“Who called it?”
“A man. But what am I to wear?”
“Well,” Florence pondered, “you are a youth, a mere boy; that’s the way they think of you. You are to tramp about over the estate.”
“And ride horses. She said so. How I love horses!”
“You are a boy. And you have no mother to guide you.” Florence chanted this. “What would a boy wear? Knickers, a waist, heavy shoes, a cap. You have all these, left from our summer in the northern woods.”
Why not, indeed? This was agreed upon at once. So it happened that when the great car, all a-glitter with gold and platinum trimmings, met her before the opera at the appointed hour, it was as a boy, perhaps in middle teens, garbed for an outing, that the little French girl sank deep into the broadcloth cushions.
“Florence said it would do,” she told herself. “She is usually right. I do hope that she may be right this time.”
Rosemary Robinson had been well trained, very well trained indeed. The ladies who managed and taught the private school which she attended were ladies of the first magnitude. As everyone knows, the first lesson to be learned in the school of proper training is the art of deception. One must learn to conceal one’s feelings. Rosemary had learned this lesson well. It had been a costly lesson. To any person endowed with a frank and generous nature, such a lesson comes only by diligence and suffering. If she had expected to find the youthful Pierre dressed in other garments than white waist, knickers and green cap, she did not say so, either by word, look or gesture.
This put Jeanne at her ease at once; at least as much at ease as any girl masquerading as a boy might be expected to achieve.
“She’s a dear,” she thought to herself as Rosemary, leading her into the house, introduced her in the most nonchalant manner to the greatest earthly paradise she had ever known.
As she felt her feet sink deep in rich Oriental rugs, as her eyes feasted themselves upon oil paintings, tapestries and rare bits of statuary that had been gathered from every corner of the globe, she could not so much as regret the deception that had gained her entrance to this world of rare treasures.
“But would I wish to live here?” she asked herself. “It is like living in a museum.”
When she had entered Rosemary’s own little personal study, when she had feasted her eyes upon all the small objects of rare charm that were Rosemary’s own, upon the furniture done by master craftsmen and the interior decorated by a real artist, when she had touched the soft creations of silk that were curtains, drapes and pillows, she murmured:
“Yes. Here is that which would bring happiness to any soul who loves beauty and knows it when he sees it.”
“But we must not remain indoors on a day such as this!” Rosemary exclaimed. “Come!” She seized her new friend’s hand. “We will go out into the sunshine. You are a sun worshipper, are you not?”
“Perhaps,” said Jeanne who, you must not forget, was for the day Pierre Andrews. “I truly do not know.”
“There are many sun worshippers these days.” Rosemary laughed a merry laugh. “And why not? Does not the sun give us life? And if we rest beneath his rays much of the time, does he not give us a more abundant life?”
“See!” Pierre, catching the spirit of the hour, held out a bare arm as brown as the dead leaves of October. “Iama sun worshipper!”
At this they went dancing down the hall.
“But, see!” Rosemary exclaimed. “Here is the organ!” She threw open a door, sprang to a bench, touched a switch here, a stop there, then began sending out peals of sweet, low, melodious music.
“A pipe organ!” Jeanne exclaimed. “In your home!”
“Why not?” Rosemary laughed. “Father likes the organ. Why should he not hear it when he chooses? It is a very fine one. Many of the great masters have been here to play it. I am taking lessons. In half an hour I must come here for a lesson. Then you must become a sun worshipper. You may wander where you please or just lie by the lily pond and dream in the sun.”
“I am fond of dreaming.”
“Then you shall dream.”
The grounds surrounding the great house were to the little French girl a land of enchantment. The formal garden where even in late autumn the rich colors of bright red, green and gold vied with the glory of the Indian Summer sunshine, the rock garden, the pool where gold-fish swam, the rustic bridge across the brook, and back of all this the primeval forest of oak, walnut and maple; all this, as they wandered over leaf-strewn paths, reminded her of the forests and hedges, the grounds and gardens of her own beloved France.
“Truly,” she whispered to herself, “all this is worth being rich for.
“But what a pity—” Her mood changed. “What a pity that it may not belong to all—to the middle class, the poor.
“And yet,” she concluded philosophically, “they have the parks. Truly they are beautiful always.”
It was beside a broad pool where lily pads lay upon placid waters that Jeanne at last found a place of repose beneath the mellow autumn sun, to settle down to the business of doing her bit of sun worship.
