Mrs. Tate was right in surmising that Jules had conceived a dislike for
her. The first day he saw her he decided that she was a tiresome,
interfering Englishwoman, and he watched with annoyance her growing
intimacy with Blanche, whom he wished to keep wholly to himself. Of his
wife's success at the Hippodrome he felt as proud as if it were his own;
he loved to read the notices of it in the papers, and while Blanche was
performing, to walk about in the audience and hear her praises. He had
come to look upon her as part of himself, as his property; and this
sense of proprietorship added to the fascination that her performance
had for him.
Though his first ardor of devotion had passed, he was still tender with
her; but his tenderness always had reference more to her work than to
herself. He watched her as the owner of a performing animal might have
watched his precious charge. Sometimes he used to lose patience with her
for her devotion to the little Jeanne; if Jeanne cried at night she
would want to leave the bed to soothe her. In order to prevent this,
Jules had the child's crib moved into Madeleine's room, to the secret
grief of the mother, who, however, did not think of resisting his
commands. In his way Jules was fond of Jeanne; but he could not help
thinking that before she came Blanche had given all her love to him.
However, there was some excuse for that; but there was no reason why a
stranger like Mrs. Tate should come in and take possession of them, act
like a member of the family, and put a lot of silly ideas into his
wife's head.
The mere fact that Mrs. Tate was English would have been enough to
prejudice Jules against her even if he had not objected to her personal
qualities. He hated the English, and he hated England, especially
London. Even Blanche, who was blind to his faults, speedily discovered
that his boast of being a born traveller had no foundation in fact. On
arriving in London he had gone straight to a French hotel, where he was
served to French cooking by a _garcon_ trained in the _cafes_ of the
_Boulevards_. Since then he had associated only with the few French
people he could find in the city; if he hadn't been eager to read
everything printed about Blanche, he would never have looked at any but
French papers. At home he spent a large part of his time in ridiculing
the English, just as on his return from America he had ridiculed the
Americans. Now, at the thought of being obliged to dine with a lot of
those _betes d'Anglais_ he felt enraged. He had already refused one
invitation. Why wasn't that enough for them? The second he would have
refused too, if Blanche had not insisted that another refusal would be a
discourtesy to Father Dumeny's friends. Ah, Father Dumeny, a fine box he
had got them into, the tiresome old woman that he was, with his foolish
jokes and his rheumatism!
Jules never forgot that dinner. In the first place, he was awed by the
magnificence of the Tates' house; it surpassed anything of the kind he
had ever seen in France or in America; it had never occurred to him that
the English could have such good taste. Then, too, in spite of the
efforts of his hosts to make him comfortable, he felt awkward, ill at
ease, out of place. As soon as he entered the drawing-room, Blanche was
taken upstairs by Mrs. Tate, and Jules was left with the husband and
with Dr. Broughton.
A moment later the Doctor disappeared, and for the next half-hour Jules
tried to maintain a conversation in English. Tate turned the
conversation to life in Paris as compared with the life of London, but
Jules had so much difficulty in speaking English that they fell at last
into French.
Meanwhile, Blanche sat in the library with Mrs. Tate and Dr. Broughton,
whom she had not seen since the day of his call upon her. The Doctor had
at once won her confidence, and since her talk with him she had felt
better, and she fancied that the tonic he gave her had already benefited
her. But she still had that pain in her back, she said, and that
terrible fear; every night when she kissed the little Jeanne before
going to the Hippodrome, she felt as if she should never see the child
again. If she didn't stop feeling like that, she didn't know what would
happen.
"If you could give up the plunge for a while," the Doctor suggested,
"you'd be very much better for the rest. Then you might go back to it,
you know."
"But I'm engaged for the season," Blanche replied in French, which the
Doctor readily understood, but refused to speak. "I can't break my
contract."
"Perhaps you could make a compromise," Mrs. Tate suggested. "You could
go on with your trapeze performance,--with everything except the dive."
"I was really engaged for that," said Blanche, a look of dismay
appearing in her face. "There are many others that perform on the
trapeze."
"But you might try to make some arrangement," Mrs. Tate insisted. "Your
husband could talk it over with the managers."
