mr. Gilman had closed the list, saying that six was enough, and exactly the right number.
Spatt, seated as far as was convenient from one another on a long sofa, their emaciated bodies very upright and alert, gazed with intense expectation at Musa. Musa stood in the middle of the room, tuning his violin with little twangs and listening to the twangs as to a secret message. Miss Nickall, being an invalid, had excusably gone to bed, and Jane Foley, sharer of her bedroom, had followed.
Au revoir!" said she shortly, with a peculiar challenging half-smile, which seemed to be saying, "Are you going to be worthy of my education? Let us hope so." And Miss Nickall, with her grey hair growing fluffier under a somewhat rakish hat, said with a smile of sheer intense watchful benevolence: "Well, good-bye!" While Nick was ecstatically thanking Mr.
Miss Ingate says she shall go, too." It was these words in a highly emotionalised voice from Miss Nickall that, like a vague murmured message of vast events, drew the entire quartet away from the bright inebriated scene created by Monsieur Dauphin.
Audrey said to herself that she must get Nick very quickly away. She was in no humour to talk even to Nick, and, moreover, she did not want Nick to know that Mr. Gilman was calling upon her. Miss Nickall was innocent and sweet. Good nature radiated from her soft, tired features, and was somehow also entangled in her fluffy grey hair. She kissed Audrey with affection.
Miss Ingate replied at once, reassuringly, as though in haste to grant the supreme request of some condemned victim. And indeed Miss Nickall appeared ready to burst into tears if she should be thwarted. As soon as Nick had gone, Miss Ingate's smiling face, nervous, intimidated, audacious, sardonic, and good humoured, moved out of the gloom nearer to Rosamund.
Spatt's excitement had now communicated itself to everybody except Mr. Ziegler and Siegfried Spatt. Jane Foley almost recovered her presence of mind, and Mrs. Spatt was extraordinarily interested to learn that Miss Nickall was an American painter who had lived long in Paris, and that Audrey had first made her acquaintance in Paris, and knew Paris well.
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