It was just before the ten o’clock show that Sally, slipping into the throne-like chair before the crystal, heard a familiar, mocking voice:

“It’s not fair! You look as fresh as a daisy! And I’ve been frantic with anxiety all day, expecting to hear that Princess Lalla had sickened with pneumonia. I’ve come to collect thanks, your highness, for saving your life!”

Sally’s sapphire eyes blazed at the man she knew only as “Van,” but since they were veiled with a new scrap of black lace to replace the one lost in the storm, the nonchalant New Yorker did not appear to be at all devastated by their fire.

“Thank you for saving my life,” she said stiffly, but the man’s mocking, admiring attention was fixed upon the deliciously young, sweet curves of her mouth, rather than upon the tone of her voice.

“I wonder if you know,” he began confidentially, leaning lightly upon his inevitable cane, “that you have the most adorable mouth I have ever seen? Of course there are other adorable details in the picture of complete loveliness that you present, but really, your lips, like three rose petals—”

“Oh, stop!” Sally cried with childish anger, her small, red-sandaled foot stamping the platform. “Why are you always mocking me, making fun of me? I’ve begged you to let me alone—”

“Such ingratitude!” the man sighed, but his narrowed eyes smiled at her delightedly. “If you weren’t even more delicious when you’re angry, I should not be able to forgive you. But really, Sally Ford—” his voice dropped caressingly on the name, as if to remind her that he shared her secret with her—“the way you persist in misunderstanding me is very distressing.

“I’m not mocking you, my dear child! I’m mocking myself—if anyone. It recurs to me continually that this is an amazing adventure that Arthur Van Horne, of New York, Long Island and Newport is so sedulously engaged upon! To paraphrase your own delightful defense, I’m really ‘not that kind of man.’ I assure you I’m not in the habit of making love to show girls, no matter how adorable their mouths may be!” And he smiled at her out of his narrowed eyes and with his quirked, quizzical mouth, as if he expected her to share his amusement and amazement at himself.

“Then why don’t you let me alone?” Sally cried, striking her little brown-painted hands together in futile rage.

“I wonder!” he mused. “I make up my mind that I’m a blighter and an ass and that I shan’t come near the carnival. I accept invitations enough to take up every minute of my last days in Capital City, and then—without in the least intending to do so—I find myself back in the Palace of Wonders, humbling myself before a pair of little red-sandaled feet that would like nothing better than to kick me for my impudence. Do you suppose, Sally Ford, that I’m falling in love with you? There’s something about you, you know—”

“Please go away,” Sally implored him. “It’s almost time for my performance. Gus is ballyhooing Jan now and I come next.”

“As I was saying, when you interrupted me,” Van Horne reproved her mockingly, “there’s something about you, you know. Last night when I had the honor of saving your life and seeing your adorable little face washed clean of the brown paint, I was surprised at myself. I really was, I give you my word!

“Do you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to swing you up into my arms, you amazingly tiny thing, and run away with you. If you hadn’t looked so young and—pure, I believe the favorite word is—I’d have yielded to the impulse. I suppress so few of my unholy desires that I suppose this discipline is good for my soul—Now, what the devil are you looking at, instead of listening to the confessions of a young man?” he broke off with a genuine note of irritation in his charming voice.

“Who is that beautiful woman?” Sally asked in a low voice, her eyes still fixed upon the golden-haired woman whom Van Horne had called “Enid,” and who had just entered the tent alone, her small body, clad in the green knitted silk sports suit, moving through the crowd with proud disdain.

“Again I am forced to forgive you,” Van Horne sighed humorously. “I seem always to be forgiving you, Sally Ford! You are merely asking a question which is inevitably asked when Enid Barr first bursts upon a startled public.

“She is probably the most beautiful blond in New York society. Those industrious cold cream advertisers would pay her a fortune for the use of her picture and endorsement, but it happens that she has two or three large fortunes of her own, as well as a disgustingly rich husband. Yes, unfortunately for her adorers, she is married, Courtney Barr—even out here you must have heard of Courtney Barr—being the lucky man.”

“I wonder what she’s doing here,” Sally whispered, fright widening her eyes behind the black lace.

“Oh, I think Courtney’s here on political business. The Barrs have always rather fancied themselves as leaders among the Wall Street makers of presidents. He’s hobnobbing with my cousin, the governor, and Enid is probably amusing herself by collecting Americana.”