It was truly delightful, this spot, and very dreamy. There were broad stretches of water between the clusters of lily pads. In these, three stately swans, seeming royal floats of some enchanted midget city, floated. Some late flowers bloomed at her feet. Here bees hummed drowsily. A dragon fly, last of his race, a great green ship with bulging eyes, darted here and there. Yet in his movements there were suggestions of rest and dreamy repose. The sun was warm. From the distance came the drone of a pipe organ. It, too, spoke of rest. Jeanne, as always, had retired at a late hour on the previous night. Her head nodded. She stretched herself out upon the turf. She would close her eyes for three winks.
“Just three winks.”
But the drowsy warmth, the distant melody, the darting dragon fly, seen even in her dreams, held her eyes tight closed.
As she dreamed, the bushes not five yards away parted and a face peered forth. It was not an inviting face. It was a dark, evil-eyed face with a trembling leer about the mouth. Jeanne had seen this man. He had called to her. She had run away. That was long ago, before the door of the opera. She did not see him now. She slept.
A little bird scolding in a tree seemed eager to wake her. She did not wake.
The man moved forward a step. Someone unseen appeared to move behind him. With a wolf-like eye he glanced to right and left. He moved another step. He was like a cat creeping upon his prey.
“Wake up, Jeanne! Wake up! Wake! Wake! Wake up!” the little bird scolded on. Jeanne did not stir. Still the sun gleamed warm, the music droned, the dragon fly darted in her dreams.
But what is this? The evil-eyed one shrinks back into his place of hiding. No footsteps are heard; the grass is like a green carpet, as the master of the estate and his wife approach.
They would have passed close to the sleeping one had not a glance arrested them.
“What a beautiful boy!” whispered the lady. “And see how peacefully he sleeps! He is a friend of Rosemary, a mere child of the opera. She has taken a fancy to him.”
“Who would not?” the man rumbled low. “I have seen him at our box. There was the affair of the pearls. He—”
“Could a guilty person sleep so?”
“No.”
“Not upon the estate of one he has robbed.”
“Surely not. Do you know,” the lady’s tone became deeply serious, “I have often thought of adopting such a child, a boy to be a companion and brother to Rosemary.”
Could Jeanne have heard this she might well have blushed. She did not hear, for the sun shone on, the music still droned and the dragon fly darted in her dreams.
The lady looked in the great man’s eyes. She read an answer there.
“Shall we wake him and suggest it now?” she whispered.
Ah, Jeanne! What shall the answer be? You are Pierre. You are Jeanne.
But the great man shakes his head. “The thing needs talking over. In a matter of so grave importance one must look carefully before one moves. We must consider.”
So the two pass on. And once again Jeanne has escaped.
And now Rosemary comes racing down the slope to discover her and to waken her by tickling her nose with a swan’s feather.
“Come!” she exclaims, before Jeanne is half conscious of her surroundings. “We are off for a canter over the bridle path!” Seizing Jeanne’s hand, she drags her to her feet. Then together they go racing away toward the stables.
The remainder of that day was one joyous interlude in Petite Jeanne’s not uneventful life. Save for the thought that Rosemary believed her a boy, played with her and entertained her as a boy and was, perhaps, just a little interested in her as a boy, no flaw could be found in this glorious occasion.
A great lover of horses since her days in horse-drawn gypsy vans, she gloried in the spirited brown steed she rode. The day was perfect. Blue skies with fleecy clouds drifting like sheep in a field, autumn leaves fluttering down, cobwebs floating lazily across the fields; this was autumn at its best.
They rode, those two, across green meadows, down shady lanes, through forests where shadows were deep. Now and again Rosemary turned an admiring glance upon her companion sitting in her saddle with ease and riding with such grace.
“If she knew!” Jeanne thought with a bitter-sweet smile. “If she only knew!”
“Where did you learn to ride so well?” Rosemary asked, as they alighted and went in to tea.
“In France, to be sure.”
“And who taught you?”
“Who but the gypsies?”
“Gypsies! How romantic!”
“Romantic? Yes, perhaps.” Jeanne was quick to change the subject. She was getting into deep water. Should she begin telling of her early life she must surely, sooner or later, betray her secret.
“Rich people,” she thought, as she journeyed homeward in the great car when the day was done, “they are very much like others, except when they choose to show off. And I wonder how much they enjoy that, after all.
