“No!” cried Petite Jeanne. “See what we have found!”
“Found! What have we found?” Florence stared.
“We have found a safe place of hiding for my ancient friend, the God of Fire. How sweet! We have only to lift the boards, lower him to the laths below, batten down the hatch once more, and there you have him as snug as a diamond in a new setting.”
“You’re keen!” Florence put out a hand to pat her friend’s blonde head. “Now we can sleep in peace.”
And so they did, awakening at a late hour to a world of sunshine and high hopes. Nor is there reason to believe that his Highness objected in the least to the darkness of his place among the beams and plaster.
Happy days followed. Petite Jeanne, whose circle of true friends in this great world had been pitiably small, found her horizon greatly enlarged. Truly the day of adventures in Merry’s cellar and out in the park while she danced the sun up from the depths of the lake had been her lucky day. For one might well have gone about the city of three million souls holding a lamp before every face without finding the equal to that brave trio, Angelo the playwright, Swen the maker of melodies and Dan Baker the beloved vagabond of the stage.
Happy days they were, and busy ones as well. Each evening found them assembled in Angelo’s studio. In order that they might talk as they ate, they brought dinner along. Each member of the little group contributed something. Swen provided chops, steaks, oysters or fish; Angelo added such strange viands as he could devise, curious hot Mexican dishes, rich preparations from his native land, or unthinkable Russian mixtures; Florence and Petite Jeanne arrived each evening with apple-squares, date-tarts or some other form of tempting dessert; Dan Baker practiced the ancient and all but lost art of coffee brewing so skilfully that after drinking they all felt that dawn was on the point of breaking, and they were ready to walk out into a dewy morn.
Wild, hilarious, dizzy hours followed. Was a light opera ever before produced in such a fantastic fashion?
Angelo was continuously prepared with fresh script. This dark-eyed youth was a worker. Swen kept pace with musical compositions.
And how Swen could beat out those melodies on the battered piano reposing in the corner!
When it was music for her dance Petite Jeanne, bare-footed, bare-armed, with eyes shining, sprang into motion with such abandon as made her seem a crimson cardinal, a butterfly, a mere flying nothing.
How Swen would throw back his blonde mane and laugh! How Dan Baker shook his old head and sighed with joy!
“Our play!” he would murmur. “Our play. How can it fail? With such an angel of light even Heaven would be a complete success.”
So for hours they labored. Testing music, words, lighting effects, dances, everything, until their heads were dizzy and their eyes dim.
Then, as the blaze flamed up in the broad fireplace, they cast themselves upon Angelo’s rugs of wondrous thickness and softness, and sighed deep sighs of content.
“How wonderful it is to have beautiful things!” Jeanne exclaimed, as on one of these occasions she buried her white hands in the thick, velvety surface of a Persian rug.
“Ah, yes!” Angelo sighed. “When you are sure you are to keep them.”
“But they are your own.”
“Oh, yes. Now they are mine. They belonged to some one else before me. They may belong to others. The success of our play, that alone, will make them secure. My happiness, yours, all our joy depends upon that.” A shadow fell across his dark face.
This shadow reminded Petite Jeanne of a wider shadow that had been sweeping over the wondrous land men called America. For long years this land had known such joyous prosperity as no land before had ever known. But now, as if struck by some mysterious blight, this prosperity was falling away. Factories had been closing. Streets that once were thronged with shoppers, were thronged no more. Stores and shops were all but deserted. Wise men said, “Prosperity will return. It is just around the corner.” Yet it did not return at once.
And Petite Jeanne, sensitive soul that she was, ever conscious of the woes that come to others, was touched by the signs of fear and distress that she saw all about her.
When she spoke of it to Angelo he, too, appeared distressed, not for himself, but for others.
“This will make no difference to our play,” was his optimistic pronouncement. “When hard times come, the people feel the need of amusement, diversion, more than before. Only one playhouse in our city is dark.”
“If so, where is our play to open?” Jeanne asked quickly.
“Leave that to me.” He shrugged. “Plays come. Plays go. A house dark to-night will be aglow to-morrow. I have friends. Once our light opera is on, it will go on forever.”
