The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Jugglers, by Molly Elliot Seawell This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: The Jugglers Author: Molly Elliot Seawell Release Date: August 14, 2020 [EBook #62927] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JUGGLERS *** Produced by D A Alexander, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE JUGGLERS THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO “THINK WHAT IT IS TO ACT WHEN ONE FEELS IT.” THE JUGGLERS A Story BY MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL WITH A FRONTISPIECE New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1911 Dramatic and all other rights reserved Copyright, 1911, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published October, 1911. Dramatic and all other rights reserved. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. TO NELLIE AND ISABEL WHO HAVE A GENIUS FOR FRIENDSHIP THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. Diane, the Dreamer 1 II. The Marquis Egmont of the Holy Angels 31 III. The Splendid Events that Happened at Bienville 65 IV. The Bridal Veil 95 V. The Deluge 122 VI. The Day of Glory has Arrived 158 [vii] THE JUGGLERS CHAPTER I DIANE, THE DREAMER The lazy blue river and the wide, brown plains of Picardy lay basking in the still splendor of the November afternoon. The mysterious hush of the autumn lay upon the fields and the farmsteads. A flock of herons in a near-by marsh meditated gravely, standing one-legged, and watching the cows kneedeep in the muddy meadows. High in the sunny air, a vulture sailed, majestically evil, watching both the cows and the herons. The world was saying farewell softly to the sunny hours. The only sound that broke the deep silence was the steady trot of the big Normandy horses on the flinty towpath, as they drew a covered boat along the narrow and shallow stream, and the faint echo of the voices of five persons sitting on the roof of the boat in the sunshine. The herons cocked their eyes toward the boat, and listened attentively, though they could not understand a word of these strange, noisy, laughing, weeping, fighting, dancing, talking creatures, called men and women. Sometimes, so the herons thought, these odd beings were a little kind; sometimes they were very cruel, but always they were formidable, and were masters of life and death. The great question under discussion on the roof of the boat was, where the theatrical company of jugglers and singers should spend the winter. Grandin, the proprietor of the show, a tall, handsome, boastful man, with a big voice like a church organ and a backbone made of brown paper, always gave his opinion first, but was generally overruled by Madame Grandin, also tall, handsome, easily wheedled or bullied, but inexorably truthful. Decisions really rested with the three subordinates, Diane Dorian, the prima donna, Jean Leroux, her partner, and the individual known as François le Bourgeois, juggler. “I have determined upon Bienville,” roared Grandin, in his big, rich voice. “We wintered there nine years ago, and my lithograph was in some of the best shops in the place.” “Oh, what a lie!” cried Madame Grandin, amiably. “They only put your picture in three butcher shops and the bake shop across the street, and I am sure you paid enough for it. But Bienville is my choice too.” Grandin took this with the utmost good nature. Between his propensity to tell agreeable lies, and Madame Grandin’s natural inability to let a lie go uncontradicted, the couple struck a very good average of truth. The manager and his wife having spoken, the real discussion was now on. “I should say Bienville,” said Jean Leroux, quietly. He, too, was big—an ugly, resolute man with an indomitable eye, and as honest as the day was long. He looked at Diane as he spoke. She was dark haired and dark eyed, with a skin milk white in spite of grease paint, and had a vivid, irregular, theatrical beauty, in great contrast to the big, Juno-like manager’s wife. Also, she was so slight and thin as to deserve the name of “Skinny,” which was freely applied to her by François, and she had a voice like the flute of Pan. In spite of her soft voice and gently drooping head, Diane had ten times the resolution of the resolute Jean Leroux. She was also the vainest of women, and in order to protect her matchless complexion wore, over her scarlet hood, a transparent veil of a misty grey, through which her eyes shone as the flash of stars is seen through a drifting cloud. Jean Leroux, who frankly adored her, sat at her right, and François, who always laughed at her, sat on the other side. This François had the clear cut, highbred features, the slim hands and feet, that indescribable air of the aristocrat which marks a man who can trace his descent through many lines of greatness, back to those who shone at the court of Philippe le Bel. Yet François was a frowzy person, and his small feet had burst through his shoes; but he had the same glorious and ineffable impudence of his ancestors who bullied their kings and princes. “What do you say, Diane?” he asked, giving Diane a friendly kick. “I say Bienville,” replied Diane in her lovely stage voice. “I was born and brought up five miles from Bienville, in a little hole of a house, for my father, the village hatter, and my mother had a hard time to keep body and soul together. When I was a little, little girl, I used to look in clear days toward Bienville where I could see the tall spires of the cathedral making a dark line against the sky, and I used to imagine I could hear the bells on the clear December days, and in the soft summer nights. I yearned with all my heart to go to Bienville on market day, and to see the wonderful things that I had heard of there. My mother and father were always promising me that when they had enough money they would take me to Bienville on a market day, but, poor souls, they never had enough. So then, when they died and I was twelve years old, I was taken far away by my uncle. I never saw Bienville, and tended geese until I was sixteen and begun to sing at the village festivals.” “How interesting!” cried François, who had heard the story forty times