"And now for the ladies... First in order of seniority we have Madame there." He waved one of his great hands towards a buxom, smiling blonde of five-and-forty, who was seated on the lowest of the steps of the travelling house. "She is our Duegne, or Mother, or Nurse, as the case requires. She is known quite simply and royally as Madame. If she ever had a name in the world, she has long since forgotten it, which is perhaps as well. Then we have this pert jade with the tip-tilted nose and the wide mouth, who is of course our soubrette Columbine, and lastly, my daughter Climene, an amoureuse of talents not to be matched outside the Comedie Francaise, of which she has the bad taste to aspire to become a member."
The lovely Climene--and lovely indeed she was--tossed her nut-brown curls and laughed as she looked across at Andre-Louis. Her eyes, he had perceived by now, were not blue, but hazel.
"Do not believe him, monsieur. Here I am queen, and I prefer to be queen here rather than a slave in Paris."
"Mademoiselle," said Andre-Louis, quite solemnly, "will be queen wherever she condescends to reign."
Her only answer was a timid--timid and yet alluring--glance from under fluttering lids. Meanwhile her father was bawling at the comely young man who played lovers--"You hear, Leandre! That is the sort of speech you should practise."
Leandre raised languid eyebrows. "That?" quoth he, and shrugged. "The merest commonplace."
Andre-Louis laughed approval. "M. Leandre is of a readier wit than you concede. There is subtlety in pronouncing it a commonplace to call Mlle. Climene a queen."
Some laughed, M. Binet amongst them, with good-humoured mockery.
"You think he has the wit to mean it thus? Bah! His subtleties are all unconscious."
The conversation becoming general, Andre-Louis soon learnt what yet there was to learn of this strolling band. They were on their way to Guichen, where they hoped to prosper at the fair that was to open on Monday next. They would make their triumphal entry into the town at noon, and setting up their stage in the old market, they would give their first performance that same Saturday night, in a new canevas--or scenario--of M. Binet's own, which should set the rustics gaping. And then M. Binet fetched a sigh, and addressed himself to the elderly, swarthy, beetle-browed Polichinelle, who sat on his left.
"But we shall miss Felicien," said he. "Indeed, I do not know what we shall do without him."