At last, and here Concetta was very vague, as if she were seeking to recapture the outlines of a dream that fades in the light of morning, somehow or other she ran away and arrived at a big place with trees in a large city.
“Where, at Aix-la-Chapelle?”
“No, I got into a train and came somewhere to a big place with trees in the middle of a city.”
“Was it a park in Brussels?”
She shrugged her shoulders and came back to her tale. In this park she had met some little girls who had played with her; they had played a game of joining hands and dancing round in a circle until they all fell down in the grass. A gentleman had laughed to see them amusing themselves so much, and the little girls had asked her to come with them and the gentleman; they had danced round him and pulled his coat to make him take Concetta. He had asked her whence she came and whither she was going; he was a schoolmaster and he was going far away with all these other little girls. Concetta had cried when they were leaving her, and the gentleman, when he found that she was really alone in this big city, had finally been persuaded to take her with him. They went far away in the train to Dantzic, where he had a school to learn dancing. She had been happy there; the master was very kind. When she was thirteen she had gone with the other girls from the school to dance in the ballet at La Scala in Milan, but before that she had danced at Dresden and Munich. Then about six months ago a juggler called Zozo had wanted her and another girl to join his act. He was a young man; she had liked him and she had left Milan with him. They had performed in Rome and Naples and Bari and Palermo. At Palermo the other girl had gone back to her home in Italy, and Concetta had traveled to Spain with Zozo through Tunis and Algiers and Oran. Zozo had treated her kindly until they came here to the Estrella Concert; but here he had changed and, when she did not like him to make love to her, he had beaten her. To-night before they went to the cabaret he had told her that unless she would let him love her he would throw the daggers at her heart. In their act she was tied up and he threw daggers all round her. She had been frightened, and when he went to dress she had run away; but the streets were full of people in masks, and she had lost herself.
Sylvia looked at this child with her fair hair, who but for the agony and fear in her blue eyes would have been like one of those rapturous angels in old Flemish pictures. Here she sat, as ten years ago Sylvia had sat in the cab-shelter talking to Fred Organ. Her story and Concetta’s met at this point in man’s vileness.
“My poor little thing, you must come and live with me,” cried Sylvia, clasping Concetta in her arms. “I too am all alone, and I should love to feel that somebody was dependent on me. You shall come with me to England. You’re just what I’ve been looking for. Now I’m going to put you to bed, for you’re worn out.”
“But he’ll come to find me,” Concetta gasped, in sudden affright. “He was so clever. On the program you can read. ZOZO: el mejor prestigitador del mundo. He knows everything.”
“We must introduce him to Mrs. Gainsborough. She likes encyclopedias with pockets.”
“Please?”