before. “When you are prima donna at the Paris Opera, and your noble lineage is acknowledged by the proudest houses in France, it will be so romantic to hear ‘The Tale of the Goose Girl’!” This was an old joke of François’, at which everybody was expected to laugh, but Diane remained sullenly silent. François had told her by way of a gibe that her name, Dorian, was undoubtedly a corruption of the noble name of D’Orian, and the ridiculous story had taken possession of Diane, who was as ambitious as Julius Cæsar, and not [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] without repartee. “Anyhow,” she answered tartly, “it is better to rise from being a goose girl to being a singer in a nice company like this, than—” Diane stopped, but François finished the sentence for her. “Than to be born in a chateau and come down to being general utility man in a nice, though small, theatrical company. But I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that the fault is in the stars, not in me. God is a great showman, and arranges many highly dramatic events in certain lives. He has a little string, which He calls Life, and when He pulls it, we walk, talk, and sin. And when He cuts that string, we walk, talk, and sin no more. To return to the concrete, however—I give my voice for Bienville too, because the Bishop is a friend of mine, and so is the major general commanding the district.” Now, François had never before been known to mention any great people he had ever known in his former life, claiming acquaintance only with organ-grinders, ratcatchers, and the like. So all present pricked up their ears at this. “When I was a little lad five years old,” continued François, “they wanted to teach me to read, but I did not want to read, so then I was taken into the meadows and shown two big boys, twelve and fourteen years old, who watched the cows, and meanwhile each carried a book which he read every moment he could. One of those boys has become Bishop of Bienville, and the other, I tell you, is a major general commanding. I suppose they will turn up their noses at me, as indeed they should. But Bienville is the place for the winter.” The three subordinates having spoken, the question of spending the winter in Bienville was considered settled, provided they could get a cheap hall in which to give performances three times a week. The horses were to be sold, as they always were at the end of a season, and the boat tied up at the quay, because it could not be heated for winter weather. “I am sorry,” said Diane, “that the summer is over, and this is the last time for this year that we shall travel by water.” Diane did not suspect that it was the last time she should ever travel in that way again. The horses trotted on steadily toward the far-off steeples and roofs of Bienville coming within clear sight. By that time it was nearly dusk, and a great golden, smoky moon hung in the heavens. The boat was stopped on the river bank where the streets of the little town ran down to the waterside. The horses were taken out, rubbed down, and fed, while the Juno-like manager’s wife and the future prima donna of the Paris Opera cooked supper. Presently they were all assembled around a little table in the small, stuffy cabin, lighted by a kerosene lamp hung on the beam over their heads. They were very humble people, and poor, but they were not unhappy, and lived in a singular harmony together, in spite of the fact that the three ruling spirits, Diane, Jean Leroux, and François were all made on a special model. But each had that strange, artistic conscience which begets the iron discipline of the stage. Apart from the stage, François was frankly an outlaw, and submitted to things because there was always a strong and relentless world against him. When supper was over and everything settled for the night, Grandin and his wife were soon snoring loudly in the little coop which was their room. Diane was not in her little coop, nor was Jean Leroux huddled in his blanket in the large cabin which he shared with François. Both Diane and Jean were sitting on the roof of the cabin watching the moon and stars reflected in the black river, and listening to the sounds brought to them upon the wandering breeze of a merry little town at night. Jean Leroux, a taciturn man, was, as usual, on or off the stage, watching Diane. “At last I am in Bienville,” murmured Diane. “After so many years of longing and yearning! I feel that something will happen to me here, something great and splendid.” “Now, Diane,” said Leroux, “don’t let François’ jokes get into your head as serious things. Nothing is going to happen here. You sing pretty well, but you have no more chance of being a great opera singer than I have of being an archbishop. You haven’t the voice, my dear, for opera at all. You will never get beyond a good music hall artist.” “You are so discouraging, Jean,” complained Diane. “You have a fine voice and know how to act too, but you never aspire to anything but a music hall.” “No, and I never mean to,” was the reply of the practical Jean. “I wish you had good sense, Diane. But I love you just the same as if you had.” Diane made no reply, and Jean was confirmed in his belief that women were the most obstinate and senseless creatures on earth when once they took a notion into their heads. “Besides,” continued Jean, “you are too old, twenty-six, to begin training for grand opera, and you haven’t the money either. At this moment, your capital consists of two hundred and forty-six francs; you told me so yourself.” “Two hundred and sixty-six francs,” cried Diane with flashing eyes. “You ought to be more careful how you talk about such important things, Jean.” “Anyhow,” answered Jean gruffly, “for you to try grand opera would be exactly like a cow trying to play the piano.” Diane argued with him angrily for half an hour. She had not the slightest intention or even wish to be a grand opera singer, and knew the absurdity of the situation quite as well as Jean. But having, like all women, great powers of deception, she was carefully concealing the true object of her wishes and ambitions—to go to Paris and become a great music hall artist, a profession which