“Then why—?”
“Only this,” Jeanne interrupted her, “you said once that one found the best joy in life by helping others. Well then,” she laughed a little laugh, “I have helped a little.
“And you shall see, my time will come.”
Was she right? Does one sometimes serve himself best by serving others? We shall see.
CHAPTER XXX
A SURPRISE PARTY
Time marched on, as time has a way of doing. A week passed, another and yet another. Each night of opera found Jeanne, still masquerading as Pierre, at her post among the boxes. Never forgetting that a priceless necklace had been stolen from those boxes and that she had run away, ever conscious of the searching eyes of Jaeger and of the inscrutable shadow that was the lady in black, Jeanne performed her tasks as one who walks beneath a shadow that in a moment may be turned into impenetrable darkness.
For all this, she still thrilled to the color, the music, the drama, which is Grand Opera.
“Some day,” she had a way of whispering to herself, “some happy day!” Yet that day seemed indistinct and far away.
The dark-faced menace to her happiness, he of the evil eye, appeared to have vanished. Perhaps he was in jail. Who could tell?
The little Frenchman with the message, too, had vanished. Why had he never returned to ask Pierre, the usher in the boxes, the correct address of Petite Jeanne? Beyond doubt he believed himself the victim of a practical joke. “This boy Pierre knows nothing regarding the whereabouts of that person named Petite Jeanne.” Thus he must have reasoned. At any rate the message was not delivered. If Jeanne had lost a relative by death, if she had inherited a fortune or was wanted for some misdemeanor committed in France, she remained blissfully ignorant of it all.