“It is good,” she murmured at last. “Tomorrow as I try to tell to the world in pictures the story of simple, kindly folks who live in the mountains, I shall do it better because of having been here.”
For a long time they sat on the grass beneath the elms. A gray squirrel came down a tree to chatter at them. A robin, whose nest was in a nearby lilac bush, sang them a song. A cricket chirped. From far away came a dog’s bark. A cobweb went floating high overhead.
“Come!” Jeanne whispered reluctantly. “We must go back.”
That night as she sat looking out into the half darkness of the night, Jeanne saw again in her mind’s eye the girl in a nile-green dress and golden slippers. And as before, the green changed its shade and became a sloping hill where broad elms sighed in the breeze.
“There will be no nile-green dress and golden slippers,” she whispered. “Instead, if success is ours, Jensie shall go to that so beautiful college where they sing that which they believe and ask such wonderful prayers.”
And down in her heart of hearts she knew that she would strive harder for success than ever before, because she was working for another’s happiness and not entirely for her own.
CHAPTER XXII
BENEATH THE FLOODLIGHTS
This brief period of rest was the last Petite Jeanne was to enjoy for many days. The work on that little section of Big Black Mountain progressed more rapidly than had been expected. In order that the re-making of the scenario should progress quite as rapidly, Tom Tobin secured a brief leave of absence from his newspaper work. He and Jeanne, together with Jensie when she could be spared from her beloved Tavern, were together at all hours of day and night.
So long as Tom was with her, Jeanne had no fear of Lorena LeMar’s boy friends. Her only fear was that they might discover that she was not Miss LeMar at all, and end by betraying her secret.
“But what do you care!” Tom exploded one day. “You are as good as Lorena LeMar.”