So they labored and hoped, shouted, danced, sang, dreamed, despaired and hoped again, only at last to go creeping away in the wee small hours to seek sleep. And the morning hours knew them not. So passed fourteen happy, busy, delirious days.
All this time the light opera was taking form. At the close of Act I the gypsy caravan, with Petite Jeanne and Dan Baker riding on burros, departed for Paris.
In Paris Petite Jeanne and her amiable substitute for the bear danced in the beautiful public gardens. There, surrounded by noble statues and flowering trees, they were discovered by the chorus who at this time were dressed in bright smocks, posing with brushes, stools and easels as artists from the Latin Quarter.
They joined the pair in a beautiful “Dance of the Flowers,” and then lingered to sketch Dan Baker, Petite Jeanne and their burros. Meanwhile Dan Baker entertained Petite Jeanne and all who cared to listen with one of his wondrously impossible tales of fairyland: America across the seas.
Scarcely were the sketches completed, the tales brought to an end, than a stranger, stepping from the throng of onlookers, denounced Dan Baker as an impostor and accused him of being one of the richest men in America. The ancient wanderer resented the accusation. A fight ensued in which a burro assisted the aged dancer to win a victory by butting his adversary over and then sitting on him.
Millionaire or no millionaire, Dan Baker adopted Petite Jeanne as his daughter. The next scene found them in a beautiful private garden, all their own, still dancing.
A young hero appeared. He found Jeanne dancing barefooted before a fountain and fell madly in love with her.
They were interrupted by the chorus, now doing a nature dance to spring, and arrayed much as spring damsels are supposed to be dressed.
A villain appeared in the shadows. He had discovered that Petite Jeanne, who had lived after the death of her parents with wandering gypsies, was rich in her own name. He, a terrible apache, proposed to kidnap her.
The plot grew apace. Dan Baker told one more story while the villain stood not ten feet away, ready, if need be, to stab him.
The fool of the play, a young Scotchman who missed every golden opportunity because he held his pennies too tightly gripped, appeared.
By the aid of the chorus, now dressed as wild and terrible apache damsels, Petite Jeanne was kidnapped.
The fool barely missed eternal glory by rescuing her. He took a three cent subway car instead of spending a whole nickel on the plush seated car boarded by the villain and his band.
The last scene was in a stone paved, walled court of a fearsome secret prison, where Dan Baker, who had become a voluntary prisoner, revived the fainting Jeanne with one more romantic tale.
Meanwhile, the hero, at the head of a brave band of gendarmes, who in the end proved to be the chorus in disguise, stormed the secret prison and rescued the fair gypsy maid.
The truth of her riches was revealed to Jeanne. She wept on the hero’s shoulder. Then she and Dan Baker, joined once more by the chorus—this time in the most gorgeous of filmy French creations—danced the wild Dance of the Fire God beneath the moon while the ancient god, lighted in some magical way, beamed and grimaced at them from the dark.
Such was the rough outline for the opera, presented by Angelo.
“Of course,” he added many times, with a smile, “the young hero may turn up later with a rich, pompous and irate mother who does not purpose to marry her son to a gypsy. There may be many other complications. But we shall iron them out one by one.
“Fortune is with us in one respect. The plot of a light opera is never very closely knit. So long as there is music and dancing, mirth and song, all is well. And that we shall have in superabundance.”
“But where are we to get the donkeys?” Petite Jeanne asked on one occasion.
“My dear!” exclaimed Dan Baker. “Nothing is easier. There are nearly as many donkeys on the stage as off it.”
The laugh went round.
When it had subsided Angelo said: “I know where there are two burros, in a vacant lot on the west side. They’ve been on the stage in vaudeville. One is trained to bowl a man over and sit on him.
“So, you see,” his grin broadened as he turned to Dan Baker, “I have written that part expressly for him, just as I have for the other donkeys in the cast.”
The laugh was now on Dan Baker. He responded by narrating one more fantastic yarn, and the work went on.
Then came the night when Angelo exclaimed over the last wild dance, when even Florence joined in the ballet, “It is enough! To-morrow I go to seek a producer. To-night, before you sleep, say a little prayer for our success.”