“But Rosemary! Does she suspect? I wonder! She’s such a peach! It’s a shame to deceive her. Yet, what sport! And besides, I’m getting a little of what I want, a whole big lot, I guess.” She was thinking once more of Marjory Dean’s half-promise.
“Will she truly allow me to be her understudy, to go on in her place when the ‘Juggler’ is done again?” She was fairly smothered by the thought; yet she dared to hope—a little.
When Jeanne arrived at the rooms late that night, after her evening among the opera boxes, she found a half burned out fire in the grate and a rather amusing note from Florence on the table:
“I am asleep. Do not disturb me.” This is how the note ran.
She read the note and smiled. “Poor, dear, big Florence,” she murmured. “How selfish I am! She works hard. Often she needs rest that she does not get. Yet I am always hoping that she will be here to greet me and to cheer me with jolly chatter and something warm to drink.”
Still in this thoughtful mood, she entered her chamber. She did not switch on the light at once, but stood looking out of the window. Somewhat to her surprise, she saw a dark figure lurking in the shadows across the street.
“Who could it be?” she whispered.
She had little hope of solving this problem when an automobile light solved it for her and gave her a shock besides. The light fell full upon the man’s face. She recognized him instantly.
“Jaeger!” She said the name out loud and trembled from head to foot.
Jaeger was the detective who haunted the boxes at the opera.
“He is shadowing me!” She could not doubt this. “He believes I stole those pearls. Perhaps he thinks he can catch me trying them on. Not much chance of that.” She laughed uneasily. “It is well enough to know you are innocent; but to convince others, that is the problem.”
She thought of the lady in black. “If only I could see her, speak to her!” She drew the shades, threw on the light and disrobed, still in a thoughtful mood. She was remembering the voice of that lady.
There was something hauntingly familiar about that voice. It brought to her mind a feeling of forests and rippling waters, the scent of balsam and the song of birds. Yet she could not tell where she had heard it before.
Joan of Arc was Jeanne’s idol. Once as a child, wandering with the gypsies, she had slept within the shadows of the church where Joan received her visions. At another time she had sat for an entire forenoon dreaming the hours away in the chamber that had once been Joan’s own. Yet, unlike Joan, she did not love wearing the clothes of a boy. She was fond of soft, clinging, silky things, was this delicate French child. So, dressed in the silkiest of all silks and the softest of satin robes, she built herself a veritable mountain of pillows before the fire and, sinking back into that soft depth, proceeded to think things through.
To this strange girl sitting at the mouth of her cave made of pillows, the fire on the hearth was a magic fire. She prodded it. As it blazed red, she saw in it clearly the magic curtain. She felt again the thrill of this mysterious discovery. Once more she was gazing upon strange smoking images, bronze eagles, giants’ heads, dragons. She smelled the curious, choking incense. And again the feeling of wild terror seized her.
So real was the vision that she leaped to her feet, sending the soft walls of her cave flying in every direction.
Next instant she was in complete possession of her senses. “Why am I afraid?” she asked herself. “Why was I afraid then? It is but a stage setting, some Oriental magic.”
A thought struck her all of a heap. “Stage setting! That’s it!” she exclaimed in a low whisper. “Why not? What a wonderful setting for some exotic little touch of Oriental drama!
“I must return to that place. I must see that Magic Curtain once more.” She rearranged the door to her cave. “I must take someone with me. Why not Marjory Dean?”
The thought pleased her. She mused over it until the fire burned low.
But with the dimming of the coals her spirits ebbed. As she gazed into the fire she seemed to see a dark and evil face leering at her, the man who had called to her at the opera door.
Had she seen that same face staring at her on that other occasion when she slept in the sun on the Robinson estate, she might well have shuddered more violently. As it was, she asked but a single question: “Who is he?”
She threw on fuel. The fire flamed up. Once more she was gay as she heard Marjory Dean whisper those magic words:
“You did that divinely, Petite Jeanne. I could not have done it better. Some day, perhaps, I shall allow you to take my place.”
“Will you?” she cried, stretching her arms wide. “Oh! Will you, Marjory Dean?”
After this emotional outburst she sat for a long time quite motionless.
“I wonder,” she mused after a time, “why this desire should have entered my heart. Why Grand Opera? I have done Light Opera. I sang. I danced. They applauded. They said I was marvelous. Perhaps I was.” Her head fell a little forward.
