Mademoiselle Blanche: A Novel

by John D. Barry

"Good Heavens, child, what has happened to you! You're whiter than ever, and so thin! What have you been doing to yourself? Have you had an illness?"

Blanche shook her head. "No, I haven't been ill," she replied, but her looks and her manner seemed to belie her words. The gray cloth dress which had once fitted her tightly now hung loosely about her; her face was drawn and of a chalklike pallor, and under the eyes were two black lines betraying weeks of suffering and sleeplessness.

"You were thin enough before I went away," said Mrs. Tate, "but now you're a perfect spectre."

Then she went on to explain how she had happened to desert her friends for so long a time. "I know you have something to tell me," she said, starting from her seat, "but before you begin I want to see Jeanne. How is she? But first tell me how you happened to come way up here. Isn't it a long distance for you to climb after your performance every night?"

"Jules chose these rooms because they were so much cheaper than the hotel," Blanche replied simply. "We prepare our own meals, too, and we save in that way. You know my salary is so much smaller than it used to be."

Mrs. Tate made no comment, and they went into the other room, where Jeanne was sleeping in the crib.

"She sleeps nearly all the time," said Blanche, with a faint smile that seemed to exaggerate the expression of pain and weariness in her face.

"How big she's growing!" Mrs. Tate whispered. "There's certainly nothing the matter with her, the dear little thing, with her fat rosy cheeks. I'd just like to take her in my arms and hug her."

For several minutes they stood talking about the child; then they left her with Madeleine and went back to the drawing-room, which Mrs. Tate's keen eyes discovered was used also as a bedroom. "They must be economizing with a vengeance," she thought. Blanche closed the door, and took a seat behind her visitor on the couch.

"Now I want to hear all about it," Mrs. Tate cried. "Something has happened. What is it?" She took both of Blanche's hands and looked into her eyes. "What is it?" she repeated.