Fran Part 41

She looked deep into his eyes, but found no incense burning there. The shrine was cold.

"Mr. Gregory! And after all that has pa.s.sed between us? After I have given you my--myself--"

Gregory seized her arm, as if to hold her off. His eyes were burning dangerously: "I saw murder in your heart while you were watching Fran," he whispered fiercely. "That's my daughter, do you understand?

I know you now, I know you now...." He stumbled down the steps, pushing out of his way those who opposed his progress.

Grace stared after him with bloodless cheeks and smoldering eyes.

Clearly, she decided, the sight of Fran's fearful danger had unbalanced his mind. But how could he care so much about that Fran?

And how could he leave her, knowing that Robert Clinton was beginning to climb upward with eyes fastened upon her face?

But it was not the sight of Fran's danger that had for ever alienated Gregory from Grace Noir. In an instant, she had stood revealed to him as an unlovely monster. His sensitive nature, always abnormally alive to outward impressions, had thrilled responsively to the exultation of the audience. He had endured the agony of suspense, he had shared the universal enthusiasm. If, in a sense, he was a series of moods, each the result of blind impulse, it so happened that Grace's hiss--"It's the hand of G.o.d," turned his love to aversion; she was appealing as a justification of personal hatred, to the G.o.d they were both betraying.

Grace began to tremble as she watched Robert Clinton coming up, and Hamilton Gregory descending. She had trusted foolishly to a broken reed, but it was not too late to preserve the good name she had been about to besmirch. The furnace-heat in which rash resolves are forged, was cooled. Gregory had deserted Fran's mother; he was false to Mrs.

Gregory; he would perhaps have betrayed Grace in the end; but Clinton was at hand, and his adoration would endure.

In the meantime, the voice of Fran was to be heard above that of the happy crowd: "I love you all. You helped me do it. I should certainly have been mangled but for you perfect heroes. Yes, thank you....

Yes, I feel fine....And, oh, men and women, I could just _feel_ your spirits holding mine up till I was so high--I was in the clouds.

That's what subdued Samson. He knew I wasn't afraid. He _knew_ it! And I wanted to win out for your sakes as well as my own--yes I did! Thank you men....Thank you, women....Well, if here aren't the children; too--bless your brave hearts!...And is that your baby?

My goodness, and what a baby it is!...No, I'm not a bit tired--"

She stopped suddenly, on feeling a crushing grip. She looked down, a frown forming on her brow, but the sun shone clear when she saw Abbott Ashton. She gave him a swift look, as if to penetrate his inmost thoughts.

He met her eyes unfalteringly. "It's already nine o'clock," he said with singular composure. "Don't forget nine-thirty."

Then he disappeared in the crowd.

Fran saw the ranks thinning before her. She was glad, for suddenly she found herself very tired. What would Abbott think? Would he, henceforth, see nothing but the show-girl of tinsel and trainer's whip, for ever showing through the clear gla.s.s of her real self? At nine-thirty, what would Abbott say to her? and how should she reply?

The thought of him obscured her vision of admiring faces. Her manner lost its spontaneity.

Then, to her amazement, she beheld Hamilton Gregory stumbling toward her, looking neither to right nor left, seeing none but her--Hamilton Gregory at a show! Hamilton Gregory _here_, of all places, his eyes wide, his head thrown back as if to bare his face to her startled gaze.

"Fran!" cried Gregory, thrusting forth his arms to take her hands.

"Fran! Even now, the bars divide us. But oh, I am so glad, so glad-- and G.o.d answered my prayer and saved you, Fran--_my daughter!"_

CHAPTER XXIV

NEAR THE SKY

It was half-past nine when Abbott met Fran, according to appointment, before the Snake Den. From her hands she had removed the color of Italy, and from her body, the glittering raiment of La Gonizetti.

Fran came up to the young man from out the crowded street, all quivering excitement. In contrast with the pulsing life that ceaselessly changed her face, as from reflections of dancing light- points, his composure showed almost grotesque.

"Here I am," she panted, shooting a quizzical glance at his face, "are you ready for me? Come on, then, and I'll show you the very place for _us_."

Abbott inquired serenely, "Down there in the Den?"

