asked me whether I was hurt, and I
gasped out that I was not.

"What went wrong?" he persisted.

"Timour and that young lioness--no, _I_ went wrong; the lions knew it
at once; something failed me, I don't know what; upon my soul, Speed,
I don't know what happened."

"You lost your nerve?"

"No, not that. Timour began looking at me in a peculiar way--he
certainly dominated me for an instant--for a tenth of a second; and
then Khatoun flew at me before I could control Timour--"

I hesitated.

"Speed, it was one of those seconds that come to us, when the
faintest shadow of indecision settles matters. Engineers are subject
to it at the throttle, pilots at the helm, captains in battle--"

"Men in love," added Speed.

I looked at him, not comprehending.

"By-the-way," said Speed, "Leo Grammont, the greatest lion-tamer who
ever lived, once told me that a man in love with a woman could not
control lions; that when a man falls in love he loses that intangible,
mysterious quality--call it mesmerism or whatever you like--the occult
force that dominates beasts. And he said that the lions knew it, that
they perceived it sometimes even before the man himself was aware
that he was in love."

I looked him over in astonishment.

"What's the matter with you?" he asked, amused.

"What's the matter with _you_?" I demanded. "If you mean to intimate
that I have fallen in love you are certainly an astonishing ass!"

"Don't talk that way," he said, good-humoredly. "I didn't dream of
such a thing, or of offending you, Scarlett."

It struck me at the same moment that my irritable and unwarranted
retort was utterly unlike me.

"I beg your pardon," I said. "I don't know exactly what is the
matter with me to-day. First I quarrel with poor old Timour Melek,
then I insult you. I've discovered that I have nerves; I never before
knew it."

"Cold flap-jacks and cider would have destroyed Hercules himself in
time," observed Speed, following with his eyes the movements of a
lithe young girl, who was busy with the hoisting apparatus of the
flying trapeze. The girl was Jacqueline, dressed in a mended gown of
Miss Delany's.

"At times," muttered Speed, partly to himself, "that little witch
frightens me. There is no risk she dares not take; even Horan gets
nervous; and when that bull-necked numbskull is scared there's reason
for it."

We walked out into the main tent, where simultaneous rehearsals were
everywhere in progress; and I pi