.

Another thing which struck me was his attitude towards Marie; he
treated her with a somewhat contemptuous courtesy; she behaved like a
cocotte, and her passion for me seemed to be more and more on the wane.




III


At last Marie appeared before the footlights. She was a success for
many and complex reasons. Firstly, everybody was curious to see a
baroness on the stage; secondly, the middle-classes were sympathetic
because they delighted in the blow dealt to aristocratic prestige by
this divorce; the bachelors, the sexless, the enemies of matrimonial
slavery, lavished flowers on her; not to forget the friends and
relations of the great actor, who were interested in her because he had
been her teacher and was bringing her out.

After the performance the Baron asked both of us, and the old lady with
whom Marie was living, to supper.

Everybody was charmed with the result and intoxicated with the success.
I was displeased with Marie's appearance because she had not removed
her make-up, and her hair was still dressed as she had worn it on the
stage. She was no longer the virginal mother with whom I had fallen in
love, but an actress with insolent gestures, bad manners, boastful,
overbearing, behaving with a kind of offensive foppishness.

In her imagination she had scaled the highest summits of art, and she
dismissed all my remarks, my suggestions, with a shrug of her shoulders
or a condescending, "My dear, you know nothing about it."

The Baron wore a look of dejection, like an unhappy lover. But for my
presence he would have kissed her. Under the influence of an incredible
quantity of Madeira he opened his heart to us, and regretted that art,
the divine, should claim so many cruel sacrifices. The press--which
had been well managed--confirmed her success, and an engagement seemed
likely to follow.

Two photographers fought for the honour of being permitted to
photograph the debutante. A successful little magazine sold the
portrait of the new star, together with her biography.

What struck me most in looking at t