she consistently derided and contemned. The simple creature, man, is no match for the complex creature, woman. “After all,” murmured Diane, “I am in Bienville. I have dreamed three times lately of putting on my petticoat wrong side out, and that means that I shall make a great deal of money. And then I have twice dreamed of cooking onions, and that [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] means a splendid lover.” This was more than Jean could stand. “Very well, Diane,” he said, “you had better go to bed now, and dream of petticoats and love and onions. I am off.” Jean got up and took Diane’s hand as she ran nimbly down the short ladder to the deck of the boat. The touch of that hand thrilled poor Jean. His heart yearned over Diane; she was such a fool, and always wanted to do things and to get in places for which she was eternally unfitted, so Jean thought. As a matter of fact, Diane was as practical as Jean, but chose to talk a little wildly. Meanwhile, Diane in her little coop was sitting on the edge of her bed and looking through the small, square window toward the town. Afar off she heard the echo of a military band playing. “There is a garrison here,” she thought to herself, and then suddenly remembered that the silk petticoat of which she had dreamed was red like the color of the soldiers’ trousers, and also that the onions which she had cooked in her dreams were red. Then her mind wandered to Jean. If she should have a splendid lover, how should she get on without Jean? It was he who taught her most that she knew about singing and had a peculiar scowl that he gave her on the stage when she was getting off the key. Jean evidently did not fit into the plan of the splendid marriage which she was certain to make in Bienville, nor did anything seem to fit without Jean. While Diane was puzzling over this, she slipped into her narrow cot and fell asleep, the laughing stars and grinning moon gazing at her through the little window. The next morning began the serious business of going into winter quarters at Bienville. It was a busy day for Jean. First, the horses had to be sold. Anybody who flattered Grandin could get horses or anything else out of him, so Jean felt it his duty to go with the manager to the horse mart where the horses fetched a good price. François, who was very little use in any way, except doing his stage tricks, was with Madame Grandin and Diane, looking for lodgings. Jean had some confidence in Diane’s management of money, but this confidence was rudely shattered when he and Grandin met the two ladies at the corner of a street, and were taken to inspect the lodgings which were under consideration for the whole party. First, Jean was dubious about the street, which was much too nice. The sight of the lodgings confirmed his worst suspicions. There was actually a sitting room in addition to a bedroom for the Grandins, a little kitchen, and beyond it a small white room, with a fireplace, for Diane. Under the roof was a big attic where Jean and François could be accommodated royally. The price, of course, was staggering, one hundred francs the month. For once, however, Jean found himself unable to move Diane or to bully the Grandins. While they were all in the sitting room arguing at the top of their lungs, Diane’s high-pitched, musical voice cutting in every ten seconds, the door opened and in walked François. “Look here, François,” said Jean, “help me to reason with these people. A hundred francs for lodgings, and we haven’t even got a hall yet, and don’t know whether anybody will come to the performances or not.” “A hundred francs! A bagatelle!” cried François, slapping his hat down on the table. “Do you suppose when I come to a place where the Bishop and the general commanding are my friends, that I intend to stand back for a little money? No, indeed. If we are thrown out of these luxurious quarters, we can all go to the workhouse anyhow.” “Just look at this!” cried Jean, pointing to the carpet on the floor, and the mirrors on the walls. “But come and look at my bedroom. I am sure that’s plain enough,” shrieked Diane. “It is the best bedroom you ever had in your life,” growled Jean. Then they all trooped back beyond the kitchen to the little white room for Diane. There was one window in it, and it looked across the street directly in the garden of a small, but very nice hotel, much frequented by officers. There was a pavilion enclosed in glass, and at that moment there were officers breakfasting there, with their swords about their legs. As Diane and the rest watched, an orderly rode up leading an officer’s horse. Then the officer came out, a handsome young man in a splendid dragoon uniform, and putting on his helmet with its gorgeous red plume waving in the sunny air. He mounted and clattered off, followed by the orderly and also by the eyes of Diane. Jean, looking at her, felt a knife enter his heart. Her eyes had been fixed upon the young officer with a look of enchantment; her red lips were partly open. She was like a person hypnotized. “Diane will be a big success with the officers of the garrison,” said François, laughing. “You mean with the corporals,” said Jean. “François, you remind me of those soldiers called gentlemen-rankers, gentlemen, that is, who get into the ranks. They always give trouble. You don’t belong with us. You ought to go with people of your own kind, who understand your jokes.” “But I can’t,” responded François, with unabashed good humor. “They have kicked me out long ago.” Then, the discussion about the lodgings began all over again, everybody talking at once, except Diane who remained perfectly silent. When they were talked out, Diane spoke a word. “I will take the whole apartment myself, if the rest of you don’t,” she said. “I have two hundred and sixty-six francs of my own.” Jean said no more, and Grandin sent for the landlady, and made the terms, Jean looking after him that he did nothing more wildly foolish than to take the apartment at a hundred francs. When that business was over, the whole party started out to find a hall suitable for their performances. In this they had [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] extraordinary