Damala she knew to be congenitally unfaithful, but her pride could not endure the further discovery that she had married an incompetent.
As manager of a theatrical company on tour he was a miserable failure. He wasted thousands of francs, became tangled in his accounts, could not handle other people, had no genius whatever for organisation. Had it not been for their affection for Sarah, the members of the company would have voted that it should be disbanded.
Foolish contracts were made with theatres in strange towns, hotel arrangements omitted, trains missed, properties lost—all those incidents occurred which indicate bad management and which demoralise a company.
To avoid a crash, Sarah allowed her business sense to dominate her other feelings, and there was a welcome return of her old authoritative character. We greeted with enthusiasm her domineering ways in place of Damala’s blundering and bullying incompetency.
From Head of the Company, Damala became a mere Prince Consort.
There was a disgraceful scene when she made her decision known to him. He called her horrible names—“long-nosed Jewess” was one of the milder ones.
Then, characteristically, he had his revenge by making open love to one of Sarah’s lesser rivals.
“If a man quit me for a Queen,” said Lady Dudley, in the days of Elizabeth, “then I will be proud, for it will have taken the Queen to tear him from me; but if a man quit me for a Duchess, then am I like to die of shame.”
Damala had quit his Queen for a Duchess, and Sarah was “like to die of shame”; but she cured herself by writing Damala a letter, telling him never to return.
Damala did return the next day, however, and in Sarah’s absence carried off several articles of considerable value belonging to her. This happened in Paris after he had played with her in a piece at the Porte St. Martin theatre, which she had just purchased.