“She must be awfully good,” Sally whispered, adoration making her voice lovely and wistful. “She brought all the orphanage children to the carnival yesterday, you know.”

“Yes,” Van Horne shrugged, arching his brows quizzically. “I confess I was rather stunned, for Enid doesn’t go in for personal charity. Huge checks and all that sort of thing—she’s endowed some sort of institution for ‘fallen girls,’ by the way—but it has never seemed to amuse her to play Lady Bountiful in person. Of course she may be nursing a secret passion for children, and took this means to gratify it where her crowd could not rag her about it.”

“Hasn’t she any children of her own?” Sally asked. “But I suppose she’s too young—”

“Not at all,” Van Horne laughed. “She’s past thirty, certainly, though she would never forgive me for saying so. She’s never had any children; been married about thirteen years, I think.”

“Oh, that’s too bad!” Sally’s voice was tender and wistful. “She’d make such a lovely mother—”

Van Horne interrupted with his throaty, musical laugh, and was in turn interrupted by Gus the barker’s stentorian roar:

“Right this way, la-dees and gen-tle-men! I want to introduce you to Princess Lalla, who sees all, knows all! Princess Lalla, world famous crystal-gazer, favorite—”

Sally straightened in her throne-like chair, her little brown hands cupping obediently about the “magic crystal” on the velvet-draped stand before her. Van Horne, with a last ironic chuckle, melted into the crowd, which had surged toward Sally’s platform.

When Gus’s spiel was finished, the rush began. At least a dozen hands shot upward, waving quarters and demanding the first opportunity to learn “past, present and future” from “Princess Lalla.”

She worked hard, conscientiously and cautiously, for she was vividly conscious that both Van Horne and Enid Barr were somewhere in the tent, listening perhaps, whispering about her.

Most of her fear of Enid Barr, which had resulted from the connection of the golden-haired woman with the orphanage children the day before, had evaporated. It was absurd to think that a woman of such wealth and beauty, whose philanthropy had undoubtedly been a gesture of boredom, was seriously interested in one lone little girl who had run away from charity.

It did not even seem odd to Sally that Enid Barr should have paid a second visit to the carnival. Probably Capital City afforded scant amusement for a woman of her sophistication, and the carnival, crude and tawdry though it was, was better than nothing.

Since “Princess Lalla” was not a side-show all by herself, but only one of many attractions in the Palace of Wonders, Gus never made any attempt to cajole reluctant “rubes” into surrendering their quarters for a glimpse of “past, present and future,” but always hustled his crowd on to the next platform—“Pitty Sing’s”—as soon as the first flurry of interest had died down and the crowd had become restive.

By this method, those who were faintly or belligerently dissatisfied with Sally’s crystal-gazing, at which she was becoming more adept with each performance, were quickly placated by the sight of new wonders, for which no extra charge was made.

Sally was straightening the black velvet drapery which covered the crystal stand, preparatory to returning to the dress tent for a rest between shows when a lovely, lilting voice, with a ripple of amusement in it, made her gasp with surprise and consternation.

“Am I too late to have my fortune told?” Enid Barr, gazing up at Sally with her golden head tilted provocatively to one side, was immediately below the startled crystal-gazer, one of her exquisite small hands swinging the silvery-green felt hat which Sally had so much admired the day before.

“Oh, no!” Sally fluttered, both delighted and frightened at this opportunity to talk with the most beautiful creature she had ever seen. Just in time she remembered her accent: “Weel you do me ze honor to ascend the steps?”

Laughing at herself, and looking over her shoulder to see that she was not observed by anyone who knew her, Enid Barr ran lightly up the steps and slipped into the little camp chair opposite Sally. Her small white hands, with their exquisite nails glistening in the light from the center gas jet, hovered over the crystal, touching it tentatively.

Sally leaned forward, her own hands cupped about the crystal, her eyes brooding upon it behind the little black lace veil, her mouth pursed with sweet seriousness.

