had was unavailable; she could not
break through to it, and every sort of distraction and mischance came
between it and her. But this afternoon the closed roads opened, the
gates dropped. What she had so often tried to reach, lay under her hand.
She had only to touch an idea to make it live.

While she was on the stage she was conscious that every movement was the
right movement, that her body was absolutely the instrument of her idea.
Not for nothing had she kept it so severely, kept it filled with such
energy and fire. All that deep-rooted vitality flowered in her voice,
her face, in her very finger-tips. She felt like a tree bursting into
bloom. And her voice was as flexible as her body; equal to any demand,
capable of every NUANCE. With the sense of its perfect companionship,
its entire trustworthiness, she had been able to throw herself into the
dramatic exigencies of the part, everything in her at its best and
everything working together.

The third act came on, and the afternoon slipped by. Thea Kronborg's
friends, old and new, seated about the house on different floors and
levels, enjoyed her triumph according to their natures. There was one
there, whom nobody knew, who perhaps got greater pleasure out of that
afternoon than Harsanyi himself. Up in the top gallery a gray-haired
little Mexican, withered and bright as a string of peppers beside a'dobe
door, kept praying and cursing under his breath, beating on the brass
railing and shouting "Bravo! Bravo!" until he was repressed by his
neighbors.

He happened to be there because a Mexican band was to be a feature of
Barnum and Bailey's circus that year. One of the managers of the show
had traveled about the Southwest, signing up a lot of Mexican musicians
at low wages, and had brought them to New York. Among them was Spanish
Johnny. After Mrs. Tellamantez died, Johnny abandoned his trade and went
out with his mandolin to pick up a living for one. His irregularities
had become his regular mode of life.

When Thea Kronborg came out of the stage entrance on Fortieth Street,
the sky was still flaming with the last rays of the sun that was sinking
off behind the North River. A little crowd of people was lingering about
the door--musicians from the orchestra who were waiting for their
comrades, curious young men, and some poorly dressed girls who were
hoping to get a glimpse of the singer. She bowed graciously to the
group, through her veil, but she did not look to