“Selfish!” Florence muttered. “As if there wasn’t room enough for both of us in all Lake Huron!”
Just then a question entered her mind. Was there a purpose in all this? What purpose?
To these questions she could form no answer. She resolved to remain right there, all the same; at least until Petite Jeanne had finished her meditations and asked to be taken in.
“What can so completely fill the mind of little Jeanne?” she asked herself. “Perhaps it is her part in the play. Ah yes, that must be it.”
That wonderful play! At once her mind was filled with bright dreams for the little French girl.
Petite Jeanne, as you will remember if you have read our other book, The Gypsy Shawl, had once lived and traveled with the gypsies of France. Florence and her friend Betty had found her there in France. In her company they had passed through many thrilling adventures. When these were over, Florence had invited her to visit America. She had come.
More than that, a marvelous future had appeared like a bright, beckoning star before her. In France she had taken part in a great charity play, staged in the famous Paris Opera. There she had performed the ancient gypsy dance in the most divine manner. She had won the acclaim of the elite of Paris. Not alone this; she had caught the eye of a renowned producer of drama. Finding himself prepared to stage a drama in which the French gypsies had a part, he had sent to France for Petite Jeanne. A prolonged search had ended in America. He had found Petite Jeanne with her friend Florence Huyler in her own city, Chicago.
The director had laid his plans before her. Her most important part in the drama was to be exactly that of her feat in Paris, to dance the gypsy dance with a pet bear beneath a golden moon. There were, of course, minor parts to be played, but this was to be the crowning glory.
“Would Petite Jeanne do this?”
Would she? The little French girl had wept tears of joy. Since her success at the Paris Opera she had dreamed many dreams. This engagement promised to make these dreams come true.