"Well?"

"Abbott, listen: she's gone a-visiting!"

"Visiting!" Abbott was surprised.

"Yes, visiting, she that hasn't been off this place to visit a soul for ages. I tell you, boy, times have changed, here. Maybe you think n.o.body'd be left at home to visit; but Fran has found that there is a woman in town that she used to know, and the woman has a mighty sick child, and Lucy has gone to sit by it, so the mother can rest. Think of that, Abbott, think of Lucy going _anywhere_. My! Have you heard that we've lost a secretary at this place? I mean the future Mrs. Bob.

Yes, she's gone. I'd as soon have thought of the court-house being picked up and set in the parlor."

Mrs. Jefferson drew back and said succinctly, "Fran did it!"

Her cap quivered as she leaned forward again. "Get her to tell you all about it. We da.r.s.en't speak about it much because of the neighbors. We conspired, Fran and I. Yes, she's down at the carnival, you boy!"

Abbott hastily departed. Later he found himself in a cloud-burst of confetti, on the "city square" and when he had cleared his eyes of the red and white snow, he saw Fran disappearing like a bit of crimson gla.s.s at the bottom of a human kaleidoscope. Fran had thrown the confetti, then fled--how much brighter she was than all the other shifting units of humanity.

He fought his way toward her determinedly, finding she was about to be submerged. Was she actually trying to elude him?

"Fran!" he cried reproachfully as he reached her side. "How have you the heart to run away from me after I've been lost for weeks? n.o.body knew I'd ever be found."

Fran gave up flight, and stopped to look at him. A smile slipped from the corner of one eye, to get caught at the corner of her demure mouth. "When you disappeared, you left me yourself. A friend always does. I've had you all the time."

Abbott glowed. "Still, it isn't exactly the same as if I had been able to touch your hand. Suppose we shake hands, little friend; what do you say?"

"I don't say anything," Fran retorted; "I just shake."

Her handclasp was so hearty that he was slightly disconcerted. Was her friendship so great that it left no room in her heart for something greater? Fran's emotions must not be compressed under a friendship- monopoly, but just now he hardly saw his way toward fighting such a trust.

"I want to talk to you, Fran, talk and talk, oh, just about all the long night through! Come, let me take you back home--"

"Home? Me? Ridiculous! But I'll tell you the best place that ever was, for the kind of talking you and I want to do to each other. Abbott, it won't matter to you--will it?--at what place I say to meet me, at about half-past nine?"

"Why, Fran! It's not eight o'clock," Abbott remonstrated, glancing toward the court-house clock to find it stopped, and then consulting his watch. "Do you think I am going to wait till--"

"Till half-past nine," said Fran, nonchalantly. "Very well, then."

"But what will we do in the meantime, if we're not to talk till--"

"_We?_" she mocked him. "Listen, Abbott, don't look so cross. I've a friend in town with a sick daughter, and she's a real friend so I must go to help her, a while."

He was both mystified and disappointed. "I didn't know you had any such friends in Littleburg," he remonstrated, remembering how unkind tongues had set the village against her.

Fran threw back her head, and her gesture was full of pride and confidence. "Oh!" she cried, "the town is full of my friends."

He could only stare at her in dumb amazement.

"All right, then," she said with the greatest cheerfulness, "at half- past nine. You understand the date--nine-thirty. Of course you wouldn't have me desert a friend in trouble. Where shall we meet, Abbott--at nine-thirty? Shall we say, at the Snake-Eater's?"

"No. We shall not say at the Snake-Eater's. Fran, I want you right now. I know nothing of this sick friend, but I need you more than anybody else in the world could possibly need you."

Fran said nothing, but her eyes looked at him unfaltering. She flashed up out of the black continuity of the throng like a ray of light glancing along the surface of the sea. It needed no sun in the sky to make Fran-beams.

"Go, Fran," he exclaimed, "I'll wait for you as long as I must, even if it's the eternity of nine-thirty; and I'd go anywhere in the world to meet you, even to the den of the Snake-Eater."

