Produced by Suzanne Shell, Paul Ereaut and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE SAFETY CURTAIN AND OTHER STORIES by ETHEL M. DELL AUTHOR OF:- The Hundreth Chance Greatheart The Lamp in the Desert The Tidal Wave The Top of the World The Obstacle Race The Way of an Eagle The Knave of Diamonds The Rocks of Valpre The Swindler The Keeper of the Door Bars of Iron Rosa Mundi Etc. GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Made in the United States of America This edition is issued under arrangement with the publishers G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London Made in the United States of America The Knickerbocker Press, New York CONTENTS The Safety Curtain The Experiment Those Who Wait The Eleventh Hour The Place of Honour The Safety Curtain CHAPTER I THE ESCAPE A great shout of applause went through the crowded hall as the Dragon-Fly Dance came to an end, and the Dragon-Fly, with quivering, iridescent wings, flashed away. It was the third encore. The dance was a marvellous one, a piece of dazzling intricacy, of swift and unexpected subtleties, of almost superhuman grace. It must have proved utterly exhausting to any ordinary being; but to that creature of fire and magic it was no more than a glittering fantasy, a whirl too swift for the eye to follow or the brain to grasp. "Is it a boy or a girl?" asked a man in the front row. "It's a boy, of course," said his neighbour, shortly. He was the only member of the audience who did not take part in that third encore. He sat squarely in his seat throughout the uproar, watching the stage with piercing grey eyes that never varied in their stern directness. His brows were drawn above them--thick, straight brows that bespoke a formidable strength of purpose. He was plainly a man who was accustomed to hew his own way through life, despising the trodden paths, overcoming all obstacles by grim persistence. Louder and louder swelled the tumult. It was evident that nothing but a repetition of the wonder-dance would content the audience. They yelled themselves hoarse for it; and when, light as air, incredibly swift, the green Dragon-Fly darted back, they outdid themselves in the madness of their welcome. The noise seemed to shake the building. Only the man in the front row with the iron-grey eyes and iron-hard mouth made no movement or sound of any sort. He merely watched with unchanging intentness the face that gleamed, ashen-white, above the shimmering metallic green tights that clothed the dancer's slim body. The noise ceased as the wild tarantella proceeded. There fell a deep hush, broken only by the silver notes of a flute played somewhere behind the curtain. The dancer's movements were wholly without sound. The quivering, whirling feet scarcely seemed to touch the floor, it was a dance of inspiration, possessing a strange and irresistible fascination, a weird and meteoric rush, that held the onlookers with bated breath.