“You are—what you call it?—psychic,” Sally chanted in the quaint, mincing voice with which she had been taught to make her revelations. “Ze creeystal, she is va-ry clear for you. I see so-o-o much!” She hesitated, wondering just how much of Van Horne’s confidences about this beautiful woman she dared appropriate. Would Van Horne give her away? Then, as if drawn by a powerful magnet, she raised her eyes suddenly and met those of Van Horne, who was leaning nonchalantly against the center-pole of the tent. He nodded, smiled his curious, quizzical smile and slowly winked his right eye. She had his permission—

“Please hurry!” Enid Barr commanded arrogantly. “I’m just dying to know what you see about me in that crystal!”

“I see a beeg, beeg city,” Sally intoned dreamily, her eyes again fixed upon the crystal. “I see you there, in beeg, beeg house. Much moneys. And behind you I see a man—your husband, no?”

“Yes, I am married,” Enid Barr laughed. “Since you see so much, suppose you tell me my name.”

“I see—” Sally frowned, but her heart was pounding at her audacity, “ze letter E and ze letter R—no, B! I see a beeg place—not your house—with ma-ny girls holding out zeir arms to you. You help zem. You are va-ry, va-ry good.”

“Rot!” Enid Barr laughed, but a bright flush of pleasure spread over her fair face. “One has to do something with ‘much moneys,’ doesn’t one? Listen, Princess Lalla, if that is really your name: prove to me you are a real crystal-gazer! Tell me something I’d give almost anything to know—” She leaned forward tensely, her violet-blue eyes darkening with excitement and appeal until they were almost the color of Sally’s.

“And what’s that, Enid?” a mocking, amused voice inquired. “Do you want to know whether I really love you? How can you ask! Of course I do!”

Enid Barr sprang to her feet so hastily that the camp stool on which she had been sitting overturned, anger and something like fear blazing in her eyes.

Enid Barr and Arthur Van Horne moved away from “Princess Lalla’s” platform together, Enid’s golden head held high, her lovely voice staccato with anger; but Sally, although she was guilty of trying to do so, could not distinguish a word that was being said.

Near the front exit of the tent Van Horne was greeted boisterously by a party of Capital City society men and women, laden with trophies from the gambling concessions on the midway. He was swept into the party, which Enid Barr refused to join, shaking her little golden head stubbornly and pretending a great interest in the midget, “Pitty Sing,” whose platform was nearest the exit.

Although Sally was at liberty to leave the tent until the final performance at eleven o’clock, she sat on in her throne-like chair, hoping and yet fearing that the beautiful woman would return and ask her the question which Van Horne’s unwelcome interruption had left unspoken.

Enid spoke to “Pitty Sing” in her proud, offhand manner, paid a dollar for one of the midget’s cheap little postcard pictures of herself, refused to take the change and was turning toward Sally’s platform again when Winfield Bybee entered the tent with Gus, the barker.

Sally, watching Enid, saw the woman’s involuntary start of recognition as Bybee crossed her path, saw her hesitate, then turn toward him, determination stamped on her lovely, sensitive face.

When Bybee had bared his head deferentially and was bending over the small woman to hear her low spoken words, Sally was seized with fright. She knew instinctively that Enid Barr’s questions concerned her, but whether they concerned Sally Ford, runaway from the state orphanage, or “Princess Lalla,” fake crystal-gazer, she had no way of knowing. All she knew for certain was that Enid had overheard Betsy’s shriek: “That’s not Princess Lalla! That’s Sally Ford—play-acting!” And she fled, feeling Enid’s eyes upon her but not daring to look back.

There was less than half an hour before the next and final show was to start. She spent the time in the dress tent, wishing with all her heart that she was through work for the day and that she could go to David. Poor David! lying wounded in a stuffy, hot berth, tormented with worries as to the future and possibly with regrets for the past, while Eddie Cobb strutted on the midway as the hero of the safe robbery.

It would be better for David, infinitely better, if she could screw up her courage to the point of going back to the orphanage and taking her punishment. It would be so simple! She had only to seek out Enid Barr and say to her: “I am Sally Ford! Send for Mrs. Stone.” And perhaps Enid would intercede for her, for she seemed so very kind.

“Wake up, Sally,” Bess, one of the dancers of the “girlie show,” called to her, as she came shuffling into the tent on tortured feet. “Gus is ballyhooing your show.”

Yes, her mind was made up. She would tell Enid Barr, beg her to intercede with the orphanage for her, and with the police for David. But there was no Enid Barr among the audience at the last show of the evening, and even Van Horne was absent. In spite of her good resolutions Sally felt an immense relief. Reprieve! She certainly could not give herself up if there was no one to give up to!

