CHAPTER XXXIV FLORENCE SPRINGS A SURPRISE

In the meantime, though lifted to the seventh heaven by the scene of entrancing beauty that lay beneath her, Petite Jeanne was suffering pangs of conscience.

“I must go!” she whispered to herself as, lying flat upon the iron grating, she drank in the beauty of the opera. “I surely must. Florence will miss me. There will be a fearful fuss. But one more look, only one.”

So she lingered and the minutes sped away.

The scene beneath her was the first from The Juggler of Notre Dame, one of matchless beauty. And, more than this, was not her friend playing the part of the Juggler?

Marjory Bryce was dressed in the very costume she had worn beneath her purple cape on that day when she sat beside Solomon and reviewed the light opera.
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Now as she glided with matchless grace across the stage, as her crystal clear voice came drifting up, as she performed her act as a juggler, as she listened later in despair to the priest as he denounced her trick as inspired by the Devil, as at last, yielding, she consented to give up her gay life and enter the monastery, Jeanne found her an artist rare and inspired.

“No wonder her audience loves her!” she whispered to herself.

But now the scene was ended. Swiftly men worked, lifting stage settings toward her and lowering others to the stage, for in this modern playhouse all stage equipment was hung high above the stage. She realized that her time for escape had come. She had but to let herself down to the stage; the lift would do this for her; then she might dash unobserved across the back of the stage, and down the corridor.

“And if that man is there still,” she told herself stoutly, “I’ll see that three husky stage hands do for him just what needs to be done.”
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There was no one in the hallway when she reached it. How the man entered the building, how he hoped to carry Petite Jeanne from it, and how he made his escape after his evil plans had been frustrated, will remain a mystery.

As she entered the theatre she fell into the arms of the delighted and all but tearful old trouper.

“And Florence?” he demanded. “Where is she?”

“Florence?” The little French girl stared. “How could I know?”

“Were you not with her?”

“Absolutely not!”

“Then she and the God of Fire have vanished.”

“Vanished?”

Dan Baker told her all he knew.

“Well,” said Angelo as he concluded, “there’s nothing left but to go to the studio and await any news that may come. The police are on the job.”
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“No news will come,” was Petite Jeanne’s sad comment. “And to think that all this time I have been so happy!” She buried her face in her hands and wept.

At the studio, overcome by anxiety and weariness, Jeanne slumped down in a broad, upholstered chair before the fire and fell asleep.

As for the others, they, too, drew chairs to the fire, but did not sleep. They spent an hour in thoughtful silence.

Then there was a rattle at the doorknob and in stepped Florence herself. Ruddy-cheeked and apparently quite unharmed, she stood before them.

Angelo sprang forward. “Where have you been?” he gasped.

“Your feet!” he exclaimed. “They’re soaking. Must be frozen!”

“Not quite. Help me off with them, will you?” She spoke of shoes, not of feet.

In a gallant, brotherly manner, he removed her shoes and stockings. Then leading her to a place before the fire, he proceeded to chafe the purple from her all but frozen toes.
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“Wh—where’s the god?” he asked suddenly.

For answer she put out a hand to reclaim her water-soaked paper-bound package. Tearing away the wrapping, she revealed its contents and then set it at the edge of the fire to dry.

“The God of Fire, as I live!” he exclaimed.

“None other.”

“But how—how did you get it back?”

“Had it all the time.”

“But they got your bag!”

“Sure. And it contained two good bricks. No use taking a chance like that. I had this god under my arm done up in a newspaper all the time.” She looked at the Fire God and he appeared to leer back at her, as much as to say: “You’re a good one! You are keen!”

“They very nearly got me, for all that!” she said, after a moment. Then she told of her flight, the pursuit, the old scow and the ragged little musician.
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“We’ll be going,” said Angelo, beckoning to his companions when she had finished. “She’ll need a good, long sleep.” He nodded his head toward Jeanne. “Your room, Florence, is far away. I’ll spend the night with Swen.

“I’d like,” he added, “to see her face when she sees him!” Once more he nodded toward Jeanne, then toward the god.

“Why not? She must be wakened.” Florence touched Jeanne’s cheek with a cold hand. She wakened with a start.

“See!” Angelo’s tone was tense with emotion. “The god!”

Jeanne stared for a moment. Then a look of distrust overspread her face. “No,” she cried, “it can’t be! You are deceiving me. It is made of clay! You made it.”

She put out her hand to grasp it and dash it to pieces. Finding it both hot and heavy, she dropped it quickly. Then there came over her face a look like nothing so much as a spring sunrise, a look that would repay a thousand miseries, as she whispered softly:

“It is! My own gypsy God of Fire! How perfect! Now I shall live anew!”
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In a broad old spool-bed, beneath home woven covers from the hills of Italy, and with doors double locked and bolted, the two pals, Florence and Jeanne, fell asleep a short time later. They were wakened just as the shop people on the streets far below were hurrying out for their noonday luncheon.