It was the keen blue eyes of the Irish girl, Merry, that made an important discovery connected with Petite Jeanne’s disappearance.
Knowing that Merry was up bright and early every morning, Florence called her at seven o’clock the next morning to tell her of Jeanne’s disappearance.
“But what can have happened?” the girl asked in tearful consternation.
“That,” replied Florence, “is just what we all would like to know.”
“I’m coming down,” Merry announced. “Coming right away.”
“Then come to the theatre. I’m going there at once. The night watchman is on till eight. He’ll let us in. Places never look the same by the light of day. We may discover some clue.”
And indeed they did. As has been said, it was Merry who came upon it. She was passing through a narrow corridor between two doors, when something caused her to look up at the sill of a narrow window just above her head.
At once she let out a little cry of surprise.
“The Marble Falcon!” She could scarcely believe her eyes.
The next instant she did not believe them, for the thing resting there on the window sill turned its head slowly, as though it were set on a wooden pivot, and then quite as slowly winked an eye.
Merry felt her knees sinking beneath her. Gripping the doorknob, she stood there shaking until her senses returned.
She recovered just in time to seize a thin silken cord that dangled from one of the creature’s feet. At that instant the falcon, a real one and quite alive, spread two very capable wings and went flapping away through the half open door.
Only the silken line held tightly in the Irish girl’s hand prevented him from soaring aloft as he had, without doubt, done on other occasions.
Merry gave a little cry as he came fluttering down and alighted on one of her outstretched hands. The cry attracted Florence’s attention. She came hurrying up.
“A falcon, a real live falcon!” cried Merry. “Now, what do you think of that?”
“A live falcon!” Florence stared in astonishment.
Then she went into a brown study.
“Wings,” she murmured after a time. “The flutter of wings. Those were her very words. Merry, you may have made an important discovery!”
“She told me once,” replied the Irish girl, “that gypsies were very fond of falcons. Do you think there could be anything in that?”
“There may be.” Florence’s tone was thoughtful. “There may be a whole lot.”
“What are you going to do next?” Merry demanded with a sudden start.
“I must stay right here until nine o’clock. There was to have been a rehearsal at that hour. The director will be furious.”
“As if she could help it!”
“That’s just the trouble. You see she really had no business being here at that hour. And she was doing a thing that would have angered them beyond words, should they have found it out. How can we tell them anything without going into the whole affair?”
“That’s not an Irish question,” Merry smiled, “so you can’t expect an Irishman to answer it. We Irish folk tell the blunt, unadorned truth. If that means a fight, then we fight.
“And,” she added whimsically, “I don’t think we mind a good fight much, either.
“But say!” she exclaimed. “If you’re going to stay for the scrap, I’m not. It’s not my fight.
“Besides, I’ve something I want to try out. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not in the least.”
With that, the strange little girl from the shop of broken gifts gathered the silk cord into her hands, and with the falcon still perched upon her wrist, walked down the corridor and out into the sunlit street.
Unfortunate for those who awaited him was the mood of Drysdale, the director, on that particular morning. Perhaps he had not slept well. His breakfast may have been overdone, or cold. Men with hard heads, narrow hearts and few smiles seldom sleep well, and rarely do they enjoy their breakfast.
“Where is she?” he demanded as he saw his watch point to the hour of nine. “Where is this young gypsy dancing queen?”
Until this moment he had been told nothing. Hoping against hope that some miracle would bring Petite Jeanne back to them in time for the rehearsal, Angelo, Florence and Dan Baker had put off the inevitable.
Seeing that the zero hour had arrived, Angelo climbed out of the trenches. “She’s gone,” he said simply. “She won’t be here.”
“Gone?” The gray steel face took on the color of glowing metal. “Won’t be here? What do you mean?”
“Been kidnaped.”
“Kidnaped! How? When? Why wasn’t I notified?”
“No reason.” Angelo was still calm. “All’s been done that could be done. The police were here last night. They looked the place over. No clues. She’s gone. That’s all.”
“Police? Here? Last night? This place? Why here last night?” Suspicion had been added to the anger in this man’s hard heart.
Seeing that he had given the thing away, Angelo made a clean breast of the whole affair.
The face of the director, as he learned that Petite Jeanne had been practicing her old dances at night in his theatre with the intention of using those dances on the opening night, was a terrible thing to see.
“That!” he exploded, as Angelo’s story was finished. “That is the end!”
“Yes,” replied Angelo coldly, “no doubt of it. And well ended, too.”
Beckoning to his companions, he walked from the room, down the stairs and out into the autumn morning.
They walked, the three of them, Florence, Angelo and Dan Baker, one full city block. Then Dan Baker spoke. What he said was:
“Coffee. Coffee and waffles, with pure maple syrup. Right in here.”
Thus spoke Dan Baker, the old trouper. He had lost, perhaps forever, his one chance for fame and fortune. But he had not lost his heart of gold.
* * * * * * * *
After leaving the theatre, Merry had gone at once to a nearby store and purchased a spool of stout linen thread.
Once outside the store, she attached the end of the thread to the silk cord on the falcon’s leg. The next thing she did was to shake the falcon from her wrist.
Flapping lazy wings, he soared aloft. Scarcely had he cleared the low building before him, however, than he shot straight away toward the west.
Astonished at the pull he gave upon her thread, and fearful lest he break it, Merry played out the line grudgingly until she had him stopped and then slowly drew him back. Catching sight of her, he soared back to a place on her wrist.
“So that’s settled!” she exclaimed with considerable animation. “I guessed as much. Now for something else.”
Boarding a street car and ignoring the astonished stares of those who rode with her as they saw the falcon, she took a seat and rattled away toward the west.
When she had ridden thirty blocks she left the car, and stood again on a street corner and released her bird.
The performance of half an hour before was repeated in every detail.
“Still westward he wings his flight,” she murmured as she drew the bird back. “That means the Forest Preserve. The flats around the settlement house are at my back now.
“Can’t go out there alone,” she told herself. “Not safe. They might kidnap me, too.”
She thought of Kay King and Weston. Maxwell Street was not far off.
“They’ll help me,” she told herself.
Turning, she walked rapidly toward Maxwell Street and Kay King’s book store.
“He belongs to those gypsies,” she said an hour later, pointing to the falcon.
Kay had stood frowning and silent while she told her story. “Those gypsies kidnaped Petite Jeanne,” she went on. “I thought that from the start. When I found this bird I was sure of it. Since he flies toward the Forest Preserve I’m sure she’s out there somewhere.”
“You’re probably right,” Kay agreed. “And I know where they’re camped. I bought some old French books from them week before last. You can’t go there on a street car. Too far. Weston’s off with his truck. Went for some trunks. When he gets back we can go out there. I’ll call Big John. He keeps a shop down the street. He’s got a gun, a regular cannon. We might need it.”
“Yes,” agreed Merry, as a little thrill ran up her spine, “we might.”
Weston was slow in returning. Big John with his “regular cannon” needed looking up. It was mid-afternoon by the time they went rattling off toward the Forest Preserve.
A strange lot of detectives they were, this “Golden Circle” of Merry’s: Kay King with his sensitive, almost girlish face; Weston, red-faced and habitually smiling; Big John, immense, stoical and slow, with a large gun tucked under his arm; and last, but not least, Merry and her falcon.
The men rode on the broad front seat. Merry brought up the rear. She was comfortably stowed away in a pile of old quilts and blankets that lay on the floor of the closed truck.
“Be almost night before we get there,” the girl thought to herself.
As she closed her eyes she seemed to see gypsy camp fires gleaming in the fading light of day. About one of these fires a blonde girl was dancing. The girl was Petite Jeanne. A strange sort of vision, but not far wrong.
Gypsy camp fires were indeed dispelling dark shadows of a fading day in the heart of a forest glade when the truck bearing Merry’s “Golden Circle” arrived at the scene of the encampment. But no little French girl danced about any of them.
“They’re gone, those Frenchies,” said the greasy gypsy who came out of a tent in answer to their call. “Don’t know much about ’em. They’re not of our tribe. We’re Americans; been here for generations.”