good luck, finding a large place in the same street, the whole front of glass, and which had been lately vacated as a furniture shop. It would not take much to build a little stage, and the dressing-rooms could be divided off with canvas. Jean then piloted the whole party to the office of the agent, where Diane was put forward to make the plea for the company. The agent was a susceptible person, and Diane’s soft eyes and arguments that the place would become better known by having many persons attend it, caused him to make a ridiculously low offer, and it was promptly accepted. On the strength of this, Diane assumed to be a fine business woman, and gave herself great airs in consequence. When all was complete, the entire arrangements were not so bad. The money received for the horses paid a month’s rent in advance and for the erection of the stage. In the latter, both Grandin and Jean helped the workmen and nailed and hammered industriously. François was willing to help too, but rather hindered by his jokes and stories, which distracted the workmen and kept them laughing when they should have been working. At the end of three days everything was settled for the winter. The beds and stools and kettles and pans had been brought from the boat, which was tied up for the season. The hall was in readiness, the license was obtained, and the big posters were out announcing three performances a week by the celebrated Grandin troupe of jugglers, singers, and dancers. On the night of the first performance the hall was so well filled that Grandin was in ecstasies of delight, and Madame Grandin wept with joy. Across the street, the pavilion was full of young officers, dining. The new place evidently attracted their attention, and presently the whole crowd sallied forth through the garden of the hotel, and across the street. At that moment, François, by Grandin’s direction, went out to see if the old woman who was hired to take in the money was doing her duty. As the crowd of laughing young officers crossed the street, François, who had inspirations of genius, ran inside and pulled up the great green shade before what had once been the shop windows. Within could plainly be seen Diane doing one of her best acts with Jean. She was dressed as a fishwife, her skirts tucked up high, showing a charming pair of ankles and small feet in little wooden shoes, and a delicious white cap such as the fishwomen wear flapped upon her beautiful black hair. The officers raised a shout of laughter and applause and dashed into the little hall, throwing their money at the old woman, and not waiting for change. François pulled the curtain down, and rushed back of the stage. As the officers came clattering in, they were led by one whom François recognized as the dragoon officer who had fascinated Diane’s eyes three days before. This made François nervous, because if the same thing should happen, the act would be ruined. Diane, indeed, had seen the young officer, but the effect was exactly opposite from what François had feared. This, thought Diane, was the meaning of her dream. She sang better than ever before, and no fishwife ever had so dramatic and delightful a quarrel as she had with Jean. The end of the act was that Diane gave Jean a beating with a broom, at which Jean bellowed, to the great delight of the audience. This audience, made up wholly of soldiers and working people, except the officers, shouted with laughter, and the young officers made more noise than any one else present, led by the handsome dragoon who had struck Diane’s fancy that morning. Diane was kept smiling and bowing, and blushing under her grease paint, before the row of candles stuck in bottles that represented the footlights. This went on for so long that the next feature on the bill, a juggling act in which Grandin and his wife did miraculous things, was delayed ten minutes. Madame Grandin, who was more nearly without jealousy than any woman François had ever known, sat quite placidly in her tights and short skirts, and wrapped in a shawl, waiting for the hullabaloo to subside. Grandin was torn by rival emotions; joy that Diane had made such a hit, and annoyance that the audience seemed to prefer singing to burning up money and making an egg come out of a pumpkin. Presently, however, Jean ruthlessly lowered the piece of canvas that did duty for a curtain, and Diane came back palpitating and quivering between laughter and tears. The Grandins then went on, and François, who was not due on the stage for ten minutes, slipped on his outside clothes over his stage costume and quietly dropped into the audience and took his seat by a laughing corporal. “Who is that young man over there?” whispered François to the corporal. “Captain, the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel, captain of dragoons. I am in his troop.” The corporal, as he said this, made a little motion with his mouth, of which François knew the meaning. It implied that Captain, the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel was a person to be spat upon. François knew the name well enough; he knew the names of all the great families. He gave the corporal a wink, which was cordially returned, and then went out, and to the back of the stage. He found Diane sitting as if in a dream in the little canvas den which she shared as a dressing-room with Madame Grandin. François, who was to go on in two minutes, began jerking his arms about and bending his body as if it were made of India rubber, by way of preparation, chatting meanwhile. “Talking about love and onions and petticoats,” he said, “the young officer who led the rest into the hall happens to be a cousin of mine, about three removes, but we are blood relations, just the same, and I think he will end in a worse position than that of a juggler when he keeps sober, and a street vender when he is not quite so sober. He is the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel, called Egmont for short. I was just thinking,” continued François, making himself into a circle like a snake, “that there are no such things as trifles in this world. I went out just now and pulled up the window [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] shade, and