"How lightly she goes up that rope," Mrs. Tate whispered, "and what wonderful arms she has! Just like a man's. They look as if they didn't belong to her body."
Silently and dexterously Blanche reached the main trapeze, and for a moment she sat there, with her arms crooked against the rope on either side, and rubbing her hands. For the first time during her career she was terrified in the ring. She had hoped that as soon as she resumed her work the terror she had felt since Jeanne's birth would pass away. Now, however, it made her so weak that she feared she was going to fall.
She was thinking of the child as she had seen her crowing in the crib. If anything should happen to her she might never see Jeanne again. She was vaguely conscious of the vast mass of people below her, waiting for her to move. She took a long breath and nerved herself for the start, before making her spring to the trapeze below; she must have courage for the sake of the little Jeanne, she said to herself. Mechanically she began to sway forward and backward; then she shot into the air, and with a sensation of surprise and delight she continued her performance.
Mrs. Tate watched her with an expression of mingled fear, interest, and pleasure in her face.
"Isn't she the most wonderful creature you ever saw, Percy?" she cried, clutching her husband's arm. "It's horrible, yet I can't help looking. Suppose she should fall!"
"She'd merely drop into the net. There's nothing very dangerous about what she's doing now. Keep still."
"I never saw anything more graceful. She is grace itself, isn't she? See how her hair flies; I should think it would get into her eyes and blind her. I shall speak to her about that when I see her. I shall certainly go to see her."
In a round of applause, Blanche finished her performance on the trapeze and then began her posing on the rope, whirling slowly, with a rhythmic succession of motions to the net. Then Jules, in evening dress, with a large diamond gleaming in his shirt-front, stepped out on the net, and for an instant they conferred together. Suddenly she clapped her hands, bounded on the rope again, and while Jules held it to steady her motion, she climbed hand over hand to the top of the building. There she sat, looking in the distance like a white bird ready to take flight, her dark hair streaming around her head.
"I feel as if I were going to faint," Mrs. Tate whispered.
Her husband glanced at her quickly. "Yes, you'd better—in this crowd. A fine panic you'd create! Want to go out?"