"To the side-show, I think," prevaricated he.
He saw the look of relief struggling into her face.
"She—she always cries when she goes out with them together," she murmured piteously. "Oh, David, I'm so worried. I don't know why—I don't know what it is that causes me to feel this way. But I am frightened—always frightened."
He took her little hand between his own; it was trembling perceptibly. Very gently he sought to reassure her, his heart so full that his voice was husky with the emotion that crowded up from it.
"Nothing ever can happen to your mother, Christine—nothing. Please don't worry, little girl. Colonel Grand can't—won't do anything to hurt her. Your father won't let that happen. He won't—"
"David, I am not so sure of that," she said slowly, looking straight into his eyes and speaking almost in a monotone. He started. For a moment he was speechless.
"You must not say that, Christine," he said.
"I don't know why I said it," she responded, nervously biting her nether lip. Then she smiled, her white teeth gleaming against the carmine. "She'll be back presently, I know. I'm so silly."
"You are very young, you'll have to admit, after this display," he chided. She left him.
Joey Grinaldi came in a few minutes later and took his protege off to the ring, with the assurance that "the coast" was clear. All the rest of the afternoon David's heart ached with a dull pain. He could hardly wait for the time to come when he could return to the dressing-tent. At last, he raced from the ring, pursued by the inflated bladder in the hand of Joey Grinaldi, their joint mummery over for the afternoon.