The Magic Curtain Part 7

"Perhaps," the big girl added, after a brief silence, "that is why America is such a glorious place to live."

"But did you not endeavor to make a call at this strange home?" asked Jeanne.

"I did. Little good it did me! I knocked three times at the door. There was no answer. It was growing dark, but no light shone from those porthole windows. So all I could do was to retrace my steps.

"I had gone not a dozen paces when I caught the sound of a half suppressed laugh. I wheeled about, but saw no one. Now, what do you make of that?"

"It's a sweet and jolly mystery," said Jeanne. "We shall solve it, you and I."

And in dreaming of this new and apparently harmless adventure, the little French girl's troubles were, for the time being at least, forgotten. She slept soundly that night and all her dreams were dreams of peace.

But to-morrow was another day.

CHAPTER IX CAUGHT IN THE ACT

And on that new day, like a ray of suns.h.i.+ne breaking through the clouds after a storm, there came to Jeanne an hour of speechless joy.

Having exercised as ever her gift of friends.h.i.+p to all mankind, she was able, through her acquaintance with the watchman, to enter the opera house when she chose. There was only one drawback to this; she must enter always as Pierre and never as Pet.i.te Jeanne.

Knowing that some sort of rehearsal would be in progress, she garbed herself in her Pierre costume and repaired to the place which to her, of all places on earth, seemed the home of pure enchantment--the opera.

Even now, when the seats were clothed like ghosts in white sheets, when the aisles, so often adorned with living models all a-glitter with silks and jewels, and echoing with the sound of applause and laughter, were dark and still, the great hall lost none of its charm.

As she tripped noiselessly down the foyer where pillars cut from some curious stone flanked her on every side and priceless chandeliers hung like blind ghosts far above her head, she thought of the hundreds who had promenaded here displaying rich furs, costly silks and jewels. She recalled, too, the remark of that strangely studious man with a beard:

"It is a form of life."

"I wonder what he meant?" she said half aloud. "Perhaps some day I shall meet him again. If I do, I shall ask him."

But Jeanne was no person to be living in the past. She dreamed of the future when only dreams were at her command. For her the vivid, living, all-entrancing _present_ was what mattered most. She had not haunted the building long before she might have been found curled up in a seat among the dark shadows close to the back row on the orchestra floor. She had pushed the white covering away, but was still half hidden by it; she could be entirely hidden in a second's time if she so willed.

Behind and above her, black chasms of darkness, the boxes and balconies loomed. Before her the stage, all dark, seemed a mysterious cave where a hundred bandits might hide among the settings of some imposing scene.

She did not know the name of the opera to be rehea.r.s.ed on this particular afternoon. Who, then, can describe the stirring of her blood, the quickening of her heart-beats, the thrill that coursed through her very being when the first faint flush of dawn began appearing upon the scene that lay before her? A stage dawn it was, to be sure; but very little less than real it was, for all that. In this matchless place of amus.e.m.e.nt shades of light, pale gray, blue, rosy red, all come creeping out, and dawn lingers as it does upon hills and forests of earth and stone and wood.

Eagerly the little French girl leaned forward to catch the first glimpse of that unknown scene. Slowly, slowly, but quite surely, to the right a building began looming out from that darkness. The trunk of a tree appeared, another and yet another. Dimly a street was outlined. One by one these objects took on a clearer line until with an impulsive movement, Jeanne fairly leaped from her place.

"It is France!" she all but cried aloud. "My own beloved France! And the opera! It is to be 'The Juggler of Notre Dame'! Was there ever such marvelous good fortune!"

It was indeed as if a will higher than her own had planned all this, for this short opera was the one Jeanne had studied. It was this opera, as you will remember from reading _The Golden Circle_, that Jeanne had once witnessed quite by chance as she lay flat upon the iron grating more than a hundred feet above the stage.

"And now I shall see Marjory Dean play in it once more," she exulted.

"For this is a dress rehearsal, I am sure of that."

She was not long in discovering that her words were true. Scarcely had the full light of day shone upon that charming stage village, nestled among the hills of France, than a company of peasants, men, women and children, all garbed in bright holiday attire, came trooping upon the stage.

But what was this? Scarcely had they arrived than one who loitered behind began shouting in the most excited manner and pointing to the road that led back to the hills.

"The juggler is coming," Jeanne breathed. "The juggler of Notre Dame."

She did not say Marjory Dean, who played the part. She said: "the juggler," because at this moment she lived again in that beautiful village of her native land. Once again she was a gypsy child. Once more she camped at the roadside. With her pet bear and her friend, the juggler, she marched proudly into the village to dance for pennies before the delighted crowd in the village square.

What wonder that Pet.i.te Jeanne knew every word of this charming opera by heart? Was it not France as she knew it? And was not France her native land?

Breathing deeply, clutching now and then at her heart to still its wild beating, she waited and watched. A second peasant girl followed the first to the roadside. She too called and beckoned. Others followed her. And then, with a burst of joyous song, their gay garments gleaming like a bed of flowers, their faces s.h.i.+ning, these happy villagers came trooping back. And in their midst, bearing in one hand a gay, colored hoop, in the other a mysterious bag of tricks, was the juggler of Notre Dame.

"It is Marjory Dean, Marjory herself. She is the juggler," Jeanne whispered. She dared not trust herself to do more. She wanted to leap to her feet, to clap her hands and cry: "Ray! Ray! Ray! _Vive! Vive! Vive!_"

But no, this would spoil it all. She must see this beautiful story through to its end.

So, calming herself, she settled back to see the juggler, arrayed in his fantastic costume, open his bag of tricks. She saw him delight his audience with his simple artistry.

She watched, breathless, as a priest, coming from the monastery, rebuked him for practicing what he believed to be a sinful art. She suffered with the juggler as he fought a battle with his soul. When he came near to the door of the monastery that, being entered, might never again be abandoned, she wished to rise and shout:

"No! No! Juggler! Stay with the happy people in the bright suns.h.i.+ne. Show them more of your art. Life is too often sad. Bring joy to their lives!"

She said, in reality, nothing. When at last the curtain fell, she was filled with one desire: to be for one short hour the juggler of Notre Dame. She knew the words of his song; had practiced his simple tricks.

"Why not? Sometime--somewhere," she breathed.

"Sometime? Somewhere?" She realized in an instant that no place could be quite the same to her as this one that in all its glories of green and gold surrounded her now.

When the curtain was up again the stage scene remained the same; but the gay peasants, the juggler, were gone.

After some moments of waiting Jeanne realized that this scene had been set for the night's performance, that this scene alone would be rehea.r.s.ed upon the stage.

"They are gone! It is over!" How empty her life seemed now. It was as if a great light had suddenly gone out.

Stealing from her place, she crept down the aisle, entered a door and emerged at last upon a dark corner of the stage.

For a moment, quite breathless, she stood there in the shadows, watching, listening.

"There is no one," she breathed. "I am alone."

An overpowering desire seized her to don the juggler's costume, to sing his songs, to do his tricks. The costume was there, the bag of tricks.

Why not?

Pausing not a second, she crept to the center of the stage, seized the coveted prizes, then beat a hasty retreat.

Ten minutes later, dancing lightly and singing softly, she came upon the stage. She was there alone. Yet, in her mind's eye she saw the villagers of France, matrons and men, laughing lovers, dancing children, all before her as, casting her bag upon the green, she seized some trifling baubles and began working her charms.

For her, too, the seats were not dark, covered empties, but filled with human beings, filled with the light and joy of living.

Of a sudden she seemed to hear the reproving words of the priest.