"Ah, but he would not like it," Blanche replied with evident distress.
"It would make him so unhappy if he--if he knew."
"If he knew you were being made ill by your work!" Mrs. Tate
interrupted. "Of course it would make him unhappy, and it would be very
strange if it didn't. But it's much better to have him know it than for
you to go on risking your life every night."
Dr. Broughton gave his hostess a glance that made her quail. A moment
later, however, she gathered herself together.
"I didn't mean to say that, dear, but now that I _have_ said it, there's
no use mincing matters. The Doctor has told me plainly that if you go on
making that plunge every night in your present state of nervousness it
will certainly result in your death--in one way or another. So the only
thing for you to do, for the sake of your baby, and your husband, and
for your own sake too,--the only thing for you to do is to stop it, at
least for a time. If you were to break your neck it would simply be
murder,--yes, murder," she repeated, glancing at the Doctor, who was
looking at her with an expression that showed he thought she was going
too far.
Tears had begun to trickle down Blanche's cheeks, and now they turned to
sobs. For a few moments she lost control of herself, and her frail
figure was shaken with grief. Dr. Broughton said nothing, and he looked
angry. Mrs. Tate paid no attention to him; she went over to Blanche,
took her in her arms, and began to soothe her. In a few moments the
sobbing ceased, and Mrs. Tate went on:--
"It's best that you should know this, dear, though perhaps I've been
cruel in telling it to you so bluntly. We must tell your husband about
it, too. I'm sure he'll be distressed to hear how much you've suffered,
and he'll be glad to do anything that will help you. So now we'll send
the Doctor away, and bathe your face with hot water, and go down to
dinner and try to forget about our troubles for a while."
If Jules had not been absorbed in his own embarrassment at the
dinner-table he might have discovered traces of agitation in his wife's
face. He was secretly execrating the luck that had brought him among
these people, and he resolved when he returned home to tell Blanche that
he would have nothing more to do with them. If she was willing to have
that prying Englishwoman about her all the time, she could, but she
mustn't expect him to be more than civil to her. The conversation had
turned on English politics, and as Jules had nothing to offer on the
subject, his enforced silence increased his discomfort. Mrs. Tate was
devoting herself to Blanche, who sat beside her, relating in French
stories of her life in Paris. Jules felt resentful; no one paid
attention to him; when he dined out in Paris he was always one of the
leaders in the talk. He wanted to justify himself, to show these people
that he was no fool, that he was worthy of being the husband of a
celebrity.
By a fortunate chance, the talk drifted to American politics, and Jules,
seeing his opportunity, seized it. A few moments later he was launched
on an account of his travels in the United States. Tate, relieved at
having at last found a topic his guest could discuss, gave Jules full
play, and listened to him with a light in his eyes that showed his wife
he was secretly amused. Indeed, Jules' criticisms of America and his
descriptions of the peculiarities of Americans greatly entertained them.
The dinner closed in animated talk, much to the relief of Mrs. Tate, who
feared it would be a great failure; it made her realize, however, that
as show people the Le Barons were quite useless. She was afraid Blanche
had been bored; she had been sitting almost speechless during the meal,
sighing heavily now and then, as if thinking that in a few hours her
respite would be over, and she would have to return to her horrible
work.
Mrs. Tate was quite ready to make any sacrifice to rescue Blanche from
the terrors of her circus life; in the enthusiasm of the moment she said
to herself, that rather than let her continue making that plunge, she
would offer to _pay_ her husband what she earned, in order to take his
wife out of the ring altogether. At the thought of persuading him to do
this, Mrs. Tate felt that at last she had a definite task to perform; it
was almost like a mission, and the harder it proved to be, the more
exalted she would feel.
After their return to the drawing-room, Mrs. Tate, with a delightful
feeling that she was engaged in a conspiracy, made a mysterious sign to
Dr. Broughton to come to her.
"I suppose Percy's been whispering to you not to have anything to do
with this scheme of mine, but don't pay any attention to him. Do you
know, I think the best way would be to take the husband into the library
and have it out there. He must _be_ told, you know. He hasn't a
suspicion of it,--not a suspicion. You wait a few minutes, and as soon
as I get a chance, I'll ask him to follow me out."