“Did they have a girl with them?” Weston asked.
“Yellow-haired?”
“Yes.”
“She’s with ’em, all right.”
“Bound?”
“How do you mean, bound?” The gypsy stared. “Gypsies don’t tie their folks up.”
“But she was kidnaped,” Merry broke in.
“Listen, young lady!” The man came close. His air was defiant, almost threatening. “Gypsies don’t kidnap girls. Why should they? Got enough of their own.”
At that moment three dirty children crowded around him. The look on his face softened as he patted their tousled heads.
“That girl kidnaped!” He laughed hoarsely. “She’s one of ’em. Talks their French lingo. Talks gypsy talk, too, better’n me. Danced all day, didn’t she, youngsters?” Again he patted the dark hair of the shy children.
“Beautiful, so beautiful dancer!” the oldest girl murmured.
“See!” he exulted. “I tell the truth. Children don’t lie.”
“But where have they gone?” Merry’s mind was in a whirl. Petite Jeanne staying in such a place of her own free will? Petite Jeanne, who was so much needed elsewhere, dancing all day beside a gypsy tent? The thing seemed impossible. Yet here were the guileless little children to confirm the statement.
“Wait! I will show you.” The man disappeared within the tent. He was back in half a minute. In his hand he held a soiled road map. On this, with some skill, he traced a route that ended in a village called Pine Grove, many miles away.
“Beyond this place,” he concluded, “is a great pine grove. Some man planted it there many years ago. You cannot miss it. There is only one like this in the state. This is where they will camp. There are others of their kind camping there. They are gone three hours ago in a motor van. See! There are the wheel tracks. You may follow, but you will not overtake them; not in that.” He pointed at their truck with a smile. “Gypsies have always been blacksmiths. Now many are motor mechanics. They trade for cars, fix ’em up. Always it is for a better car. By and by they have a very fine one. So it is with these.”
Still smiling, he bowed himself into his tent, and closed the flap.
“We may be slow,” Weston said grimly, “but we are sure. We will be in Pine Grove before sunrise. Hop in, little lady, and we’ll step on the gas.”
A motorist traveling that long and lonely road, mapped out by the gypsy and taken by Merry’s “Golden Circle” that night, might, had he been traveling in the opposite direction, have marveled at the motor transports he met that night.
The first was high, broad and long, a gaudily painted house on wheels. On its seat rode three men. At the back of this traveling house was a room, much like the one room apartments of a modern city. Two broad berths let down from the ceiling were occupied; the one on the right by a girl, the one on the left by a woman and child.
The girl was Petite Jeanne. With her golden hair all tossed about on her pillow, she slept the sleep of innocence.
Do you marvel at this? Had not a gypsy van been her home in France for many a happy season? Ah yes, this was truly her home.
From time to time, as the van jolted over its rough way, she half awakened and found herself wondering dimly what beautiful French village they might be near when they camped for breakfast in the morning. Happily sleep found her again ere she was sufficiently awake to realize that she was in the bleak interior of America; that she was with strange gypsies, and that she had no money.
The woman and child across from her were not so fortunate. The child, a girl of two or three years, whose eyes were dark as night and whose tangled curls were like a raven’s wing, tossed about in her bed. She was burning hot with fever. The mother slept fitfully. Often she awakened to sit up and stare with big, motherly eyes at the child; then with tender fingers she tucked it securely in. The gypsy mother loves the children God has given her.
Three hours back on this road a second truck made its lumbering way through the night. On its seat, taking turns at nodding and dozing or driving, sat three men. They were not well clothed. The night wind blew all too frankly through their threadbare coats. But their hearts were warm, so they cared little for the wind.
At the back of this truck, buried deep in a pile of ragged quilts and blankets, was blue-eyed Merry. She slept the long night through.
With the dawn Weston swung his truck sharply to the right, drove on for a quarter of a mile and then brought it to a sputtering halt.
“Hey, Merry!” he shouted back. “We’re here. And over there is your friend. See! She is dancing the sun up. She is dancing around a gypsy camp fire.”
And there, sure enough, radiant as the morn, was the little French girl, dancing her heart away while a broad circle of gypsy folks admired and applauded.
“Now, what,” Merry rubbed her eyes as she tumbled from the truck, “what do you think of that?”
“These people surely did kidnap me. But, oh, for a very good reason!” Petite Jeanne placed her palms against one another and held them up as a child does in a good-night prayer.
Almost on the instant of their arrival, the little French girl’s keen eyes had recognized the men of Merry’s “Golden Circle” and had come dancing out to meet them.
When Merry tumbled out at the back of the van, Jeanne had seized her by the hand and, without a word of explanation, dragged her to a place beside the gypsy camp fire. After a moment in which to regain her breath and overcome her astonishment at the arrival of these friends, she had seized a huge pot of English tea and a plate of cakes and then had dragged Merry away to the shadows of a huge black pine tree, leaving the three men to have breakfast with the gypsies.
“And to think!” she cried, “that you should have come all this way to find me, you and your ‘Golden Circle!’”
“We—we thought you must be in great distress,” Merry murmured.
“Of course you would. And that only goes to prove that I, who have been a gypsy, have no right to try living as those do who have not been gypsies.
“But truly I must tell you!” Jeanne set down her cup of tea. “You see, these gypsies are French. They knew I, too, was French, that I had been a gypsy, and that I had the God of Fire. How?” She threw up her hands. “How do they know many things? Because they are gypsies.
“These people,” she went on, “believe very much in the power of the Fire God. He is able to heal the sick. They believe that.
“They believe more than this. They think that when one is sick he is only sad. If they can cheer him up, then he will be well again. So: sing to him; play the violin and guitar; dance for him. Bring the Fire God and dance before him. That is best of all.
“Did you see that beautiful child?” she asked suddenly. She nodded her head toward the camp. “The one among the blankets before the fire?”
Merry nodded.
“That child has been very, very sick. Now we have sung for her. We have danced for her. The Fire God is here. He has smiled for her. Perhaps she will get well.
“And that,” she concluded, as if all had been explained, “that is why they kidnaped me. They knew I could dance very well. They wished me to dance before the Fire God that the child might be well again.
“And I—” Her voice took on an appealing quality. “I might have escaped. After they had taken me from the theatre, they did not compel me to stay. But how could I come away? There was the child. And is not one child, even a gypsy child, more than friends or plays or money or food, or any of these?”
“Yes,” said Merry thoughtfully, “she is more than all these. But why did they not ask you to come? Why did they carry you away?”
“Ah! They are simple people. They did not believe I would come willingly.
“They were at the theatre three times. Twice they really meant to ask me, but did not dare. The child grew worse. Then they took me.”
“And the falcon—”
“It escaped that night. They told me.”
“And it was the falcon that led us to you,” said Merry. It was her turn to take up the story.
That day a doctor was called. He pronounced the gypsy child out of danger.
“Doctor,” said Merry, looking earnestly into his eyes, “did she truly help?” She threw a glance at Petite Jeanne.
“Without a shadow of doubt.” Here was an understanding doctor. “She helped the mother and father to be cheerful and hopeful. This spirit was imparted to the child. Nothing could have helped her more.”
“Then,” said Merry, “I am glad.”
That afternoon the three men, who had slept the morning through in the back of Weston’s truck, drove Jeanne and Merry to the nearby village where they caught a train to the city.
It was a very sober Jeanne who approached the door of the theatre that evening just as the shadows of skyscrapers were growing long.
To her surprise she found Florence, Angelo, Dan Baker and Swen, gathered there. At their backs were several large trunks.
“Why! What—” She stared from one to the other.
“Been thrown out,” Angelo stated briefly.
“The—the opera? Our beautiful opera?”
“There will be no opera. We have been thrown out.” Angelo seemed tired. “A road company opens here a week from next Sunday.”
Florence saw the little French girl sway, and caught her. As she did so, she heard her murmur:
“The hand of Fate! It has turned the hour glass. The sand is falling on my head.”
