"She'll be back presently, I know. I'm so silly."
"You are very young, you'll have to admit, after this display," he
chided. She left him.
Joey Grinaldi came in a few minutes later and took his _protege_
off to the ring, with the assurance that "the coast" was clear. All
the rest of the afternoon David's heart ached with a dull pain. He
could hardly wait for the time to come when he could return to the
dressing-tent. At last, he raced from the ring, pursued by the
inflated bladder in the hand of Joey Grinaldi, their joint mummery
over for the afternoon.
Christine was sitting on the trunk that he had occupied so recently;
Mrs. Braddock was nowhere in sight.
"David," she said slowly, as he drew up panting, "they did not go to
the side-show."
He was spared the necessity of an answer by the providential return of
the girl's mother. She came in alone from the main tent. A glance
showed them both that she had been crying. Christine sprang forward
with a little cry and slipped her arm through her mother's.
As they passed by David the mother's stiff, tense lips were moving
painfully. He heard her say, as if to herself:
"I cannot--I will not endure it any longer.
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