“I ought to be,” she retorted daringly, “since I was born in a circus.”

Surprised into silence, he studied her with a regard in which admiration for her courage was mingled with blank wonder at her recklessness.  If she had inherited her father’s gift of expression, she appeared to possess also his dauntless humour.  For an instant Stephen felt that her gaiety had entered into his spirit; and while his impression of her danced like wine in his head, he answered her in her own tone of mocking defiance.

“Well, everything that is born in a circus isn’t a clown.”

Her eyes widened.  “Is that meant for a compliment?”

“No, merely for a reminder.  But if you were born in a circus, I assume that you didn’t perform in one.”

She shook her head.  “No, they took me away when I was a baby—­just after Mother died.  I never lived with the circus people, and Father didn’t either except when he was a child.  Not that I should have been ashamed of it,” she hastened to explain.  “They are very interesting people.”

“I am sure of it,” he answered gravely, and he was very sure of it now.

“When I was a child,” she went on in a matter-of-fact tone, “I used to make Father tell me all he could remember about the ‘freaks,’ as they called them.  The fat woman—­her name was really Mrs. Coventry—­was very kind to him when he was little, and he never forgot it.  He never forgets anybody who has ever been kind to him,” she concluded with simple dignity.

An emotion which he could not define held Stephen speechless; and before he could command his words, she began again in the same cool and quiet voice.  “His mother ran away to marry his father.  She came of a very good family in Fredericksburg, and her people never forgave her or spoke to her afterward.  But she was happy, and she never regretted it as long as she lived.  It was love at first sight.  Grandfather was Irish and he was—­was—­” she hesitated for a word, and at last with evident care selected, “magnificent.”  “He was magnificent,” she repeated emphatically, “and she saw him first on horseback when she was out riding.  Her horse became frightened by one of the animals in the circus, and he caught it and stopped it.  It began that way, and then one night she stole out of the house after her family had gone to bed, and they ran away and were married.  I think she was right,” she added thoughtfully, “but then I reckon—­I mean I suppose it is in my blood to take risks.”

She looked up at him and he responded.  “But where did you learn to see things like this, and to put them into words?  Not in a circus?”

“I told you I couldn’t remember the circus.  Mother was in one, and though Father never told me how he fell in love with her—­he never talks of her—­I think it must have been when he went back to see the people.  He always took an interest in them and tried to help them.  He does still.  Even now, if anybody belonging to a circus asks him for something, he never refuses him.  When he was twelve years old somebody took him away and sent him to school, but he always says he never learned anything at school except misinformation about life.  No books, he says, ever taught him the truth except the Bible and ’Robinson Crusoe.’  He used to read me chapters of those every day—­and he does still when he has the time.”