Let us hope no one will be shocked when we declare that on that night, long after Florence was lost in slumber, Petite Jeanne crept from the warm bed to the cold floor, pried up the loose boards, drew forth the hidden God of Fire and whispered to him some words that sounded suspiciously like a prayer. For, after all, you must recall that Petite Jeanne was more than half gypsy. Besides, she was dreadfully in earnest. For had she not, in an impersonal way, come to love very much the fiery little composer, the blonde-maned musician and, most of all, the appealing old trouper, he of long gray locks and plaintive, melodious voice? For these more than for herself she wished the light opera to be a great and lasting success.
Angelo had a few well chosen friends in the world of stage people. As soon as offices were open the next morning, his card was presented to one of these. An hour later, with a bulky manuscript under his arm and a letter of introduction in his pocket, he entered the lobby of a second office.
He was ushered at once into the presence of a broad shouldered, rather dull, but quite determined appearing man who sat in a swivel chair before a birch-mahogany desk. In another corner of the room sat a tall, dark, young man whose face had the appearance of having been moulded out of chilled gray steel.
“It’s a light opera,” said Angelo, placing his manuscript on the desk. “If you’ll let me tell you about it I am sure you will be able to decide at once whether or not it will fit the Blackmoore Theatre.”
The stout man nodded.
Angelo began to talk. As he continued to talk he began to glow. He was full of his subject.
“Wait!” The stout man held up a hand.
“Drysdale,” he said to the gray, steel-eyed man, “you had better sit in on this.”
Gray Steel arose, dragged a chair forward and sat down.
“All right.” The stout man nodded to Angelo.
“Shall—shall I begin over again?”
“Not necessary. Drysdale is clever. Takes a thing in the middle, and works both ways.”
Angelo talked and glowed once more. For fully half an hour, like a small car on a country road at night, he rattled and glowed.
“What do you think of it?” the stout man demanded, when the recital was finished. “Drysdale, what do you think? Find a chorus, right enough. Know one right now. House is dark. What do you think?”
“Paris.” Gray Steel Face cupped his chin. “Americans go wild over Paris.”
“Sure they do, just wild. They—” Angelo’s flow of enthusiasm was cut short by a glower from Gray Steel Face.
“Mr. Drysdale is our director,” the stout man explained. “Directed many plays. Very successful. Makes ’em march. You’re right he does!”
“Gypsy stuff goes well,” Drysdale continued. “But who ever heard of taking a gypsy for a star? She’d need training. No end of it.”
“Oh, no! She—”
“We’d have to read the script. Have to see them perform.” Drysdale gave no heed to Angelo. “Say you bring ’em here to-morrow night, say eight o’clock.”
“No stage,” said the stout manager.
“We—we have a small one,” Angelo explained eagerly. “Come to my studio, won’t you? There you’ll see them at their best.”
“What say, Drysdale?”
“We’ll be there. Mind! Eight sharp. None of your artistic foolishness!”
Next night, the two men did see Petite Jeanne and Dan Baker at their best.
Was their best good enough? The face of the director was still a steel mask. He conferred with his manager in the corner of the room for half an hour.
In the meantime Angelo perspired profusely. Petite Jeanne felt hot and cold spasms chase one another up her back, but Dan Baker sat placidly smoking by the fire. He was an old trouper. The road lay always before him.
But for Angelo and Jeanne hopes had run high. Their ambitions were on the altar. They were waiting for the fire.
“We’ll have a contract for you by eleven o’clock to-morrow,” said the stout man, in a tone as unemotional as he might have used to call a waiter. “Drysdale here says it’s a bit crude; but emotional stuff—got some pull, he believes. Office at eleven.”
Petite Jeanne could scarcely await their departure. Hardly had the door closed when, in true French fashion, she threw her arms about the old trouper and kissed him on both cheeks. Nor was Angelo neglected.
“We’re made!” she cried joyously. “The footlights, oh, the blessed footlights!” She walked the young composer about the room until she was dizzy. Then, springing like a top, she landed in a corner by the fire and demanded a demi-tasse of coffee.