"That's the way for a friend to talk!" she declared, suddenly radiant --a full Fran-sun, now, instead of the slender penetrating Fran-beam.

Seeing a leg-lined lane opening before her, she darted forward.

Abbott called--"But I can't promise to talk to you as a friend, when we meet--I mean, _just_ as a friend."

Fran looked back at him, still dazzling. "I only ask you to treat me as well," she said with a.s.sumed humility, "as we are told we ought to treat our--enemies."

CHAPTER XXIII

THE CONQUEROR

After the extinguishment of the Fran-beam, Abbott wanted to be alone, to meditate on stellar and solar brightness, but in this vociferous wilderness, reflection was impossible. One could not even escape recognition, one could not even detach oneself from a Simon Jefferson.

"Got back to town again, hey?" said Simon. That was enough about Abbott; Simon pa.s.sed at once to a more interesting theme: "Taken in the Lion Show, yet?"

"I'm just waiting for nine-thirty....I have an engagement." Futile words, indeed, since it was now only about eight o'clock.

"You come with me, then, I know all the ropes. Hey? Oh, yes, I know mother thinks me in bed--for goodness' sake don't tell on me, she'd be scared to death. But actually, old man, this carnival is good for my heart. 'Tisn't like going to church, one bit. Preaching makes me feel oppressed, and that's what scares me--feeling oppressed." He rubbed his grizzled hair nervously. "Just for fear somebody'd go tell, I've had to sneak into all these shows like I'd been a thief in the night."

Simon urged Abbott along in the direction taken, but a few minutes before, by Hamilton Gregory and Grace Noir. "You see," Simon panted, "when the girl fell off the trapeze--heard about that, hey? Mother was overjoyed, thinking I'd missed the sickening sight. But bless your soul!--I was right at the front, hanging on to the railing, and I saw it all. Why, she pretty near fell on me. Her foot slipped just so--"

Simon extended his leg with some agility.

"Was she killed?" Abbott asked, concealing his astonishment over Simon's evident acquaintance with the black tent before which they had paused.

"Well," Simon reluctantly conceded, "n-n-no, she wasn't to say killed --but dreadfully bruised up, Abbott, very painful. I saw it all; this carnival has put new life into me--here! Get your ticket in a jiffy, or all the seats'll be taken. You can't stand there like that--give me your quarter, I know how to jump in and get first place. That ticket- agent knows me; I've been in five times."

From a high platform before the black tent, a voice came through a megaphone: "The Big Show. The BIG Show. See those enormous lions riding in baby carriages while La Gonizetti makes other lions dance the fandango to her violin. See those--"

"Here, Abbott, follow!" called the breathless Simon Jefferson. "Of course we'll see what's there--no use listening to _him,_ like an introduction in a novel of Scott's, telling it all first. Oh, you've got to _squeeze_ your way in," he continued, clenching his teeth and hurling himself forward, "just mash 'em endwise if they stand gawking in your way. You follow me."

Abbott laughed aloud at Simon's ability as they pushed their way under the tent.

"Uh-huh, now see that!" groaned Simon reproachfully, as he looked about. "Every seat taken. I tell you, you've got to lift up your feet to get into this show. Well, hang on to the rope--don't let anybody gouge you out of standing-room."

At least two-thirds of the s.p.a.ce under the tent was taken up by tiers of seats formed of thin, and apparently fragile, blue planks, springy to the foot and deafening to the ear. From hardened ground to fringed tent-ceiling, these overlapping rows of narrow boards were br.i.m.m.i.n.g with men, women and children who, tenacious of their holdings, seemed each to contain in his pockets the feet of him who sat immediately behind. At any rate, no feet were visible; all was one dense ma.s.s of faces, shoulders, women's hats, and babies held up for air.

The seats faced an immense cage which rose almost to the roof. As yet, it was empty, but smaller adjoining cages promised an animated arena when the signal should be given.