CHAPTER XXXII A TOP-STAGE SEAT

But what of Petite Jeanne? Had she, arriving at the door, missed her companion and gone back into the building? Or, over-anxious for Florence’s safety, had she, too, gone into the street and been trapped? She had done neither. Yet adventure of quite another sort had come leaping at her.

Fascinated, as always, by the thought of that great opera stage at the end of the hall, and feeling that she had a few moments to spare, she had gone tiptoeing down the hall. She had found the door open and was preparing to look in upon the stage when a sidewise and backward glance gave her a severe shock. Standing not three paces behind her was a man. With arms stretched, he was approaching silently as one does who hopes to catch some creature off guard.
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Striving in vain to still the beating of her heart, for she had recognized in this man the enemy she had made during the “battle of Maxwell Street,” Jeanne took one step out upon the opera stage. Then, realizing at a glance what was going on there, she played a bold hand. Turning half about, she hissed: “Dare to come one step nearer and I shall scream. Do you hear? The opera is in progress. The company is on the stage. I shall scream. And then—”

She did not finish. There was no need.

A performance of Grand Opera was truly in progress at that very instant. Through a thin wall of trees and shrubs painted on canvas, came a peculiar light, a transparent blue that suggested birds, flowers and springtime.

Even as the girl’s lips closed there came a burst of song from the front of the stage where, hidden by the partition, there were many singers.

Licking his lips like a tiger prepared to spring the man crouched, then moved a step forward.
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“I’ll scream!” Petite Jeanne spoke aloud.

The sound of her voice was drowned by the chorus on the stage.

A scream would not be drowned. The man knew that well enough. But did she dare scream? This was the question at the back of the man’s shrewd but narrow mind.

She had said she would scream. To do this would be to invite a panic. A girl’s scream coming from back-stage during a dramatic moment of a Grand Opera performance could mean something little short of murder.

And yet the man, standing there irresolute, read in her eyes the answer: she would scream.

She looked down for an instant. When she lifted her eyes, he was gone. And the Grand Opera performance went on.

But now what? She dared not retrace her steps. The man would be lurking there.

Dashing across the back of the stage, she seized the handle of a door. It came open noiselessly. She passed through and closed it after her.
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But where was she? In a mere cubby-hole of a place. A closet? No. An elevator, a French lift, the sort you operate yourself. You punch a button here and you go up; you press another button there and you stop.

She pressed a button. Up she glided. There were floors above, many, many floors. She would come to a halt at some floor, leave the elevator, and go speeding away.

She had glided up how many floors? She could not tell. Then she became frightened.

“I’ll bump!”

She touched a second button and stopped the steel cage with a suddenness that caused her teeth to snap.

She tried to open the door. It would not budge. She pressed the button and went gliding upward once more. A light gleamed before her. Once more she stopped.

This time she could open the door. She stepped from the lift, not into a room, not a hallway, but out upon an iron grating. And this grating, fifteen stories up, lay directly above the opera stage.
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At first frightened, then fascinated, she threw herself flat upon the grating to watch with eager eyes the doings of the dwarf-like figures far below.

To this girl, born to the stage as a canary is born to the cedar and the humming bird to his flowering bush, the scene spelled irresistible enchantment.

To make the affair more compelling she recognized the star of the evening almost at once.

The scene beneath her was one of entrancing beauty: a flower garden and a village green in her native land. And dancing upon that green, arrayed in the most colorful of costumes, were the peasants of that village.

From time to time certain members of the group left their companions and danced away toward a back-stage corner, where they stood laughing and seeming to beckon to some one hidden from the view of Jeanne as well as the audience.

At last the long awaited one appeared. And then, oh, joy of joys!
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“Marjory Bryce! My Marjory!” The little French girl was choked with emotion as these words escaped her. Fortunately they were too faint to be heard below.

That settled the matter. All other desires, all duties, all hopes and dreams were lost in one great desire. She must see the star of all time, her Marjory, perform, not in some dimly distant time, but right here in the golden now.

So, little dreaming what this resolve might mean, she pressed her cheeks against two iron bars and awaited the next move in this singing drama which she but dimly understood.

“Anyway,” she whispered softly, “I’ve got a top-stage seat. Who could ask for more?”