Mademoiselle Blanche: A Novel

by John D. Barry

"No. I should like to go home for Christmas to be with my sisters. But they will come to Paris instead."

"But doesn't it tire you?"

"No. It isn't hard. And I never like to stop. I must keep in practice."

For an instant Jules was touched by a curious sympathy. There certainly was something pathetic, even abnormal, in the thought that this frail woman hurled herself six days in the week from the top of a building. Then he was thrilled again by the marvel of it, by the consciousness that he was sitting opposite the phenomenon, gazing into her eyes, hearing her voice, receiving her smiles. He could think of nothing to say, but he felt quite happy; he would have liked to sit there for hours in mute admiration. Mademoiselle Blanche, however, looked confused; she seemed to be shaping something in her mind.

"It was very kind of you to send the flowers," she said at last. "I would have thanked you before if I had known where you lived. They were very lovely."

His face shone with pleasure at the thought that she had recognized him as the sender, and he leaned toward her. "You needn't thank me," he said. "I felt repaid when I saw them in your belt."

Then he told her how he had gone to the circus every night just to see her; how he admired her performance, her grace and skill on the trapeze, her courage in making the great plunge. As he spoke, her face kept changing colour. She seemed to him like a bashful child, and he marvelled at her ingenuousness, for surely she must be used to praise. Then he recalled what Durand had said about her affectation of modesty, and he wondered if the journalist could have been right; but when he looked into the girl's clear eyes he saw nothing but beauty and truth.

When he had finished speaking of her performance, he began to talk about himself, his favourite topic with women. He told her about his visit in the United States, and he made fun of the Americans for drinking water instead of wine at table, and for many other customs that had amused him because they were so unlike the ways of Parisians. He also imitated the speech of some of the Americans he had known, and he was surprised to find that she understood what he said. She had learned English from her father, she explained; he had often performed in London, and she had been there with him twice. Then he began to speak with her in English to display his accomplishment, and he felt disappointed on discovering that she could converse quite as fluently, and with a better accent. So he returned to French, and told her about his life in Paris, his dear old Madeleine who kept him so comfortable in his little apartment, his work at the office, and about Dufresne and Leroux. She showed no surprise when he revealed Durand's duplicity; she merely said that she hadn't liked the journalist, and her mother had been vexed by the article. She seemed so interested that he went back to his early days, before the death of his father and mother, described his life at the lycée, his love of sport, his passion for the circus, his boyish adventures at Montmartre, his happy days in summer at Compiègne, his mother's goodness and her foolish pride in him. He was so unconscious in his egotism that it was touching to hear him; Mademoiselle Blanche seemed to be unconscious of it, too, for she listened with a serious, absorbed attention. While he was in the midst of an analysis of his own qualities, the little clock on the mantel struck four and Mademoiselle Blanche looked up quickly.

"Mamma will be here very soon now," she said.

Jules felt a sudden irritation. At that moment the coming of Madame Perrault seemed like an intrusion. The reference to it had the effect of stopping his confidences; it was as if she had already appeared in the room. He rose from his seat, and began to examine the photographs on the mantel. Then he took up one of them, a large photograph of a man of more than fifty, with a white pointed beard, a shock of iron-grey hair, and laughing eyes.