“I shall ask him.” Jeanne put on a business-like tone. For all that, her heart was pounding madly. “It may be my great opportunity!” she told herself. “I may yet appear for a brief space of time in an opera. What glory!”
After allowing a space of thirty seconds to elapse, during which time she might be supposed to have consulted the mythical Pierre, she replied quite simply:
“Yes, Miss Dean, Pierre will meet you at that hour. And he wishes me to thank you very much.”
“Sh! Never a word of this!” came over the phone; then the voice was gone.
Jeanne spent the remainder of the forenoon in a tumult of excitement. At noon she ate a light lunch, drank black tea, then sat down to study the score of her favorite opera, “The Juggler of Notre Dame.”
It is little wonder that Jeanne loved this more than any other opera. It is the story of a simple wanderer, a juggler. Jeanne, as we have said before, had been a wanderer in France. She had danced the gypsy dances with her bear in every village of France and every suburb of Paris.
And Cluny, a suburb of Paris, is the scene of this little opera. A juggler, curiously enough named Jean, arrives in this village just as the people have begun to celebrate May Day in the square before the convent.
The juggler is welcomed. But one by one his poor tricks are scorned. The people demand a drinking song. The juggler is pious. He fears to offend the Virgin. But at last, beseeching the Virgin’s forgiveness, he grants their request.
Hearing the shouts of the crowd, the prior of the monastery comes out to scatter the crowd and rebuke the singer. He bids the poor juggler repent and, putting the world at his back, enter the monastery, never more to wander over the beautiful hills of France.
In the juggler’s poor mind occurs a great struggle. And in this struggle these words are wrung from his lips: