We all planned it, and though it is your birthday, it's us are making the fete." "As you will then, as you will, little ones," Jean Jacques acquiesced with a half-sigh; but he did not look at his daughter.

Somehow, suddenly, a strange constraint possessed him where Zoe was concerned.
"Then let us have Zoe's song; let us have 'La Claire Fontaine'," cried the black-eyed young madcap who held Jean Jacques' arms.
But Zoe interrupted.

"No, no," she protested, "the singing spell is broken.

We will have the song after the charades--after the charades." "Good, good--after the charades!" they all cried, for there would be charades like none which had ever been played before, with a real actor to help them, to carry them through as they did on the stage.

To them the stage was compounded of mystery, gaiety and the forbidden.
So, for the next half-hour they were all at the disposal of the Man from Outside, who worked as though it was a real stage, and they were real players, and there were great audiences to see them.