Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/325

Rh She looked him up and down, challenging a denial, but he did not answer, gazing sadly before him at the crowded benches of the applauding house. The lion-tamer, astride a lion, was riding round the ring.

"I hate the life"—the woman spoke after a pause—"I hate the men's eyes. I am not one to smile when my soul is full of bitterness, or to dance lightly when my heart is heavy; neither can I uplift my face for the admiration of men, nor do I care to twist and distort my body for their amusement. Every night, as I swing above their heads and prepare to launch myself into the air, I smile upon them, and hate them, hate them—the cruel faces with their look of mock terror upon them, all waiting for me to fall, to miss my mark, to become a crushed mass of death."

"Nora,"—the man's voice was strained,—"don't."

"I tell you, they are waiting for me to fall. What else do they come for? What else are they watching for there"—she waved her hands towards the cage of lions—"but the death that walks with the man behind those bars? Sometimes I say to myself up there above their