Then she heard the steps move away and she sighed
with relief.
Birdie, coming in later, dismissed the matter with gay denial.
"One of your pipe-dreams, Nance! It must have been one of the other
boarders, or the wash woman. Stop your mooning over there by the window
and get yourself dressed; we got just thirty-five minutes to get down to
the theater."
Nance shook off her misgivings and rushed headlong into her adventure. It
was no time to dream of Dan and the letter she was going to write him, or
to worry about a disturbing whistle in the street, or a mysterious
whisper on the other side of the door. Wasn't it enough that she, Nance
Molloy, who only yesterday was watching funerals crawl by in Cemetery
Street, was about to dance to real music, on a real stage, before a great
audience? She had taken her first mad plunge into the seething current of
life, and in these first thrilling, absorbing moments she failed to see
the danger signals that flashed across the darkness.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FIRST NIGHT
At a quarter-past eight in the dressing-rooms of the Gaiety, pandemonium
reigned. Red birds, fairies, gnomes, will-o'-the-wisps flitted about,
begging, borrowing, stealing articles from each other in good-humored
confusion. In and out among them darted the little bear, slapping at each
passerby with her furry paws, practising steps on her cushioned toes, and
rushing back every now and then to Birdie, who stood before a mirror in
red tights, with a towel around her neck, putting the final touches on
her make-up.
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