"I couldn't help wondering last night," he said briskly, "when I saw Mademoiselle perform, how she felt just before she took that plunge. How do you feel, Mademoiselle? Aren't you frightened, just a little?"
The girl shook her head. "I have done it for so many years, I don't think of being afraid. My father taught me never to have the least fear. He wouldn't have been killed if the trapeze hadn't broken."
"And we take every precaution," Madame Perrault quickly explained.
Durand began to ask questions about the various cities Mademoiselle had visited. Most of the replies came from Madame Perrault, who seemed to have constituted herself her daughter's mouthpiece. Which audiences did she like best to play to? The Germans! Durand shook his head. He wouldn't dare to say that in a French paper. It might make Mademoiselle unpopular with the Parisians. Ah, but Mademoiselle liked the Parisians, too. Didn't she find them very enthusiastic? No? That was simply because they were thrilled, overcome, silenced by her performance. Durand grew excited in extolling the merits of Parisian audiences. For their favorites they would do anything, and Mademoiselle was fast becoming one of the most popular of their favorites. Of course they had their peculiarities. When a performer vexed them, there were no limits to their wrath. Had Mademoiselle heard of the attack on Sophie Lenoir at the Ambassadeurs? The audience had thrown at her everything they could lay hands on, and she had fainted, or pretended to faint, on the stage.
Indeed, much of the conversation was supplied by the journalist himself. He had apparently abandoned hope of making the acrobat talk; so he addressed most of his speeches to the mother, whom he drew out by many artful devices. Mademoiselle Blanche sat looking on in open-eyed surprise, as if she did not have a share in the matters under discussion. Occasionally she would glance appealingly at Jules; when he looked back, she would blush and turn her head away.
While Durand was in the middle of one of his stories, Madame Perrault drew a small gold watch from her pocket. The journalist jumped from his chair.
"We are keeping Mademoiselle from dressing," he said, as Jules rose, too. "A thousand pardons. We will go in just a moment. There's only one more question. That is about your presents, Mademoiselle, your gifts."
"My gifts?" the acrobat repeated vaguely.
"Yes, from the princes, the crowned heads you've appeared before."
"Ah!" the mother exclaimed, in a long breath, "Blanche has received so many! There was the brooch from the Emperor of Russia, and the ring from the Prince of Roumania, a costly diamond, monsieur, so clear and beautiful, and the little gold watch studded with pearls from the King of Bavaria, the 'mad King' they call him, you know—and then—then the bracelet set with rubies from the Duchess of Merlino, when Blanche was in Bucharest. Ah, but we have none of these here. They are all at home, they—"