"Ah!" Truda turned to him with a light in her wonderful eyes. "I shall not fail you, if it were only for this."
"I am sure you will not fail your own people," he answered; "you do not come of traitors."
He patted the baby's cheek with a couple of big fingers and turned to the door.
"You do not come of traitors," he repeated, and then Truda was alone again with the child. But she did not go to it at once, to make sure of its company. She stood where the Jew had left her, deep in thought. And the manner of her thinking was not one of care; for the first time she seemed to taste a sense of freedom.
Of the wrath and bewilderment of her manager there is no need to speak; a long experience of famous actresses and singers had not exhausted that expert's capacity for despair. His pessimism gained some color that evening, when Truda had to face a house that was plainly willing to be unsympathetic; applause came doubtfully and in patches, till she gained a hold of them and made herself their master by main force of personality. Monsieur Vaucher, the manager, was still a connoisseur of art. Years of feeling the public pulse through the box-office had not stripped him of a certain shrewd perception of what was fine and what was mean in drama; and he chuckled and wagged his head in the wings as minute by minute the spell of Truda's genius strengthened, till there came that tenseness of silence in the great theatre which few actors live to know, and Truda, vibrant, taut- nerved, and superb, plucked at men's hearts as if they had been harp- strings. It was not till the curtain was down that the spell broke, and then crash upon crash roared the tumultuous applause of the audience.
It was Vaucher who rushed forward, as Truda came from the stage, to kiss her hand extravagantly.
"Ah! Madame!" he cried, looking up to her with his shrewd face working; "it is not for me to guide you. Do as you will by day, but be a genius at night. At this rate you could unman an army."
Truda smiled and withdrew her hand.
"That was Prince Sarasin in the great box," she said. "Presently he will send his card in."
Vaucher nodded. "That was he," he said. "He is Governor of this town.
Madame will receive him? Or not?"