Produced by Robert Cicconetti, Ernest Schaal, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Mademoiselle Blanche _A Novel_ BY JOHN D. BARRY [Illustration] NEW YORK STONE AND KIMBALL MDCCCXCVI COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY STONE AND KIMBALL Mademoiselle Blanche I "André!" "Yes, monsieur." The little waiter, with anxiety in his smooth, blond face, hurried to the table. "Bring me the _Soir_." André shot away, and presently returned, paper in hand. "What is there good at the theatres, André?" André wiped his hands in his soiled apron, and looked thoughtful. "There's the _Folies Bergères_, monsieur. Dumont sings to-night." "Oh, she tires me. Her voice is cracked." "There's Madame Judic at the _Variétés_," André suggested, tentatively. "I saw her in the last piece." André scratched his head, and stared at the figure at the table. "Monsieur likes the _Cirque_, does he not?" Monsieur did not look up from the paper. "What's at the _Cirque_ now, André?" "At the _Cirque Parisien_? There's Mademoiselle Blanche, the acrobat. They say she's a marvel, monsieur,--and beautiful,--the most beautiful woman in Paris. She dives from the top of the building backwards--hundreds of feet." "So you think it's really good, André?" André nodded. Monsieur dropped the paper, paid his bill, left a little fee for the _garçon_, and took himself off. At the entrance he stopped and surveyed the surging crowd in the _Boulevard Montmartre_. He had just finished an excellent dinner with a glass of _chartreuse verte_; so he felt particularly complacent. As he prodded his teeth with the easy grace of the Frenchman who knows no shame of the toothpick, he tried to think out a plan for the evening. Nothing better occurred to him than André's suggestion. He was not in the mood for the _Casino de Paris_, nor for any of the other concert halls, nor even for the theatres. Yes, he would go to the Circus. He hadn't been there for ten days.