Fran scrutinized him anew, always wondering how he had taken the lions. What she saw did not alarm her.

"No," she returned, "not in the Den. You're no Daniel, if I _am_ a Charmer. No dens for us."

"Nor lion-cages?" inquired Abbott, still inscrutable; "never again?"

"Never again," came her response; it was a promise.

As they made their way through the noisy "city square" she kept on wondering. Since his face revealed nothing, his disapproval, at any rate, was not so great as to be beyond control. Did that signify that he did not feel enough for her really to care? Better for him to be angry about the show, than not to care.

Fran stopped before the Ferris Wheel.

"Let's take a ride," she said, a little tremulously. "Won't need tickets. Bill, stop the wheel; I want to go right up. This is a friendof mine--Mr. Ashton. And Abbott, this is an older friend than you--Mr. Bill Smookins."

Mr. Bill Smookins was an exceedingly hard-featured man, of no recognizable age. Externally, he was blue overalls and greasy tar.

Abbott grasped Bill's hand, and inquired about business.

"Awful pore, sense Fran lef' the show," was the answer, accompanied by a grin that threatened to cut the weather-beaten face wide open.

Fran beamed. "Mr. Smookins knew my mother--didn't you, Bill? He was awful good to me when I was a kid. Mr. Smookins was a Human Nymph in those days, and he smoked and talked, he did, right down under the water--remember, Bill? That was sure-enough water--oh, he's a sure- enough Bill, let me tell you!"

Bill intimated, as he slowed down the engine, that the rheumatism he had acquired under the water, was sure-enough rheumatism--hence his change of occupation. "I was strong enough to be a Human Nymph," he explained, "but not endurable. n.o.body can't last many years as a Human Nymph."

Abbott indicated his companion--"Here's one that'll last my time."

The wheel stopped. He and Fran were barred into a seat.

"And now," Fran exclaimed, "it's all ups and downs, just like a moving-picture of life. Why don't you say something, Mr. Ashton? But no, you can keep still--I'm excited to death, and wouldn't hear you anyway. I want to do all the talking--I always do, after I've been in the cage. My brain is filled with air--so this is the time to be soaring up into the sky, isn't it! What is your brained filled with?-- but never mind. We'll be just two balloons--my! aren't you glad we haven't any strings on us--suppose some people had hold!--I, for one, would be willing never to go down again. Where are the clouds?--Wish we could meet a few. Down there on the solid earth--oh, down _there_ the first things you meet are reasons for things, and people's opinions of how things look, and reports of what folks say. And up here, there's nothing but the moon--isn't it bright! See how I'm trembling--always do, after the lions. Now, Abbott, I'll leave a small opening for just one word--"

"I'll steady you," said Abbott, briefly, and he took her hand. She did not appear conscious of his protecting clasp.

"I never see the moon so big," she went on, breathlessly, "without thinking of that night when it rolled along the pasture as if it wanted to knock us off the foot-bridge for being where we oughtn't. I never could understand why you would stay on that bridge with a perfect stranger, when your duty was to be usher at the camp-meeting!

You weren't ushering me, you know, you were holding my hand--I mean, I was holding your hand, as Miss Sapphira says I shouldn't. What a poor helpless man--as I'm holding you now, I presume! But I laughed in meeting. People ought to go outdoors to smile, and keep their religion in a house, I guess. I'm going to tell you why I laughed, for you've never guessed, and you've always been afraid to ask--"

"Afraid of _you_, Fran?"

"Awfully, I'm going to show you--let go, so I can show you. No, I'm in earnest--you can have me, afterwards....Remember that evangelist?

There he stood, waving his hands--as I'm doing now--moving his arms with his eyes fastened upon the congregation--this way--look, Abbott."

"Fran! As if I were not already looking."

"Look--just so; not saying a word--only waving this way and that...

And it made me think of our Hypnotizer--the man that waves people into our biggest tent--he seems to pick 'em up bodily and carry them in his arms. Well! And if the people are to be waved into a church, it won't take much of a breeze to blow them out. I don't believe in soul- waving. But that doesn't mean that I don't believe in the church--does it?--do you think?"

"You believe in convictions, Fran. And since you've come into the church, you don't have to say that you believe in it."