“I’ll bump!”
She touched a second button and stopped the steel cage with a suddenness that caused her teeth to snap.
She tried to open the door. It would not budge. She pressed the button and went gliding upward once more. A light gleamed before her. Once more she stopped.
This time she could open the door. She stepped from the lift, not into a room, not a hallway, but out upon an iron grating. And this grating, fifteen stories up, lay directly above the opera stage.
At first frightened, then fascinated, she threw herself flat upon the grating to watch with eager eyes the doings of the dwarf-like figures far below.
To this girl, born to the stage as a canary is born to the cedar and the humming bird to his flowering bush, the scene spelled irresistible enchantment.
To make the affair more compelling she recognized the star of the evening almost at once.
The scene beneath her was one of entrancing beauty: a flower garden and a village green in her native land. And dancing upon that green, arrayed in the most colorful of costumes, were the peasants of that village.
From time to time certain members of the group left their companions and danced away toward a back-stage corner, where they stood laughing and seeming to beckon to some one hidden from the view of Jeanne as well as the audience.
At last the long awaited one appeared. And then, oh, joy of joys!