"Don't be impertinent, Percy. This is a very serious matter. It seems the girl's married and had a child about two months ago. She's going to resume her performances. She doesn't know a soul in London; so she'll be all alone." "I thought you said she had a husband." "So I did. He's given them a letter to us, but he doesn't think they'll present it. I suppose those theatrical people live in a world of their own. But of course I shall go to see her. Perhaps I can do something for her. Anyway, it'll be interesting to meet an acrobat. I've never known one in my life." "As I said," her husband remarked, turning to his bacon and eggs, "you can introduce her into society. People must be tired of meeting artists and actors and musicians. She'll be a novelty." "You're very disagreeable to-day, Percy," Mrs. Tate responded amiably, after sipping the coffee that had been steaming beside her plate. "You are always attributing the meanest motives to everything I do." He gave a short laugh. "But you must acknowledge that you do some pretty queer things, my dear." She ignored the remark, and a moment later she went on briskly: "I must go and see this acrobat woman--whoever she is. If I don't--" "What's her name?" Tate asked, turning to his paper and searching for the theatrical columns. "Madame Jules Le Baron, Father Dumény calls her. But I suppose she must have a stage name. Most of them have." "I don't see that name in 'Under the Clock!' The Hippodrome? No, it isn't there. I wonder if this can be the one: 'On Monday evening next, Mademoiselle Blanche, the celebrated French acrobat, will give her remarkable performance on the trapeze and her great dive from the top of the Hippodrome.'" Mrs. Tate sighed. "Yes, it must be. Mademoiselle Blanche! How stagey it sounds! I wonder what she's like." "We might go to see her first and then we could tell whether she's possible or not." "Go to the Hippodrome!" "Yes, why not? It's perfectly respectable. Only it doesn't happen to be fashionable. In Paris, you know, it's the thing to attend the circus. Don't you remember the La Marches took us one night?" "Yes, and I remember there was a dreadful creature--she must have weighed three hundred pounds--who walked the tight-rope and nearly frightened me to death. I thought she'd come down on my head." "Then it's understood that we're to go on Monday? If we go at all we might as well be there the first night. It'll be more interesting."