As they drank their coffee Angelo was strangely silent. “I don’t like what they said about the opera,” he explained, when Jeanne teased him. “They’ll want to tear it all to pieces, like as not, and put in a lot of half-indecent stuff.
“And that theatre,” he sighed. “It’s a frightful old barn of a place. Going to be torn down to make way for a skyscraper next year, I’m told. I hope you may not hate it too much.” As he looked at Petite Jeanne two wrinkles appeared on his high forehead.
“Oh, the Paris Opera,” she laughed. “That was but a small bit. I am sure I shall be quite deliriously happy!”
It was thus that she left Angelo’s studio. But the morrow, a gray day, was to find them all in quite another mood.
When Angelo returned to the studio next day at noon, he was in a sober mood.
His eyes lighted as he found a small table standing before the fire, spread with spotless linen and piled with good things to eat.
“This,” he said, taking Petite Jeanne’s hands in his own, “is your doing.”
“Not entirely, and not hardly at all,” laughed the little French girl. “I’m a poor cook, and a very bad manager. You may credit it all to Florence.”
Florence, at that, stepped from the shadows. For once her ready smile was not forthcoming.
“Florence!” he exclaimed in surprise. “How is it you are here? I thought you were at your work at the gym.”
“There is no more gym,” said the girl soberly. “It has been turned into a lodging house for those poor unfortunates who in these sad times have no place to sleep.
“Of course,” she added quickly, as a mellow tone crept into her voice, “I am glad for them! But this leaves me exactly flat; no job, and no prospect of one for months.”
“No job? Of course you have one!” Jeanne placed an inadequate arm about Florence’s ample waist. “You will be my stage ‘mother’ once more.”
At this they turned an inquiring glance upon Angelo. For once it seemed he had nothing to say.
The meal was half finished before he spoke about the matter nearest all their hearts. When he did speak, it was in a very indirect manner. “In this world,” he began quite soberly, “there’s very little real generosity. People who have money cling to it as if it had power to carry them to the very gates of Heaven. Those who have nothing often feel very generous, but have nothing with which to prove the genuineness of their feeling.
“Generosity!” He almost growled. “You read a lot about it in the papers. Capital agrees to do this. Big money is ready to do that. Wages shall be kept up. Those who are in tight places shall be dealt with in a generous fashion. That’s what they give out for publication.
“What they’re really doing, many of them, is undermining the uncertain foothold of those who have very little. They’re cutting wages here, putting on screws there, in secret, wherever they dare. And our friendly enemy, the manager, who wants our light opera, old Mr. Rockledge,” he declared with a flourish, as if to conclude the whole matter, “is no exception.”
“Didn’t he give us a contract?” asked Petite Jeanne, as her eyes opened wide.
“Yes. A contract. But such a contract! He said we could take it or leave it. And old Gray Steel Face nodded his head and snapped his steel jaw shut, so I took it away; but we needn’t sign if we don’t care to.”
The remainder of the meal was eaten for the most part in silence. Just as they finished, Swen and Dan Baker entered. They had been for a long stroll along the lake front, and had dined at a place which Swen had found where they could get genuine black bread and spiced fillet of sole.
“What luck?” Swen demanded.
“Rotten!” Angelo threw the contract on the table. “Read it and weep!” The others crowded around to do so.
A silence, broken only by the rustle of turned pages, ensued.
As the perusal was concluded Jeanne’s face was a brown study. Florence, who had read over her shoulder, was plainly angry. Baker neither smiled nor frowned. Swen smiled.
“Well,” Swen drawled, “since this is to be our first production, and success will keep the wolf from the door for six months to come, I don’t see that it’s so worse. One success calls for another. And it’s on the second that you have a chance to tell ’em where they get off.”
“I think,” said Petite Jeanne quietly, “that Swen is right. It means renewed hope for all of us. Winter is at our door. There are no turnips in our cellar, nor hams in our smoke-house.” She thought of the old days in France.
“That’s me,” agreed Dan Baker.
Since Florence had no contract to sign, she said nothing.
