With a sigh, Bobby, out of his ignorance and independence, took the only possible course to preserve peace, and emphatically told Signor Ricardo to pack up and go as quickly as possible, which he went away vowing to do. Naturally the great tenor thought better of it after that, and though he had already been dropped from the cast of Il Trovatore on Saturday afternoon, he reported just the same. And he went on with the company.
It was not until they went upon the road, however, that Bobby fully realized what a lot of irresponsible, fretful, peevish children he had upon his hands. With the exception of serene Nora McGinnis, every one of the principals was at daggers drawn with all the others, sulking over the least advantage obtained by any one else, and accepting advantage of their own as only a partial payment of their supreme rank. The one most at war with her own world was Madam Villenauve, whose especial bête noire was the MeeGeenees, whom, by no possibility, could she ever under any circumstance be induced to call Caravaggio.
On the second day of their next engagement, as Bobby strode through the corridor of the hotel, shortly after luncheon, he was stopped by Madam Villenauve, who had been waiting for him in the door of her room. She was herself apparently just dressing to go out, for her coiffure was made and she had on a short underskirt, a kimono-like dressing-jacket and her street shoes.
“I wish to speak wiz you on some beezness, Meester Burnit,” she told him abruptly, and with an imperatively beckoning hand stepped back with a bow for him to enter.
With just a moment of surprised hesitation he stepped into the room, whereupon the Villenauve promptly closed the door. A week before Bobby would have been a trifle astonished by this proceeding, but in that week he had seen so many examples of unconscious unconventionalities in and about the dressing-rooms and at the hotel, that he had readjusted his point of view to meet the peculiar way of life of these people, and, as usual with readjustments, had readjusted himself too far. He found the room in a litter, with garments of all sorts cast about in reckless disorder.
“I have been seeing you last night,” began Madam Villenauve, shaking her finger at him archly as she swept some skirts off a chair for him to sit down, and then took her place before her dressing-table, where she added the last deft touch to her coiffure. “I have been seeing you smiling at ze reedeec’lous Carmen. Oh, la, la! Carmen!” she shrilled. “It is I, monsieur, I zat am ze Carmen. It was zis Matteo, the scoundrel who run away wiz our money, zat allow le Ricardo to say whom he like to sing to for Carmen. Ricardo ees in loaf wiz la MeeGeenees. Le Ricardo is a fool, so zis Ricardo sing Carmen ever tam to ze great, grosse monstair MeeGeenees; an’ ever’body zey laugh. Ze chorus laugh, ze principals laugh, le Monsieur Noire he laugh, even zat Frühlingsvogel zat have no humair, he laugh, an’ ze audience laugh, an’ las’ night I am seeing you laugh. Ees eet not so? Mais! It is absurd! It is reedeec’lous. Le Ricardo make fool over la MeeGeenees. I sing ze Carmen! I am ze Carmen! You hear me sing Aïda? Eet ees zat way. I sing Carmen. Now I s’all sing Carmen again! Ees eet not?”
As Madam Villenauve talked, punctuating her remarks with quick, impatient little gestures, she jerked off her dressing-jacket and threw it on the floor, and Bobby saved himself from panic by reminding himself that her frank anatomical display was, in the peculiar ethics of these people, no more to be noticed than if she were in an evening gown, which was very reasonable, after all, once you understood the code. Still voicing her indignation at having been displaced in the role of Carmen by the utterly impossible and preposterous Caravaggio, she caught up her waist and was about to slip it on, while Bobby, with an amused smile, reflected that presently he would no doubt be nonchalantly requested to hook it in the back, when some one tried the door-knob. A knock followed and Madam Villenauve went to the door.
“Who ees it?” she asked with her hand on the knob.
“It is I; Monsieur Noire,” was the reply.
“Oh, la, come in, zen,” she invited, and threw open the door.