As Petite Jeanne entered her dressing room she found a diminutive figure hidden away in a corner. At sight of the little French girl this person sprang to her feet with a cry of joy:

“Oh, Petite Jeanne! I have waited so long!” It was Merry.

“But see!” She pointed proudly at Jeanne’s dressing table. “I brought him to you. He will bring you luck to-night, I am sure. For, only look! He is still gazing toward the sky!” On Petite Jeanne’s dressing table rested the marble falcon.

“My own Merry!” Jeanne clasped her in her arms. “You think only of others.
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“And you—” She clasped her friend at arm’s length. “Has the marble falcon brought you good fortune?” Seeing how pinched was the face of the little Irish girl, she realized with a pang that in all the rush and excitement of the last two weeks Merry had been sadly neglected.

Merry hung her head for ten seconds. But her blue eyes were smiling as she whispered hoarsely:

“Tad says good times are right round the corner. Our luck will change.”

“Yes, indeed!” exclaimed Jeanne. “It will. It must.” And she made a solemn vow that in the future her success must bring success to her dear little Irish friend.

Unknown to Jeanne, powerful influences had been at work. Her friend, the famous prima donna, enjoyed a large following. More than one morning she had seated herself at her telephone and had whispered words this way and that. The house had been sold out four days before the opening night. This had been glorious news.
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“The best of the city will be here,” Solomon had said with a sober face. “One must remember, however, that the best are the most critical, too, and that their judgment is final. No curtain calls on the first night: good-bye, dear little light opera!”

What wonder then that Petite Jeanne’s fingers trembled as she toyed with a rose in her dressing room fifteen minutes before the lifting of the curtain on that night of nights!

“But I must be calm!” she told herself. “So much depends upon it: the success and happiness of all my Golden Circle! And with the success of this circle we may expand it. Merry shall enter it, and Tad, and perhaps others?

“I have only to be real, to be quite natural, to dance as I have danced by the garden walls of France; to say to that audience of rich and wise and beautiful people:

“‘See! I have for you something quite wonderful. It came from the past. Only the gypsies have seen it. Now I show it to you. And not alone I show it, but this sweet and good old dancer and all these, my chorus, so fresh and fair and young. Have you ever seen anything quite so enchanting? No. To be sure you have not!’”
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Reassured by her own words, she rose to skip across the floor, then on down the vestibule toward the stage.

When the curtain rose on a scene of matchless beauty, a gypsy camp somewhere in France; when the beholders found themselves looking upon the gorgeous costumes, colorful tents, and gaudily painted vans clustered about a brightly glowing campfire; when the music, which might well have been the whispering of wind among the trees, began stealing through the house, a hush fell upon the place such as is seldom experienced save in the depths of a great forest by night.

When the little French girl, a frail wisp of humanity all done in red and gold, came spinning upon the stage to dance before the leering God whose very eyes appeared to gleam with hidden fire, the silence seemed to deepen.

All through that first act, not a sound was heard save those which came from the stage. Not a programme rustled, not a whisper escaped.
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When at last, having told his quaint story and been accepted as a dancer in place of the bear, the old trouper with Jeanne as his partner danced twice across the stage and disappeared into the shadows, the silence was shattered by such a roar of applause as the beautiful little playhouse had never before known.

Seven times the curtain rose. Seven times the little French girl dragged her reluctant hero, Dan Baker, out to the footlights to bow to the still applauding audience.

When at last the curtain fell for good, she whispered, “What a beginning! But there is yet more.”

Who can describe in mere words of black on white the glories of that night? The scenes, done by an artist who had lived long in France, reproduced faithfully the gypsy camp by the roadside, the garden of the Tuileries in Paris and the little private garden of a rich French home.

To many who saw them, these scenes brought back tender memories of the past. Some had been soldiers there, and some had gone there to enjoy the glory that is Paris.
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And when Jeanne, a golden sprite, now leaping like a flame, now gliding like some wild thing of the forest, now seeming to float on air like a bird, poised herself against these marvelous settings, there came at every turn fresh gasps of surprise and delight.

Nor did Jeanne seek all the glory. She appeared ever eager to bring forward those who were about her. When Dan Baker did his fantastic rustic dance and told his more fantastic yarns, she watched and listened as no others could. And hers was the first shrill scream of delight.

When the chorus came weaving its way across the stage she joined them as one who is not a leader, but a humble companion.

Indeed as the evening wore on, the delighted audience became more and more conscious of the fact that the little French dancer was not, in spirit, on that stage at all, but by some roadside in France and that, while contributing her share to the joy of the occasion, she was gleaning her full share from those who joined her in each act.
293

This was exactly what had happened. And Jeanne was not conscious of the row on row of smiling, upturned faces. She saw only one row. And in that row, by her request, sat the members of what she ............