The next day she was summoned to the office of M. Thierry, director of the Comédie.
“Your conduct has been disgraceful, mademoiselle!” he said, “and your engagement should be cancelled immediately, but I have decided to give you one chance to make amends. Waiting in the next room are Madame Nathalie, and two other sociétaires. You will apologise to Madame Nathalie, in their presence, and in mine.”
“Apologise to that woman who injured my baby sister?” cried Sarah. “Never!”
“Think, mademoiselle,” urged Thierry. “Unless you do so you leave the Comédie!”
Leave the Comédie! After all the torturing months of preparation, after all the help she had received from the Duc de Morny, from Camille Doucet and her other friends, after the hard struggle at the Conservatoire. Sarah saw her mother’s bitter eyes, heard her scornful tongue.
She knew that her admission to the Comédie Française had been an honour and a favour which her performances at the Conservatoire did not justify. She knew that if her engagement was cancelled it was possible that she might look in vain for other employment; that every manager in Paris might be turned against her. More, she knew that her family would regard her leaving the Comédie as a personal insult to them, and it would, she realised, be no longer feasible for her to live at home. Sarah thought of her Aunt Rosine’s triumphant “I told you so,” and shuddered.
But, on the other hand, she knew that she was in the right. A sense of tremendous injustice weighed upon her. This woman had struck her little sister, and she had administered a deserved correction. What though she were one of the oldest sociétaires at the Français. She should be the one to apologise!
It took Sarah some five minutes to arrive at this, her final, conclusion, and then, turning to M. Thierry, she said:
“If Madame Nathalie will apologise to Régine, I will apologise to her!”
M. Thierry looked at her incredulously.