a certain man saw you. The pulling up of that shade was a momentous act, perhaps.” “I knew something splendid would happen in Bienville,” murmured Diane. “The Marquis Egmont de St. Angel! What a splendid name! I never had a hand clap from a marquis before.” Then it was time for François to go on the stage. He did his part, which was chiefly acrobatic, so badly that he came near ruining the Grandins’ act. Within the canvas den, Jean was preaching to Diane. “Look here, Diane,” he said, “don’t let those young officers turn your head, particularly that handsome one in front. They are not good acquaintances for a girl like you.” Diane turned on him a look as virginal as that of Jeanne d’Arc. “No man can do me any harm,” she said, “except break my heart. I suppose some might do that. And besides, Jean, I am full of ambition. The women who misbehave and drink too much wine, lose their voices very soon and are not respectfully treated by managers. Don’t be afraid for me.” “I am not,” answered Jean. “At least in the way you think. I am afraid of your breaking your heart and doing something foolish.” “I shan’t do anything foolish,” promptly answered Diane. When the Grandins and François finished their act and the curtain was down, even the placid Madame Grandin said a few mildly reproachful words to François for his carelessness which might have caused a bad accident. Grandin, who was sincerely attached to his wife, was much shaken and nervous and violently angry with François. “Never mind,” answered François coolly to Grandin’s invectives, “wives come cheap, but if you are so shaken in the next turn as you are now, your wife will be in a great deal more danger than she was with me. Behave yourself, Grandin, and get the upper hand of your nerves. A juggler who loses his nerve because another juggler hasn’t tumbled fair, isn’t any good at all and a very dangerous person.” Grandin was much taken aback by this onslaught of François, and could only mumble: “I don’t know why it is, François, that you always get the upper hand of me.” “I know,” replied François. “It is because I was born a-horseback and you were born a-footback. That’s why.” The second appearance of Diane upon the stage was greeted with greater applause and laughter than ever. Jean, who was a capital low comedian and singer, was scarcely noticed. When the act was over, it had to be repeated, and at the end money was showered upon the stage. It was all silver, however, except one twenty franc gold piece which was thrown by the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel. On the whole, the performance was a great success as far as money went, but nobody had got any applause to speak of except Diane. It takes some time to wash off powder and lamp-black and grease paint, and to get into even the shabbiest clothes, so that the street was almost deserted when the players came out in the quiet autumn night. One person, however, was on watch. This was the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel, known as Egmont. He stepped up to Diane and said with a low bow: “Mademoiselle, will you do me the honor of taking supper with me in the pavilion of the Hotel Metropole?” “I thank you very much, Monsieur,” replied Diane in her flute-like voice, “but I make it a rule always to go home with my friends, Monsieur and Madame Grandin, after the performance.” The Marquis remained silent for a moment, then he said, bowing to Madame Grandin: “Perhaps your friends will give me the pleasure of their company too.” “It is as they wish,” answered Diane. “But I must return home. I cannot stay out late; it affects my voice unfavorably.” The Marquis stared at her as if she were a lunatic; he had never known stage people of this class who refused anything to eat and drink. Diane then, with Jean, started up the street shepherded by the Grandins. When they reached the corner, Grandin found his big, melodious voice, and thundered at Diane: “What do you mean by declining for us to go to supper? I never went to supper with a marquis in my life; it would be worth a hundred francs’ advertising!” François had lagged behind, and was saying to the Marquis, “Are you Fernand or Victor Egmont de St. Angel?” “I am Fernand,” said the Marquis. “What do you know about my family?” “Oh, merely that we are cousins.” The Marquis shouted out laughing, while François, rolling up his sleeve, gravely exhibited his arm tattooed with a crest and initials. [23] [24] [25] [26] “This was done,” he said, “when I was a child, in case I got lost. I have got lost since in the great, mysterious maze of the world, but I have no objection, like that young lady yonder, to go to supper with you, provided you will have a good brand of champagne. Cheap champagne is worse than bad acting.” “Come!” cried the Marquis, “I know that crest. You have indeed got lost! But you shall have champagne at twenty francs the bottle if you will tell me all about that young lady who kicked about so beautifully in her little wooden shoes.” François then slipped his arm within that of the Marquis and the two paraded across the quiet street singing at the top of their voices some of the songs they had heard that evening from the sweet lips of Diane. Nothing was seen of François that night, but the next morning when Madame Grandin, who added thrift and early rising to her other virtues, was going out to the market at sunrise, she came across François lying drunk on the door-step. Madame Grandin, a good soul, instead of calling her husband or Jean, who would be likely to use François roughly, tiptoed to Diane’s door and the two women very quietly managed to get François, who was a small man, up the stair, on his way to his attic. As they passed Grandin’s door, the manager appeared in a very sketchy toilette. “What’s the matter with François?” asked Grandin. “Drunk,” hiccoughed François, thickly, and perfectly happy. “Too much high society. Champagne at twenty francs the bottle, and my cousin, the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel, paying for it. Just let me sleep all day, and I will be as sober as a judge by six o’clock.” And this actually happened. It is a very serious thing