“Then,” said Angelo with a sigh, half of relief and half of disappointment, “we sign on the dotted line. To-day we visit the theatre. To-morrow rehearsals begin. The thing is to be put on as soon as it can be whipped into shape. Every day a theatre is dark means a loss to its owners.”
They signed in silence. Then, drawing chairs before the fire, they sat down for half an hour of quiet meditation. Many and varied were the thoughts that, like thin smoke, passed off into space as they lingered there.
They entered the theatre together at four o’clock that afternoon, Angelo, Dan Baker and Petite Jeanne. It was a damp, chilly, autumn day. Jeanne had caught the mood of the day before they entered. There was nothing about the empty playhouse to dispel this disturbing gloom. The half light that was everywhere, a small—bright torch of a lamp here and there boring sharply into the darkness—revealed the threadbare, neglected interior of the place. The floor of the stage creaked as they ventured to walk across it. Row on row of plush seats lay dimly before them. The few that were lighted were soiled and faded. The once gay gilt of box seats had cracked off in places, showing the white beneath. The great velvet curtain drooped woefully.
“How dismal!” Jeanne spoke before she thought.
“My dear,” said Dan Baker, stepping before Angelo to conceal his look of pain, “it is not the house, but the people that make a theatre. The glowing, pulsating throng of living beings. This is a theatre. Picture this broad stage filled with dreams of beauty and grace. Catch a glimpse of the gay costumes. Listen to the songs and laughter.
“And yonder,” he spread his arms wide as if to take in a great multitude, “yonder are the people, hundreds, thousands! Are they less colorful, less gay? Not one whit. For this is their happy hour. Fans, flowers, smiles, color, laughter, beauty. ‘A thing of beauty is a joy forever.’ No, no, my child! On our great night you will not see the faults of this poor, gray old house that has known the joys and sorrows of three generations of human souls, and which is now standing among tall skyscrapers waiting its destruction; you will see only the gracious people who have come to catch the glow of light and joy that is our opera.”
As Petite Jeanne looked at him her heart glowed with fresh fire. To her at this moment the aged trouper, with his flowing locks and drooping hat, was the noblest work of God.
“Thanks, old timer,” said Angelo. His tone was husky as he gripped Dan Baker’s hand.
Jeanne said never a word, but as she touched his hand ever so lightly, he understood even better than if she had delivered an oration.
Her dislike of the ancient theatre, with its narrow, ratty dressing rooms, its steep, worn stairways and its smell of decay, was dispelled. But with the manager, the director, the actors she had not met before, as well as the chorus, it was quite another matter. To her distress she found that they, one and all, treated her quite as an outsider. Dan Baker, too, was quite outside their circle. He understood it, and did not care. Having been a trouper, he realized that in companies such as these there were those who “belonged” and those who did not.
But poor, friendly, hopeful, big-hearted Jeanne, though she was to have a leading part in the play, had intended from the first to be a friend to them, one and all. And behold, none of them would accept her offering.
Members of the chorus might be engaged in an animated conversation, but let her join them and their gayety ceased while they moved silently away.
Not many attempts were made before the sensitive soul of the little French girl curled up like an oyster in a shell. But it was an aching little heart, at that.
“Why? Why?” she demanded of her conscience, and of her confessor, Dan Baker.
“My child,” the aged dancer smiled faintly, “they live in what might be called a golden circle. The circle is complete. None may enter. It is the way of the stage.
“You cannot understand,” he said gently, “for you have not long been a trouper. You could not know that they were all practically born on the stage; that their fathers and mothers, yes and their grandparents before them, were stage people. They have traveled together, some of them, for years. As they moved from city to city, the people of each city were only an audience to be amused. They have made the audience laugh; they have made it cry. But always they have thought of that audience as a great lump of humanity. Not one individual in that lump cared for one of them in a personal way. Only among their own group have they found companions. Little by little a strong bond has been formed. Hemming them in, it keeps others out. That is their golden circle.”
“It is a most wretched circle!” cried Jeanne with a touch of anger. “It is not a golden circle, but a circle of brass, brass about their necks; the sign of slavery.”
