"I have heard of your father's second
marriage, mademoiselle, and of this Signor Antonio Martinelli, to whom
you allude. Mr. Narkom has told me. But why should you connect these two
persons with this inexplicable thing? Does your father do so, too?"

"Oh, no! Oh, no!" she answered excitedly. "He does not even know that
we suspect, Jim and I. He loves her, monsieur. It would kill him to
doubt her."

"Then why should you?"

"Because I cannot help it, monsieur. God knows, I would if I could, for
I care for her dearly--I am grateful to her for making my father happy.
My brothers, too, cared for her. We believed she loved him; we believed
it was because of that she married him. And yet--and yet--Ah, monsieur,
how can I fail to feel as I do when this change in the lion came with
that man's coming? And she--ah, monsieur, she is always with him. Why
does she curry favour of him and his rich friend?"

"He has a rich friend, then?"

"Yes, monsieur. The company was in difficulties; Monsieur van Zant, the
proprietor, could not make it pay, and it was upon the point of
disbanding. But, suddenly, this indifferent performer, this rider who
is, after all, but a poor amateur and not fit to appear with a company
of trained artists, suddenly this Signor Martinelli comes to Monsieur
van Zant to say that, if he will engage him, he has a rich friend--one
Senor Sperati, a Brazilian coffee planter--who will 'back' the show with
his money and buy a partnership in it. Of course, M. van Zant accepted;
and since then this Senor Sperati has travelled everywhere with us, has
had the entree like one of us, and his friend, the bad rider, has fairly
bewitched my stepmother, for she is ever with him, ever with them both,
and--and--Ah, mon Dieu! the lion smiles, and my people die! Why does it
'smile' for no others? Why is it only they--my father, my brother--they
alone?"

"Is that a fact?" said Cleek, turning to young Scarmelli. "You say that
all connected with the circus have so little fear of the beast that even
attendants sometimes do this foolhardy trick. Does the lion never
'smile' for any of those?"

"Never, Mr. Cleek--never under any circumstances. Nor does it always
smile for the chevalier and his son. That is the mystery of it. One
never knows when it is going to happen--one never knows why it does
happen. But if you could see that uncanny smile--"

"I should like to," interposed Cleek. "That is, if it might happen
without any tragica