Three times Rosemary Robinson had invited her to visit her at her home. Three times, as Pierre, politely but firmly, she had refused. “This affair,” she told herself, “has gone far enough. Before our friendship ripens or is blighted altogether, I must reveal to her my identity. And that I am not yet willing to do. It might rob me of my place in this great palace of art.”
Thanks to Marjory Dean, the little French girl’s training in Grand Opera proceeded day by day. Without assigning a definite reason for it, the prima donna had insisted upon giving her hours of training each week in the role of the juggler.
More than this, she had all but compelled Jeanne to become her understudy in the forthcoming one-act opera to be known as “The Magic Curtain.”
At an opportune moment Marjory Dean had introduced the manager of the opera to all the fantastic witchery of this new opera. He had been taken by it.
At once he had agreed that when the “Juggler” was played, this new opera should be presented to the public.
So Jeanne lived in a world of dreams, dreams that she felt could never come true. “But I am learning,” she would whisper to herself, “learning of art and life. What more could one ask?”
Then came a curious invitation. She was to visit the studios of Fernando Tiffin. The invitation came through Marjory Dean. Strangest of all, she was to appear as Pierre.
“Why Pierre?” she pondered.
“Yes, why?” Florence echoed. “But, after all, such an invitation! Fernando Tiffin is the greatest sculptor in America. Have you seen the fountain by the Art Museum?”
“Where the pigeons are always bathing?”