After this Jeanne made no further attempts to mingle with her fellow workers. When not on the stage she sat in a corner, reading a French novel.
But her cup of woe was not full. She had hoped to dance her native dances from the gypsyland of France, just as she had learned them there. This was not to be. The director, the tall, dark, youngish man, he of the chilled steel face who never smiled, had a word to say about this. The dances, he decreed, were not right. They must be changed. A girl named Eve, head of the chorus, must teach Jeanne new steps.
Eve taught her, and did a thorough job of it. Born on the west side, Eve had made her way up by sheer nerve and a certain feeling for rhythm.
No two persons could be more unlike than this Eve and our Petite Jeanne. Petite Jeanne was French to the tips of her toes. She loved art for art’s sake. Beauty and truth, sweetness and light, these were words of infinite charm to her. Had the same words been pronounced to Eve, she would have suspected the speaker of pronouncing a spelling lesson to her. Eve lived for one thing only—applause. It had been the thunder of applause that had caused her to set her foot on the first round of the ladder to fame. That same thunder had kept her toiling year after year.
Petite Jeanne cared little for applause. When she went before an audience it was as if she said to those assembled before her, “See! Here I have something all together beautiful. It has been handed down to us through countless ages, a living flame of action and life, a gypsy dance. This is beauty. This is life. I hope you may forget me and know only this marvel of beauty and truth, sweetness and light.”
And now, under the ruthless hand of Eve, she saw her thing of beauty torn apart and pieced with fragments of bold movements and discordant notes which made her dances much more brazen.
But that was not all. “Your toes,” decreed the merciless, dark-faced director, “are too limber; your legs are too stiff. You must look to the brass rail for remedy.”
“The brass rail?” She did not say the words. Soon enough she found out. In a cold back room she stood for half an hour, gripping a long brass rail safely anchored some three feet from the floor, twisting her toes and bending her poor limbs until she could have screamed with pain. It helped not a bit that a dozen members of the chorus, who never spoke a word to her, were going through the same painful performance.
She uttered wailing complaints to Angelo in his studio that night. Angelo passed the complaint on to the poker-faced manager.
“If you wish to direct your play,” this dictator decreed, “you may do so, provided,” he prodded Angelo in the ribs until it hurt, “provided you are able and willing also to finance it.”
“It’s a hard life, my child,” Dan Baker said to Jeanne the next night, as the light of the fire played on his weary old face. “You think the brass rail is terrible. But think of me. They have put me in a gymnasium for an hour each day, where a Samson of a chap uses me for a dumbbell, an Indian club and a punching bag.”
Jeanne laughed at his description and felt better.
“They’re spoiling your dance, little girl,” he said in a more serious tone. “But never mind. Do your old dance in the old way here in this room or in the park, just as you were doing it when I first saw you. Keep it full of freshness, life and beauty, stretch it to fill the time, and when we open,” his voice died to a whisper, “on our great first night, dance your gypsy dance just as you learned it back there in France, and I promise you that all will be more than well.”
Petite Jeanne caught her breath. Here was a bold proposal. Would she dare?
Springing to her feet, she went swinging away in a wild whirl. When she dropped back in her place before the fire, she whispered hoarsely,
“I will!”
Her strong young hand met his in a grip that was a pledge.
But were these things to be? Even as she lay there blinking at the fire, some imp of darkness seemed to whisper, “You will never do it. You never will.”
She looked at the Fire God resting at the edge of the flames, and thought she saw him frown.
Petite Jeanne was a gifted person. She was a dancer of uncommon ability. Those who studied her closely and who were possessed of eyes that truly saw things had pronounced her a genius. Yet she was possessed of an even greater gift; she knew the art of making friends. Defeated by an ancient unwritten law, in her attempt to be a friend to the girls of the chorus, she had found her friends among the lowly ones of the theatre. For with all her art she never lost the human touch.
She had not haunted the ratty old theatre long before Mary, the woman who dusted seats, Jimmie, the spotlight operator, Tom, the stoker who came up grimy from the furnaces, and Dave, the aged night watchman, one and all, were her friends.
