Sarah shuddered and shrank backwards.
“Come!” said Duquesnel again, impatiently. “I tell you they want you!—Hark, cannot you hear them calling?”
Through the open door the din from the house came with greater volume. Sarah could not distinguish a word.
“They are mad about you, child!” cried Duquesnel, as he saw she did not believe him. “They will not let the play go on until you go on and speak to them!”
Then Sarah understood that this was not failure. It was triumph, success, glory! She took Duquesnel’s arm and went hesitatingly on to the stage, not even noticing that she was still attired in the kimono which she used as a wrap between the acts.
When she appeared before the curtain pandemonium broke lose. “Sarah!” “Sarah!” “Our Sarah!” the audience yelled.
And “Our Sarah” she was to the populace of Paris from that day onwards.
She was famous. She hurried back into the wings and brought on Berton Senior, and they gave him an ovation too. But always there was the chant: “Sarah!” “Our Sarah!”
The students were mad. Sarah resolved to win them over to Dumas, and sent word for him to come on the stage. But Dumas had gone, suffocated by tears at what he believed bitterly to be the assassination of his brain-child. The next morning, when he learned the truth, he sent Sarah a note thanking her.
Sarcey was the only critic who did not join in the chorus of praise which followed in the press. Writing in the Courrier de la Semaine he stated: