said suddenly.

"It is grand. Mon Dieu, she is wonderful--and a face all fire!"

Presently she came out of the cage, followed by two great lions. She
walked round the ring, a hand on the head of each: one growling, the
other purring against her, with a ponderous kind of affection. She
talked to them as they went, giving occasionally a deep purring sound
like their own. Her talk never ceased. She looked at the audience,
but only as in a dream. Her mind was all with the animals. There was
something splendid in it: she, herself, was a noble animal; and she
seemed entirely in place where she was. The lions were fond of her, and
she of them; but the first part of her performance had shown that they
could be capricious. A lion's love is but a lion's love after all--and
hers likewise, no doubt! The three seemed as one in their beauty, the
woman superbly superior. Meyerbeer, in a far corner, was still on the
trail of his sensation. He thought that he might get an article out of
it--with the help of Count Ploare and Zoug-Zoug. Who was Zoug-Zoug? He
exulted in her picturesqueness, and he determined to lie in wait.
He thought it a pity that Comte Ploare was not an Englishman or an
American; but it couldn't be helped. Yes, she was, as he said to
himself, "a stunner." Meanwhile he watched Gaston, noted his intense
interest.

Presently the girl stopped beside the cage. A chariot was brought out,
and the two lions were harnessed to it. Then she called out another
larger lion, which came unwillingly at first. She spoke sharply, and
then struck him. He growled, but came on. Then she spoke softly to him,
and made that peculiar purr, soft and rich. Now he responded, walked
round her, coming closer, till his body made a half-circle about
her, and his head was at her knees. She dropped her hand on it. Great
applause rang through the building. This play had been quite accidental.
But there lay one secret of the girl's success. She was original; she
depended greatly on the power of the moment for her best effects, and
they came at unexpected times.

It was at this instant that, glancing round the theatre in
acknowledgment of the applause, her eyes rested mechanically on Gaston's
box. There was generally some one important in that box: from a foreign
prince to a young gentleman whose proudest moment was to take off his
hat in the Bois to the queen of a lawless court. She had tired of being
introduced to princes. What could it mean to her?