“But no!” She sprang to her feet as a sudden inspiration seized her. “We’ll make them look, and we’ll give them one grand shock!
“This is it!” Her manner became animated. “You paint a sketch upon a large square of thin paper, then mount it in a frame. Set it up with all your other pictures, only have it close to the platform where I am to dance.
“I—” she laughed a merry laugh. “I shall entertain them with the wildest gypsy dance ever seen upon the stage, and right in the midst of it I shall leap high, appear to lose my balance, and go crashing right through that picture!”
“Rather fantastic,” said Miss Mabee. “I agree with you in one particular, however. It will give them a surprise. And that, in this drab world, is what people are looking for.”
“You will do the picture?” Jeanne demanded eagerly.
“I will do the picture.”
“A very large one?”
“A very large one,” Miss Mabee echoed.
“And we shall have one very grand show!” Jeanne went rocketing across the floor in that wildest of all gypsy dances.
Three days later the colorful sketch of gypsy life, done on a large square of paper, was finished and framed. It was a beautiful bit of work. At a distance it could scarcely have been told from a real masterpiece.