CHAPTER IX
IT was the night of the presentation of Liane’s new play. Jean sat down on a box in one of the wings; he could see part of the sloping stage from where he sat, and far up above him in the distance the pale gleam of the footlights, with now and then the graceful sweep of a woman’s dress.
He heard without listening to the words the sound of Liane’s rich, penetrating voice; it did not seem to him as sweet as usual. There was a strange sense of fatigue and bitterness upon him to-night, in the moments when he had time to think, his life seemed cheap, he could not forgive the world its failure to meet his passionate expectations. It was not remorse that possessed him, but the revolt of the soul against the senses, which is sometimes more bitter even than remorse.
Had he reached the truth, he asked himself, about Maurice? Surely Liane had kept her promise not to see him again? But had she? Did people in Liane’s world ever keep their promises?
For the moment Jean shrank from asking her, he dared not put his love to the test of her possible treachery; it seemed to Jean like undermining something already frail. He was sick of the great foyer of the Odéon—everyone had business there but himself. He had to stand aside while the stage carpenters made their way here and there in the busy scene-shifting foyer behind him, pulling great planks forward, or manipulating yards of rope with one hand while they pushed the next scene’s furniture further forward with the other. The supers hung about, giggling as loud as they dared, and every now and then, one of the more important artists swept in and out of the distant dressing-rooms.
A voice sounded at Jean’s shoulder; it was low, but pitilessly distinct and sharp, “VoyonsSelba,” it said, “we have gone through this before, and I am telling you now for the last time, I cannot employ an untrained voice here. It is not any use for you to say you cannot afford to have it trained; you have lived long enough in Paris to know that is not true. There are Marcet and Dubarras—have they not both made you offers?Eh bien!accept, then, one of them. Accept, or leave my company. I am giving you this one more chance because there are qualities in your voice that please; it is a pity, too, for so young a girl to throw away a career. Go to Torialli or Barrière and learn the new part. Do not dareto come here again without an idea and stand up on the stage like a charity-school girl saying her prayers!
“I tell you, my girl, this is Paris! This is a theatre! You don’t come here to be prepared for your first Communion. I do not care whom it is, it is all one to me, Marcet or Dubarras, take your choice. But you must have money, you must have lessons. Now pull yourself together—there is your first call—go!”
Jean recognized that it was the voice of Monsieur Picot, the Régisseur of the Odéon. He turned his head to see to whom the succinct advice had been given, and saw just behind him the small figure of what seemed to him to be a little child. In another moment Jean saw that she was, after all a grown-up young girl, but her obvious fear, her tiny stature, the great fawn-like eyes, the freshness and innocence of the round little face were astonishingly out of place in the Odéon. She did not see Jean. She looked over her shoulder at the manager, who had turned his attention to a clumsy scene shifter. “MaisMonsieur,” she whispered, stammering and trembling, on the verge of tears. Monsieur Picot turned his back and walked away. A second sharp electric bell rang out her call, she drew herself together, and hurried past Jean on to the stage.
Jean leaned forward, excited and curious; who was this little girl with her untouched bloom and her frightened eyes?
He caught a glimpse of the huge stage and Liane standing with easy majesty, her head bent low, her smile fixed, heavily rouged and over-emphasized. He could not see Margot Selba, but in a moment he heard her; her voice rose against the heavy background of light and heat, the thick scents and the rich, dead gleam of jewelled stuffs, like the voice of a bird when spring is young. It seemed the only living thing in a dead world to Jean. The tears came to his eyes as he listened, good, honest tears, that washed away the bitter sense of degradation from his heart. He felt himself back in the country again, with the freedom of the fields before him and the greater freedom of his own unstained, innocent heart. The song ceased, and Liane’s powerful voice took its place, showy, flexible, practised. She did what she liked with it and the scene before her, but it seemed to Jean like the change from a hillside into a hothouse. The girl crept back into the wings again; no one took any notice of her; she found a corner where an old box had been left by the scene-shifters, and then she crouched down on it, burying her face in her hands.
Jean moved quickly towards her.
“Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle,” he whispered, “do not cry so, do not be distressed—tell me about your troubles?”
The child lifted her head with a frightened movement.
“It is nothing, it is nothing,” she muttered between her trembling lips.
But Jean sat down on the box beside her, and would not be denied. “It is not nothing,” he said firmly, “that you are here in trouble and alone! It is not nothing that you, who are no more than a child, should be spoken to as I have heard Monsieur Picot speak to youto-night.Mon Dieu!I had no idea such infamies could go on here in Paris! Mademoiselle, I implore you, trust me! Speak to me, tell me what I can do for you, and believe that is the only advantage I will take of your confidence.”
“Help me, Monsieur?” asked Margot, sitting up straight and regarding this strange young man with wide-open, astonished eyes. “Why, what should you do for me? Are you not a friend of de Brances?”
Jean shook his head impatiently. “What difference does that make?” he exclaimed. “Am I not a man and an artist; do you suppose all men are inhuman and monstrous like thatcrétinwho spoke to you just now? My poor child, I will prove to you that all are not!”