That was why, on special occasions, these people did exactly what she wanted. One night at the ghostly hour of eleven she found herself, bare-footed and clad in scanty attire, doing her dance upon the stage while Jimmie, grinning in his perch far aloft, sent a mellow spot of light down to encircle and caress her as a beam of sunshine or a vapory angel might have done.
Dave, the watchman and her faithful guardian, was not far away. So, for the moment, she knew no fear. The rancorous voice of the director, the low grumble of the manager, were absent. Now she might dance as nature and the gypsies had taught her, with joy and abandon.
Since she had fully decided that on the night of nights, when for the first time in months the old Blackmoore was thronged, she would take matters into her own hands and dance as God, the stars and all out-doors had taught her, and feeling that only practice on the stage itself would give her heart the courage and her brain the assurance needed for that eventful hour, she had bribed these friends to assist her. And here she was.
Dance on this night she did. Jimmie watched and marveled. Such grace and simple, joyous abandon, such true melody of movement, such color in motion, he had not known before.
“Ah!” he whispered. “She is possessed! The gypsies have bewitched her! She will never be real again.”
Indeed, had she given one wild leap in the air and risen higher and higher until she vanished into thin darkness as a ghost or an angel, he would have experienced no astonishment.
Surprise came to him soon enough, for all that. Suddenly the fairy-like arms of the dancer fell to her sides. Her lithe body became a statue. And there she stood in that circle of light, rigid, motionless, listening.
Then, throwing her arms high in a gesture of petition, she cried,
“Jimmie! The flutter of wings! Can you hear them? How they frighten me!
“Jimmie,” she implored, “don’t let the spotlight leave me! Can you hear them, Jimmie? Wings. Fluttering wings. They mean death! Do you hear them, Jimmie?”
Leaning far forward, Jimmie heard no wings. But in that stillness he fancied he heard the mad beating of the little French girl’s heart, or was it his own?
So, for one tense moment, they remained in their separate places, motionless.
Then, with a little shudder, the girl shook herself free from the terror and called more cheerily,
“There! They are gone now, the wings. Throw on a light, and come and take me home, Jimmie. I can dance no more to-night.”
As she turned to move toward the spot on the floor where her precious God of Fire stood leering at her, she seemed to catch a sound of furtive movement among the shadows. She could not be sure. Her heart leapt, and was still.
Five minutes later she and Jimmie were on a brightly lighted street.
“Wings,” the little French girl murmured once more. “The flutter of wings!” And again, as they neared her home, “Wings.”
“Aw, forget it!” Jimmie muttered.
She was not to forget. She was to hear that flutter again, and yet again.
During all these busy days Petite Jeanne did not entirely lose track of her friend Merry of the smiling Irish eyes. Being endowed with a particularly friendly nature, she was more than glad to find friends outside the little circle in which she moved. Besides, she was deeply grateful to the little girl who had led her to the place where she had, in so miraculous a manner, purchased the priceless Fire God for only three silver coins.
“It was the beginning of all my good fortune,” she said to Merry on one occasion. “And,” she added quickly, “all my very hard work as well.”
So it happened more than once that she took the elevated train to the office where the auction sale of unclaimed, and damaged express packages was held every Friday. There she sat in the front row beside Merry and enjoyed two hours of relaxation. The endless variety of goods on sale, from a baby buggy without wheels to a black and white puppy with an enticing bark, intrigued her more and more; particularly the “union,” Merry’s little circle of choice friends.
To a casual observer these men would have seemed a rough lot. Soon enough Jeanne, with her power of looking into men’s hearts, learned that these men who struggled daily for their bread had been endowed by nature with hearts of gold.
Their interest in Merry was of a fatherly and sportsman-like sort. Knowing her brother and his handicaps they were glad to help her.
Unfortunately, at this time there was little they could do for her. Each Friday she brought a smaller purse and carried fewer articles away. The little basement shop, where Tad toiled incessantly, was feeling the pinch of hard times. Few were the visitors that came down the cellar stairs these days, and fewer still were the purchases they carried away. Only when the blue eyes of the girl spied some article for which she had an immediate sale did she venture a bid.