for a juggler to get drunk while he is juggling, but François, who had as good artistic conscience as Jean Leroux or anybody else, never attempted his profession unless he were dead sober. That, he was, at six o’clock when he walked into the little sitting room and joined the rest of the party at supper which was cooked by the excellent Madame Grandin and Diane in collaboration. “Don’t be afraid to do the pumpkin act with me to-night, you dear old goose,” said François to Madame Grandin. “I wouldn’t risk your precious life for anything. Where would Grandin get as good a wife and as good a partner as you if I should break your neck? And besides, it would break up the show for a fortnight at least, and perhaps ruin the whole season just as Diane is in a fair way to become a marquise.” “What do you mean, François?” asked Diane. “I mean that the young officer who admired you so much was the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel, a cousin of mine. We got gloriously drunk together like old Socrates and the boy Alcibiades the time that Socrates came in and caught Alcibiades and a lot of Greek boys drinking, and they swore that Socrates should drink two measures of wine to one of theirs, which he did the whole night through, and in the morning left them all lying about the floor while he went and took a bath and then lectured on the true, the beautiful, and the good in the groves of Parnassus, with all the wisest men in the town at his heels.” “And who was Parnassus?” inquired Grandin in his big voice. “His name sounds like a German university professor.” “That’s just what he was,” answered François. “One of those langsam schrecklich German professors who don’t mind having a mob of ragamuffins overrunning the place.” All present gazed with admiration at François, amazed at his learning, as well as his great family connections. Diane’s thoughts were with the Marquis; her face grew rose red as she wondered if the Marquis would be on hand for that night’s performance. [27] [28] [29] [30] CHAPTER II THE MARQUIS EGMONT OF THE HOLY ANGELS The Marquis, known familiarly as Egmont, was at the music hall the next night, not in his splendid dragoon uniform, nor yet in evening dress, but in ordinary clothes which suggested the notion of a disguise on Egmont’s part, to François. Evidently, the company as a whole, and Diane in particular, had made a great hit, for the former furniture shop was packed with persons. François went through his juggling and his tricks with the Grandins without the slightest nervousness. Not so, Diane. She began to give signs of what is dangerous and even fatal to an actress—self- consciousness. No one noticed it except Jean, who saw everything with the sharp-sightedness of love. When the performance was over, and the hall closing for the night, the old woman who took in the money at the door handed a note to Diane, who slipped it into her breast. When she got home and was alone in her little white room, she took the note out and read it. Many notes of the kind had Diane received in her short theatrical career, chiefly from young shopmen and susceptible lawyers’ clerks and the like, but this was from a marquis, and written upon beautiful paper. It was very respectful in tone, and asked Diane why she had been so cruel the night before, and what evening would she honor Captain, the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel with her company at supper. The foolish Diane kissed the note and slept with it under her pillow. The next morning about ten o’clock, Diane went out on a shopping expedition in the streets of Bienville. She was one of those women who have an instinctive knowledge of how to make the best of herself. She adopted a demure style of dress, a trim little black gown and large black hat and a thin black veil, all of which gave her a nun-like appearance. When she raised her eyes, however, there was nothing of the nun about Diane. She walked rapidly along the bustling streets of the town, and looked like a pretty governess somewhat alarmed at being out alone. In truth, Diane had been out in the world alone since her seventeenth year, and knew perfectly well how to take care of herself. She went into a paper shop to buy some writing paper elegant enough to reply to the Marquis’s note. As she walked out of the shop, she came face to face with the Marquis swinging along in his dashing uniform, and carrying his sabre in his arm. He smiled brilliantly at Diane and took off his glittering helmet with its red plumes, and bowed profoundly to her, but Diane, whose face became scarlet as the dragoon’s plumes, turned and ran as fast as she could, and was lost to sight, diving into a narrow and devious street. She heard footsteps behind her and kept her head down, thinking it was the Marquis, but the voice in her ear was that of Jean. “That man means mischief as certainly as you live, Diane,” said Jean, who had a brusqueness and common sense sometimes most painful and uncompromising. Diane stopped under an archway, dark even in the bright autumn morning. “I don’t know what he means,” she said, “but neither he nor any other man can do me any harm. In the first place, I am by nature a modest girl, you know that, Jean. Then, you laugh at my ambitions. Very well; when the time comes that the newspaper reporters are digging into my past, they won’t find anything disgraceful, upon that I am determined. If the Marquis wants to marry me, I shall marry him. But the only way he can reach me is through the church door.” Jean laughed a hearty, mirthful laugh. “I believe you,” he said, “and as you always were the most persevering and most determined creature that ever lived, I think that you will stick to what you say. But neither this marquis nor any other marquis will ever want to marry you. As for this fellow, he is a scoundrel. I have heard it in the last twenty-four hours, and I see it for myself.” “You are so prejudiced, Jean,” complained Diane. “However, I will show you the note that I shall write him, so that you can point out any mistakes in spelling I may make.” “François is the man for spelling,” answered Jean. Diane thought so too, so after writing her little note first on