“Here is your mother’s signature, mademoiselle. I leave you free to bring it me back within forty-eight hours. After that time if I do not receive it I shall consider that you are no longer a member of the theater. But, believe me, you are acting unwisely. Think it over within the next forty-eight hours.”
I did not answer but went out of his office. That very evening I sent back to M. Thierry the engagement bearing his signature and tore up the one with that of my mother.
I had left Molière’s Theater and was not to re-enter it until twelve years later.
CHAPTER VIII
CASTLES IN SPAIN
This proceeding of mine was certainly violently decisive, and it completely upset my home life. I was not happy from this time forth among my own people, as I was continually being blamed for my violence. Irritating remarks with a double meaning were constantly being made by my aunt and my little sisters. My godfather, whom I had once for all requested to mind his own business, no longer dared to attack me openly, but he influenced my mother against me. There was no longer any peace for me except at Mme. Guerard’s, and so I was constantly with her. I enjoyed helping her in her domestic affairs. She taught me to make cakes, chocolate, and scrambled eggs. All this gave me something else to think about, and I soon recovered my gayety.
One morning there was something very mysterious about my mother. She kept looking at the clock and seemed uneasy because my godfather, who lunched and dined with us every day, had not arrived.
“It’s very strange,” my mother said, “for last night after whist he said he should be with us this morning before luncheon. It’s very strange indeed.”
She was usually calm, but she kept coming in and out of the room, and when Marguerite put her head in at the door to ask whether she should serve the luncheon, my mother told her to wait.
Finally, the bell rang, startling my mother and Jeanne. My little sister was evidently in the secret.