Mrs. Tate ran her eyes over the pile of letters at her plate on the
breakfast-table. She was a large, florid woman of forty, verging on
stoutness, with an abundance of reddish-brown hair.
"What a lot of mail!" she said to her husband, who was absorbed in
reading the "Daily Telegraph,"--a small man, with black hair and
moustache tinged with gray, and small black eyes finely wrinkled at the
corners. "Here's a letter from Amy dated at Cannes. They must have left
Paris sooner than they intended; and here's something from Fanny
Mayo,--an invitation to dinner, I suppose. Fanny told me she wanted us
to meet the Presbreys next week,--some people she knew in Bournemouth."
"Fanny's always taking up new people," said Tate from behind his paper,
"and dropping them in a month."
"And here's something else with a French stamp on it. Let me see. From
Boulogne? It must be from Father Dumeny. Yes, I recognize the
handwriting."
"Another subscription, I suppose," her husband grunted.
"He hasn't written for nearly a year. I wonder what started him this
time. What a dear old soul he is! Do you remember the night we took him
out to a restaurant in Paris and he was so afraid of being seen? I
always laugh when I think of that."
"What's he got to say?"
With her knife, Mrs. Tate cut one end of the letter open, and her eye
wandered slowly down the page.
"He's been ill, he says, but he's able to be about now. He came near
running over here last summer, but he couldn't get away." For a few
moments Mrs. Tate was absorbed in reading; then she exclaimed with a
curious little laugh: "How funny! Listen to this, will you? He's left
what he really wrote for till the end,--like a woman. He wants us to
look after a _protegee_ of his, a girl that he baptized, the daughter of
an acrobat. Did you ever hear of such a thing? She's in the circus
herself, and she's going to appear at the Hippodrome next week. She
performs on the trapeze, and then she dives backward from the roof of
the building--backward, mind you! Could anything be more terrible?"
"I should think she'd be right in your line," Tate replied without
lifting his eyes from his paper. "She'll be something new. You can make
a lion of her."
"Don't be impertinent, Percy. This is a very serious matter. It seems
the girl's married and had a child about two months ago. She's going to
resume her performances. She doesn't know a soul in London; so she'll be
all alone."
"I thought you said she had a husband."
"So I did. He's given them a letter to us, but he doesn't think they'll
present it. I suppose those theatrical people live in a world of their
own. But of course I shall go to see her. Perhaps I can do something for
her. Anyway, it'll be interesting to meet an acrobat. I've never known
one in my life."
"As I said," her husband remarked, turning to his bacon and eggs, "you
can introduce her into society. People must be tired of meeting artists
and actors and musicians. She'll be a novelty."
"You're very disagreeable to-day, Percy," Mrs. Tate responded amiably,
after sipping the coffee that had been steaming beside her plate. "You
are always attributing the meanest motives to everything I do."
He gave a short laugh. "But you must acknowledge that you do some pretty
queer things, my dear."
She ignored the remark, and a moment later she went on briskly: "I must
go and see this acrobat woman--whoever she is. If I don't--"
"What's her name?" Tate asked, turning to his paper and searching for
the theatrical columns.
"Madame Jules Le Baron, Father Dumeny calls her. But I suppose she must
have a stage name. Most of them have."
"I don't see that name in 'Under the Clock!' The Hippodrome? No, it
isn't there. I wonder if this can be the one: 'On Monday evening next,
Mademoiselle Blanche, the celebrated French acrobat, will give her
remarkable performance on the trapeze and her great dive from the top of
the Hippodrome.'"
Mrs. Tate sighed.
"Yes, it must be. Mademoiselle Blanche! How stagey it sounds! I wonder
what she's like."
"We might go to see her first and then we could tell whether she's
possible or not."
"Go to the Hippodrome!"
"Yes, why not? It's perfectly respectable. Only it doesn't happen to be
fashionable. In Paris, you know, it's the thing to attend the circus.
Don't you remember the La Marches took us one night?"
"Yes, and I remember there was a dreadful creature--she must have
weighed three hundred pounds--who walked the tight-rope and nearly
frightened me to death. I thought she'd come down on my head."
"Then it's understood that we're to go on Monday? If we go at all we
might as well be there the first night. It'll be more interesting."
Mrs. Percy Tate was a personage in London. For several years before her
marriage, at the age of twenty-five, she had been known as an heiress
and a belle. Even then she had a reputation for independence of
character, and for an indefatigable zeal for reforming the world. Her
name stood at the head of several charitable societies, and she was also
a member of many clubs for the improvement of the physical and spiritual
condition of the human race. Since her marriage she had grown somewhat
milder; her friends used to say that Percy Tate had "trained" her. They
also said that she had "made" him; without her money he would never have
become a member of the rich firm of Welling and Company.
Percy Tate's business associates, however, knew the fallacy of this
uncharitable opinion. With his dogged determination and his keen insight
into the intricacies of finance, Tate was sure of forging ahead in time,
with or without backing. His association with Welling and Company gave
the house even greater strength than it had had before; for in addition
to his reputation as a financier, he had made his name a synonym for
stanch integrity. He had passed sixteen happy years with his wife,
wisely directed her charities, wholesomely ridiculed her enthusiasms,
followed her into the Catholic Church, where he was quite as sincere if
a much less ardent worshipper; and in all the serious things of life he
treated her, not as an inferior to be patronized, but as an equal that
he respected, with no display of sentiment, but with sincere devotion.
She, on her part, was amused by his humor and guided by his advice,
though she often pretended to ignore it; and she never allowed any of
her numerous undertakings to interfere with her regard for his comfort
or the happiness of her home.
The manager of the Hippodrome had extensively advertised the appearance
of Mademoiselle Blanche, and on Monday night the amphitheatre was
crowded. The Tates arrived early in order to see the whole performance;
as they had never been at the Hippodrome before, the evening promised to
be amusing for them. Tate, however, became so interested in the
menagerie through which they passed before entering the portion of the
vast building devoted to the exhibitions in the ring that they remained
there more than an hour. The interval between their taking seats and the
appearance of the acrobat rather bored them.
"I wish they'd hurry up and let her come out," said Mrs. Tate. "And yet
I almost dread seeing her make that horrible plunge. This must be the
first time she's done it since the birth of her baby. Isn't it really
shocking?"
"Oh, I suppose these people are as much entitled to babies as any other
people."
She cast a reproachful glance at him, and did not reply for a moment.
Then she said: "But what must her feelings be now--just as she's getting
ready?"
"I dare say she's glad to get back to her work and earn her salary
again. Her husband probably doesn't earn anything. Those fellows never
do."
"She must be frightened nearly to death."