She was not ill, as Florence feared; only a little faint from lack of rest and sleep. She had once more caught a vision of that giant hour glass. A cup of coffee from a nearby shop revived her spirits.
She started to tell her story, but Angelo stopped her. “All in good time!” he exclaimed. “You are too tired now. And we must look to our trunks.”
“But I must explain. I—” The little French girl was almost in tears.
“Dear child,” said Angelo, in the gentlest of tones, “we are your friends. We love you. Never explain. Your friends do not require it; your enemies do not deserve it; you—”
“Ah! A very happy little party, I see.” A voice that none of them recognized broke in. The short, stout, rather ugly man with a large nose and a broad smile who had thus spoken was a stranger.
“Thrown out,” said Angelo, jerking a hand toward the trunks.
“So! That’s bad. Winter, too.” The man looked them over calmly.
“That little girl can dance,” he said, nodding at Jeanne, “like an angel. Where’ve I seen her? Can’t recall.
“And you, my friend.” He patted Dan Baker on the shoulder. “Where did I see you?”
“Topeka, Kansas.” The old trouper smiled. “Or was it Joplin, Missouri?”
“Probably Joplin,” said the stranger.
“Mind giving me your card?” He turned to Angelo.
“Haven’t any.”
“Well, then, write it here.” He proffered a blank page of a much-thumbed note book.
Angelo wrote. The stranger departed without another word. He had said nothing of real importance; had not so much as told them who he was, nor how he made his living; yet his pause there among them had inspired them with fresh hope. Such is the buoyancy of youth. And the old trouper was in spirit the youngest of them all.
Before retiring that night Florence and Petite Jeanne sat for a long time in their own small room, discussing the past and future.
They had spent the earlier hours of the evening in Angelo’s studio. There, in frankness and utter sincerity, the little company had discussed its prospects.
No one blamed Petite Jeanne for the part she had played. Being endowed with tender and kindly souls, they one and all felt that under the same conditions they would have acted in an identical manner.
“It is of little consequence,” Angelo had declared magnanimously. “We should never have succeeded under that management. The opera was doomed. And once a failure always a failure in the realm of playland.”
“What does it matter?” Dan Baker’s kindly old eyes had lighted with a smile. “You have youth and love and beauty, all of you. How can you ask for more?”
This speech had seemed quite wonderful at the time. But to these girls sitting on their bed, facing facts, the future did not seem rosy. With only two weeks’ room rent paid, with less than ten dollars between them, with no income save Florence’s meager pay, and with bleak old winter close at hand, they could not but dread what lay ahead.
“Jeanne,” Florence said at last, as if to change the subject, “was the gypsy who chased you, on that morning when you fell into Merry’s cellar, among those you saw at the Forest Preserve?”
“No,” the little French girl said thoughtfully. “No, I am sure he was not.”
“Then,” said her companion, “we had better put his Majesty, the little God of Fire, back to rest in his hole in the floor. You may need him yet.”
“I am sure we shall.” The little French girl’s tone carried assurance. “That opera is beautiful, very, very beautiful. And what is it the poet says?
“‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’
“And still another:
“‘All that is at all
Lasts forever, past recall.’
“If these things are true, how can our beautiful opera fail to live? Believe me, our time will yet come.
“Yes, yes, we must hide the little Fire God very carefully indeed.”
Three weeks passed. Trying weeks they were to the little French girl; weeks in which her faith and courage were severely tested.
As proof of her faith in the beautiful thing Angelo and Swen had created, she kept up her dancing. Sometimes in Angelo’s studio, sometimes in her own small room, sometimes humming snatches of the score, sometimes with Swen beating the battered piano, she danced tirelessly on. There were times, too, when those hardy souls who went to walk in the park on these bleak days saw a golden haired sprite dancing in the sun. This, too, was Jeanne.
But when winter came sweeping down, when on one memorable November day she awoke and found the window ledge piled high with snow and heard the shriek of a wind that, whirling and eddying outside, seemed never to pause, she despaired a little.
“This American winter,” she murmured. “It is terrible.”
And how could it seem otherwise to her? In her beloved France it snowed a little. But the snow was soon gone. No drifts three feet high, no blocked traffic, no terrible thermometer dropping to twenty below. Besides, when winter came in France, the gypsies, “folding their tents like the Arabs,” drifted away toward the south where it was always summer.
By drawing the covers up over her head she was able to shut out from her eyes the sight of the drifting snow and from her ears the sound of the shrieking wind. But she could not hide from her alert mind the fact that her money was gone, that the rent was overdue, nor that Florence’s pitiful salary, if such it might be called, sufficed only to supply them with the plainest of food.
In these last days she had gone less seldom to Angelo’s studio. Matters were no better there. And, though for her sake Angelo and his companions kept up a continuous chatter about future successes and good times just around the corner, she knew in her heart that they, too, were discouraged.
“There are the traveling bags,” she told herself now, as she threw back the covers and sat up. “Those three pigskin traveling bags down there in Angelo’s studio. I have fifteen dollars invested in them. Kay King has always said: ‘You may have the money back any time.’
“Perhaps,” she thought soberly, “it is wrong of me to keep them. But to sell them seems like betraying a friend. To cast all those beautiful treasures, bestowed upon my good friend by those who loved him best, before the eyes of curious, grasping and often stupid people, and to say ‘Come, buy these,’ certainly does seem like the betrayal of a friend.
“And he was so kind to me!” She closed her eyes and saw it all again. “I was so young. The ship, the sea, all the people were so strange. And America. It, at first, was even worse. But he, big-hearted man that he was, treated me as his own daughter. He made everything seem so simple, so joyous, so much like a lark. How can I? Oh, how can I?” She wrung her slender hands in agony. “How can I permit them to be sold?
“And yet,” she thought more calmly, “it has been more than three weeks since I wrote that letter to his hotel in New York. There has been time for it to reach England and for the reply to come. I have heard nothing. Perhaps he is dead.
“No reply,” she thought again. “There may have been one, and yet I may not have known it.”
This was true. Since she did not wish to carry the heavy bags to her room, she had left them at Angelo’s studio, and in writing the letter had given only that address.
“I have not been to the studio for three days. A letter may await me. I shall go to-day. If he reclaims the bags, he will repay me. Perhaps there will be a tiny reward. Then all will be well again. Ah, yes, why despair?”
Thus encouraged, she hopped out of bed, did ten minutes of shadow-dancing and then, having hopped into her clothes, set about the business of making toast and coffee over an electric plate.
“Life,” she murmured as she sipped her coffee, “is after all very, very sweet.”
An afterthought had a tendency to dim the little French girl’s hopes. Angelo, she remembered, had called her on the phone the day before.
He had, he assured her, nothing of importance to say. “And that,” she told herself now, “means no letter. And yet, he may have forgotten. Ah, well, we’ll hope. And I shall not go there until evening. That will give the mailman one more day to do his bit.”
She called to mind the things Angelo had told her. He and his companions were very close to the bottom. His precious treasures, rugs and all, must soon go. They were living from hand to mouth. Dan Baker had been earning a little, three or four dollars a day. “Doing impersonation.” That is what the old trouper had called it, whatever that might mean. Swen had hopes of earning something soon. How? He did not know. As for himself, he had found nothing. He had even offered to sell books on drama at a book store; but they would not have him.
“Sell books.” She sat staring at the wall now. “Who would buy them?”
She was thinking of blue-eyed Merry and of her last visit to the basement shop. “It is hard,” the brave little Irish girl had said to her. “For days and days no one has entered the shop. And we need money so badly.
“But we have hopes,” she had added quickly. “The holiday season is coming. Perhaps those who cannot buy costly presents will come to our shop and buy mended ones that are cheap.”
“I am sure of it,” Jeanne had said.
“And see!” Merry had cried, pointing at the marble falcon with the broken beak, that rested on the shelf above her desk. “See! He is still looking toward the sky. All will be well.”
“Oh, little girl with your smiling Irish eyes,” Jeanne had cried, throwing both arms about her, “How I love you! Some day I’ll be rich. Then I shall give you a falcon all made of gold and he shall be looking toward the sky.”
