"Of course," Audrey answered. "Don"t they ask me to go at once? I meant to write to my cousins at Woodbridge and my uncles in the colonies, and tell them all that I was settling down at last. And I meant to look at those new flats in Park Lane with Musa. But I shall have to leave all that for the present. Also my lunch."
"But, darling," put in Madame Piriac, who had been standing before the dressing-table trying on a hat. "But, darling, it is very serious, this matter. What about your husband?"
"He"ll keep," said Audrey. "He"s had his turn. I must have mine now. I haven"t had a day off from being a wife for ever so long. And it"s a little enervating, you know. It spoils you for the fresh air."
"I imagined to myself that you two were happy in an ideal fashion,"
murmured Madame Piriac.
"So we are!" said Audrey. "Though a certain coolness did arise over the luggage this morning. But I don"t want to be ideally happy all the time.
And I won"t be. I want--I want all the sensations there are; and I want to be everything. And I can be. Musa understands."
"If he does," said Miss Ingate, "he"ll be the first husband that ever did."
Her lips were sardonic.
"Well, of course," said Audrey nonchalantly, "he _is_. Didn"t you know that?... And didn"t you tell me not to forget Lady Southminster?"
"Did I?" said Miss Ingate.
Audrey heard voices in the corridor. Musa was parting from a subservient Shinner. Also the luggage was b.u.mping along the carpet. She called her husband into No. 37 and kissed him rather violently in front of Madame Piriac and Miss Ingate, and showed him the note. Then she whispered to him, smiling.
"What"s that you"re whispering?" Miss Ingate archly demanded.
"Nothing. I was only asking him to come and help me to open my big trunk. I want something out of it. Au revoir, you two."
"What do you think of it all, Madame Piriac?" Miss Ingate inquired when the pair were alone.
""All the sensations there are!" "Everything!"" Madame Piriac repeated Audrey"s phrases. "One is forced to conclude that she has an appet.i.te for life."
"Yes," said Miss Ingate, "she wants the lion"s share of it, that"s what she wants. No mistake. But of course she"s young."
"I was never young like that."
"Neither was I! Neither was I!" Miss Ingate a.s.severated. "But something vehy, vehy strange has come over the world, if you ask me."
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
NOVELS-- A MAN FROM THE NORTH
ANNA OF THE FIVE TOWNS
LEONORA
A GREAT MAN
SACRED AND PROFANE LOVE
WHOM G.o.d HATH JOINED
BURIED ALIVE
THE OLD WIVES" TALE
THE GLIMPSE
HELEN WITH THE HIGH HAND
CLAYHANGER
HILDA LESSWAYS
THESE TWAIN
THE CARD
THE REGENT
THE PRICE OF LOVE
FANTASIAS--
THE GRAND BABYLON HOTEL
THE GATES OF WRATH
TERESA OF WATLING STREET
THE LOOT OF CITIES
HUGO
THE GHOST
THE CITY OF PLEASURE
SHORT STORIES--
TALES OF THE FIVE TOWNS