“You mean that you will allow a question of pure pride to interfere with your career and perhaps spoil your future?” he demanded.
“I mean that if the whole incident occurred again, I would slap Madame Nathalie twice as hard!” said Sarah angrily.
M. Thierry turned back to his papers.
“Very well, mademoiselle,” he said; “you have until to-morrow afternoon to change your mind!”
Sarah did not apologise, and she was not immediately sent away. Her powerful friends who had supported her in her effort to enter the theatre made representations to M. Thierry, and, much against his will, he agreed to give the young actress another chance.
But Madame Nathalie nursed her spite, and when, a few weeks later, Sarah was given the rôle of Dolorès, in the play of that name by Brouihet, she contrived to influence the director to take the part away from the girl, almost on the eve of production, and give it to Madame Favart.
No sooner did Sarah learn this than she bounded into M. Thierry’s office.
“Give me my contract!” she cried. “I resign! I will have nothing more to do with your theatre!”
The same evening she was again a free agent. She had left the Comédie. When she returned home to inform her mother of her action, the latter took it coolly.
“Very well,” said Julie, “you need look for no further help from me, or from my friends. Hereafter you can do with your life as you wish! You are emancipated!”