“Mademoiselle,” said Andre-Louis, quite solemnly, “will be queen wherever she condescends to reign.”
Her only answer was a timid—timid and yet alluring—glance from under fluttering lids. Meanwhile her father was bawling at the comely young man who played lovers—“You hear, Leandre! That is the sort of speech you should practise.”
Leandre raised languid eyebrows. “That?” quoth he, and shrugged. “The merest commonplace.”
Andre-Louis laughed approval. “M. Leandre is of a readier wit than you concede. There is subtlety in pronouncing it a commonplace to call Mlle. Climene a queen.”
Some laughed, M. Binet amongst them, with good-humoured mockery.
“You think he has the wit to mean it thus? Bah! His subtleties are all unconscious.”
The conversation becoming general, Andre-Louis soon learnt what yet there was to learn of this strolling band. They were on their way to Guichen, where they hoped to prosper at the fair that was to open on Monday next. They would make their triumphal entry into the town at noon, and setting up their stage in the old market, they would give their first performance that same Saturday night, in a new canevas—or scenario—of M. Binet’s own, which should set the rustics gaping. And then M. Binet fetched a sigh, and addressed himself to the elderly, swarthy, beetle-browed Polichinelle, who sat on his left.
“But we shall miss Felicien,” said he. “Indeed, I do not know what we shall do without him.”
“Oh, we shall contrive,” said Polichinelle, with his mouth full.
“So you always say, whatever happens, knowing that in any case the contriving will not fall upon yourself.”