“Then he wouldn’t be asked to the palace any more,” responded the practical Jean. “There is a limit to advertising, Grandin, which you never know.”
“We could say,” said Grandin, meditating, “that François was passing the Bishop’s palace and fell down and hurt himself, and was taken within by the Bishop’s servants. Anything will do, just to have it known that François has been at the palace.”
“Oh, Grandin!” cried Madame Grandin, “how can you invent such lies?”
They were all so interested in the story of François and his grand acquaintances, that no one except Jean noticed how silent Diane was, and that she ate no supper, although her appetite was usually remarkably good. Jean saw that something had happened, but mindful of that extraordinary loyalty to art of which the theatrical profession is the great model, forebore to ask, lest he should agitate her more.
As Diane and Jean were always partners, they invariably had a love scene in whatever they played together. To-night Diane played the love scene very badly, so badly that the audience noticed it, and she got very little applause. That waked her up, and she picked up her part, as it were, and played it with a renewed spirit that put the audience once more into a good humor with her.
When the performance was over, Diane was a long time in dressing to go home, and the Grandins and François had already gone. Jean, in his shabby, every-day clothes, was waiting for her at the stage entrance.
“I am glad you took yourself by the throat,” he said to her grimly, as they picked their way through the mist which still hung over the town, in which the gas lamps made only a little yellow ring. “I thought the scene was gone at one moment, and expected you to be hissed.”
“Never!” cried Diane, for once thoroughly frightened. “But Jean, I hate love scenes on the stage.”