a piece of wrapping paper—Diane was nothing if not economical—she showed it to François, who corrected two mistakes. It was very short, simply saying that Mademoiselle Dorian thanked the Marquis for his compliment, but that she did not accept invitations to supper. “But I wish, Skinny,” said François, “you would go with him. He will be certain to say or do something impudent, and that will disgust you, and there will be an end of it. But you are acting, my dear, like a finished coquette.” This Diane violently denied, as it was the truth and she did not wish it known. The Marquis continued to haunt the little hall every night, and the effect upon Diane’s acting was not good, especially in a little love scene she had with Jean. After a week of this, one night when the performance was over and they were all preparing to go home, Jean spoke to Diane in her little canvas den of a dressing-room. “Something is the matter. Your acting isn’t improved, Diane,” said Jean, “by your eyes wandering over the audience, and shrinking away from me when you ought to throw yourself in my arms. If you go on like this, you will never get to Paris even as a music hall artist. Your acting won’t be worth your railway fare, third class.” “I know it,” answered Diane with pale lips. “But while I am dressing I am asking myself all the time, ‘Will the Marquis be in front?’ If he isn’t there, there doesn’t seem to me as if there were anyone in the hall; then as soon as he comes in [31] [32] [33] [34] [35] [36] he seems to fill the hall and to be on the stage with me. Pity me, Jean!” “I do,” answered Jean, “from the bottom of my heart, and I have a little pity for myself, too. But, Diane, where is your courage, your resolution, of which you are always boasting?” “It is here,” answered Diane, laying her hand upon her heart. “It is that which keeps me away from him, which drags me to my room when I want to go with the Marquis. It is that which makes me a victor every hour, for I am forever struggling to keep away from him, and I have kept away from him. But when he comes where I am—oh, Jean!” Diane sat down on the rough box which held her stage wardrobe, consisting of two costumes, and wept plentifully. Jean kneeled by her. “But you won’t be a coward, Diane,” he cried desperately. “Keep on struggling and fighting. The fellow is a scoundrel, that I assure you. I know the kind of a fight you are making. I have had the same kind ever since I knew you. Think what it is to me to take you in my arms and then to throw you off as we do on the stage every night. Think what it is to act when one feels it.” Jean stopped. The love of one man matters little to a woman who is desperately in love with another, but Diane, out of the depths of her own agony, looked into Jean’s eyes and realized that some one else could suffer besides herself. They both forgot that François was changing his clothes on the other side of the piece of canvas and could hear every word. Suddenly François’ head appeared above the canvas partition which was only about six feet high, and with a convenient upturned bucket François, who was a short man, could mount and see over into the next canvas den. “That’s the way it is,” cried François, laughing. “You know the Spanish proverb, ‘I am dying for you and you are dying for him who is dying for someone else.’ I haven’t even the privilege of taking you in my arms, Diane, on the stage, like Jean. This is a cursed world!” There can be no secrets in a travelling company of five persons between whom there is seldom more than a canvas partition. Diane did not stop crying, and Jean still knelt on the ground looking at her. Presently he glanced up at François’ grinning face, and cried: “François, because you never loved a woman, you don’t know what it means, to see her wretched and foolish and crying her eyes out for a worthless dog, as Diane is doing now.” “True, true, true!” laughed François, “I have done many foolish things in my life, but I never intend to love any woman, especially Diane. Ha, ha! Here, take this stage dagger and kill yourselves like a couple of lovers in grand opera. It is not much of a weapon, but it will do the job. It is the only way out of a three-cornered love affair.” “François, you are so unfeeling,” said Diane, angrily, and drying her eyes. As the stage dagger came clattering over the canvas, François got down off his bucket on the other side. “Never loved a woman!” muttered François to himself. He had a habit common to imaginative persons, of talking to himself when he was under a great stress. “There they go off together. I wonder if they have taken the dagger with them.” He sat motionless, gazing into the dingy little unframed mirror hung against the canvas, apparently fascinated by the glare in his own eyes. “Don’t stand on that bucket again, François, my man,” he said to himself between his clenched teeth. “If the dagger is on the floor— It is a clumsy thing, a blunt and horrid weapon to use on one’s self.” In vain he tried to hold himself by his own glance into the mirror, as one man tries to cow another by his gaze. He backed away until his foot struck the overturned bucket; then he jumped up and glanced over into Diane’s dressing- room. No, there was no dagger on the floor; there was nothing but the box, which was locked, and a bit of a mirror, a towel and soap, and a comb and brush. As François looked, his eyes lost their wild expression. He breathed freely like a man released from the grip of a wild beast. He even laughed, and in his excess of relief, turned a double somersault on the floor, and putting on his shabby coat and shabbier hat, went off whistling gaily. As he came out of the narrow, black alley entrance which did duty for a stage entrance, he saw the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel stepping across the street toward the Hotel Metropole. He had gone through his usual performance of watching Diane go home. “Halloo! my dear Egmont of the Holy Angels,” cried François, “I will take supper with you to-night if you will ask me, or if you will pay for the supper, I won’t even stand on the asking.” “Come along, then,” answered the Marquis. He was willing to pay for François’ supper in order to talk about Diane. The Marquis got a table in an alcove of the pavilion so he could talk freely. The contrast between the two men was extreme—the Marquis, in his splendid dragoon uniform, for he had just come from a reception at the house of the general commanding, and François in his shabby clothes. The waiters, who knew that François was a juggler at a cheap place, nevertheless treated him with an odd kind of respect due to a note of command which his voice had never wholly lost. “I had to go to a dull reception at the house of the general,” said the Marquis when he and François were seated at a little table, “and got away as soon as I could. What a bore are those pink and white girls, clinging to their mothers’ skirts and as ignorant as children! They are quite colorless after Mademoiselle Diane.” [37] [38] [39] [40] [41] “Diane isn’t ignorant. She could not well be,” replied François, sipping his wine. “But in mind she has an eternal innocence. There is a great difference between the two things—ignorance and innocence.” “I don’t know about that,” replied the Marquis, whose mind was low, and who was not so intelligent as François. “That capricious little music hall devil has given me more trouble to bring around to my way of thinking than half the girls I have met to-night. But she keeps me dancing after her, damn her, the little darling!” François laughed at this, and laughed still more when the Marquis inquired anxiously: “I think it is that great, hulking fellow who sings and dances with her that frightens her. Perhaps she is in love with him; women are such crazy creatures!” “Oh, no,” cried François, beginning to attack the supper which the waiter had brought, “Diane is not in love with Jean, nor with me either, strange to say, although I was born both handsome and rich.” The Marquis pushed his chair back a little, and the waiter being out of hearing, brought his fist down on the table. “The infernal, proud, presumptuous little devil probably thinks she can marry me! Very well, let us see who will beat at that game. Just look at this impudent note she wrote me.” The Marquis tore from his breast Diane’s cool little note, the only one he had ever had from her. “She doesn’t go out to supper after the performance. She remains with Monsieur and Madame Grandin, her friends.” The Marquis howled with laughter at this, and then kept on. “And she a singer and dancer in the cheapest music hall in this dull old town of Bienville! Oh, she has got it into her silly head that by holding off she can become a marquise, but she won’t.” “But you are carrying around her note in your breast pocket,” suggested François. “Oh, yes, I am fool enough for that,” calmly admitted the Marquis, putting the note back in his breast pocket and drawing his chair up to the table. “I can feel it, I can feel it there, although it is only a bit of paper. Who was her father, François?” “The village hatter,” replied François, “like the father of Adrienne Lecouvreur. That was her prosperous period, when she enjoyed the advantages of a polite education at the village school. Then her parents died, and she was taken to the house of an uncle who owned three acres of ground, and Diane worked in the cabbage garden and tended geese.” “And where did she learn to sing, and all those devlish, captivating little ways of hers on the stage?” “From Nature, the mighty mother of us all. She took some singing lessons from the village teacher, and used to sing at country fairs after she was sixteen. Then, a couple of years ago, we found her and took her into our company. Singing on the stage was taught her by Jean Leroux, her partner, and I taught her something of acting and little stage tricks, but I must say she was a very apt pupil. She has got it into her head to go to Paris and study for the grand opera, but she has no grand opera voice, and has two hundred and sixty-six francs to pay her expenses.” For Diane had palmed off the grand opera story on François as well as on Jean, when really her mind was set upon a big music hall. “Everything that you tell me,” said the Marquis, “shows how admirably unfitted this wide mouthed, skinny girl is to become the Marquise Egmont de St. Angel.” “You have hit upon her name,” cried François, laughing, “for we call her Skinny. Our little Skinny a marquise! And your title is worth at least two million francs in the open market. As for yourself, I may, with the frankness of a relative, say you would be dear at two hundred francs.” “Has anybody ever told you that you were extremely impudent, M. le Bourgeois, as you call yourself?” “Occasionally,” replied François. “Here, waiter.” The waiter came from a distance. “Take this chicken away,” said François,—“it was hatched during the First Empire, I think,—and bring us one that isn’t old enough for military service.” The Marquis rambled on, admiring and cursing Diane all through the supper. When François got home an hour later and passed Diane’s door, he saw a thread of light under it, and the door opened gently, showing Diane’s pale, dispirited face. She knew well enough where François had been; nobody except the Marquis had so far asked him to supper. “Yes,” said François in a whisper, answering the question in poor Diane’s eyes, “I have been to supper with him. It always raises me in my own esteem, for I see that I, François le Bourgeois, born in a chateau, and now juggler and acrobat when I am sober enough, am a far more respectable character than the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel; he has no more brains than my shoe, and is the handsomest young officer I ever saw. I am ashamed of him as a relative.” Diane slammed the door angrily in François’ face. The days and the weeks crept on, and the performances in the ex-furniture shop maintained and even increased their popularity. Diane could have had supper every evening with an officer or with a young advocate or any of the gay dogs who are found in every town, but Diane, being a shrewd little person, concluded that it was worth more as an advertisement to decline these offers than to accept them. Soon it became the subject of numerous wagers among the gilded youth of Bienville as t...