Mademoiselle Blanche

After the departure of Madeleine, Jules would have found his apartment cheerless, if he had not used it merely for sleeping. As soon as he rose in the morning, he went to Madame Perrault's, where he breakfasted with Mademoiselle Blanche. In spite of her duties elsewhere, Madeleine kept his rooms in order, and his new domestic arrangements did not in the least inconvenience him. Indeed, he liked them, and he almost dreaded the return of Mademoiselle's mother. This would probably not take place for several weeks, however, for the illness of her aunt Sophie proved to be very tedious, though after the first ten days she was pronounced out of danger. Madeleine had speedily won the affections of Mademoiselle Blanche, and she secretly confided to Jules that the girl was an angel.

"I knew you'd think so," Jules replied. "I've thought so ever since I first saw her."

"Ah, but it's wicked that she should have to do those dreadful things every night!" Madeleine cried, rolling her eyes, and throwing up her hands in horror. "It freezes my blood."

"But she likes it," Jules explained.

"Ah, it's wicked just the same, the poor child!"

Madeleine had speedily adapted herself to her duties as dresser to Mademoiselle Blanche, and her nightly trips to the theatre were the most exciting experiences of her life. After seeing the plunge from the top of the Circus, however, she had refused to look at it again. "It freezes my blood," she would repeat, whenever Jules referred to it. "It's too horrible!"

"But she makes a lot of money by it," Jules insisted.

"She would do much better to stay poor," Madeleine replied, with a tartness that was rare with her and made Jules burst out laughing.

"Madeleine," he said, confidentially. "Madeleine, come over here."

Madeleine bent her head towards him with a smile on her face.

"Madeleine, do you think there's any one – any one that she cares about particularly – any one you know? Eh?"

Madeleine's wrinkles deepened, as the smile spread over her face and lighted her faded eyes.

"Ah, Monsieur Jules, she is very fond of her sisters. She is always talking about them, especially about la petite Jeanne. Then she's very fond of her mamma, too, of course."

"Madeleine, you're trying to plague me now. You know I don't mean that. I mean any – any – ?"

"Any gentleman, Monsieur Jules?" the old woman asked.

"Yes, Madeleine, any gentleman."

Madeleine grew thoughtful.

"She often speaks of Monsieur Berthier, who is going to marry her mother. She says he's very kind to her sisters."

"And is that all, Madeleine? Doesn't she speak of any one else? Doesn't she ever speak of – of me?"

"Oh, yes, Monsieur Jules, she thinks you've been very good to her and her mother. She often speaks of that."

This was all the information that Jules could extract from Madeleine. On several occasions he tried her again, but though she seemed amused by his questions, she evaded them. Once he said to her:

"Madeleine, how would you like to go away with me – to travel – a long distance?"

Madeleine carefully considered the question. Then she replied simply:

"I should not like to leave Paris, Monsieur Jules, but, if you wanted me to go, I would go."

After that, Madeleine was less worried. She had little to say, and, like most silent people, she observed and thought a great deal. For Mademoiselle Blanche she had conceived a genuine affection, and she looked forward with regret to the time when she would have to leave the rue St. Honoré for Jules' lonely apartment.

One Saturday night, on their return from the Circus, Jules asked Mademoiselle Blanche if she were going to high mass the next day as usual. He was surprised when she replied that she was going at eight o'clock instead.

"But that is too early," he said. "You won't have sleep enough."

"I'm going to communion," she explained.

"Oh!"

He could not understand why this announcement should impress him as it did. He had supposed that of course she went to communion; she had probably gone to confession early in the afternoon before the matinée. Once again he felt awed by her goodness. How strange it was that she should be in the confessional at three o'clock, and two hours later perform in her fleshings before a crowd of people! The very publicity of her life seemed to exalt the simplicity and the purity of her character.

Jules was so absorbed in thinking of these things that he did not speak again till the cab reached the rue St. Honoré. Then, as he helped Mademoiselle out, he said:

"I'll go to church with you to-morrow, if you will let me. You won't leave before half-past seven, will you?"

