The next night, promptly at eight o'clock, Jules appeared in the little
_salon_ in the _rue St. Honore_, bearing his offering of flowers to
Mademoiselle Blanche. Madame Perrault gave him the quiet reception of an
old friend, and he felt as if he had long been in the habit of calling
at the apartment. Madame Perrault informed him that she had just risen
from dinner, and asked him to drink a cup of coffee. Then the three
figures sat in the dimly-lighted room and talked; that is, Jules and
Madame Perrault talked, for Blanche ventured a remark only when a
question was put to her.
A few moments later, Madame Perrault went into the next room where she
was occupied with the little maid in making a dress; so Jules was left
alone with her daughter. They had very little to say to each other, and
Jules was content to sit in silence and rapt adoration. As he looked at
her, her name kept singing in his mind: Blanche! He wondered if he
should ever dare to address her in this way. How beautiful she was as
she sat there, the soft light of the fire falling on her face and hands,
and on the folds of her gown! He was glad she was so quiet; he hated
women that talked all the time. That was the great fault with Madame
Perrault; if she said less, he would like her, in spite of her powder
and paint. Since hearing that she was engaged, and wanted to get her
daughter married, Jules' feelings toward her had softened.
It was nearly ten o'clock before they left for the theatre. Jules called
a cab, and all three squeezed into it with a great deal of laughter on
the part of Madame Perrault. As they rattled over the rough pavement,
the noise was so great that they could not talk, and Jules gave himself
up to contemplating the serious face of Mademoiselle Blanche. The
thought that he was riding with her to the scene of her triumphs
thrilled him. He felt as if he were having a share in her performance,
as if her glory were reflected on him. Ah, if Dufresne and Leroux could
see him now! How they would be impressed, and how they would envy him!
Before bidding his friends good-night, he asked if he might not take
them home; he would remain till the end of the performance, anyway, he
said. Instead of entering the theatre at once, he sauntered along the
_Boulevard_ toward the _place de la Bastille_. What were the other
performers to him? Without Mademoiselle Blanche the _Cirque Parisien_
would not be worth visiting. He did not return to the theatre till it
was nearly time for her to appear. Reju was standing at the door, and
made a sign for him to pass in without paying. Jules accepted the
invitation with a twinge of conscience. He wondered what Reju would
think if he discovered Durand's imposition.
After the performance, Jules waited at the stage-door for half an hour
till Mademoiselle Blanche appeared again. Then he asked her and her
mother to take supper with him at one of the restaurants in the
_Boulevard_. Madame Perrault consented amiably, and they entered a
little _cafe_, where a half-dozen young men and girls were sitting round
a table, playing cards. Jules wanted to order a bottle of champagne; but
Mademoiselle Blanche objected; he could scarcely keep from smiling when
she said she would much rather have beer. So he called for three bocks
and some cheese sandwiches, and over this simple repast they became very
gay. Madame Perrault was the liveliest of the three, and she amused
Jules by a description of her _fiance_, who had been in love with her,
she said, long before her marriage with Blanche's father. She seemed to
think it was very droll that he should want to marry her now; she had
told him he would do much better to marry Blanche, or to wait till
Jeanne grew up. Under the warmth of her humor, Jules' prejudices against
her disappeared, and he found himself growing fond of her. At that
moment he longed to confide in her, to tell her all about his
infatuation for her daughter, and to ask her advice about the best way
of pleasing the girl.
When they had left the _cafe_, and Jules had taken his friends home and
dismissed the cab, he fell again into the depression of the week before.
As he walked to the _rue de Lisbonne_ in the damp night, he blamed
Durand for having introduced him to the Perraults. If he hadn't met
Mademoiselle Blanche he might have gone on living comfortably, enjoyed
his daily work, his little dinners, his visits to the theatre, his
comfortable apartment, with Madeleine to look after his wants. Now he
was upset, at sea. He hated the routine of the office; the vulgar
stories of Dufresne and Leroux disgusted him; the apartment was cold and
lonely; Madeleine was always interfering with him. He resolved not to go
to the _Cirque_ again; he would try to forget Mademoiselle Blanche and
her mother's chatter. But when he went to bed it was of her that he
thought, and he dreamed that he saw her again, in her white silk tights,
climbing hand over hand to the top of the Circus, tumbling through the
air, and bouncing with a thud to her feet on the padded net.
The next morning he felt better, and he called himself a fool for his
misery of the night before. As he looked back on the evening, he decided
that, of course, if they hadn't liked him, they would not have allowed
him to take them to the theatre and back, and to a _cafe_ for supper. He
wondered what they would think if he called for them again that night.
Perhaps it would be better to wait for two or three days. But at the end
of the afternoon he felt so impatient to see Mademoiselle Blanche that
he determined to risk seeming intrusive. So he bought another bunch of
white roses, and at eight o'clock he reappeared in the apartment. Madame
Perrault greeted him just as she had done the night before, without a
suggestion of surprise in her manner. This made him feel so bold that he
did not apologize, as he had intended to do, but took his place by the
fire as if he had a right to be there.
In this way, Jules Le Baron's courtship began. It seemed to him a
strange courtship. It taught him a great many things,--among others, how
little he knew about women. As he had lived in Paris all of his thirty
years, with the exception of his three memorable months in America, he
thought he understood women; now he saw his mistake. He had not led a
particularly good life, though it was so much better than the lives of
most of his acquaintances that he considered himself a man of rather
superior character. If he had studied his character more carefully, he
would have discovered that his superiority was not a matter of morals,
but of taste and temperament. Vice seemed to him vulgar, and it made him
uncomfortable; so in its grosser forms he had always avoided it. He had,
however, the Parisian's frank, ingenuous, almost innocent fondness for
the humorously indecent, and his attitude toward life was wholly French.
The mention of virtue made him laugh and shrug his shoulders. Most
women, he thought, were naturally the inferiors of men; so the better he
understood the character of Mademoiselle Blanche, the more surprised he
grew. Indeed, there were times when he felt awed in her presence and
ashamed of himself. She seemed to know the world and yet to be untainted
by it, to turn away instinctively from its evil phases. If her innocence
had been ignorant, he could not have respected it; the knowledge that
she had lived in the midst of temptation made her goodness seem almost
sublime.
Jules fell into the habit of calling for the Perraults in the evening,
and he soon became recognized at the _Cirque_ as their escort. Reju, who
still showed respect for him as a journalist, admitted him to the
theatre every night without charge, and he was also permitted to enter
the sacred precincts beyond the stage-door, where, instead of waiting on
the sidewalk, he stood in a cold corridor, dimly lighted by sputtering
lamps. After the performance, he sometimes took his friends into the
little _cafe_ for beer and sandwiches, and occasionally Madame Perrault
would prepare a supper at home.
Jules' equilibrium became restored again; he made fewer mistakes at the
office and he even deceived the twins, who had come to the conclusion
that he must be in love. With Madeleine, in spite of his first
confidences, he had little to say about Mademoiselle Blanche, and she
did not dare ask him questions. His silence and his improved appetite,
together with his renewed amiability, made her hope that he had
recovered from his infatuation, and she felt easier in mind.
On the Saturday evening following his first call on Mademoiselle
Blanche, while Jules was sitting in the little apartment, he asked the
girl if they might not pass Sunday together. "We might drive through the
_Bois_ into the country," he suggested.
She had been looking into the fire, and she glanced at him hesitatingly.
"We always go to mass on Sunday morning," she said.