Nobody jeered now. All was filled with an expectant hush.
Then, as if strange and a-far from myself, I stepped easily into the very centre of the half moon of squatting beasts, and made my speech ... at the end, there was hardly any applause till I was safely out of the cage ... Then there was a tumult. Shouts, cat-calls, whoops, and a great noise of hearty hand-clapping.
I stood beside the ropes as the people of Laurel surged by, many of them shaking me by the hand ... Vanna came by, with the big football player with her, bulking behind her slight loveliness ... lightly she put a tiny, gloved hand in mine ... a glove neatly mended at the fingers ... congratulating me, half with feeling, half with amusement....
"That was reckless and brave, Mr. Gregory."
I was speechless with frightened delight over her words, and the pressure of her hand.
I turned to the trainer before I went to my room over the tin-shop.
"You say the leopards are most dangerous?"
"Yes."
"For twenty-five dollars a night I will go in with them, alone, and run them around with a whip." As I proposed this, in the background of my consciousness was the conviction that by so doing I could win Vanna's love....
"No ... the leopards are too uncertain."