She protested that he ought not to get up so early; he needed a good night's rest after his hard work of the week. But he laughed and waved his hand to her in parting, and told her not to wait for him after a quarter to eight; now that he didn't have Madeleine to call him, he might not wake up in time.

He was in time, however, and as he walked to church in the cold December air with Mademoiselle by his side, he felt repaid for his sacrifice. She wore a tight-fitting fur coat and a black cloth dress, with the little fur-trimmed hat he had admired when he first walked with her in the Champs Élysées. Her face was protected by a thick dotted veil, but under it he could see her sparkling eyes and the color in her cheeks.

"I'm paying you a very great compliment," he said, as they hurried along towards St. Philippe de Roule. "I haven't got up so early on a Sunday since I was a boy."

She smiled in reply; it was too cold for her to speak. He could see her breath steaming faintly through the veil.

He felt a curious desire to hear her voice again; he did not realize that her devotion to the Church made her seem more remote from him, but he had an unpleasant consciousness that his own lack of religious faith created a barrier between them.

In the church he kept glancing from the priest celebrating the mass, to her. She was absorbed in reading her prayer-book, and she did not once look up at him. He compared her as she appeared then with her appearance in the glamor of the circus ring. She was the same person, yet different. She represented to him a kind of miracle. How humble she was, how sweet and good, as she knelt there!

When the priest began to distribute the communion and Blanche left her seat and joined the throng approaching the altar, Jules was touched with a tenderness he had never felt before. He buried his face in his hands, and prayed that he might be made worthy of her. He did not dare pray for her love; a certain sense of shame at having neglected God and church for so many years, at having lived solely for his own gratification, kept him from that; but if he had examined his motives, he would have found that this was really what he was praying for. He deceived himself so easily that he instinctively felt that he might be able to deceive God too.

On leaving the church, Jules proposed that they go to a restaurant for breakfast. "We'll make a holiday of it," he said, "and drink to your Aunt Sophie's health."

But Blanche protested that Madeleine would expect them, and would be worried if she were not back by half-past nine.

"Then we'll go out at one o'clock. I'll take you over to Bertiny's, in the Champs Élysées. It's very gorgeous; the twins took me there once to celebrate Dufresne's luck when he won five hundred francs at the races."

Though the sun was shining, it was still very cold, and as they hurried to the little apartment Jules could see that she was trembling. Madeleine had prepared some hot coffee for them and some eggs, and over these they were very gay. Jules was in a particularly good humor, and Mademoiselle Blanche laughed at his jokes, though most of them she had heard before. She had a very pretty laugh, he thought, – like her mother's, though not so deep and gurgling. After breakfast her face flushed from her walk and she looked even prettier than she appeared in the church.

As Madeleine cleared away the table, Blanche began to water the flowers by the window, and Jules opened the copy of the Petit Journal that he had bought on the way from the church. He kept glancing up at Mademoiselle, however, and each time he looked at her he had a new sensation of pleasure. How domestic she looked in the little dress of gray wool that she had put on after her return from mass! She seemed to create an atmosphere of home around her. In her belt were the roses he had given her the night before, still fresh and sparkling with drops of water from her fingers. How good it was, he thought, that he could be with her like this! How lonely his own apartment would be to him when Madame Perrault came back! He almost wished that she would never return, that she would marry Monsieur Berthier, and they might go on in this way forever. He laughed at the thought, and just then Mademoiselle turned her head.

"Monsieur seems to be amused," she said. "What is he smiling at?"

"I'm smiling because I'm so happy," Jules replied. "Don't you smile when you're happy?"

She took a seat by the table, where she rested one hand.

"No, I don't think I do," she said, apparently giving the question serious consideration. "When I am very happy I look serious. Then mamma sometimes fancies I feel sad."

He took a cigarette-case from his pocket and began to smoke.

"Do you know," he said at last, "I shall be sorry when your mother returns?"