CHAPTER VIII THE GYPSY GOD OF FIRE

It was with a light tread that Petite Jeanne’s nimble feet carried her up the seven flights of stairs leading to the studio of a young playwright named Angelo. It appeared incredible that this young Italian who tried to write plays and had known no success, and a white-haired wanderer who had danced his way from one small city to another across the country, could accomplish great things in mending her fortune and in setting her once more before the gleaming footlights of some great theatre. Yet so perfect was her faith in this, her lucky day, that nothing seemed too much to expect, even from so humble a beginning. For, you see, Petite Jeanne believed in miracles, in angels, fairies, goblins, ghosts and all the rest. She was French. And French people, you must know, are that way. For you surely have read how the great Joan of Arc, as a child, often spent many hours watching the fairies play beneath her favorite tree.
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“It must be a terribly dingy place,” Florence Huyler, her companion and bodyguard, said in a low tone as they approached the final landing. “This is a fearfully old building and we are right beneath the eaves.”

She was right. They were beneath the eaves. She was mistaken, too; more mistaken than she could have guessed. The place they entered was large, but not dingy. It was far from that. Besides being an ambitious young writer, Angelo was an artist. He had taken this barn-like attic and had created here a small paradise.

Having attended a sale at which the stage settings of a defunct play were being sold, he had bid in at an astonishingly low sum all the pieces he desired. The result was surprising. While one end of his attic studio contained the accustomed desk and chair of a writer, the other end was equipped as a stage.
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And what a charming stage it was! Angelo was a genius. With a brush and bright colors he had transformed the dingiest of drops, wings and stage furniture into a vision of life and beauty.

“Oh! Oh!” cried Jeanne as she entered the room. “Once more I am on the stage!”

With one wild fling she went floating like a golden butterfly across the narrow stage.

Catching the spirit of the moment, the aged actor, who had been sitting in the corner, sprang to his feet and joined her in an impromptu dance that was as unique as it was charming.

“Bravo! Bravo!” Angelo shouted, quite beside himself with joy. “That dance alone would make any play. But there shall be others. Many others.”

“And this,” exclaimed Petite Jeanne, breaking in upon his ecstasy to spring into a corner and return with something in her hand, “this is the gypsy dance to the God of Fire!”

Depositing some object on the floor, she deftly manipulated the lights and threw a single yellow gleam upon it.
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“A gypsy god!” Florence murmured. There was a touch of awe in her voice, as, indeed, there might well be. This god was endowed with power to frighten and subdue. There was about his features something that was at the same time ugly and fascinating. In the yellow light he appeared to glow with hidden fire.

As the little French girl began to weave and sway through the snake-like motions of the gypsy fire dance, a silence fell as upon a first night when the curtain rises on a scene of extraordinary beauty.

Even in this humble setting the scene was gripping. Long after the girl had finished the dance and thrown herself upon the stage floor to lie there, head resting upon one bent elbow, as silent as the gypsy god, the hush still hung over the room.

No one spoke until the quaint words of this mysterious child of France rose once more like a tiny wisp of smoke from the center of the stage.
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“This is the gypsy Fire God,” she chanted. “Years and years ago, many, many centuries before we were born, strange men and women with dark and burning eyes danced their fire dance in his honor, beneath the palm trees of India.

“This is the God of Fire. Other gods may come and go, but he must live on forever. He will not perish. None can destroy him. Fallen from some planet where fires burn eternal, he alone holds the secret of fire. Let him perish and all fire on earth will cease. Matches will not light. Wood and fire will not burn. The earth will grow cold, cold, cold!” She shuddered. And those who listened shuddered.

“The very fire at the center of the earth will burn low and go out. Then the earth will be covered with ice and snow. All living things must perish.

“He will not be destroyed!” She threw her arms out as if to protect this god of fiery enchantment.

Again there was silence.

“She does not believe that.” Florence voiced her skepticism.
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“Who knows?” Angelo’s voice was tense. “And after all, it doesn’t matter. The thing is perfect. Can’t you see? It is perfect!” He sprang excitedly to his feet. “This shall be our first scene. The curtain shall rise just here and about this God of Fire we shall weave our play. And it shall be called ‘The Gypsy God of Fire.’”