“Going to the show train to see David?” Gus whispered, when the last show was finished and the audience was straggling toward the exits.

“Of course!” Sally cried. “Is he worse? Don’t hide anything from me, Gus—”

“Worse!” Gus laughed. “Bybee says he’s yelling for food and threatens to get up and cook it himself if they don’t give him something besides mush and milk. Come along! I’ll walk you over to the show train. You’re too pretty to be allowed to go alone. Some village dude would be trying to kidnap you.”

They found David sitting up in his berth, working crossword puzzles, Mrs. Bybee sitting on the edge of his bed to jot down the words as he gave them to her.

“Reckon you won’t need the old lady now that the young ’un’s come to hold your hand and make a fuss over you,” Mrs. Bybee grumbled jealously.

“What’s that? What’s that?” Winfield Bybee, who had come over from the carnival grounds in a service car, demanded from the doorway. “Been flirting with my wife, young man? Reckon I’ll have to put the gloves on with you when that crippled wing of yours is O. K. Well, Sally, old Pop has done you another good turn.”

Sally paled and reached instinctively for David’s left hand. “Oh! You mean—Mrs. Barr, the lady who was talking to you?”

“Nothing else but!” Bybee nodded, smiling at her. “She tried to make me admit you was Sally Ford and I acted innocent as a new-born lamb. Told her you’d been with us since we left New York.”

“Why is she so interested in Sally, Mr. Bybee?” David asked quietly.

“She ’lowed a carnival wasn’t no place for a pure young girl,” Bybee chuckled. “She said they was anxious over at the orphanage to get Sally back, away from her life of sin, and that pers’n’ly she took a powerful interest in unfortunate girls and was determined to see Sally safe back in the Home if ‘Princess Lalla’ was Sally Ford. I lied like a gentleman for you, child. Told her she was a nice little dame and all that, but clear off her base in this instance. Reckon I put it across all right, for she shut up and beat it pretty soon.”

“I think she’s wonderful,” Sally surprised them all by speaking up almost sharply. “She’s just trying to be kind. She doesn’t know how awful an orphans’ home can be.”

“Come along, Mother. Let’s give these two kids a chance. But you mustn’t stay long, Sally. Tomorrow’s Saturday, and you oughta be enough of a trouper by now to know what that means. We head South Saturday night, riding all day Sunday.”

“Out of the state?” Sally and David cried in unison.

“Yep. Out of the state. You kids’ll be safe then. The police ain’t going to bother about extradition for a couple of juvenile delinquents. So long, Dave boy. Don’t let this little Jane keep you awake too late.”

“I’ll leave in fifteen minutes,” Sally promised joyfully.

And she kept her promise. Her lips were smiling tenderly, secretly, at the memory of David’s good-night kiss, when she left the car and began to look about for someone to walk back to the carnival grounds with her, for she was to sleep in the dress tent that night, the storm-soaked mattresses having dried in the sun all day.

Gus had told her he would be waiting for her, but she could not find him. She went the length of the train to the privilege car, pushing open the door sufficiently to peep within. At least a score of men of the carnival family were seated at three or four tables, their heads almost unrecognizable through the thick layers of cigar and cigaret smoke. There was little conversation except an occasional oath, but the steady clacking of poker chips upon the bare tables came to her distinctly.

She closed the door noiselessly and jumped from the platform of the coach to the ground. It would be mean to disturb Gus, she reflected, for he loved poker better than anything except ballyhoo, and there was no real reason why she should not walk to the carnival grounds alone.

Of course she would be conspicuous on the streets in her “Princess Lalla” costume and make-up, but if she paid no attention to anyone who tried to accost her, there was certainly not much danger. She began to run, leaving the train swiftly behind her, but she slowed to a sedate walk when she reached the business streets through which she had to pass to reach the carnival grounds.

She was crossing Capital Avenue, at the end of which sat the great white stone structure which gave the street its name, when a limousine skidded to a sudden stop and an all-too-familiar voice sang out:

“Princess Lalla! What in the world are you doing out alone at this time of night?”

Sally contemplated flight, but the limousine blocked her path. Before she could turn back the way she had come Van Horne stepped out of the tonneau of the car.

