"I don't believe it. It's a——"
"There's one way, of course, of proving whether you're right or not," Tate interrupted, with a quizzical smile.
"What's that?"
"If your theory is correct, the only thing for Madame Le Baron to do is to go back to her performance. Then she'll meet her rival on her own ground. From what I've read about that other performer, Madame Le Baron's dive must be twice as difficult and twice as thrilling as hers."
Mrs. Tate turned to her husband with a look of admiration, her breath coming and going in quick gasps. "Percy, that's the wisest thing you've ever said in your life." A moment later she added, with a change of tone: "But isn't the whole thing too absurd?"
He started to go upstairs. "You know we're due at the Bigelows in an hour?"
"Wait a minute," said Mrs. Tate. "I want to think over what you said. You can't imagine how this thing has worried me. It's all due to my meddling. Oh, I know that; you needn't say anything to me about it. But I'm determined to help that poor woman if I can. Oh, if I had only followed your advice, and let them alone!" she moaned.
"There's no use worrying now. The mischief's done. He would probably have got tired of her anyway."
"If something isn't done to bring him back to her," she went on without heeding his remark, "it will kill her. I'm sure of that. If you could only see her. She looks like a ghost, and her hands tremble so! I don't believe she's slept a wink for weeks. I don't see how she gets through her performances. A clinging creature like her just lives on affection. Before she was married she always had her mother to take care of her. To think that that man should treat her so! Oh, it's a shame, it's a shame!"
Tate was standing at the door. "If she's going to kill herself over that fellow, she might as well have gone on with her diving and killed herself that way. You ask her if she doesn't want to go back to it," he added, with the quizzical smile, "and see if she won't jump at the chance."