Happy days followed. Petite Jeanne, whose circle of true friends in this great world had been pitiably small, found her horizon greatly enlarged. Truly the day of adventures in Merry’s cellar and out in the park while she danced the sun up from the depths of the lake had been her lucky day. For one might well have gone about the city of three million souls holding a lamp before every face without finding the equal to that brave trio, Angelo the playwright, Swen the maker of melodies and Dan Baker the beloved vagabond of the stage.
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Happy days they were, and busy ones as well. Each evening found them assembled in Angelo’s studio. In order that they might talk as they ate, they brought dinner along. Each member of the little group contributed something. Swen provided chops, steaks, oysters or fish; Angelo added such strange viands as he could devise, curious hot Mexican dishes, rich preparations from his native land, or unthinkable Russian mixtures; Florence and Petite Jeanne arrived each evening with apple-squares, date-tarts or some other form of tempting dessert; Dan Baker practiced the ancient and all but lost art of coffee brewing so skilfully that after drinking they all felt that dawn was on the point of breaking, and they were ready to walk out into a dewy morn.

Wild, hilarious, dizzy hours followed. Was a light opera ever before produced in such a fantastic fashion?

Angelo was continuously prepared with fresh script. This dark-eyed youth was a worker. Swen kept pace with musical compositions.

And how Swen could beat out those melodies on the battered piano reposing in the corner!
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When it was music for her dance Petite Jeanne, bare-footed, bare-armed, with eyes shining, sprang into motion with such abandon as made her seem a crimson cardinal, a butterfly, a mere flying nothing.

How Swen would throw back his blonde mane and laugh! How Dan Baker shook his old head and sighed with joy!

“Our play!” he would murmur. “Our play. How can it fail? With such an angel of light even Heaven would be a complete success.”

So for hours they labored. Testing music, words, lighting effects, dances, everything, until their heads were dizzy and their eyes dim.

Then, as the blaze flamed up in the broad fireplace, they cast themselves upon Angelo’s rugs of wondrous thickness and softness, and sighed deep sighs of content.

“How wonderful it is to have beautiful things!” Jeanne exclaimed, as on one of these occasions she buried her white hands in the thick, velvety surface of a Persian rug.

“Ah, yes!” Angelo sighed. “When you are sure you are to keep them.”
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“But they are your own.”

“Oh, yes. Now they are mine. They belonged to some one else before me. They may belong to others. The success of our play, that alone, will make them secure. My happiness, yours, all our joy depends upon that.” A shadow fell across his dark face.

This shadow reminded Petite Jeanne of a wider shadow that had been sweeping over the wondrous land men called America. For long years this land had known such joyous prosperity as no land before had ever known. But now, as if struck by some mysterious blight, this prosperity was falling away. Factories had been closing. Streets that once were thronged with shoppers, were thronged no more. Stores and shops were all but deserted. Wise men said, “Prosperity will return. It is just around the corner.” Yet it did not return at once.

And Petite Jeanne, sensitive soul that she was, ever conscious of the woes that come to others, was touched by the signs of fear and distress that she saw all about her.
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When she spoke of it to Angelo he, too, appeared distressed, not for himself, but for others.

“This will make no difference to our play,” was his optimistic pronouncement. “When hard times come, the people feel the need of amusement, diversion, more than before. Only one playhouse in our city is dark.”

“If so, where is our play to open?” Jeanne asked quickly.

“Leave that to me.” He shrugged. “Plays come. Plays go. A house dark to-night will be aglow to-morrow. I have friends. Once our light opera is on, it will go on forever.”

So they labored and hoped, shouted, danced, sang, dreamed, despaired and hoped again, only at last to go creeping away in the wee small hours to seek sleep. And the morning hours knew them not. So passed fourteen happy, busy, delirious days.

All this time the light opera was taking form. At the close of Act I the gypsy caravan, with Petite Jeanne and Dan Baker riding on burros, departed for Paris.
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In Paris Petite Jeanne and her amiable substitute for the bear danced in the beautiful public gardens. There, surrounded by noble statues and flowering trees, they were discovered by the chorus who at this time were dressed in bright smocks, posing with brushes, st............