Mademoiselle Blanche

"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 protégée 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 Dumény 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."

Tate laughed softly. "You'll die from worrying about other people."

"What are they doing now?" Mrs. Tate asked, turning her eyes to the ring. "I suppose that rope they're letting down is for her to climb up on, and that's the net she'll fall into. How gracefully that trapeze swings! I feel quite excited. Every one else is too. Can't you see it in their faces? There must be thousands of people here. How strange they look! Such coarse faces."

"It's the great British middle class. This is just the kind of thing they like."

"It reminds me of pictures of the Colosseum. I can almost fancy their turning their thumbs down. Here she comes. How light she is on her feet! And isn't she pretty! But she looks awfully thin and delicate, and she's as pale as a ghost."

"You'll attract all the people round us. Of course she's pale. She's probably powdered up to the eyes, like the women we used to see in Paris."

"How lightly she goes up that rope," Mrs. Tate whispered, "and what wonderful arms she has! Just like a man's. They look as if they didn't belong to her body."

Silently and dexterously Blanche reached the main trapeze, and for a moment she sat there, with her arms crooked against the rope on either side, and rubbing her hands. For the first time during her career she was terrified in the ring. She had hoped that as soon as she resumed her work the terror she had felt since Jeanne's birth would pass away. Now, however, it made her so weak that she feared she was going to fall.

She was thinking of the child as she had seen her crowing in the crib. If anything should happen to her she might never see Jeanne again. She was vaguely conscious of the vast mass of people below her, waiting for her to move. She took a long breath and nerved herself for the start, before making her spring to the trapeze below; she must have courage for the sake of the little Jeanne, she said to herself. Mechanically she began to sway forward and backward; then she shot into the air, and with a sensation of surprise and delight she continued her performance.

Mrs. Tate watched her with an expression of mingled fear, interest, and pleasure in her face.

"Isn't she the most wonderful creature you ever saw, Percy?" she cried, clutching her husband's arm. "It's horrible, yet I can't help looking. Suppose she should fall!"

"She'd merely drop into the net. There's nothing very dangerous about what she's doing now. Keep still."

"I never saw anything more graceful. She is grace itself, isn't she? See how her hair flies; I should think it would get into her eyes and blind her. I shall speak to her about that when I see her. I shall certainly go to see her."

In a round of applause, Blanche finished her performance on the trapeze and then began her posing on the rope, whirling slowly, with a rhythmic succession of motions to the net. Then Jules, in evening dress, with a large diamond gleaming in his shirt-front, stepped out on the net, and for an instant they conferred together. Suddenly she clapped her hands, bounded on the rope again, and while Jules held it to steady her motion, she climbed hand over hand to the top of the building. There she sat, looking in the distance like a white bird ready to take flight, her dark hair streaming around her head.

"I feel as if I were going to faint," Mrs. Tate whispered.

Her husband glanced at her quickly. "Yes, you'd better – in this crowd. A fine panic you'd create! Want to go out?"

She seemed to pull herself together. "No, I think I shall be able to bear it. If I can't, I'll look away. What's that he's saying? What horrible English he speaks! I can't understand a word. Oh!" she gasped, clutching her husband by one arm and holding him firmly as Blanche dropped backward and whirled through the air; and this exclamation she repeated in a tone of horrified relief when the girl struck the net, bounded into the air again, and landed on her feet.

They rose with the applauding crowd and started to leave the place. "In my opinion," said Mrs. Tate, clinging to her husband's arm and drawing her wrap closely around her, "in my opinion such exhibitions are outrageous. There ought to be a law against them. Think of that poor little creature going through that every night. Of course she'll be killed sometime. I wonder if she's afraid. I should think she'd expect every night to be her last."

"What nonsense you're talking. Of course those people don't feel like that. If they did they'd never go into the business. It's second nature to them."

"But they're human just like the rest of us, and that woman is a mother," Mrs. Tate insisted. "Don't you suppose she thinks of her baby before she makes that terrible dive? It's a shame that her husband should allow her to do it."

"There you are, trying to regulate the affairs of the world again. Why don't you let people alone? They'd be a good deal happier, and so would you. Her husband probably likes to have her do it."