"Walked—it's my custom."
"Rom Rouen?"
He nodded. "I'm a member of the Troupe Fabiani of Strolling Acrobats," he laughed. "I'm learning the gentle art of bear-baiting. Won't you come in?"
She searched his face keenly and accepted his invitation, first handing him her fifty centime piece, which he dropped without comment into his pocket. The enclosure was already filled, so he closed the entrance flap and mounted guard over it—and Olga stood beside him, her glance passing swiftly from one object to another. Cleofonte's bout with Tomasso was more than usually dramatic, but her eyes roved toward the dressing tent, eyeing with an uncommon interest the Signora when she appeared.
"Your troupe is not large," Olga remarked when the program had been explained to her.
"No, we are few, my dear Olga, but quite select. You have yet to see Luigi perform and the Child Wonder—and the Femme Orchestre—a remarkable person who plays five instruments at the same time."
Olga watched the show for a while with an abstracted air.
"You surely can't mean that you enjoy this sort of thing?" she questioned at last.
He laughed. "I do mean just that—otherwise I shouldn't be here, should I?"
"Oh, you're impossible!" she said impatiently.