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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?" "Oh yes; let him in to me," she answered. "He is an old friend of mine." Vaucher bowed.
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.
It was to the big young Jew, the baby's uncle; she had a shrewd notion that Monsieur Vaucher would be able to lay hands on him. The note was brief: "I fear there will be more persecutions. The Governor can do nothing. When there is another attack on our people send to me. Send to me without fail, for I have one resource left." "You can find the man?" she demanded of Vaucher.
She was weeping, leaning against the wall, weeping desolately, in an abandonment of humiliation and impotence. But Vaucher was not moved when he told me of it." "'That I could have endured, he said. 'I held my peace and did not intrude upon her. But presently they brought the wounded man downstairs, and Bertin came forth to seek a fiacre to take him away.
Her attitude was that of one ready to flee, terrified but uncertain. As the noises within died down she relapsed from her tense pose and showed her face to Vaucher in the light of the lamp. It was Madame Bertin. She did not see him where he waited, and all of a sudden her self-possession snapped like a twig you break in your fingers.
Monsieur Vaucher was a careful engineer of her successes, a withered little middle-aged Parisian, who had grown up in the mechanical service of great singers and actors. There was not a tone in his voice, not a gesture in his repertory, that was not an affectation; and, with it all, she knew him for a man of sterling loyalty and a certain simplicity of heart.
Monsieur Vaucher bowed complaisantly. "Your discretion is frequently perfect," he said. "And if I suggest that here is an occasion for a particular discretion, it is only because I have Madame's interests at heart. Now, the chief matters of dispute here are " Truda interrupted him. "Please!" she said. "It does not matter at all. And think! Politics before breakfast.
He knit his heavy brows in a scowl as poor Vaucher sidled back to obscurity, and thought rapidly. His thoughts, and what he knew of the night's programme in the Jewish quarter of his city, carried him round to the stage door, with his surprised aide-de-camp at his heels. Monsieur Vaucher, tearful and impotent, was at his service. "Never before has she played me such a trick," he lamented. "Ill!
But' and he leaned forward in my chair and struck his fist on the arm of it 'but that poor victory is sore in my memory like a scar." "All that was comprehensible. Vaucher was a man of heart. 'But what is the quarrel? I demanded." "'The quarrel! he repeated. 'Let me see; what was it, now? He had actually forgotten. 'Oh yes. He spoke to me. That was it.
'All'ez! There were a couple of moments of fencing, of almost formal escrime, and then Vaucher lengthened his arm and attacked. Bertin stepped back a pace, and, as Vaucher advanced, he slashed with a high open cut, and it was over. Vaucher threw up both hands and came to his knees.
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