Now as she sat alone in her room, she thought again of the marble falcon, and murmured, “I wonder if the falcon told the truth. I wonder if all will be well? Truly, in such times as these it is necessary to have great faith if one is to be brave.”
She threw herself into her dances that day with abandon. By the time she had done the last wild whirl she had worked herself up to such heights that she felt sure that a change for the better would come.
“It is as if I were preparing for some great event,” she told herself, “a trial of my skill that will mean great success or terrible defeat!”
But as she went toward the studio she was given a shock that came near to breaking her poor little heart.
She had rounded a corner when a sudden rush of wind seized her and all but threw her against a beggar who, tin cup in hand, stood against the wall.
The sight of the beggar caused her to halt. There was, she remembered, a dime in her side coat pocket.
She looked again at the beggar, then thrust her hand deep for the dime. The beggar seemed pitifully, hopelessly forlorn. His battered hat was drooping with snow. His long gray hair was powdered with it. The hand that held the cup was blue with cold. In a sad and forlorn world he seemed the saddest and most forlorn being of all.
She had the dime between her fingers and was about to draw it forth when another look at the old man made her start. A second look was needed before she could be convinced that her eyes had not deceived her. Then, with a sound in her throat suspiciously like a sob, she dropped the dime back in her pocket and hastened away on the wings of the wind, as if she had seen a ghost.
“Impersonations,” she whispered to herself, as a chill shook her from head to foot. “Impersonation. He called it that. He would do even this for his friends!”
The beggar standing there in the storm was none other than Dan Baker.
“I’ll call Kay King,” she said to herself, with another shudder. “I’ll call him to-night. I’ll tell him he may have those bags. And when he brings me the money I shall give it to Dan Baker. And he must accept it, every dollar.”
She found Angelo at the studio when she arrived. No one else was there. Swen, he explained, had gone out on some sort of work. Dan Baker was doing his “impersonations.” Again Jeanne shuddered at that word.
Angelo had greeted her with the warm affection characteristic of his race. Now he led her to a place beside the fire.
After that neither seemed to find words for small talk. Each was busy with thoughts that could not well be expressed. Angelo, too, hailed from a warm and sunny clime. This wild storm, ushering in winter so early in the year, had sobered his usually buoyant soul.
After a time she asked him about the letter.
“A letter?” he asked, seeming puzzled. “Did you expect a letter to come here?”
“Perhaps I did not tell you.” She nodded toward the corner where the three pigskin bags stood. “When I wrote the letter to my friend, I gave him this address.”
“I see. Well, there has been no letter.”
“I suppose,” she said dully, “that I may as well turn the bags back to Kay King and get the money.”
“Must you?” He looked at her sharply.
“I think I must. I’ll call him on the phone now.”
Before she could put this plan into execution, Swen came bursting into the room. He wore no cap. His hair was filled with snow. His face was red with the cold. But his spirits were buoyant.
“Had a whale of a time,” he shouted boisterously. “And see! I have three whole dollars! To-night we feast.”
Petite Jeanne heaved a sigh of relief. There was money in the house. Now she need not call Kay King, at least not until morning.
“A day of grace,” she told herself.
It was some time later that, chancing to catch a glimpse of the talented young musician’s hand, she saw with a shock that they were covered with blisters.
“He has been shoveling snow in the street,” she told herself. An added ache came to her overburdened heart.
Dan Baker came in a moment later. Beating the snow from his hat, he threw it into a corner. Having shaken the snow from his hair, he advanced to greet Jeanne.
“He doesn’t know I saw him,” she thought, as she looked straight into his transparent blue eyes. “I am so glad.”
At first he seemed too tired for talk. Taking a place before the fire, he appeared to fall into a dreamy reverie.
At last, rousing himself, he drew from his pocket a coin that shone in the dim light. It was a gold piece, one of those rare two-dollar-and-a-half pieces. Jeanne started at the sight of it. How had he come by it? Had some one, mistaking it for a penny, dropped it in his cup?
Still looking at the coin, Dan Baker spoke one word: “Gold.”
His weary old eyes took on an unwonted brightness. “That reminds me. Once I was down on my luck as an actor. That was in Colorado.” He paused and his eyes appeared to grow misty with recollection.
“He’s off again,” Jeanne told herself. “But how wonderful!” Her eyes grew dim with tears. “How marvelous to be able to forget all that is sordid, cold and mean, all the heartaches of the present in one’s dreams of an unreal but charming past.”
“As I was about to say,” Dan Baker made a fresh start, “I was no longer an actor. No one wished me to act. So, securing pick, a pan and a burro—or was it two burros?”
“Oh!” murmured Petite Jeanne. “Just as you were to do in our play.”
“Just as he is to do,” Angelo corrected stoutly.
“Yes, yes,” Dan Baker broke in, like a child whose story has been interrupted. “But the burros. There were two, I am sure. Well, I recall the jingle of picks and shovels, pots and pans as we traveled up Bear Creek Canyon in Colorado—beautiful, wonderful Colorado, where the snow-capped mountains are reflected in tiny lakes whose waters are blue-black.
“Three days we traveled. Three nights I slept by a burned out camp fire on the banks of a madly rushing stream.
“From time to time I caught the gleam of a golden speck in the sand at the river’s bottom.
“But the gold,” I told myself, “is higher up. And so it was.”
He paused to poke at the fire. As his eyes reflected the gleam of the fire the little French girl knew that he was not in the heart of a great, sordid and selfish city, but far, far away, prodding a camp fire in beautiful Colorado where snow-capped mountains are reflected in tiny lakes whose waters are a deep blue-black. And she was glad.
“Gold,” he began once more. “Ah, yes. There was gold. You would be surprised.
“I built a cabin, all of logs save the floor. That was of fragrant fir and spruce boughs.
“One day as I panned the sand I came upon a brownish object that seemed to be an ancient copper kettle turned upside down and half buried in the sand.
“‘Aha!’ I cried, ‘A relic of the past. Some Forty-niner must have passed this way and left his kettle.’
“I struck it lightly with the side of my pick. Naturally I expected it to give off a hollow sound. No hollow sound came; only a dull thud, as if I had struck a rock.
“Instantly my heart beat wildly. I had made a great discovery—how great I could only guess.
“Quickly I drew my sheath knife. Using this as a chisel, and a stone as a hammer, I cut off a chip of this yellow boulder.
“Imagine my joy when it came off gleaming like yellow fire.
“‘Gold!’ I cried. ‘A boulder of pure gold!’
“Then I fell suddenly silent. What if some one had heard me?
“I tried to pry the boulder from the sand. It would not budge. Gold is heavy. Do you know how heavy?
“Darkness was falling. The curtain of night would hide my treasure. I returned to my cabin, fried a supply of bacon, baked corn-cakes over hot coals, and enjoyed a regal repast. And why not? Was I not rich as any king?”
Once more the beloved wanderer prodded the fire. As he did so a dramatic look of gray despair overspread his face.
“I slept well that night. Awakened sometime before dawn by the dull roar of thunder, I looked out on a world of inky blackness.
“‘Going to rain,’ I thought. Then I crawled back between the blankets.
“Not for long. To the occasional roar of thunder was added a more terrifying sound. An endless, ever increasing roar came echoing down the canyon.
“Knowing its meaning, I wrenched my cabin door from its hinges, and then awaited the worst.
“I had not long to wait. As if by magic I felt my door, my life saving raft, lifted beneath me by a raging torrent and go spinning round and round. We were on our way, riding the flood of a cloudburst.
“Well—” He paused to reflect. “I landed in a fellow’s cornfield. He wanted to charge me for the corn my raft broke down. I wouldn’t stand for that, so I went down to Denver and joined a troupe that was playing Ten Nights in a Bar Room. For a man that never drank, I claim I had a pretty good line.”
“But that gold?” put in Swen.
“Oh! The gold? Sure. Yes, the gold!” For a moment the old man seemed bewildered. Then a bright smile lighted his wrinkled face.
