"When your daughter comes in, give her that!" I said. I had scribbled:
"I write you a star rôle!"
She gathered the message at a glance, and I swear that the moroseness
of her gaze was not lightened by so much as a gleam. She was
representing a character; the actress sustained the character even
while she read words that were to raise her from privation to renown.
"Not that I care if I _have_ queered her chance," she snarled. "A
good job, too, the selfish cat! I've got nothing to thank her for.
Serve her right if you do give her the go-by, my Jackanapes, _I_
don't blame you!"
"Madame Laurent," Georges answered sternly, and his answer vibrated
through the room, "I have never admired, pitied, or loved Jeanne so
much as now that I know that she has been--motherless."
All three of us stood stone-still. The first to move was she. I saw
what was going to happen. She burst out crying.
"It's I, Jeanne!--I love you! I thought I loved the theatre best--I was
wrong." Instinctively she let my card fall to the ground. "Forgive me--
I did it for your sake, too. It was cruel, I am ashamed. Oh, my own, if
my love will not disgrace you, take me for your wife! In all the world
there is no woman who will love you better--in all my heart there is no
room for anything but you!"
They were in each other's arms. De Lavardens, whom the proclamation of
identity had electrified, dragged me outside. The big fool was
blubbering with sentiment.
"This is frightful," he grunted.
"Atrocious!" said I.
"But she is a woman in a million."
"She is a great actress," I said reverently.
"I could never approve the marriage," he faltered. "What do you think?"
"Out of the question! I have no sympathy with either of them."
"You humbug! Why, there is a tear running down your nose!"
"There are two running down yours," I snapped; "a General should know
better."
And why has the doll in the pink silk dress recalled this to me? Well,
you see, to-morrow will be New Year's Day and the doll is a gift for my
godchild--and the name of my godchild's mother is "Jeanne de
Lavardens." Oh, I have nothing to say against her as a mother, the
children idolise her! I admit that she has conquered the General, and
that Georges is the proudest husband in France. But when I think of the
parts I could have written for her, of the lustre the stage has lost,
when I reflect that, just to be divinely happy, the woman deliberately
declined a worldwide fame--Morbleu! I can never forgive her for it,
never--the darling!