"I never meant to, straight; I—Sorry, Clairette." He lingered at the door. "I suppose I shall have to say 'madame' soon?"
"Footle," she murmured, moved.
"You've not got your knife into me, have you, Clairette? I didn't mean to be a beast. I'd have gone to hell for you, that's all, and I wish I was dead."
"Silly kid!" she faltered, blinking. And then "The Two Bonbons" came back to doff their costumes, and he was turned out.
Never had Hercule been so puffed up. His knowledge of the juggler's sufferings made the victory more rapturous still. No longer did Flouflou stand opposite-prompt to watch Clairette's dance; no longer did he loiter about the passages after the curtain was down, on the chance of being permitted to escort her to her doorstep. Such privileges were the Strong Man's alone. She was affianced to him! At the swelling thought, his chest became Brobdingnagian. His bounce in company was now colossal; and it afforded the troupe a popular entertainment to see him drop to servility in her presence. Her frown was sufficient to reduce him to a cringe. They called him the "Quick- change artist."
But Hercule scarcely minded cringing to her; at all events he scarcely minded it in a tête-à-tête; she was unique. He would have run to her whistle, and fawned at her kick. She had agreed to marry him in a few weeks' time, and his head swam at the prospect. Visions of the future dazzled him. When he saw her to her home after the performance, he used to talk of the joint engagements they would get by-and-by—"not in snide shows like this, but in first-class halls"—and of how tremendously happy they were going to be. And then Clairette would stifle a sigh and say, "Oh, yes, of course!" and try to persuade herself that she had no regrets.
Meanwhile the Constellation had not been playing to such good business as the manager had anticipated. He had done a bold thing in obtaining Hercule—who, if not so famous as the posters pretended, was at least a couple of rungs above the other humble mountebanks—and the box-office ought to have yielded better results. Monsieur Blond was anxious. He asked himself what the Public wanted. Simultaneously he pondered the idea of a further attraction, and perspired at the thought of further expense.
At this time the "Living Statuary" turn was the latest craze in the variety halls of fashion, and one day poor Blond, casting an expert eye on his danseuse, questioned why she should not be billed, a town or two ahead, as "Aphrodite, the Animated Statue, Direct from Paris."
To question was to act. The weather was mild, and, though Clairette experienced pangs of modesty when she learnt that the Statue's "costume" was to be applied with a sponge, she could not assert that she would be in danger of taking a chill. Besides, her salary was to be raised a trifle.
Blond rehearsed her assiduously (madame Blond in attendance), and, to his joy, she displayed a remarkable gift for adopting the poses, As "The Bather" she promised to be entrancing, and, until she wobbled, her "Nymph at the Fountain" was a pure delight. Moreover, thanks to her accomplishments as a dancer, she did not wobble very badly.