The Doctor smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
"You must take the responsibility," he said carelessly. "I shall merely
do my professional duty. Mr. Tate has just been telling me about a
curious idea----"
"Don't pay any attention to his ideas. Percy thinks everything ought to
be left to regulate itself. A fine world it would be if every one
thought as he does. Now you go back to him, and follow me when I tell
you. No, I have a better plan. You go into the library with Percy. I'll
come in there in a few minutes."
A quarter of an hour later, when Mrs. Tate entered the library with
Jules, she found her husband and the Doctor there, half-hidden in a
cloud of smoke.
"This poor man, too, has been dying for another cigar," she said; "but
he's too polite to say so. So while he's smoking we can have our talk.
We'll take our coffee in here, too. Percy, you go and see that Madame Le
Baron is properly served. I've had to leave her there alone for a
minute, but I said I'd send you in. Dr. Broughton and I are going to
have a secret conference with Monsieur Le Baron."
"Secret conferences are always dangerous," Tate replied, rising to leave
the room. "Look out for them!" he added with a smile to Jules, as he
hesitated at the door. When he had closed the door behind him, he stood
in the hall a moment, thinking.
Tate was a man of sense, of "horse-sense," one of his friends used to
say of him, and not given to forebodings. Now, however, he had a
distinct regret that his wife was interfering in this matter, and fear
of the consequences. She often did things that he disapproved, and he
made no objection, for he believed that she had as much right to
independence as himself; but in this case he would have liked to
interfere. He had spoken to Dr. Broughton about his feeling in the
matter, and the Doctor had merely laughed. Well, the Doctor knew better
than he did; perhaps, after all, his own theory was absurd. At any rate,
he could not be held accountable for any trouble that might result from
his wife's meddling. This thought, however, gave him little consolation.
He usually suffered for her mistakes much more than she did herself.
When he went back to the drawing-room, he had difficulty in sustaining a
conversation with Blanche; he kept thinking of the conference in the
next room, wondering what the result would be. He was prepared to see
Jules enter with a pale face and set lips and with wrath in his eyes.
When Jules finally entered between his hostess and the Doctor, Tate
scanned his face narrowly; it was not white, and the lips were not set,
but the whole expression had changed to a look of dogged determination
and ill-concealed rage. He sat near his wife, staring at her as if he
had never seen her before.
For a few moments the conversation was resumed, but the atmosphere
seemed chilled. Then the Doctor rose to say good-night, explaining that
he had promised to call on a patient in Curzon Street before going home.
This seemed to be the signal for the breaking-up, and all of the guests
left at the same moment, Mrs. Tate calling out to Blanche at the door of
the drawing-room that she would look in on her the next day if she were
not too busy.
When the front door had closed, Tate turned to his wife.
"Well, you had a stormy time of it, didn't you?"
She walked toward the centre of the drawing-room and stood under the
chandelier, keeping her eyes fixed on her husband's face, which seemed
to be much more serious than usual.
"What makes you think so?" she asked, removing a bracelet from her arm
and nervously twirling it.
"I could tell from the expression in his eyes, and from the way you and
the Doctor acted. He was furious, wasn't he?"
"Furious? Le Baron? Hardly; though I could see he didn't believe a word
we said. He was almost too startled to understand it at first. The
little goose hadn't said a word to him about it."
"And what did he say when you told him she ought to give up her
performance? How did he like that?"
"He didn't like it at all, apparently. But I didn't expect him to like
it. It means money out of his pocket."
"No, it means more than that, if I'm not mistaken."
"What else can it mean?" she said, lifting her eyebrows questioningly.
"It means the end of whatever affection he has for his wife. Of course
he never had much. A man of his sort doesn't."
She looked at him with curiosity in her face. "What difference does her
performing make in his affection for her?"
"Can't you see that he didn't fall in love with _her_? He fell in love
with her performance."
Mrs. Tate put one finger to her lips and hesitated for a moment. Then
she said slowly:--
"How ridiculous you are, Percy! As if any one ever heard of such a
thing!"