XI
They went straight to Vienna, arriving fatigued from their long journey. After three days, spent at a little French hotel, Jules found near the Ringstrasse a furnished apartment that suited him, and they took possession at the end of the week.
Blanche soon felt at home, but Madeleine, though she had become deeply attached to her new mistress, and now had more companionship than she had known since the death of Jules' mother, secretly grieved for her beloved Paris, and looked and acted as if utterly bewildered.
The day of his arrival in Vienna, Jules proceeded to the Circus and had a long talk with Herr Prevost, the manager, with regard to his wife's engagement. He explained the difference in the plunge Blanche would be obliged to take there from her usual one, and persuaded Prevost to make this a feature in his advertisements; he also secured permission for Blanche to practise in the ring every morning till her engagement began.
So he went back to the hotel elated, and explained to Blanche that, after all, in the theatrical life good management was half the battle. Now that she had shaken off that worthless Pelletier and he himself had taken charge of her affairs, she would undoubtedly be recognized in a very few years as the greatest acrobat in the world.
She must sit at once, in costume, for some new photographs, and he would send them to the leading managers of Europe and America. If they could only arrange to go to America under good auspices, their fortune would be made. Instead of receiving, as they were doing in Vienna, five hundred francs a week, they would be paid as much as twice that amount in New York, if not more. Indeed, Jules had so much to say about America, he seemed to have it on the brain.
Blanche experienced no difficulty in making her plunge in the new amphitheatre, and after her first trial there, declared that she had no fear for the public performances. Jules, however, insisted on her practising every morning; she must keep her muscles limber, he said; besides, if she didn't practise, she might lose confidence.
He found himself treating her as her mother had done, directing her movements like those of a child, and she obeyed him as if she considered his attitude toward her eminently natural and right. Even Madeleine adopted a motherly tone with her, chose the dresses she should wear each day, and instructed her in a thousand feminine details.
Blanche, Jules was surprised and secretly annoyed to discover, could speak German, and in the mornings she sometimes gave him lessons. He also picked up a good deal of German slang in the cafés that he frequented during the day, where he drank coffee and read whatever French and English papers he could find.