“Let me drive you to the carnival grounds, Sally,” he urged in a low voice, completely devoid of mockery for once. “It’s really not safe for you to be out alone dressed like that. Come along! Don’t be prudish, child! I’m not going to harm you. Remember, ‘I’m not that kind of a man!’” And he laughed as he almost lifted her into the car.

She sank back upon the cushions, feeling their depth and softness with a childish awe. The chauffeur started the car, and Van Horne dropped a hand lightly over hers as he leaned back and regarded her quizzically.

“I’m glad I ran into you,” he told her. “I suppose you’ve been told that Enid—Mrs. Barr—is hot on your trail?”

“Yes,” Sally nodded, her lips too stiff with sudden fright to form the word.

“She’s almost convinced that you’re really Sally Ford,” he told her lightly. “And if she makes up her mind, there’s nothing in heaven or hell that can stop Enid Barr. A damnably persistent little wretch! I’ve never been able to understand Enid’s passion for succoring ‘fallen girls.’ She appears to be such a normal little pagan otherwise.”

Sally said nothing because she could not. But her sapphire eyes were enormous and her mouth was twitching piteously.

“Listen, Sally,” Van Horne leaned toward her suddenly, crushing her little brown-painted hands between his own immaculate white ones. “Let me get you out of this mess! I’ve been thinking a lot about you—too damned much for my peace of mind! And this is what I want to do—”

“Please!” Sally gasped, shrinking far into the corner of the seat, but unable to tear her hands from his.

“Wait till you’ve heard what I have to say, before you begin acting like a pure and innocent maid in the clutches of a movie villain!” Van Horne commanded her scornfully.

“I want to send you to New York, give you a year in a dancing academy that trains girls for the stage and a year in dramatic school—both at the same time, if possible. You’ve got the figure and the looks and the personality for a musical comedy star, or Arthur Van Horne is the ‘rube’ that you carnival people call him. What do you say, Sally? Think of it. A year or two with nothing to worry about except your studies and your dancing and then—Broadway! I’ll put you over if I have to buy a show for you! Come, Sally! Say ‘Thank you, Van. I’ll be ready to leave tomorrow.’”

As long as she lived, Sally Ford would remember with shame that for one moment she was tempted by Arthur Van Horne’s offer to prepare her for a stage career in New York. She had “play-acted” all her life; her heart’s desire before she had met David had been to become an actress, and in that one moment when she knew that realization of her ambition lay within her grasp she wanted to stretch out her hands and seize opportunity.

Her eyes glistened; she gasped involuntarily with delight. If Van Horne had not been hasty, if he had not snatched her to him with a strangled cry of triumph as his black eyes—mocking no longer, but wide and brilliant with desire—read the effect of his words, she might have committed herself, have promised him anything. But he did touch her, and her flesh instinctively recoiled, for every nerve in her body was still athrill with David’s good-night kiss.

“No, No! Don’t touch me!” she shuddered. “I won’t go! You know I love David!” she wailed, covering her face with her hands. “Why won’t you let me alone?”

Van laughed, settled back in his seat and crossed his arms upon his breast. “I can wait until you have your little tummy full of carnival life and of hiding from the police,” he told her in his old, nonchalant way. “Incidentally I have always bemoaned the fact that conquest is so damnably easy. It is a new experience to me—this being refused, and I suspect that I’m enjoying it. Now—shall I say good-night, since we’ve reached the carnival lot? It’s not goodby, you know, Sally. I assure you I’m admirably persistent. And remember, if Enid tries to make a nuisance of herself, you can always fly to Van. Good night, Sally, you adorable, ungrateful little wretch! No kiss? Perhaps it is better so. I’m afraid I should not care for the brand of lipstick that Princess Lalla uses.”

Sally did not tell David of Van Horne’s offer, for on Saturday, the last day of the carnival in Capital City, the boy developed a temperature which caused Gus, who had acted as volunteer surgeon, to exclude all visitors, even Sally.

Apparently Enid Barr had been convinced of Bybee’s gallant lies that little orphaned Betsy had been mistaken and that “Princess Lalla” was not “Sally Ford, play-acting,” but it was not until the show train was rolling out of the state in the small hours of Sunday morning that the girl dared breathe easily.