"I'm afraid you're putting a romantic interpretation on a very simple
sequence of events. That fellow probably did fall in love with his
wife's performance, and incidentally he liked the money that went with
it. When she stopped her diving and became an ordinary performer, like
thousands of others, she ceased to interest him. Then he looked around
for some one else to be interested in, and when the other acrobatic
person appeared he was just in the condition to be caught."
"I don't believe it. It's a----"
"There's one way, of course, of proving whether you're right or not,"
Tate interrupted, with a quizzical smile.
"What's that?"
"If your theory is correct, the only thing for Madame Le Baron to do is
to go back to her performance. Then she'll meet her rival on her own
ground. From what I've read about that other performer, Madame Le
Baron's dive must be twice as difficult and twice as thrilling as hers."
Mrs. Tate turned to her husband with a look of admiration, her breath
coming and going in quick gasps. "Percy, that's the wisest thing you've
ever said in your life." A moment later she added, with a change of
tone: "But isn't the whole thing _too_ absurd?"
He started to go upstairs. "You know we're due at the Bigelows in an
hour?"
"Wait a minute," said Mrs. Tate. "I want to think over what you said.
You can't imagine how this thing has worried me. It's all due to my
meddling. Oh, I know that; you needn't say anything to me about it. But
I'm determined to help that poor woman if I can. Oh, if I had only
followed your advice, and let them alone!" she moaned.
"There's no use worrying now. The mischief's done. He would probably
have got tired of her anyway."
"If something isn't done to bring him back to her," she went on without
heeding his remark, "it will kill her. I'm sure of that. If you could
only see her. She looks like a ghost, and her hands tremble so! I don't
believe she's slept a wink for weeks. I don't see how she gets through
her performances. A clinging creature like her just _lives_ on
affection. Before she was married she always had her mother to take care
of her. To think that that man should treat her so! Oh, it's a shame,
it's a shame!"
Tate was standing at the door. "If she's going to kill herself over that
fellow, she might as well have gone on with her diving and killed
herself that way. You ask her if she doesn't want to go back to it," he
added, with the quizzical smile, "and see if she won't jump at the
chance."
"Do you suppose that she can suspect for an instant that her husband
fell in love with her performance?" she said, her eyes following her
husband up the stairs.
"She probably hasn't reasoned it out, but I haven't a doubt she feels it
intuitively," he replied, continuing his ascent. "You just ask her if
she doesn't want to make the plunge again and see what she'll say," he
concluded, smiling down at her from the floor above.