Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/91

 "You unnatural child! you rebellious daughter!"

Mademoiselle Rachel bursts into tears, and the lesson ends here, for the pupil's sobs prevent her saying "toujours" in any way.

Samson and Félix never agreed. The first open rupture occurred when, the autumn following Rachel's first appearance at the Français, her father demanded what the management considered extortionate terms. It was half what they gave her later, and the whole of that winter the average receipts, every time the young actress played, were 6,000 francs. The Comédie, however, including Samson, were highly indignant, and the story goes that, when Rachel went to take her usual lesson of the old professor, he asked if it were true that she and her father had made the demands stated. She answered in the affirmative, and added that, according to the "Code Civil," she, being a minor, was legally entitled to cancel her engagement and ask for better terms.

"You need no further lessons of me, then," replied the choleric old man. "I teach declamation, not chicanery, and I am not in the habit of associating with those who shape their course by the guidance of the 'Code Civil.' Your talent," he added, dashing to the ground a little statuette of Rachel, "will be destroyed and shattered like that. Go! I never want to see you again."

Abraham Félix, who had waited down below to escort his daughter home, was highly indignant when he heard the account of the interview. The breach between the two was never healed, and we read that, so far was the resentment carried that, a few days before Rachel's funeral, M. Empis, manager of the Comédie Française, received a letter from M. Félix, in which he expressed a hope that someone would speak in the name of the