to herself, that the career of an actress is compatible
with self-respect. This resolve that she would
never be found wanting in self-respect held a prominent
place in all her plans, as she began to understand
better those dangers in life which are for the most
part unknown to young girls born in her social position.
Jacqueline’s character, far from being injured
by her trials and experiences, had gained in strength.
She grew firmer as she gained in knowledge. Never
had she been so worthy of regard and interest as at
the very time when her friends were saying sadly to
themselves, “She is going to the bad,”
and when, from all appearances, they were right in
this conclusion.
TWIN DEVILS
Jacqueline came to the conclusion that she had better
seriously consult Madame Strahlberg. She therefore
stopped at Monaco, where this friend, whom she intended
to honor with the strange office of Mentor, was passing
the winter in a little villa in the Condamine quarter—a
cottage surrounded by roses and laurel-bushes, painted
in soft colors and looking like a plaything.
Madame Strahlberg had already urged Jacqueline to
come and make acquaintance with her “paradise,”
without giving her any hint of the delights of that
paradise, from which that of gambling was not excluded,
for Madame Strahlberg was eager for any kind of excitement.
Roulette now occupied with her a large part of every
night—indeed, her nights had been rarely
given to slumber, for her creed was that morning is
the time for sleep, for which reason they never took
breakfast in the pink villa, but tea, cakes, and confectionery
were eaten instead at all hours until the evening.
Thus it happened very often that they had no dinner,
and guests had to accommodate themselves to the strange
ways of the family. Jacqueline, however, did
not stay long enough to know much of those ways.
She arrived, poor thing, with weary wing, like some
bird, who, escaping from the fowler’s net, where
it has left its feathers, flies straight to the spot
where a sportsman lies ready to shoot it. She
was received with the same cries of joy, the same
kisses, the same demonstrations of affection, as those
which, the summer before, had welcomed her to the Rue
de Naples. They told her she could sleep on a
sofa, exactly like the one on which she had passed
that terrible night which had resulted in her expulsion
from the convent; and it was decided that she must
stay several days, at least, before she went on to
Paris, to begin the life of hard study and courageous
work which would make of her a great singer.
Tired?—No, she was hardly tired at all.
The journey over the enchanting road of the Corniche
had awakened in her a fervor of admiration which prevented
her from feeling any bodily needs, and now she seemed
to have reached fairyland, where the verdure of the
tropics was like the hanging gardens of Babylon, only
those had never had a mirror to reflect back their
ancient, far-famed splendor, like that before her eyes,
as she looked down upon the Mediterranean, with the
sun setting in the west in a sky all crimson and gold.
