“Do you want me to go with you—I’ll rub you!” the duke said, Parisian to the finger-tips, and hoping, if he rubbed the old clown’s spine, that he would redeem in Caracal’s eyes the rose given to Sœurette.
“No, thank you, monseigneur. There is nothing to be done,” said the old clown; “I, too, was famous, and now I’m only an old dog—ah!”
But no one listened to him.
The show began. In the ring the blond hair and doll face of Louise Bingel whirled to the music of the orchestra, as she leaned over to apply the whip to her horse’s neck with many a “Go!” and “Up!”
The public talked as it looked through the program. The real show was to come later. It was not the “Gallinaro Family, somersaults, bravourturnerin, tapis-tumblers,” nor “Miss Soho, the world’s greatest I-don’t-know-what,” nor “Princess Colibri and her Prince-Consort”—no! that which attracted the public was, first and foremost, Helia. Discreet notes in the papers had given hopes that there would be something “never seen before.” Some said she was a young girl of good family, whom an irresistible vocation had drawn to the circus. Details, too, were given of her career—in contradiction with one another, of course.
What was not known, though, was how Helia had been working for months. She was going to try a daring feat. Even the costume was to be new. To her the nudity of the maillot seemed brutal.
Cemetery
“Beauty is well, talent is better!” Cemetery, her professor in other days, used to say; and she wished to be applauded for her art and not for her beauty. Her wonderful gymnastic knowledge gave her the right to attempt the feat.