But old de Mô’s expression is nevertheless anxious.
Is he about to lose his last remaining companion of years ago? Is he shortly to sit in that corner of the quiet, comfortable café—alone?
He cannot but acknowledge to himself that in old le Roué’s face there is the same leaden colour and in old le Roué’s speech the same incoherency that manifested themselves in their mutual dear friend and contemporary, the late Comte Robert de Barsac, a short while before he vaguely passed away.
IX
FRENCH LIFE AND THE FRENCH STAGE
1. M. Paul Bourget, the Reactionary Playwright, and M. Pataud, who put out the Lights of Paris
In a boulevard café, over his favourite, strange mixture of strawberry syrup and champagne, a well-known Paris journalist recently called my attention to the profusion of playwrights of high, indisputable ability now writing for the French stage.
“There are not enough theatres to accommodate them all,” he said. “The papers inform us that X—— has just finished a new chef-d’œuvre, but often four, six, even ten months will elapse ere the masterpiece can be produced. Why? Because there is no room for X——. He must wait his turn; and in his leisure—O admirable fertility—he writes yet another play.”
“Nevertheless you have three important répétitions générales this week,” I remarked. “Capus to-morrow, Donnay at the Français on Wednesday, and de Flers and Caillavet, the Inexhaustible, on Friday.”