Girl Alone Part 26

"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, wis.h.i.+ng 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 Sat.u.r.day, and you oughta be enough of a trouper by now to know what that means. We head South Sat.u.r.day 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, pus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.s 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 cus.h.i.+ons, 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.