The Safety Curtain

CHAPTER I

THE ESCAPE


A great shout of applause went through the crowded hall as the
Dragon-Fly Dance came to an end, and the Dragon-Fly, with quivering,
iridescent wings, flashed away.

It was the third encore. The dance was a marvellous one, a piece of
dazzling intricacy, of swift and unexpected subtleties, of almost
superhuman grace. It must have proved utterly exhausting to any ordinary
being; but to that creature of fire and magic it was no more than a
glittering fantasy, a whirl too swift for the eye to follow or the brain
to grasp.

"Is it a boy or a girl?" asked a man in the front row.

"It's a boy, of course," said his neighbour, shortly.

He was the only member of the audience who did not take part in that
third encore. He sat squarely in his seat throughout the uproar,
watching the stage with piercing grey eyes that never varied in their
stern directness. His brows were drawn above them--thick, straight brows
that bespoke a formidable strength of purpose. He was plainly a man who
was accustomed to hew his own way through life, despising the trodden
paths, overcoming all obstacles by grim persistence.