“Gold, my son, is heavy. That flood moved half the mountainside. And when it was over, where was my golden boulder? At the bottom of it all, to be sure.”
“That story,” said Petite Jeanne, “sounds almost true.”
“True?” He beamed on her his old, gracious smile. “Of course it’s true. At least, I did once play a part in Ten Nights in a Bar Room—a mighty fine line, too, for a man who never drank a quart of whisky in his whole life.”
After that, Dan Baker sat for a time staring at the glittering bit of gold, the smallest coin of our realm. When he spoke again it was to the coin alone. “You came to me by chance. What for? To buy stale bread, and butter made from cocoanut oil, and a soup bone? Tell me. Shall it be this, or shall it be sirloin steak, a pie and a big pot of coffee with real cream?”
As Petite Jeanne looked and listened, she seemed to see him once again, standing half buried in snow, a tin cup frozen to his benumbed fingers. She was about to speak, to utter words of wise counsel, when with a suddenness that caused them all to start, there came a loud knock at the door.
The unexpected visitor was a short, stout man with a large hooked nose. So completely engulfed was he in a great raccoon coat, that on first sight not one of them recognized him. When, however, he had removed that coat he was known at a glance. It was none other than the rather ugly, fat Jew who had taken Angelo’s name and address on that dismal day when they stood with their trunks before the old Blackmoore theatre.
“So, ho!” he exclaimed. Just as, Jeanne thought, a bear might should he enter a cave filled with rabbits.
“Fine place here.” He advanced toward the fire. “All very cheerful. Delightful company. May I sit down?”
Without waiting for an answer, he took a chair by the fire.
An awkward silence followed. Petite Jeanne wiggled her bare toes; she had danced a little that evening. Swen pawed his blonde mane. Dan Baker stared dreamily into the fire.
The stranger’s eyes wandered from one to the other of them. They rested longest on Petite Jeanne. This made her uncomfortable.
“My name,” said the stranger, crashing the silence and indulging in a broad grin that completely transformed his face, “is Abraham Solomon. You’d say my parents left nothing to the imagination when they named me, now wouldn’t you?” He laughed uproariously.
“Well, they didn’t. And neither do I. Never have. Never will. What I want to know is, have you placed that light opera?” He turned an enquiring eye on Angelo.
“No, er—” the Italian youth stammered, “we—we haven’t.”
“Then,” said Solomon, “suppose you show it to me now.” He nodded toward the miniature stage at the back of the studio. “That is, as much of it as you can—first act at least.”
“Gladly.
“On your toes!” Angelo smiled as his friends leaped from their places by the fire. Not one of them could guess what it meant. But, like Petite Jeanne, they believed more or less in fairies, goblins, and Santa Claus.
The performance they put on that night for the benefit of their audience of one, who sat like a Sphinx with his back to the fire, would have done credit to a broader stage.
When they had finished, the look on the stranger’s face had not changed.
Rising suddenly from his chair, he seemed about to depart without a word.
Petite Jeanne could have wept. She had hoped—what had she not hoped? And now—
But no. The man turned to Angelo. “Got a phone here?”
“Yonder.” Angelo pointed a trembling finger toward the corner. There was a strange glow on his face. Perhaps he read character better than Jeanne.
They heard Solomon call a number. Then:
“That you, Mister Mackenzie? Solomon speaking. Is the Junior Ballet there?
“Spare ’em for an hour? In costume? Put on their fur coats and send ’em over.”
“Where?”
“What’s this number?” He whirled about to ask Angelo.
“Six—six—eight.”
“Six—six—eight on the boulevard. Send ’em in taxis. I’ll meet ’em at the sidewalk and pay the fares.
“Fifteen minutes? Great!”
Without a word he drew on his great coat and, slamming the door behind him, went thumping down the stairs.
“What—what—” Jeanne was too astonished for speech.
Angelo seized her hand. He drew their friends into the circle and pulled them into a wild roundo-rosa about the room.
“We’re made!” he exclaimed as, out of breath, he released them. “Abraham Solomon is the greatest genius of a manager and producer the world has ever known.
“And the Junior Ballet! Oh, la la! You never have seen so many natural beauties before, and never will again. They are in training for Grand Opera. So you see they must be most beautiful and good.
“And to think,” he cried, almost in dismay, “they will be here, here in my studio in fifteen minutes! Every one of you give me a hand. Let’s put it in order.”
As she assisted in the re-arranging of the studio, Petite Jeanne found her head all awhirl. Half an hour before she had listened with a pain in her heart to Dan Baker discussing dry bread or a full meal over a small gold piece he had gained by begging in the snow. And now all this. How could she stand it? She wanted to run away.
“But I must not,” she told herself stoutly. “I must not! For this is our golden hour.”
Scarcely had she regained her composure when there came the sound of many pairs of feet ascending the stairs.
“They come,” Angelo whispered.
“Oh, my good Father of Love!” Petite Jeanne murmured faintly. “Is it for this that I have danced so long?”
“It is for this.”
“Then—” In the girl’s eyes was a prayer. “Then, good Father, give me courage for one short hour.”
A moment later Angelo and Swen were assisting in the removal of fur coats from visions of loveliness that surpassed the most gorgeous butterflies. For this, you must know, was the Junior Ballet of the Grand Opera. Selected for beauty and grace, they would have shone in any ballroom of the land.
Some were slender, some plump. There were black eyes, brown and blue. There were heads of black, brown and golden hue. The costumes, too, were varied. All were of the filmiest of fabrics and all were gorgeous.
“See!” exclaimed the miracle-working Solomon, spreading his hands wide. “I have brought these here that I may see you dancing with them. I wish to know how you fit in; how you will appear before them all.”
“Ah, poor me!” The little French girl covered her face. “Who am I that I should dance before these so beautiful ones?”
“Come!” said the fairy godfather who had suddenly arrived in their midst. “It is for you only to do your dances as I have seen you here. Yes, and I once did over in the old Blackmoore. Ah, yes, I was a spy. I saw you dance, and how very well you did it, too.”
Jeanne wondered with a thrill whether he could have bribed some one to admit him to the theatre on one of those nights when she danced to the God of Fire alone.
“Let us see.” Solomon allowed his glance to fall upon the circle of dancers. “Perhaps we can find something you all know. Then you can do it together.”
He named one well known dance after another; this one from light opera and that from grand opera, without success until he came to the polka from The Bartered Bride.
At once all eyes shone. Even Dan Baker was prepared to do his part, and Swen to have a try at the music.
Never was the beautiful dance performed in such unusual surroundings. And seldom has it been done so well.
When the last graceful swing was executed, when whirling gowns were still, and the company had gathered in a circle before the fire with the girls reposing in colorful groups on his beloved rugs, and the men standing about, Angelo caught a long breath, and murmured:
“Perfect!”
“This,” said Solomon in a voice that trembled slightly, “is a great moment. The best, in a great profession, I have met. The result is beauty beyond compare, and a light opera that will outshine the sun.”
“But the playhouse.” Angelo strove to bring him down to earth.
“The house? The most beautiful in the city. Where else? The Civic Theatre. You know the place.”
“Know it?” How well he knew that place of beauty, that palace of gold and old rose!
“But—but you forget,” he stammered. “It is only for occasional things; recitals, Shakespeare, the very unusual affairs!”
“And this,” said Solomon, clapping him on the back, “This, my boy, will be the most unusual of all! We may remain as long as we are good. And we shall be good forever.
“But I promised to bring these ladies back promptly.” He sprang into action. “Come! Coats on! And let’s be away.”
Though the ladies of the Junior Ballet were rushed into coats and fairly pushed down the stairs to waiting taxis, not one of them failed to pause and give Jeanne a hug and a smile or a whispered word of congratulation.
“How different!” she thought as a great lump came into her throat. “How very different from Eve and her circle!”
“Here!” Solomon turned from hurrying the girls away. “This will act as a binder. Be here to-morrow at nine.” He thrust something into Angelo’s hand.
Angelo opened his hand after a time and spread out five fifty dollar bills.
