“Perhaps I am foolish,” she said.  “But it’s because—­”

She blushed and looked away.

“I suppose I should take it as a compliment that you are so interested in my welfare,” said Joe, with a smile.  “And, believe me, I am.  But, Helen, I can’t back out of this act now.  It’s been advertised big.  I’ve got to go on!”

“Then do be careful, won’t you?” she begged.  “Oh, do be careful!  Somehow, I have a feeling that—­Oh, well, I won’t set you to worrying by telling you,” she said quickly, with a laugh, in which, however, there was no mirth.  She smiled again, trying to make it a bright one; but Joe saw that she was under a strain.

“I’ll be careful,” he promised.  “Really, there’s no danger.  I’ve done the stunt a score of times, and I can judge my distance perfectly.  Besides there’s the safety net.”

“Yes, I know, but there was poor—­Oh, well, I won’t talk about it!  Good luck!” and she hurried on, for it was time for her act—­the whistle of the ringmaster having blown.

Joe looked after the girl he loved.  He smiled, and then a rather serious look settled over his face.  Like a flash there had come to him the memory of the too loquacious Harry Loper, who had fitted up his aerial apparatus.

“There can be nothing wrong with that,” mused Joe.  “I went over every inch of it.  I guess Helen is just nervous.  Well, there goes my cue!”

He hurried toward the entrance, and then he began to ponder over the curious fact of there being a thousand persons too many at the performance.

“We’ll have to straighten out that ticket tangle after the show,” mused Joe.  “It’s likely to get serious.  I wonder—­” he went on, struck by a new thought.  “I wonder if—­Oh, no!  It couldn’t be!  He hasn’t been around in a long while.”

Out into the tent, filled with a record-breaking crowd, went Joe to the place where his high trapeze was waiting for him.  The band was playing lively airs, on one platform some trained seals were juggling big balls of colored rubber, and on another a bear was going about on roller skates.  In one end ring Helen was performing with Rosebud, while in another a troupe of Japanese acrobats were doing wonderful things with their supple bodies.

Joe waved his hand to Helen in passing, and then he began to ascend to his high platform.  When he reached it and stood poised ready for his act, there came a shrill whistle from Jim Tracy, the ringmaster, who wore his usual immaculate shirt front and black evening clothes—­rather incongruous in the daytime.

The whistle was the signal for the other acts to cease, that the attention of all might be centered on Joe.  This is always done in a circus in the case of “stars,” and Joe was certainly a star of the first magnitude.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” cried Jim Tracy, with the accented drawl that carried his voice to the very ends of the big tent.  “Calling your attention to one of the most marvelous high trapeze acts ever performed in any circus!”