earth are you doing here?"
Octave Boissy was a very wealthy man. He even looked a very wealthy man. He was one of the darlings of success and of an absurdly luxurious civilization. And he seemed singularly out of place in the vast, banal foyer of the Hôtel Terminus, among the shifting, bustling crowd of utterly ordinary, bourgeois, moderately well-off tourists and travellers and needy touts. He ought at least to have been in a very select private room at the Meurice or the Bristol, if in any hotel at all!
"The fact is, I'm neurasthenic," he said simply, just as if he had been saying, "The fact is, I've got a wooden leg."
"Oh!" I laughed, determined to treat him as Boissy Minor, and not as Octave Boissy.
"I have a morbid horror of walking in the open air. And yet I cannot bear being in a small enclosed space, especially when it's moving. This is extremely inconvenient. Mais que veux-tu? … Suis comme ça!"
"Je te plains" I put in, so as to return his familiar and flattering "thou" immediately.
"I was strongly advised to go and stay in the country," he went on, with the same serious, wistful simplicity, "and so I ordered a special saloon carriage on the railway, so as to have as much breathing room as possible; and I ventured from my house to this station in an auto. I thought I could surely manage that. But I couldn't! I had a terrible crisis on arriving at the station, and I had to sit on a luggage-truck for four hours. I couldn't have persuaded myself to get into the saloon carriage for a fortune! I couldn't go back home in the auto! I couldn't walk! So I stepped into the hotel. I've been here ever since."
"But when was this?"
"Three months ago. My doctors say that in another six weeks I shall be sufficiently recovered to leave. It is a most distressing malady. Mais que veux-tu? I have a suite in the hotel and my own servants. I walk out here into the hall because it's so large. The hotel people do the best they can, but of course—" He threw up his hands. His resigned, gentle smile was at once comic and tragic to me.
"But do you mean to say you couldn't walk out of that door and go home?" I questioned.
"Daren't!" he said, with finality. "Come to my rooms, will you, and have some tea."
II
A little later his own valet served us with tea in a large private drawing-room on the sixth or seventh floor, to reach which we had climbed a thousand and one stairs; it was impossible for Octave Boissy to use the lift, as he was convinced that he would die in it if he took such a liberty with himself. The room was hung with modern pictures, such as had certainly never been seen in any hotel before. Many knick-knacks and embroideries were also obviously foreign to the hotel.
"But how have you managed to attend the rehearsals of the new play?" I demanded.
"Oh!" said he, languidly, "I never attend any rehearsals of my plays. Mademoiselle Lemonnier sees to all that."
"She takes the leading part in this play, doesn't she, according to the posters?"
"She takes the leading part in all my plays," said he.
"A first-class artiste, no doubt? I've never seen her act."
"Neither have I!" said Octave Boissy. And as I now yielded frankly to my astonishment, he added: "You see, I am not interested in the theatre. Not only have I never attended a rehearsal, but I have never seen a performance of any of my plays. Don't you remember that it was engineering, above all else, that attracted me? I have a truly wonderful engineering shop in the basement of my house in the Avenue du Bois. I should very much have liked you to see it; but you comprehend, don't you, that I'm just as much cut off from the Avenue du Bois as I am from Timbuctoo. My malady is the most exasperating of all maladies."
"Well, Boissy Minor," I observed, "I suppose it has occurred to you that your case is calculated to excite wonder in the simple breast of a brutal Englishman."
He laughed, and I was glad that I had had the courage to reduce him definitely to the rank of Boissy Minor.
"And not only in the breast of an Englishman!" he said. "Mais que veux-tu? One must live."
"But I should have thought you could have made a comfortable living out of engineering. In England consulting engineers are princes."
"Oh yes!"
"And engineering might have cured your neurasthenia, if you had taken it in sufficiently large quantities."
"It would," he agreed quietly.
"Then why the theatre, seeing that the theatre doesn't interest you?"
"In order to live," he replied. "And when I say 'live,' I mean live. It is not a question of money, it is a question of living."
"But as you never go near the theatre—"
"I write solely for Blanche Lemonnier," he said. I was at a loss. Perceiving this, he continued intimately: "Surely you know of my admiration for Blanche Lemonnier?"
I shook my head.
"I have never even heard of Blanche Lemonnier, save in connection with your plays," I said.
"She is only known in connection with my plays," he answered. "When I met her, a dozen years ago, she was touring the provinces, playing small parts in third-rate companies. I asked her what was her greatest ambition, and she said that it was to be applauded as a star on the Paris stage. I told her that I would satisfy her ambition, and that when I had done so I hoped she would satisfy mine. That was how I began to write plays. That was my sole reason. It is the sole reason why I keep on writing them. If she had desired to be a figure in Society I should have gone into politics."
"I am getting very anxious to see this lady," I said. "I feel as if I can scarcely wait till to-night."
"She will probably be here in a few minutes," said he.
"But how did you do it?" I asked. "What was your plan of campaign?"
"After the success of my first play I wrote the second specially for her, and I imposed her on the management. I made her a condition. The management kicked, but I was in a position to insist. I insisted."
"It sounds simple." I laughed uneasily.
"If you are a dramatic critic," he said, "you will guess that it was not at first quite so simple as it sounds. Of course it is simple enough now. Blanche Lemonnier is now completely identified with my plays. She is as well known as nearly any actress in Paris. She has the glory she desired." He smiled curiously. "Her ambition is satisfied—so is mine." He stopped.
"Well," I said, "I've never been so interested in any play before. And I shall expect Mademoiselle Lemonnier to be magnificent."
"Don't expect too much," he returned calmly. "Blanche's acting is not admired by everybody. And I cannot answer for her powers, as I've never seen her at work."
"It's that that's so extraordinary!"
"Not