“One for you, and you, and you, and you,” he chanted as he dealt them out, finally cramming one into his own pocket.
“Sit down,” he invited. “This is an hour for silent thanksgiving.”
“And prayer,” the devout French girl murmured softly.
They had been sitting thus in absolute silence for some time when, with a rush that brought in a wave of cold air, Florence burst into the room.
“Oh, Florence! My own!” Jeanne cried, throwing herself into the big girl’s arms. “To-night fairies and angels and godfathers have been here and for you and me the world begins once more to roll round and round just as it used to do!”
“Steady there!” said Angelo soberly. “We have another opportunity to make good. That is all. We must all do our very best. We must guard our steps well. Then, perhaps, all our dreams will come true.”
A few minutes later, a sober but joyous company, they parted for the night.
As Jeanne left the room she allowed her eyes to stray to the corner where rested the three traveling bags. She heaved a great sigh of relief and crowded her life saving fifty dollar bill deeper into her small purse. She had not been obliged to sell the treasures of a friend, and for this she was more thankful than for her own good fortune.
But would this friend ever come for his property? She wondered.
As they made their way through the driving snow to the street car Florence thought she caught a glimpse of a dark, bulky figure following in the shadows. Seizing Petite Jeanne by the arm she hurried along.
A car came rolling up on the padded snow just as they arrived. Soon they were stowed away in its warm depths. Not, however, until Florence had noted that the bulky figure was a large man in a green overcoat.
“We lost him,” she thought with some satisfaction.
She was wrong. As they rose to leave the car she saw, seated at the back, that same man. She knew in an instant who he was. For ten seconds her brain whirled. She was obliged to grip the edge of a seat for support.
Regaining control of herself she passed out without so much as glancing in his direction.
To her surprise the man did not follow.
“May not have recognized us.” This was more a wish than a hope.
Hurrying across the street they mounted to their room.
“Um-m! How cozy!” she exclaimed. “Let’s not put the light on for awhile.”
Stepping to the window, she saw the car stop at the next crossing. A man got off.
Turning, he walked back in the direction in which he had come.
“He will ring our bell,” she told herself in a small panic. “And then?”
But he did not ring. After a tremulous ten minutes of waiting, she whispered to herself:
“Came back for our street number. That’s bad. Angelo was right. The fight of Maxwell Street is not our fight.”
The man in the green overcoat was the one who had started the riot on Maxwell Street by nearly running Jeanne down in his big car, and who had come to grief later.
“We’ll be long in knowing the last of that!” she told herself, and she was right.
No fairy princess, waving magic wand, could have wrought a more perfect change than came over Petite Jeanne and her beloved companions after that hour which the rather ugly Jew with the soul of an Abraham, a Moses and a David all wrapped in one, spent in their studio. It was by this man that they were guided out of the wilderness of doubt and despair into the land of joy and hope. By him, too, they were, on the very next morning, ushered into the most magnificent little theatre Jeanne’s glowing eyes had ever looked upon.
Unlike the Old Blackmoore, it was new. Its bright colors shone gayly forth. Its seats of velvet, its curtains of heavy velour and all its trimmings were perfect.
“How beautiful!” Jeanne exclaimed, as Solomon threw open the door revealing it all.
“And yet,” she sighed after a time, “poor, shabby old Blackmoore! I did so want to hear its walls ring once more with laughter and applause.”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed the good Solomon. “When a place is full of rats it should be torn down. Why do people live in such places—work in them, play in them? Is it not because they themselves are slow, stupid, without the will to tear themselves away from it all?
“At any rate,” he added quickly, “here is your grand opportunity. Make the most of it, my child.”
“Oh, yes. That I will. Yes! Yes! Yes! A thousand, million times, yes!”
And did she? Never had there been a time in her whole life when she worked so hard as on the days that followed. No director with a gray steel face was here; no brass rail where she must twist her toes in agony; no Eve, lacking in imagination, endeavoring to teach where she herself should be taught. Yet there were compelling forces driving her on. Love, friendship, hope, the determination to win; these are the great, beautiful masters that ever lead us on to nobler and stronger lives.
Success was not assured. Far from that. The Junior Ballet was, after all, little more than an advanced class in a great school. Chosen from the best of young dancers, they were constantly in training so that in some dim, distant time they might perhaps take their place by ones, twos and threes in the ballet of some great opera company. Beautiful they were, to be sure. Grace was theirs, too. But seasoned troupers they were not. For this reason there would not be the snap and precision in their dancing that could be found in a modern chorus. Would youth and natural beauty replace this? Even Solomon wrinkled his brow when the question was asked.
“They will!” Jeanne clenched her hands hard. “They must!”
This was her great opportunity. Still more important, it was Dan Baker’s opportunity.
“I have youth. I have time to win success,” she assured herself. “But for him it is now. Now, or not at all.”
Whenever she thought of this she threw herself with renewed zest into her work.
The light opera, too, was found to be crude and unfinished in spots. What opera is not? Solomon suggested changes. They were made.
Then one day, after they had been working for a week, a beautiful creature entered from another world. She came sauntering down a narrow corridor which Jeanne had seen leading away from the left side of the stage but had never dared to follow.
This creature was a woman. Jeanne knew from her manner that she was no longer in her twenties; yet her beautiful face did not show it. Like Jeanne, she was fair with golden hair. She wore, draped over her shoulders, a cape of royal purple trimmed with white fox. Beneath the cape showed a curious costume. Made of some soft cloth, it appeared to belong to another age, for it was neither the costume of man nor woman. There was a suggestion of a dress that might, after all, be a long coat. And there were trousers fitting like stockings, and curious, bright colored shoes.
With no apology for her strange make-up, she shook hands with Solomon and went to sit with him at the back of the theatre. As the rehearsal progressed she turned from time to time and whispered in the producer’s ear. He listened attentively, nodded, or shook his head and scribbled in his note book.
When it was over the mysterious one made her way to the corridor whence she had come.
“Who was she?” Jeanne asked in an awed whisper. Something in Solomon’s manner suggested that he might have come from a visit with a queen. And so he had—a queen of her own beautiful realm.
“That,” he said, his eyes twinkling merrily, “that was our Marjory—Marjory Bryce.”
“Mar—Marjory Bryce!” Jeanne took a step backward. She knew that name. It belonged to the queen of grand opera, known to the great city as Our Marjory.
“But where did she come from?”
“Where but from the Opera House?” He waved a hand at the corridor where the lady from musical fairyland had vanished.
“Is Grand Opera over there?” Jeanne looked her incredulity.
“Did you not know? Come!” He took her hand and led her down that corridor to its end. There he opened a door into a world unknown, a world that in the days to follow was to become a veritable fairyland of beauty, romance and adventure. It was a vast auditorium, much the same as the Civic Theatre, though many times larger.
“So this is the home of Grand Opera!” The place was deserted. Jeanne went whirling away across its vast stage in a wild dance.
“Some day,” she cried, clasping her hands like a child asking for a doll, “may I dance here before all the people?”
“Time alone will tell,” said Solomon soberly. “Art is long. First comes the Civic Theatre. And that is task enough for the present.
“And by the way!” His eyes brightened. “Miss Bryce gave me many valuable suggestions regarding our opera. She is one of the greatest living authorities. No one can play such varied roles as she. With these suggestions, faithfully worked out, we should succeed.”
He led the way back to the Civic Theatre. There Florence awaited Jeanne.
In her dreams that night the little French girl danced upon a stage as long as a city street and strewn with flowers, while an audience of millions screamed their approval.
“That,” she told herself as she sat up, rubbing her eyes, “was a strange dream. Of course it will never come true. All the same, in our little theatre, surrounded by my own beloved Golden Circle—ah, well, we shall see!”
Her glorious Golden Circle; this is what the fellow members of her cast were coming to be. How different was the atmosphere of this new setting from that of the old Blackmoore.
“Of course,” she whispered charitably, “the Blackmoore was a horrible shell of a place. And it is easier to be happy and kind in beautiful surroundings. And yet I am sure that some of the most wonderful circles of friendship are found in the west side tenement region.” She was thinking of the blue-eyed Merry’s Golden Circle.
