Just then a man mounted to the platform, took up a microphone and began to speak. His voice carried far.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “there is to be conducted on this platform a dancing contest. It is open to gypsy dancing girls only. Let me repeat, gypsy dancing girls.”
Gypsy dancing girls! Jeanne’s heart bounded. It had been a long time since she danced in public. But always, as long as she could remember, she had danced. By the roadsides of France, on the streets of gay Paris, in the Paris Opera, in light opera in America she had danced her way, almost to fame.
“And now to think of dancing on this street, before this crowd! Why should I think of it?” Yet she had thought of it, and the thought would not quiet down. Once a gypsy, always a gypsy. Once a dancer, always a dancer. And yet—she would wait.
“Where are the gypsy dancers?” Jeanne asked a slender girl in a bright shawl who was packed in close beside her.
There were gypsy dancers enough, Jeanne saw this at once. They came on, one at a time. A four-piece orchestra played for them. Some were bright and well-dressed, some ragged and sad. Some brought their own music and flashed their tambourines in wild abandon. Some danced to the music that was offered and did very badly indeed. “None,” Jeanne thought, “are very good. And yet—”
Of a sudden she began to wonder what the purpose of it all might be. Then she caught the gleam of a movie camera lens half-hidden behind an awning. “They’ll be in the movies,” she thought. This did not thrill her. To be in movies of this sort, she knew too well, was no great honor.
And yet, as she stood there listening to the mad rhythm of saxophone, violin, oboe and trap-drums, her feet would not stand still. It was provoking. She wished she might move away, but could not. She seemed to have lost her will power.
Then she once more became conscious of the slender girl in the bright shawl.
“The prize is twenty-five dollars,” the girl was saying in a low tone. “How grand to have that much money all at one time!”