Diane was kept smiling and bowing, and blushing under her grease paint, before the row of candles stuck in bottles that represented the footlights. This went on for so long that the next feature on the bill, a juggling act in which Grandin and his wife did miraculous things, was delayed ten minutes. Madame Grandin, who was more nearly without jealousy than any woman François had ever known, sat quite placidly in her tights and short skirts, and wrapped in a shawl, waiting for the hullabaloo to subside. Grandin was torn by rival emotions; joy that Diane had made such a hit, and annoyance that the audience seemed to prefer singing to burning up money and making an egg come out of a pumpkin. Presently, however, Jean ruthlessly lowered the piece of canvas that did duty for a curtain, and Diane came back palpitating and quivering between laughter and tears. The Grandins then went on, and François, who was not due on the stage for ten minutes, slipped on his outside clothes over his stage costume and quietly dropped into the audience and took his seat by a laughing corporal.
“Who is that young man over there?” whispered François to the corporal.
“Captain, the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel, captain of dragoons. I am in his troop.”
The corporal, as he said this, made a little motion with his mouth, of which François knew the meaning. It implied that Captain, the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel was a person to be spat upon.
François knew the name well enough; he knew the names of all the great families. He gave the corporal a wink, which was cordially returned, and then went out, and to the back of the stage. He found Diane sitting as if in a dream in the little canvas den which she shared as a dressing-room with Madame Grandin. François, who was to go on in two minutes, began jerking his arms about and bending his body as if it were made of India rubber, by way of preparation, chatting meanwhile.
“Talking about love and onions and petticoats,” he said, “the young officer who led the rest into the hall happens to be a cousin of mine, about three removes, but we are blood relations, just the same, and I think he will end in a worse position than that of a juggler when he keeps sober, and a street vender when he is not quite so sober. He is the Marquis Egmont de St. Angel, called Egmont for short. I was just thinking,” continued François, making himself into a circle like a snake, “that there are no such things as trifles in this world. I went out just now and pulled up the window shade, and a certain man saw you. The pulling up of that shade was a momentous act, perhaps.”
“I knew something splendid would happen in Bienville,” murmured Diane. “The Marquis Egmont de St. Angel! What a splendid name! I never had a hand clap from a marquis before.”
Then it was time for François to go on the stage. He did his part, which was chiefly acrobatic, so badly that he came near ruining the Grandins’ act.
Within the canvas den, Jean was preaching to Diane.
“Look here, Diane,” he said, “don’t let those young officers turn your head, particularly that handsome one in front. They are not good acquaintances for a girl like you.”