“No, no,” said Margot quickly, “indeed I do not think it. I know that you, Monsieur, are for certain different. You have not seen me before, perhaps, but I have seen you often; you are not like the other gentlemen who come here and never leave us alone. I have often wondered what youcame here for, but of course de Brances has many friends who like to see her on the stage, some of them may be—” Margot hesitated; it looked a little ungracious to admit to a friend of de Brances that some few of that lady’s intimates might behave with tolerable decency behind her back!—“may be artists,” she finished instead, “and that makes always for a kind of sympathy.”
“I am a musician,” said Jean with emphasis.
“A musician,” echoed Margot very softly.
“And I am very poor,” Jean continued, “I am a struggling artist!”
Jean announced this statement as if it were a proclamation of ascent to the throne. He succeeded in startling Margot, to whom, however, poverty did not appear to have quite the same meritorious halo that it wore to Jean’s less accustomed eyes. But then Margot knew what real poverty meant.
“But that is a misfortune for Monsieur,” she said gently.
“No, it is not,” replied Jean impatiently; “if I were not poor I could not offer to help you, you would very justly refuse me; but now I have a plan that I think you will be willing to accept.”
Margot’s eyes grew rounder and rounder; she was not quite sure that this strange and attractive gentleman sitting on the box beside her was sane, but she was quite sure that he was kind, and that it was extraordinarily interesting to listen to him. Margot thought he must be rather like an angel;but it is possible that Margot would have felt uncertain how practical an angel’s plan would be for Paris. She knew her Paris, and she did not fancy that the heavenly powers made much of a success there.
“Monsieur has a plan, then?” she murmured.
“I must explain myself,” said Jean, leaning forward with intense excitement, and stabbing the air with his forefinger. “I have said that I am a musician! More than that, I am the only kind of musician who can help you! When I came to Paris six months ago I met Cartier. You must have heard of him, his touch is famous in Paris—you’ll have to know him—there is a man who has a soul of gold! He gave me lessons for which he never charged me a penny, and then he sent me out to listen to all the best singers in Paris. He told me to study a method of teaching, and how to accompany the voice; he gave me introductions to several singers, and I have already accompanied Lucien le Page and Madame du Buissant.Enfin!I have fitted myself to train a voice. That is what you need, is it not? Very well then, I will give up my Bank and train yours!”
“Pardon, Monsieur, your Bank?” exclaimed Margot. “What Bank?”
“It is nothing,” said Jean, with great calmness. “It happens to be my profession at the moment, but I have been meaning to give it up for some time. Now it is done! You will trust your voice to me? You consider my plan good?”
Margot gasped. “But, Monsieur,” she said, “I am not rich! I am not a Bank! I would gladly let you train my voice if I could afford to pay you for it; but alas, it is just there that your plan breaks down.”
“Not at all,” said Jean impatiently. “If I make your voice a success that will bring me into notice. It is a bargain, it is purely business, I assure you. Money—what is money? There will be no difficulty about that—what I want is fame.”
“But, Monsieur, meanwhile you must live,” expostulated Margot.
Jean looked annoyed; for a moment he was not sure that Margot was really an artist.
“That will arrange itself,” he said indifferently; “the great thing is we are agreed upon my plan?”
Margot hesitated, then she suggested a compromise; if Jean really didn’t care about the money, and since nothing would induce her to take up his time and skill without some form of a return, would he care to occupy her mother’s free room in their little apartment which had just been vacated by a theological student? It was really very convenient, as they were so high up he could practise as much as he liked. He would of course take the room for nothing, and she would then feel free to accept his lessons.
Still Margot urged him very forcibly not to give up the Bank. She seemed to attach an absurd importance to what Jean felt to be an overratedinstitution. Jean was in the mood for renunciation, and it seemed to him a small thing to burn this particular boat; he was in the act of wishing he could burn a larger one when Margot exclaimed:
“Ah! here comes Madame de Brances.O ciel!What a splendid creature she is! Do you think we are in her way?”
Jean did not answer Margot, he was looking at Liane. Yes, there was no doubt that Liane looked splendid. She was advancing towards them like some stately Atlantic liner bearing down upon a small sea tramp, serenely conscious of her powers. She swept towards them, her lips set and her great bisque-fringed eyes shining like figured Chinese lanterns under the tightened rope of her marked eyebrows. Jean glanced from one woman to the other. Margot looked like an unformed child beside Liane; she huddled a little awkwardly on her wooden box, the colour going and coming in her round cheeks. She had no weapons to match the finished vision before her, nothing but the honesty of her heart, and yet to Jean that one small jewel outshone the whole golden argosy bearing down relentlessly upon them. At least, for the moment Jean thought it did. Meanwhile, even in that moment of recognition, he slipped back into the mire. Liane leaned forward a little as she reached them; she seemed to gather Jean up and hold him in her passionate deep eyes, those terriblepossessive eyes that knew how, not in vain, to slip the snare of the fowler over the fluttering bird.
“Allons, Jean, viens-tu!” she whispered in her tenderest voice, as soft and sweet as honey in the south. She did not look at Margot at all, but she had seen her.
Jean turned and followed her without a word.