Gaston went to his apartments, and cheerily summoned Jacques.
“Now, little man, for a holiday! The menagerie: lions, leopards, and a grand dompteuse; and afterwards dinner with me at the Cafe Blanche. I want a blow-out of lions and that sort. I’d like to be a lion-tamer myself for a month, or as long as might be.”
He caught Jacques by the shoulders—he had not done so since that memorable day at Ridley Court. “See, Jacques, we’ll do this every year. Six months in England, and three months on the Continent,—in your France, if you like,—and three months in the out-of-the-wayest place, where there’ll be big game. Hidalgos for six months, Goths for the rest.”
A half-hour later they were in the menagerie. They sat near the doors where the performers entered. For a long time they watched the performance with delight, clapping and calling bravo like boys. Presently the famous dompteuse entered,—Mademoiselle Victorine,—passing just below Gaston. He looked down, interested, at the supple, lithe creature making for the cages of lions in the amphitheatre. The figure struck him as familiar. Presently the girl turned, throwing a glance round the theatre. He caught the dash of the dark, piercing eyes, the luminous look, the face unpainted—in its own natural colour: neither hot health nor paleness, but a thing to bear the light of day. “Andree the gipsy!” he exclaimed in a low tone.
In less than two years this! Here was fame. A wanderer, an Ishmael then, her handful of household goods and her father in the grasp of the Law: to-day, Mademoiselle Victorine, queen of animal-tamers! And her name associated with the Comte Ploare!
With the Comte Ploare? Had it come to that? He remembered the look in her face when he bade her good-bye. Impossible! Then, immediately he laughed.
Why impossible? And why should he bother his head about it? People of this sort: Mademoiselle Cerise, Madame Juliette, Mademoiselle Victorine—what were they to him, or to themselves?
There flashed through his brain three pictures: when he stood by the bedside of the old dying Esquimaux in Labrador, and took a girl’s hand in his; when among the flowers at Peppingham he heard Delia say: “Oh, Gaston! Gaston!” and Alice’s face at midnight in the moonlit window at Ridley Court.
How strange this figure—spangled, gaudy, standing among her lions—seemed by these. To think of her, his veins thumping thus, was an insult to all three: to Delia, one unpardonable. And yet he could not take his eyes off her. Her performance was splendid. He was interested, speculative. She certainly had flown high; for, again, why should not a dompteuse be a decent woman? And here were money, fame of a kind, and an occupation that sent his blood bounding. A dompteur! He had tamed moose, and young mountain lions, and a catamount, and had had mad hours with pumas and arctic bears; and he could understand how even he might easily pass from M.P. to dompteur. It was not intellectual, but it was power of a kind; and it was decent, and healthy, and infinitely better than playing the Jew in business, or keeping a tavern, or “shaving” notes, and all that. Truly, the woman was to be admired, for she was earning an honest living; and no doubt they lied when they named her with Count Ploare. He kept coming back to that—Count Ploare! Why could they not leave these women alone? Did they think none of them virtuous? He would stake his life that Andree—he would call her that—was as straight as the sun.
“What do you think of her, Jacques?” he said suddenly.