Fran Part 42

"Yes--there's nothing on the outside, and oh, sometimes there's so little, so little under the roof--what do you think of me, Abbott?"

"Fran, I think you are the most--"

"But _do_ you!" she interposed, still unsteadily. "In the superlative?

I don't see how you can, after that exhibition behind the bars.

Anyway, I want you to talk about yourself. What made you go away from town? But that's not the worst: what made you stay away? And what were you doing off there wherever it was, while poor little girls were wondering themselves sick about you? But wait!--the wheel's going down--down--down....Good thing I have you to hold to--poor Miss Sapphira, she can't come, now! Listen at all the street-criers, getting closer, and the whistle-sounds--I wish we had whistles; the squawky kind. See my element, Abbott, the air I've breathed all my life--the carnival. Here we are, just above the clouds of confetti....Now we're riding through....pretty damp, these clouds are, don't you think! Those ribbons of electric lights have been the real world for me. Abbott--they were home....No, Bill, we don't want to get out.

We intend to ride until you take this wheel to pieces. And oh, by the way, Bill--just stop this wheel, every once in a while, will you?--when we're up at the very tiptop. All right--good-by."

And Abbott called gaily, "Good-by, Mr. Smookins!"

"I'm glad you did that, Abbott. You think you're somebody, when somebody else thinks so, too. Now we're rising in the world." Fran was so excited that she could not keep her body from quivering. In spite of this, she fastened her eyes upon Abbott to ask, suddenly, "'Most'-- what?"

"Most adorable," Abbott answered, as if he had been waiting for the prompting. "Most precious. Most bewitchingly sweet. Most unanswerably and eternally--_Fran!_"

"And you--" she whispered.

"And I," he told her, "am nothing but most wanting-to-be-loved."

"It's so queer," Fran said, plaintively. "You know, Abbott, how long you've fought against me. You know it, and I don't blame you, not in the least. There's nothing about me to make people....But even now, how can you think you understand me, when I don't understand myself?"

"I don't," he said, promptly. "I've given up trying to understand you.

Since then, I've just loved. That's easy."

"What will people think of a superintendent of public schools caring for a show-girl, even if she _is_ Fran Nonpareil. How would it affect your career?"

"But you have promised never again to engage in a show, so you are not a show-girl."

"What about my mother who lived and died as a lion-tamer? What will you do about my life-history? I'd never speak to a man who could feel ashamed of my mother. What about my father who has never publicly acknowledged me? I'd not want to have anything to do with a man who-- who could be proud of him."

"As to the past, Fran, I have only this to say: whatever hards.h.i.+ps it contained, whatever wrongs or wretchedness--it evolved you, _you_, the Fran of to-day--the Fran of this living hour. And it's the Fran of this living hour that I want to marry."

Fran covered her face with her hands. For a while there was silence, then she said:

"Father was there, to-night."

"At the lion-show? Impossible! Mr. Gregory go to a--a--to--a--"

"Yes, it is possible for him even to go to a show. But to do him justice, he was forced under the tent, he had no intention of doing anything so wicked as that, he only meant to do some little thing like running away--But no, I can't speak of him with bitterness, now.

Abbott, he seems all changed."

Abbott murmured, as if stupefied, "Mr. Gregory at a show!"

"Yes, and a lion-show. When it was over he came to me--he was so excited--"

"So was I," spoke up the other--"rather!"

"You didn't show it. I thought maybe you wouldn't care if I _had_ been eaten up....No, no, listen. He wanted to claim me--he called me 'daughter' right there before the people, but they thought it was just a sort of--of church name. But he was wonderfully moved. I left the tent with him, and we had a long talk--I came from him to you. I never saw anybody so changed."

"But why?"

"You see, he thought I was going to be killed right there before his eyes, and seeing it with his very own eyes made him feel responsible.

He told me, afterwards, that when he found out who it was in the cage, he thought of mother in a different way,--he saw how his desertion had driven her to earning her living with showmen, so I could be supported. All in all, he is a changed man."

"Then will he acknowledge you?--but no, no,..."

"You see? He can't, on account of Mrs. Gregory. There's no future for him, or for her, except to go on living as man and wife--without the secretary. He imagines it would be a sort of reparation to present me to the world as his daughter, he thinks it would give him happiness-- but it can't be. Grace Noir has found it all out--"

"Then she will tell!" Abbott exclaimed, in dismay.

"She would have told but for one thing. She doesn't dare, and it's on her own account--of course. She has been terribly--well, indiscreet.

You can't think to what lengths she was willing to go--not from coldly making up her mind, but because she lost grip on herself, from always thinking she couldn't. So she went away with Bob Clinton--she'll marry him, and they'll go to Chicago, out of Littleburg history--poor Bob!

Remember the night he was trying to get religion? I'm afraid he'll conclude that religion isn't what he thought it was, living so close to it from now on."

"All this interests me greatly, dear, because it interests you. Still, it doesn't bear upon the main question."

"Abbott, you don't know why I went to that show to act. You thought I was caring for a sick friend. What do you think of such deceptions?"

"I think I understand. Simon Jefferson told me of a girl falling from a trapeze; it was possibly La Gonizetti's daughter. Mrs. Jefferson told me that Mrs. Gregory is nursing some one. The same one, I imagine. And La Gonizetti was a friend of yours, and you took her place, so the mother could stay with the injured daughter."

"You're a wonder, yourself!" Fran declared, dropping her hands to stare at him. "Yes, that's it. All these show-people are friends of mine. When the mayor was trying to decide what carnival company they'd have for the street fair, I told him about this show, and that's why it's here. Poor La Gonizetti needs the money dreadfully--for they spend it as fast as it's paid in. The little darling will have to go to a hospital, and there's nothing laid by. The boys all threw in, but they didn't have much, themselves. n.o.body has. Everybody's poor in this old world--except you and me. I've taken La Gonizetti's place in the cage all day to keep her from losing out; and if this wasn't the last day, I don't know whether I'd have promised you or not....

Samson was pretty good, but that mask annoyed him. So you see--but honestly, Abbott, doesn't all this make you feel just a wee bit different about me?"

"It makes me want to kiss you, Fran."

"It makes you"--she gasped--"want to do--_that?_ Why, Abbott! Nothing can save you."

"I'm afraid not," he agreed.

The car was swinging at the highest reach of the wheel. The engine stopped.

She opened her eyes very wide. "I'd think you'd be afraid of such a world-famous lion-trainer," she declared, drawing back." Some have been, I a.s.sure you."

"I'm not afraid," Abbott declared, drawing her toward him. He would have kissed her, but she covered her face with her hands and bent her head instinctively.

"Up!" cried Abbott. "Up, Samson, up!"

Fran laughed hilariously, and lifted her head. She looked at him through her fingers. Her face was a garden of blush-roses. She pretended to roar but the result was not terrifying; then she obediently held up her mouth.

"After all," said Fran, speaking somewhat indistinctly, "you haven't told why you ran away to leave poor Fran guessing where you'd gone. Do you know how I love you, Abbott?"

"I think I know."

"I'm glad--for I could never tell you. Real love is like real religion--you can't talk about it. Makes you want to joke, even if you can't think of anything funny to say--makes you chatter about anything else, or just keep still. Seems to be something down here--this is my heart, isn't it?--hope I have the right place, I left school so early--seems even when I refer to it I ought to--well, as I said, make a sort of joke...."

"But this is no joke," said Abbott, kissing her again.

"Yes," said Fran, happily, "we can talk about it in _that_ way. Isn't Bill Smookins a dear to keep us up here so long?"