“Surely their lot is hard enough,” she told herself. “And yet they are happy in their own little circles.
“What a sad place this grim old city would be,” she philosophized, “if it were not for the thousands upon thousands of these little golden circles of friendship we find everywhere! Sometimes it is a group that meets periodically in a pool room or a drug store. There are tiny club rooms everywhere. The people who work long days in downtown stores call one another Mary, Bob and Tom. They, too, are happy as they feel their tiny golden circle bind them round and round.
“But not one of them all,” she exclaimed loyally, “can boast of a more wonderful circle than ours!”
She thought of the Junior Ballet, those beautiful, talented young women who were being trained as her chorus. Their caresses and words of encouragement on that first night were not flattery. Every day, by little acts of kindness and courtesy, they proved this. They also bestowed their affections upon the old trouper, Dan Baker.
“And how I love them for that!” the little French girl said fervently.
“And yet, who would not love him? His gray hair, his brooding blue eyes, his gentle, kindly manner toward all; how could anyone resist them?”
Soon enough she was to learn that there were those who could resist the old trouper’s kindly good nature. She was to learn, too, that this gentle old man held within his heart the courage of a soldier, the will and the power, if need be, to become a martyr for the right.
It was on that very evening that, as they loafed and talked over tea and toast in the studio, Dan Baker was called to the telephone, and Petite Jeanne heard him use language that she had believed quite foreign to his tongue.
“What’s that?” she heard him say. “A fund for actors? I have subscribed to the Fund for Aged Actors, yes. Yes. What’s that? Another fund? Five hundred dollars? Impossible!
“You will!” She saw his face turn red. His hands twisted themselves into livid knots. “Say, you! I know who you are now. It’s a racket! You’re trying to shake me down. You’ll never do it! Good-bye!”
He slammed the receiver down on the hook and stood there until the hot blood drained from his face and left him white as marble. Watching him, Jeanne saw him totter. Thinking he was about to fall she hurried up to encircle him with her slender arms.
“What is it, old trouper?” she asked gently.
“It—why, it’s nothing.”
“Please don’t lie to me,” she pleaded. “One has no need to lie to a friend.”
“Well, then, if you must have it.” On his face a curious smile formed itself. “There’s a racket been going on in this town for a long time. My old friend Barney Bobson told me about it.
“You see,” he explained, leading her back to the fire, “most actors are nervous, temperamental people. They can’t stand suspense, lurking danger and all that. These crooks, knowing that, have taken to demanding sums of money for what they term a good cause: The Actors’ Benefit. They are the only actors benefited, and they are not actors at all, but deep-dyed villains. They have reaped a harvest.
“But here—” He threw back his shock of gray hair. “Here is one golden harvest that will never be reaped. I’d rather die. I’m an old man. What’s a year more or less? How wonderful to go out like a candle; providing you go for a good cause!”
As Jeanne looked at him it seemed to her that his face was lit with a strange glory.
“But what will they do?” she asked. “And why do they come to you before the opera has gone on the stage?”
“They know we have had some advances; can perhaps get others. The opera may be a failure; at least that’s what they think. Now is the time to strike.”
“And if you continue to refuse?”
“I may meet them on a dark night. Or—” His face turned gray. “Or they may kidnap you.”
“Kidnap me?”
“Sometimes villains work through our friends to undo their victims,” he replied wearily. “You must be very careful. Never go out on the street without your capable Florence. And never walk when you can use a cab. So, I think you will be safe.
“There!” he exclaimed, noting the wrinkles in her brow. “I have got you worrying. Do not think of it again. Those men are cowards. All evil doers are. We will not hear from them again.”
“No, no! Dear old trouper,” Jeanne said in the gentlest of tones, “I was not thinking of myself, but of you.
“However,” she added a moment later, “I shall be careful.”
Florence, in her big-hearted way, had given up her work at the settlement house and, casting her lot with the others, had once more become the little French girl’s stage “mother” and protector. She also became the guardian of his Majesty the God of Fire. And it seemed to her that he was quite as much in need of mothering as his youthful possessor. For was there not a dark-faced gypsy lurking, as she sometimes imagined, in every dark corner, ready at any moment to spring upon her and snatch her strange treasure away?
She had fitted up a Boston bag with a chain, ending in a lock, run through the leather and clamping the top tight. This she carried when the ancient God of Fire, in pursuance of his art as a silent actor, was obliged to make his way from their room to the theatre and back again. At all other times his Highness continued to remain in hiding in the hole beneath the floor of the room.
At times Florence thought of the red-faced man, their chance enemy of Maxwell Street, the one who on that stormy night had apparently ridden half way across the city in order to take down their street address.
“He’s planning some meanness,” she assured herself. “What it will be only time can tell.”
When Petite Jeanne told her of the threat made to the old trouper over the telephone, she redoubled her vigil. They traveled only in taxicabs, and kept a sharp watch on every occasion. One other change was made by the stout young guardian. Whenever the gypsy god went with them she carried beneath her arm a rather heavy, paper-bound package, whose contents were her secret.
The Grand Opera house became a veritable fairyland of adventure for Petite Jeanne. In this place and in her own little theatre she felt herself to be in a place of refuge. There were guards about. Entrance to the place was only to be gained through long, tortuous ways of red tape and diplomacy. No dark-faced gypsy, no would-be kidnaper could enter here. Thus she reasoned and sighed with content. Was she right? We shall see.
One afternoon, when a brief rehearsal of some small parts was over, not expecting Florence for a half hour or more, she gathered up her possession, her precious God of Fire, and tripping down the hallway arrived before the door that led to the land of magic, the great stage of the Opera.
Several times she had made her way shyly down this hall to open the door and peer into the promised land beyond. She had found it to be a place of magnificent transformations. Now it was a garden, now a castle, now a village green, and now, reverting to form, it was but a vast empty stage with a smooth board floor.
It was on this day only a broad space. Not a chair, not a shred of scenery graced the stage.
“How vast it is!” she whispered, as she looked in. She had been told that this stage would hold fifteen hundred people.
“What a place to dance all alone!”
The notion tickled her fancy. There was no one about. Slipping silently through the door, she removed her shoes; then, with the god still under her arm, she went tripping away to the front center of the stage. There, having placed her god in position, she drew a long breath and began to dance.
It was a delicate bit of a fantastic dance she was doing. As she danced on, with the dark seats gaping at her, the place seemed to come to life. Every seat was filled. The place was deathly silent. She was nearing the end of her dance. One moment more—and what then? The thunder of applause?
So real had this bit of fancy become to her that she clasped her hand to her heart in wild exultation.
But suddenly for a fraction of time that racing heart stood still. Something terrible was happening. She all but lost her balance, spun round, grew suddenly dizzy and barely escaped falling. The end of a large section of the floor, had risen a foot above the level of the stage! It was still rising.
Her mind in a whirl, she sprang from the tilting floor to the level space just beyond.
But horror of horrors! This also began to tilt at a rakish angle. At the same time she realized in consternation that the Fire God was in danger of gliding down the section on which he rested and falling into the pit of inky blackness below.
Risking her own neck, she sprang back to her former position, seized the god and went dashing away across section after section of madly rocking floors, to tumble at last into some one’s arms.
This someone was beyond the door in the hallway. Realizing dimly that only the stage floor and not the whole building was doing an earthquake act, she gripped her breast to still the wild beating of her heart and then looked into the face of her protector. Instantly her heart renewed its racing. The woman who held her tightly clasped was none other than the one who, in a cape of royal purple and white fox, had sat beside Solomon and witnessed their rehearsal—Marjory Bryce, the greatest prima donna the city had ever known. And she was laughing.
“Please forgive me!” she said after her mirth had subsided. “You looked so much like Liza crossing the ice with the child in her arms.”
“But—but what—” The little French dancer was still confused and bewildered.
