“I wonder,” she mused after a time, “why this desire should have entered my heart. Why Grand Opera? I have done Light Opera. I sang. I danced. They applauded. They said I was marvelous. Perhaps I was.” Her head fell a little forward.
“Ambition!” Her face was lifted to the ceiling. “It is ambition that drives us on. When I was a child I danced in the country lanes. Then I must go higher, I must dance in a village; in a small city; in a large city; in Paris. That so beautiful Paris! And now it must be Grand Opera; something drives me on.”
She prodded the fire and, for the last time that night, it flamed high.
Springing to her feet she cast off her satin robe to go racing across the floor in the dance of the juggler. Low and clear, her voice rose in a French song of great enchantment. For a time her delicate, elf-like form went weaving in and out among the shadows cast by the fire. Then, all of a sudden, she danced into her chamber. The show, given only for spirits and fairies, was at an end.
“To-morrow,” she whispered low, as her eyes closed for sleep, “to-morrow there is no opera. I shall not see Marjory Dean, nor Rosemary, nor those dark-faced ones who dog my steps. To-morrow? Whom shall I see? What strange new acquaintance shall I make; what adventures come to me?”
CHAPTER XII
THE LOST CAMEO
In spite of the fact that the Opera House was dark on the following night, adventure came to Petite Jeanne, adventure and excitement a-plenty. It came like the sudden rush of an ocean’s wave. One moment she and Florence were strolling in a leisurely manner down the center of State Street; the next they were surrounded, completely engulfed and carried whither they knew not by a vast, restless, roaring, surging sea of humanity.
For many days they had read accounts of a great autumn festival that was to occur on this night. Having never witnessed such a fete, save in her native land, Petite Jeanne had been eager to attend. So here they were. And here, too, was an unbelievable multitude.
Petite Jeanne cast a startled look at her companion.
Florence, big capable Florence, smiled as she bent over to speak in the little French girl’s ear.