A moment later he was his own sweet devil of a self again, murmuring: “If I had all the flowers of this beautiful world I would not look at them, but at you. If I might touch the stars I would touch your hand instead. Your lips—”
They had by this time all but reached the end of the lane. One moment more, and they would have been in the open woods, when something quite terrible occurred.
A figure that loomed large in the half darkness leaped at the red devil. Startled, the red devil swung out with both fists. He missed. Something very like a sledge-hammer struck him on the side of the jaw. With one wild scream, the exquisite fairy was away. But not the red devil.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FIRE-BIRD
Strange as it may seem, it was at this very hour that Petite Jeanne received one of the most unusual thrills of her not uneventful life. She and Madame Bihari were back in Chicago. The Ballet Russe, too, was in that city. And to Jeanne who, as you may know, was one of the finest of gypsy dancers, anything like the Ballet Russe was a call which, if need be, would draw from her purse the last silver coin.
“The Ballet Russe!” she exclaimed to Madame. “We must go. And ah yes, tonight we must go! This is the last performance.”
“Impossible, my pretty one,” Madame said with slow regret. “I have promised to say farewell to our good friends of Bohemia. They are leaving tomorrow for their native land.
“But you, my child, you must go. Put on your bright gown of a thousand beads and your purple cape with the white fox collar, and go. Surely no one, not even the Fire-Bird, shall outshine my Petite Jeanne.”
So Jeanne went alone. She secured a seat at the side of the gallery where she might look almost directly down upon the dancers. And was that an hour of pure joy for Jeanne! Not for months had she witnessed anything half so charming. The lights were so bright, the costumes so beautiful, the dancers so light-footed and droll, and the music so entrancing that she at times believed herself transported to another world.
The first piece was a bit of exquisite nonsense. But when the time came for that entrancing story, “The Fire-Bird,” to be told in pantomime, music and dancing, Jeanne sat entranced. Once before, as a small child, she had seen this in Paris. Now it came to her as a thing of renewed and eternal beauty.