More than once when some particular member of the “union” had made a fortunate purchase and met with an immediate sale, he offered Merry a loan. Always the answer was the same: a loyal Irish smile and, “Thanks. You’ll be needing it next time.”
Little wonder that Petite Jeanne, sitting in the glowing light of such glorious friendships, absorbed warmth that carried her undaunted through rehearsals amid the cold and forbidding circle within the old Blackmoore walls.
It was on one of these visits to the auction house that the little French girl received an invitation to an unusual party.
Weston, the ruddy-faced German who kept a shop near Maxwell street, together with Kay King and a stout man known by the name of John, had bid in a large number of traveling bags and trunks. They were an unusual lot, these bags and boxes. Many of the trunks were plastered from end to end with foreign labels. Three of the bags, all exactly alike, were of the sort carried only by men of some importance who reside in the British Isles.
“How I’d love to see what’s in them!” Jeanne exclaimed.
“Do you want to know?” Weston demanded. “Then I’ll tell you. Junk! That’s all. I buy only junk. Inside these are some suits. Moths eat holes in them. Silk dresses, maybe; all mildewed.”
“Must be fun to open them, though. You never can tell what you might find.”
“Ja, you can never tell,” Weston agreed.
“Do you want to see what’s in them?” Kay King, who was young and good looking, leaned forward. “Come down to Maxwell Street on Sunday. We’ll save them until then, won’t we?” He appealed to his companions.
“Ja, sure!”
“Sure we will!”
Petite Jeanne turned to Merry. “Will you go?” she asked, suddenly grown timid.
“Yes, I’d like to,” Merry assented quickly. “I’ve never seen their shops. I’d love to.”
“All right,” Jeanne said with a smile. “We’ll come. And perhaps we’ll bring some friends.”
“Ja, bring friends. As many as you like. Mebby we could perhaps sell them some suitcases?”
Kay King gave Jeanne his card. And there, for the time, the matter rested. But Jeanne did not allow it to escape her memory. It was to be, she told herself, one of the strangest and most interesting opening-up parties it had been her privilege to attend.
That night Petite Jeanne once more danced alone beneath the yellow glow of Jimmie’s spotlight. The affair of two nights before had frightened her more than she cared to admit. But this little French girl possessed an indomitable spirit. She knew what she wanted; knew quite as well why she wanted it, and was resolved that, come what might, she should have it.
On this particular night she would gladly have taken her strong and fearless companion, Florence, with her to the theatre. But Florence had come upon a bit of good fortune; she had been employed to conduct classes in a settlement house gymnasium two hours each evening.
“That,” she had exclaimed joyously, “means bread and butter!”
So Petite Jeanne had come alone. And why not? Was not Jimmie over there in the balcony? And was not her friend, the night watchman, somewhere in the building?
“What of the gypsy who would steal your god if he might?” Florence had asked.
“Well, what of him?” Jeanne had demanded. “We haven’t seen him prowling about, have we? Given up, and gone south. That’s what I think. In New Orleans by this time.”
Long ere this, as you will recall, Jeanne had resolved what she should do on the opening night. When the curtain rose for her first big scene, when she received the cue to begin her dance, she would make itherdance indeed. At that moment, before the throng of first-nighters, she would defy the tyrannical director. She would forget the steps they had taught her. Before the gypsy campfire she would become a gypsy once again and dance, as never before, that native dance to the Fire God. Bihari, the gypsy, had taught her that dance, and there was nothing like it in all the world, she felt sure.
It was a daring resolve and might, she knew, result in disaster. Yet the very daring of it inspired her. And why not? Was she not after all, in spirit at least, a gypsy, a free soul unhampered by the shams and fake pretenses, the senseless conventions of a city’s life?
With this in mind, she danced in the dark theatre with utter abandon. Forgetting all but the little Fire God whose tiny eyes glowed at the rim of the yellow circle of light, she danced as she had many times by the roadsides of France.
She had reached the very zenith of the wild whirl. It seemed to Jimmie that she would surely leave the floor and soar aloft, when suddenly he became conscious that all was not well. He read it in her face. She did not stop dancing. She did not so much as speak; yet her lips formed words and Jimmie read them: