The Rose in the Ring

by George Barr McCutcheon

The line between his eyes seemed to deepen as he turned from the group to join his wife in the "green room" of the tent. As the flap dropped behind him, Grinaldi turned to the boy, who had started to unlace the striped overshirt.

"Wait a minute," he said quickly. "Mebbe we can fix it with 'im. She'll put in a plea for you and so will Little Starbright,—that's what 'is daughter is called on the bills—if she gets a chance. Stay right 'ere, youngster. I've got to go in for my girl's act now. I wish you could see my girl. She's the queen of the air, and don't you forget it. Ain't she, boys?"

There was a combined—apparently customary—chorus of approval.

Outside, Braddock was glowering upon his wife, who faced him resolutely. There never had been a time when she was afraid of this man; even though he had mistreated her shamefully, he had never found the courage to exercise his physical supremacy. As so often is the case—almost invariably, it may be affirmed—with men of his type and origin, Braddock recognized and respected the qualities that put her so far above him. Not that he admitted them, even to himself: that would have been fatal to his own sense of justice. He merely felt them; he could not evade the conditions for the reason that he was powerless to analyze the force which produced them. He only knew that somehow he merited the scorn in which she held him. There were times when he hated her for the very beauty of her character. Then he cursed her in bleak, despairing rage, more against himself than against her; but never without afterward cringing in morbid contemplation of the shudder it brought to her sensitive face.

If any one had been so bold as to accuse him of not loving her, he would have been crushed to earth by the brute that was in him. On the other hand, if he were timorously charged with loving her, it would have been like him to call the venturesome one a liar—and mean it, too, in his heart.

"But five hundred is five hundred," he was repeating doggedly in opposition to her argument in behalf of the boy. "You don't know whether he's guilty or not, Mary. So what's the use of all this gabble? It makes me sick. Business is bad. We need every dollar we can scrape up. I won't be a party to—"

"You harbor pickpockets and thieves and—yes, murderers, I'm told, Tom. It is a shameful fact that more sneak thieves follow this show and share with its owner than any other concern in the business. Oh, I know all about it! Don't try to deny it. They pay a regular tribute to you for privileges and protection. Artful Dick Cronk gave you half of the hundred he filched from the old man at Charlottesville last week. I—"

"Here, here!" he said in an angry whisper. "Don't talk so damned loud. Next thing you'll be telling that sort of stuff to the girl. That'd be a nice thing for her to think, wouldn't it? Say, don't you ever let me hear of you breathin' a word of that kind to her. I'd—I'd beat your brains out. Understand?"

"Oh, I'm not likely to tell her what kind of a man her father is," said his wife bitterly. "Take care, Tom, that she doesn't find it out for herself. Be quiet! She is coming."

The girl, cleansed of her paint and powder, her lithe body clad in a prim, navy blue frock, the skirt of which came below the tops of her high-laced boots, approached hastily from the women's section. She was tying the strings of her quaint poke-bonnet under her chin, and her eyes were gleaming with excitement.