That was how Jules first happened to go to church with Mademoiselle Blanche. After mass they walked up the Champs Élysées and then along the avenue du Bois de Boulogne, in the midst of the multitude of promenaders. A few of the men recognized the girl, and turned to look after her. She seemed not to see them, but Jules did, and he felt very proud to be her escort. She looked very pretty in her tight-fitting black jacket and little hat tipped with fur, her cheeks scarlet with the early frost. She was the last person in the crowd, Jules thought, who would be taken for an acrobat. It seemed to him wonderful that she should appear so unlike the marvel that she was, and this lack of resemblance to herself made her the more attractive to him.
After that day, Jules went to church with Mademoiselle Blanche every Sunday. At first the sight of the priests in their vestments, of the altar-boys in their white surplices, of the white altar gleaming with candles and plate and enshrouded in incense, and the reverberation of the organ, mingled with the voices singing the music of the mass, all reminded him so strongly of his mother, that his old affection for her swept over him, and brought tears to his eyes.
His own disbelief had made him doubt even the faith of others. It had also inspired him with the hatred for priests, so common even among Parisians of traditions like his own. Now, as he watched them, chanting at the altar, they seemed harmless as other men. He tried, as he went mechanically through the service, to count the men he knew who went to church. Nearly all of his acquaintances, he found, scoffed at it. Then gradually the service became subtly mingled with his love for the girl beside him, and for her sake he loved it. The organ seemed to sing her praise exultingly. He would have liked to tell her of this fancy, but he did not dare; he knew it would shock her. In a short time, going through the mass with her grew to mean to him an expression of his love, a spiritual exaltation which he offered as a tribute, not to God, but to her.
VII
By the month of November, Jules had identified himself with Madame Perrault and her daughter. He took his position as their friend and recognized escort so quickly and so quietly that he was himself surprised by it. There were moments when he had a fear that it was all an illusion, that some night he should find the stage-door of the Cirque slammed in his face.
It was while watching Mademoiselle Blanche in the ring that he found it most difficult to realize his happiness. He actually knew this wonderful creature in white tights who darted from trapeze to trapeze, who posed like a marble statue on the rope, who shot through the air like a thunderbolt! He saw her every day; he loved her, and she knew that he loved her. Sometimes he fancied that she loved him in return—from an expression in her face, a glance of her eyes, a blush, a tremor when his hand touched hers. He did not dare speak to her about his love; he doubted if he should ever dare to speak; at a word he feared his happiness might be shattered.
Sometimes on Sunday afternoons he drove with Mademoiselle Blanche and her mother into the country, and on Sunday nights he would dine and pass the evening with them in the little apartment. Occasionally he had long talks with the mother; in these he told about his family and about his property, laying stress on the fact that even if he lost his place at the office his income was large enough to support him. She told him, in return, about her own family and her husband's, and gave him a humorous account of her sister-in-law, Blanche's Aunt Sophie.
"Blanche is a little like her," she said. "Sophie takes everything au grand sérieux. Then she's strict with the children, and that's a great mistake, for Jeanne hates restraint, and Louise doesn't need it."