“Leonide Balli exists. She was ill and remained at Nice. Among the actors of her company, with whom I traveled from Nice to Marseilles, there was one I knew because I played Veronique last winter in some private theatricals. So they all begged me to take the place of Leonide Balli for one evening. They were so troubled and upset that I felt obliged to render them this service. We told the manager of the Toulouse theatre, who, at the last moment, decided to make no announcement of the change and let it be believed that I was Leonide Balli.”
“Then you’re not an actress,” said Ralph in a tone of relief. “I am glad you’re not. I prefer that you should be simply the pretty boarder at Sainte-Marie.”
She frowned and said coldly: “Continue.”
“Well, the gentleman who knocked Marescal’s hat off when you came out of the confectioner’s on the Boulevard Haussmann, was he your father?” [[127]]
“My step-father.”
“And his name?”
“Bregeac.”
“Bregeac?”
“Yes, Director of Judicial Affairs at the Ministry of the Interior.”
“And consequently Marescal’s chief?”