Mademoiselle Blanche: A Novel

by John D. Barry

As he did not reply, she said: "It's about—about my plunge. I have been thinking that I'm—I'm so much better now—I mean I'm not so nervous—perhaps I can begin it again."

He sat up on the couch, a light coming into his eyes. For a moment he was too surprised to speak. Then he said: "Well, I'm glad you're coming to your senses!"

Encouraged by the change in his manner, she repeated what Dr. Broughton had said to Mrs. Tate. At the mention of the names, Jules' face darkened; since that night at the Tates' he had felt a personal resentment against the Doctor, almost as strong as his hatred of the Englishwoman.

"So that woman's been here again today, has she?" he said bitterly. After a brief silence, he added more gently: "If you feel able to do the plunge again, the sooner you begin the better. I know that Marshall will be glad enough to renew the old contract. It will just fit in with his plans," he continued, with a grim thought of the diver's discomfiture on being superseded by Blanche. "I'll speak to him this very night."

Blanche tried to smile, but the effort ended in a sigh. She had thought that Jules would show more enthusiasm.

"But we can't have any more nonsense," he said, glancing at her again,—this time, however, without the bitterness she had before observed in his face. "If you allow yourself to be afraid of the plunge again, it will simply ruin you as an attraction. It'll make the managers think you're unreliable, and they won't engage you."

In spite of his apparent indifference, Jules was secretly delighted at the thought of his wife's resuming her great dive. For the past few days he had never felt so keenly the humiliation of his own position. A petulant remark of Lottie King's the day of their quarrel had kept ringing in his ears: "What do you amount to anyway?" Now he thought triumphantly of the restoration of his own dignity. With Blanche as the star attraction of the Hippodrome, earning a large salary, and with a choice of offers from all over the world, he would become a personage again! But he must guard her more carefully. He must in future keep her out of the way of interfering foreigners like Mrs. Tate, who would put a lot of nonsense into her head!

That night, when Jules consulted Marshall, he learned what he had already surmised, that the manager was much upset by Miss King's refusal to extend her engagement on any but exorbitant terms, and though it would be completed in two weeks, he had not as yet found a sufficiently strong attraction to take her place; so he was not only willing, but glad, to renew with Blanche the contract she had at first made with him. Jules felt the more elated on being told that Miss King had not been nearly so good an attraction as his wife while giving the sensational plunge. He was in high spirits when he entered Blanche's dressing-room and told her the news. Blanche flushed with pleasure, not merely at the news, but at his affectionate manner as well; Madeleine, however, though she said nothing, seemed depressed. She had hoped that the poor child would never make that horrible dive again.

After that night Blanche was so happy that she seemed like another creature from the thin, white-faced little woman of the past few weeks. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. Jules had been so different with her, she said to Mrs. Tate, since she had told him she would go on with the plunge. The night before he had taken her to the Hippodrome, and after the performance they had gone with Madeleine to a café; it reminded them of the days of their courtship in Paris.

The two weeks that followed were the happiest Blanche had known since those first days after the birth of her child. Jules' devotion extended not only to her, but to little Jeanne and to Madeleine as well. For several days the gloom that had wrapped the city during most of the winter lifted; the sun shone, and the feeling of spring was in the air. In the afternoons Blanche took walks with Jules in the park, and on Sunday they went to mass together and then drove out to Richmond and dined there. They agreed to pretend that they were still in their days of courtship, and Jules delighted Blanche by repeating some of the foolish speeches he had made to her in the first weeks of their love.