CHAPTER XIV THE FLUTTER OF WINGS

Petite Jeanne was a gifted person. She was a dancer of uncommon ability. Those who studied her closely and who were possessed of eyes that truly saw things had pronounced her a genius. Yet she was possessed of an even greater gift; she knew the art of making friends. Defeated by an ancient unwritten law, in her attempt to be a friend to the girls of the chorus, she had found her friends among the lowly ones of the theatre. For with all her art she never lost the human touch.

She had not haunted the ratty old theatre long before Mary, the woman who dusted seats, Jimmie, the spotlight operator, Tom, the stoker who came up grimy from the furnaces, and Dave, the aged night watchman, one and all, were her friends.
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That was why, on special occasions, these people did exactly what she wanted. One night at the ghostly hour of eleven she found herself, bare-footed and clad in scanty attire, doing her dance upon the stage while Jimmie, grinning in his perch far aloft, sent a mellow spot of light down to encircle and caress her as a beam of sunshine or a vapory angel might have done.

Dave, the watchman and her faithful guardian, was not far away. So, for the moment, she knew no fear. The rancorous voice of the director, the low grumble of the manager, were absent. Now she might dance as nature and the gypsies had taught her, with joy and abandon.

Since she had fully decided that on the night of nights, when for the first time in months the old Blackmoore was thronged, she would take matters into her own hands and dance as God, the stars and all out-doors had taught her, and feeling that only practice on the stage itself would give her heart the courage and her brain the assurance needed for that eventful hour, she had bribed these friends to assist her. And here she was.
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Dance on this night she did. Jimmie watched and marveled. Such grace and simple, joyous abandon, such true melody of movement, such color in motion, he had not known before.

“Ah!” he whispered. “She is possessed! The gypsies have bewitched her! She will never be real again.”

Indeed, had she given one wild leap in the air and risen higher and higher until she vanished into thin darkness as a ghost or an angel, he would have experienced no astonishment.

Surprise came to him soon enough, for all that. Suddenly the fairy-like arms of the dancer fell to her sides. Her lithe body became a statue. And there she stood in that circle of light, rigid, motionless, listening.

Then, throwing her arms high in a gesture of petition, she cried,

“Jimmie! The flutter of wings! Can you hear them? How they frighten me!
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“Jimmie,” she implored, “don’t let the spotlight leave me! Can you hear them, Jimmie? Wings. Fluttering wings. They mean death! Do you hear them, Jimmie?”

Leaning far forward, Jimmie heard no wings. But in that stillness he fancied he heard the mad beating of the little French girl’s heart, or was it his own?

So, for one tense moment, they remained in their separate places, motionless.

Then, with a little shudder, the girl shook herself free from the terror and called more cheerily,

“There! They are gone now, the wings. Throw on a light, and come and take me home, Jimmie. I can dance no more to-night.”

As she turned to move toward the spot on the floor where her precious God of Fire stood leering at her, she seemed to catch a sound of furtive movement among the shadows. She could not be sure. Her heart leapt, and was still.

Five minutes later she and Jimmie were on a brightly lighted street.
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“Wings,” the little French girl murmured once more. “The flutter of wings!” And again, as they neared her home, “Wings.”

“Aw, forget it!” Jimmie muttered.

She was not to forget. She was to hear that flutter again, and yet again.