As though by a carefully rehearsed arrangement, the audience rose to its feet, band boys and all. Such a shout! Such waving of hats and handkerchiefs! Such unabashed sobs! Such inarticulateness—such graspings of neighboring hands! The spectators had gone mad with joyful relief.
Fran leaped upon the table, and mounted Samson.
"Now, I'm a Rough-Rider!" she shouted, burying her hands in the mane, and lying along the lion's back in true cow-boy fashion. She plunged, she shouted loudly, but Samson only closed his eyes and seemed to sleep.
After that, making the lions return to their cramped side-cages was a mere detail. The show was ended.
Fran, remaining in the empty cage, stood at the front, projecting her hand through the bars to receive the greetings of the crowd. Almost every one wanted to shake hands with her. They couldn't tell of their surprise over her identity, of their admiration for her courage, of their joy at her safety. They could do nothing but look into her eyes, press her hand, then go into a humdrum world in which are no lions— and not many Frans.
"Look, look!" Simon Jefferson suddenly grasped Robert Clinton's hand, and pointed toward the tent-roof. "There they are!"
Something very strange had happened up there, but it was lost to Clinton's keen jealous gaze—one of those happenings in the soul, which, however momentous, passes unobserved in the midst of the throng.
"Not so fast!" Grace cautioned Gregory. "We must wait up here till the very last—don't you see Mr. Clinton? And Simon Jefferson is now pointing us out. We can't go down that way—"
"We!" Gregory harshly echoed. "We! I have nothing to do with you, Grace Noir. Go to him, if you will."
Grace turned ashen pale. "What do you mean?" she stammered. "You tell me to go to Mr. Clinton?"