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Meeting with no serious resistance, the allies crossed the Marne at Meaux, and on the 29th reached Bondy, within striking distance of the French capital. In that city the people were a prey, first to sheer incredulity, then to the wildest dismay. To them history was but a melodrama and war a romance. Never since the time of Jeanne d'Arc had a foreign enemy come within sight of their spires.
'They have no originality. They have a passion for commonplace, and in moments of emotion they fly with unerring instinct into the flamboyance of melodrama. 'I like to hear you use long words. It makes me feel so grown up. 'By the way, how old are you? he asked suddenly. 'Twenty-nine, she answered promptly. 'Nonsense. There is no such age. 'Pardon me, she protested gravely.
"What I like best is the melodrama of it in connection with Fifth Avenue. I am perfectly aware that you will not discuss this incident in the future. You are a clever enough young woman to know that it will be more to your interest than to mine that it shall be kept exceedingly quiet." The white fire had not died out of her and she stood straight.
I've tried to serve the cause of true love and I'm not ashamed of it. Never mind! my turn is to come. I'm only a poor servant, sent adrift in the world without a character. Farnaby, before long! I know what I know. I am not going to say any more than that. She shall rue the day," cried Phoebe, relapsing into melodrama again, "when she turned me out of the house like a thief!"
Well, the play began as a comedy, continued as a tragedy, and ended as a farce. It came to a crisis every five minutes, it suggested splendid situations, and then caricatured them unintentionally, it went shilly-shallying about among the emotions and sensations which may be drama or melodrama, whichever the handling makes them.
The Chief decided to drive out to Desert View the afternoon following our Canyon experience, and he said I could go if I liked; he said he couldn't promise any excitement, but the lupine was beautiful in Long Jim Canyon, and I might enjoy it. "Thank God for a chance to be peaceful. I'm fed up on melodrama," I murmured, and I climbed into that old Ford with a breath of relief.
The melodrama shows us how the young millionaire wastes his nights in a dissipated life, and when he drinks his blasphemous toast at a champagne feast with shameless women, we suddenly see on the screen the vision of twenty years later when the bartender of a most miserable saloon pushes the penniless tramp out into the gutter.
"This is getting," he remarked, "a little like melodrama. I have no objection to being abused, even in my own garden, but there are limits to my patience. Come to the point, if you have one." "Willingly," Aynesworth answered. "I want you to understand this. I have never tried to interfere in any of your malicious schemes, although I am ashamed to think I have watched them without protest.
Sensational disclosures will often make the public flare up spasmodically; but the mass of men is soon bored by intricate rules and tangles of red tape; the "crusade" is looked upon as a melodrama of real life interesting, but easily forgotten. The method proposed ignores the human source: by a kind of poetic justice the great crowd of men will ignore the method.
Inglesby has agreed to double my present salary. That in itself is no light inducement but I get more. I get Mr. Inglesby's personal backing, which means an assured future to me; as it will mean to you and your father, if you have got the sense you were born with. This is business. Kindly omit melodrama crude, and not at all your style, really," he finished, critically.
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