‘What has come to Gerard?’ cried Joe Latimer, of Guy’s, to Harry Brown, of St. Thomas’s. ‘I thought he despised ballet-dancing. Yet this is the third time I have seen him looking on at this rot, with his attention as fixed as if he were watching Paget using the knife?’
‘Can’t you guess what it all means?’ exclaimed Brown. ‘Gerard is in love.’
‘In love!’
‘Yes, over head and ears in love with La Chicot—never saw such a well-marked case—all the symptoms beautifully developed—sits in the front row of the pit and gazes the whole time she is on the stage—never takes his eyes off her—raves about her to our fellows—the loveliest woman that ever lived since the unknown young person who served as a model for the Venus that was dug up in a cave in the island of Milo. Fancy having known that young woman, and put your arm round her waist! Somebody did, I dare say. Yes, George Gerard is gone—annihilated. It’s too pathetic.’
‘And Mademoiselle Chicot is a married woman, I hear?’ said Latimer.
‘Very much married. The husband is always in attendance upon her. Waits for her at the stage door every night, or stands at the wing while she dances. La Chicot is a most correct person, though she hardly looks it. Ah! here comes Gerard. Well, old fellow, has the disease reached its crisis?’
‘What disease?’ asked Gerard, curtly.
‘The fever called love.’
‘Do you suppose I’m in love with the new dancer, because I drop in here pretty often to look at her?’
‘I don’t see any other motive for your presence here. You’re not a play-going man.’