“Don’t you understand, child?” The prima donna’s tone was soft and kindly as a mother’s. Petite Jeanne loved her for it. “The floor is laid in sections. Each section may be raised or lowered by lifts beneath it. That is for making lakes, mountains, great stairways and many other things. Just now they are making a mountain; just for me. To-night I sing. Would you like to watch them? Have you time? It is really quite fascinating.”
“I—I’d love to.”
“Then come. Let us sit right here.” She drew a narrow bench from a hidden recess. “This section will not be lifted. We may remain here in safety.”
In an incredibly short time they saw the stage transformed into a giant stairway. After that, from somewhere far above the stage, dangling from ropes, various bits of scenery drifted down. Seized by workmen, these bits were fitted into their places and—
“Behold! Here is magic for you!” exclaimed the prima donna. “Here we have a mountain.”
As Petite Jeanne moved to the front of the stage she found herself facing a mountainside with slopes of refreshing green. A winding path led toward its summit. At the top of the path were the stone steps of a palace.
“Come,” said her enchantress, “Come to the castle steps and rest with me for a time.”
As Jeanne followed her up the winding path she felt that she truly must be in fairyland. “And with such a guide!” she breathed.
“Now,” said the prima donna, drawing her down to a place beside herself, “we may sit here and tell secrets, or fortunes, or what would you like?” She laughed a merry laugh.
“Do you know,” she said as her mood changed, “you are really very like me in many ways? I sing in parts you might take without a make-up. I, who am very old,” she laughed once more, “I must be made up for them very much indeed.”
“Oh, no, surely not!” the little French dancer exclaimed. “You are very young.”
“Thank you, little girl.” The prima donna placed a hand upon her knee. “None of us wish to grow old. We would remain young forever and ever in this bright, beautiful and melodious world.
“I saw you dancing here this afternoon,” she went on after a moment’s silence.
Jeanne started.
“Was it very terrible?”
“Oh, no. It was beautiful, exquisite!” The prima donna’s eyes shone with a frank truthfulness. Jeanne could not doubt. It made her feel all hot and cold inside.
“Would you like to dance before all that?” The smiling woman spread her arms wide. “All those seats filled with people?”
“Oh, yes!” Jeanne caught her breath sharply.
“It is really quite simple,” the lady went on. “You look up at the people, then you look back at the stage and at the ones who are to act or sing with you. Then you say: ‘I have only to do it all quite naturally, as if they, the people in the seats, were not there at all. If I do that they will be pleased. And when I succeed in doing that, they like me.’
“So you think you’d enjoy it,” she went on musingly.
“Oh, yes; but—but not yet,” the little girl cried. “Sometime in the dreamy future. Now I want my own stage in my own sweet little theatre, and I want to be with just my own little Golden Circle.”
“Brave girl!” The prima donna seized her hand and squeezed it tight. “You are indeed wise for your years.
“But you said ‘with my own little Golden Circle.’ What is this circle?”
Jeanne explained as best she could.
“My child,” said her illustrious friend, “you have discovered a great truth. You know the secret of happiness. Or do you? What is it that makes us happy?”
“Doing things for others.”
“Ah, that is but half of it! You know the rest, but you do not tell me. The other part is to allow others to do things for you. Doing things for others and refusing to accept benefits in return is the most selfish unselfishness the world knows.
“Ah, but your Golden Circle! What a beautiful name!
“Tell me,” she demanded quite suddenly, after a moment of silence, “Do they say that I am a great prima donna?”
“They tell me,” said Jeanne quite frankly, “that you are the greatest of all.”
“But they do not tell you that I have a great voice?”
“N—no.” The dancer’s eyes and her tone told her reluctance.
“Ah, no,” the great one sighed, “they will never say that! It would not be true.
“But if they say I am great,” again her mood changed, “if they say it in truth, that is because I have always had your Golden Circle in the back of my poor little head; because I have striven ever and always, not for my success but for our success—for the success of the whole company, from the least to the greatest.
“You have learned at a very tender age, my child, that this alone brings true success and lasting happiness.”
For a time they sat in silence. Changes were taking place all about them, but the little French girl was not at all conscious of them. She was wrapped in her own thoughts.
“But what is this curious thing you have at your side?” her companion asked soberly.
“That? Why—oh, that is the gypsy God of Fire.” Seeing the prima donna’s eyes light with sudden interest, she went on. “He fell from some planet, to the land of India. There, beneath the palms, the gypsy folk worshiped him before they came to Europe. After that they brought him to France. And now I have him,” she ended quite simply.
“But how did you come into possession of so rare a treasure?”
Jeanne told her.
“But why do you not keep him locked away in a vault?”
“Because without him I cannot do my dances as they should be done. It is he who inspires me.”
“Ah!” sighed the great one. “I, too, once believed in fairies and goblins, in angels and curious gods.”
“I shall always believe,” the little French girl whispered.
“You have one good angel in whom you may believe to your heart’s content. He is a very substantial angel and not very beautiful to look upon; but he is beautiful inside. And that is all that counts.”
“You mean Mr. Solomon?”
“Yes. I have known him a long time. You are very fortunate.”
“And to think—he is a Jew. I used to believe—”
“Yes, I know. So did most of us believe that Jews had no hearts, that they were greedy for gold. That is true sometimes; it may be said of any race. But there are many wonderful men and women of that race. Perhaps no race has produced so many.”
“Doesn’t it seem strange!” Petite Jeanne mused. “There we are, all working together, all striving for the success of one thing, our light opera. And yet we are of many races. Angelo is Italian; Swen a Swede; Dan Baker very much American; Mr. Solomon is a Jew and he has found me a very handsome young stage lover who is very English, who has a golden voice and perfect manners. And poor me, I am all French. So there we are.”
“Very strange indeed, but quite glorious. When we all learn that races and names, countries, complexions and tongues do not count, but only the hearts that beat beneath the jackets of men, then we shall begin to succeed.”
“Ah, yes! Succeed!” Jeanne’s voice went quite sober again. Unconsciously she was yielding to influences outside herself. As they sat there on the stage mountainside a change had been taking place. So gradually had it come that she had not noticed it. In the beginning, all about them had been stage daylight, though none the less real. Gradually, moment by moment shadows had lengthened; the shades of evening had fallen; darkness was now all but upon them. Only dimly could they discern the difference between gray paths and green mountainsides.
“Success,” Jeanne murmured once more. “There are times when I feel that it will come to us. And we all want it so much. We have worked so hard. You know, we tried once before.”
“In the old Blackmoore?”
“Yes. And we failed.”
“Dear child.” The prima donna threw an arm about her waist. “All will be different this time.
“But look! While we have been talking, twilight, a stage twilight, has fallen upon us. You did not know, it came so gradually. Such is the magic of modern science.
“It is, however, only one of those Arctic summer nights, lasting a few brief moments. Watch, and you will see that already we are looking upon the first faint flush of dawn.”
Together, hand in hand, they watched the coming of day as it stole across the mountainside. Only when day had fully come did the spell of enchantment break.
“Grand Opera,” said the prima donna, with some show of feeling, “will live forever because it combines the most beautiful of everything we see with the most melodious of all we hear.
“That,” she added, “is why I cling to Grand Opera. Friends tell me over and over: ‘You might become the greatest actress of your age.’ But no, I will not. Grand Opera is the greatest of all!
“But come!” she exclaimed. “We must go. There is work to be done.”
As they walked down the operaland mountain in silence, it seemed to the little French girl that she had been on the Mount of Transfiguration.
“Your little opera,” said the prima donna, as they parted at the door, “it is beautiful. I am sure it will be a great success. And I am coming on your first night.”
“Th—thanks.” Scarcely could the little dancer keep back her tears. “I—I’ll tell Angelo and Swen, and Mr. Solomon and the old trouper and—and all the rest.”
“Your Golden Circle.” The prima donna pressed her hand, and was gone, leaving her feeling as though she had spoken with an angel.
“But I must not dream!” She shook herself free from golden fancies. “There is much work to be done! Ten long, hard days, and then—ah then!” She drank in one long, deep breath. Then she went dancing down the hallway to find Florence anxiously awaiting her return.