Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the cloister.djvu/138

 in upon her. Friendship and respect were not lavished upon her, but there was no dearth of attention and flattery.

Her first night was one of professional triumph for "The Convent Girl." The vast house rose to her, flowers were showered upon her, boisterous applause greeted her repeated appearances before the curtain. She sang in French, and although few understood the current slang of the Paris streets, all felt her strange magnetism and admitted her devilish art. The newspapers which chronicled her success the next morning did not mention the fact that after the performance was over the woman had quietly fainted in her dressing-room, where doctors had worked for hours to bring her back to consciousness. This publication would have hurt "business," her manager, and herself; the reporters were considerate.

The best-known of the doctors who attended her was an acquaintance of her bohemian career in New York. Once or twice in those days she had gone to him with simple ailments. He had come to see the "little Randolph" of years ago, and had tried to find in the brilliant figure on the stage some trace of the girl he had known. In the midst of his reverie he had felt a touch on his shoulder,