“What’s the matter, Jules?” they all said.
“He must be in love,” said the contortionist, banteringly.
Full many a jest is spoken in earnest, and I realized it that day. All the while we were traveling in the South. The weather was very hot and there had been a good deal of rain. Often the lot on which we showed was damp. I caught cold, fever developed, and I had to go to bed. But I stayed with the show. As I lay in my berth I dreamed, as all young lovers dream, that some day this beautiful bareback rider, hearing of my illness, would come to see me on our car; that she would lean over me with a wondrous smile on her face and say:
“Jules, forgive me. I have cared for you always, and now I shall never leave you again.”
One night, when I dreamed this very vividly, I woke with a start to find the moon shining in my face, and the car rattling over a long bridge. I was alone.
I got well, and took up my clowning again. The first day I was back in harness I went to my accustomed place, where so often I had seen the bareback lady. My heart was in my eyes, and they looked for one thing. But I did not see her. I went on for my first turn, with my mind all in a whirl. When I got back to the dressing-room I asked the boss clown about her.
“Humph,” he said, and shrugged his shoulders. “That woman?”
“Yes?” I replied, growing indignant.
“The less you ask about her the better,” he said.