CHAPTER XXI

FROM THE HEIGHTS TO DESPAIR

"To-day," said Marjory Dean, as they came out upon the dimly lighted stage, "as you will see," she glanced about her where the setting of a French village was to be seen "we are to rehearse 'The Juggler of Notre Dame.' And to-day, if you have the courage, you may play the juggler in my stead."

"Oh!" Jeanne's breath came short and quick. Her wild heartbeats of anticipation had not been in vain.

"But the company!" she exclaimed in a low whisper. "Shall they know?"

"They will not be told. Many will guess that something unusual is happening. But they all are good sports. And besides they are all of my--what is it you have called it?--my 'Golden Circle.'"

"Yes, yes, your 'Golden Circle.'"

"And those of our 'Golden Circle' never betray us. It is an unwritten law."

"Ah!" Jeanne breathed deeply. "Can I do it?"

"Certainly you can. And perhaps, on the very next night when the 'Juggler' is done--oh, well, you know."

"Yes. I know." Jeanne was fairly choking with emotion.

When, however, half an hour later, garbed as the juggler with his hoop and his bag of tricks, she came before the troop of French villagers of the drama, she was her own calm self. For once again as in a dream, she trod the streets of a beautiful French village. As of yore she danced before the boisterous village throng.

Only now, instead of stick and bear, she danced with hoop and bag.

She was conscious at once that the members of the company realized that she was a stranger and not Marjory Dean.

"But I shall show them how a child of France may play her native drama." At once she lost herself in the character of Jean, the wandering-juggler.

Eagerly she offered to do tricks with cup and balls, to remove eggs from a hat.

Scorned by the throng, she did not despair.

"I know the hoop dance."

The children of the troop seized her by the hands to drag her about. And Jeanne, the lithe Jeanne who had so often enthralled thousands by her fairy-like steps, danced clumsily as the juggler must, then allowed herself to be abused by the children until she could break away.

"What a glorious company!" she was thinking in the back of her mind. "How they play up to me!"

"My lords," she cried when once more she was free, "to please you I'll sing a fine love salvation song."

They paid her no heed. As the juggler she did not despair.

As Jeanne, she saw a movement in a seat close to the opera pit. "An auditor!" Her heart sank. "What if it is someone who suspects and will give me away!" There was scant time for these thoughts.

As the juggler she offered songs of battle, songs of conquest, drama. To all this they cried:

"No! No! Give us rather a drinking song!"

At last yielding to their demand she sang: "Hallelujah, Sing the Hallelujah of Wine."

Then as the prior descended upon the throng, scattering them like tiny birds before a gale, she stood there alone, defenseless, as the prior denounced her.

Real tears were in her eyes as she began her farewell to the glorious liberty of hedge and field, river, road and forest of France.

This farewell was destined to end unfinished for suddenly a great bass voice roared:

"What is this? You are not Marjory Dean! Where is she? What are you doing here?"

A huge man with a fierce black mustache stood towering above her. She recognized in him the director of the opera, and wished that the section of the stage beneath her feet might sink, carrying her from sight.

"Here I am," came in a clear, cold tone. It was Marjory Dean who spoke. She advanced toward the middle of the stage.

Riveted to their places, the members of the company stood aghast. Full well they knew the fire that lay ever smouldering in Marjory Dean's breast.

"And what does this mean? Why are you not rehearsing your part?"

"Because," Miss Dean replied evenly, "I chose to allow another, who can do it quite as well, to rehearse with the company."

"And I suppose," there was bitter sarcasm in the director's voice, "she will sing the part when that night comes?"

"And if she did?"

"Then, Miss Dean, your services would no longer be required." The man was purple with rage.

"Very well." Marjory Dean's face went white. "We may as well--"

But Petite Jeanne was at her side. "Miss Dean, you do not know what you are saying. It is not worth the cost. Please, please!" she pleaded with tears in her voice. "Please forget me. At best I am only a little French wanderer. And you, you are the great Marjory Dean!"

Reading the anguish in her upturned face, Marjory Dean's anger was turned to compassion.

"Another time, another place," she murmured. "I shall never forget you!"

Half an hour later the rehearsal was begun once more. This time Marjory Dean was in the stellar role. It was a dead rehearsal. All the sparkle of it was gone. But it was a rehearsal all the same, and the director had had his way.