“Ambition!” Her face was lifted to the ceiling. “It is ambition that drives us on. When I was a child I danced in the country lanes. Then I must go higher, I must dance in a village; in a small city; in a large city; in Paris. That so beautiful Paris! And now it must be Grand Opera; something drives me on.”
She prodded the fire and, for the last time that night, it flamed high.
Springing to her feet she cast off her satin robe to go racing across the floor in the dance of the juggler. Low and clear, her voice rose in a French song of great enchantment. For a time her delicate, elf-like form went weaving in and out among the shadows cast by the fire. Then, all of a sudden, she danced into her chamber. The show, given only for spirits and fairies, was at an end.
“To-morrow,” she whispered low, as her eyes closed for sleep, “to-morrow there is no opera. I shall not see Marjory Dean, nor Rosemary, nor those dark-faced ones who dog my steps. To-morrow? Whom shall I see? What strange new acquaintance shall I make; what adventures come to me?”
In spite of the fact that the Opera House was dark on the following night, adventure came to Petite Jeanne, adventure and excitement a-plenty. It came like the sudden rush of an ocean’s wave. One moment she and Florence were strolling in a leisurely manner down the center of State Street; the next they were surrounded, completely engulfed and carried whither they knew not by a vast, restless, roaring, surging sea of humanity.
For many days they had read accounts of a great autumn festival that was to occur on this night. Having never witnessed such a fete, save in her native land, Petite Jeanne had been eager to attend. So here they were. And here, too, was an unbelievable multitude.
Petite Jeanne cast a startled look at her companion.
Florence, big capable Florence, smiled as she bent over to speak in the little French girl’s ear.
“Get in front of me. I’ll hold them back.”
“But why all this?” Petite Jeanne tried to gesture, only to end by prodding a fat man in the stomach.
“This,” laughed Florence, “is Harvest Jubilee Night. A city of three million invited all its citizens to come down and enjoy themselves in six city blocks. Bands are to play. Radio stars are to be seen. Living models will be in all the store windows.
“The three million are here. They will hear no bands. They will see no radio stars, nor any living models either. They will see and hear only themselves.”
“Yes. And they will feel one another, too!” the little French girl cried, as the crush all but pressed the breath from her lungs. The look on her face was one of pure fright. Florence, too, was thinking serious thoughts. That which had promised only a bit of adventure in the beginning bade fair to become a serious matter. Having moved down the center of a block, they had intended turning the corner. But now, caught in the tremendous crush of humanity, by the thousands upon thousands of human beings who thronged the streets, carried this way and that by currents and counter-currents, they were likely to be carried anywhere. And should the crush become too great, they might well be rendered unconscious by the vise-like pressure of the throng.
This indeed was Harvest Jubilee Night. The leading men of this city had made a great mistake. Wishing to draw thousands of people to the trading center of the city, they had staged a great fete. As Florence had said, men and women of note, actors, singers, radio stars were to be found on grand stands erected at every street crossing. All this was wonderful, to be sure! Only one fact had been lost sight of: that hundreds of thousands of people cannot move about freely in the narrow space of six city blocks.
Now, here were the laughing, shouting, crowding, groaning, weeping thousands. What was to come of it all? Petite Jeanne asked herself this question, took one long quivering breath, then looked up at her stout companion and was reassured.
“We came here for a lark,” she told herself. “We must see it through.
“I only hope,” she caught her breath again, “that I don’t see anyone in this crowd who makes me trouble. Surely I cannot escape him here!” She was thinking of the dark-faced man with the evil eye.
“Keep up courage,” Florence counseled. “We’ll make it out of here safe enough.”
But would they? Every second the situation became more tense. Now they were carried ten paces toward Wabash Avenue; now, like some dance of death, the crowd surged backward toward Dearborn Street. And now, caught in an eddy, they whirled round and round.
In such a time as this the peril is great. Always, certain persons, deserting all caution, carried away by their own exuberance, render confusion worse confounded. Bands of young men, perhaps from high school or college, with hands on shoulders, built up flying wedges that shot through the crowd like bullets through wood.
Just such a group was pressing upon the stalwart Florence and all but crushing the breath out of her, when for the first time she became conscious of a little old lady in a faded shawl who fairly crouched at her feet.
“She’s eighty if a day,” she thought, with a sudden shock. “She’ll be killed unless—
“Petite Jeanne,” she screamed, “there are times when human beings have neither eyes, ears nor brains. They can always feel. You have sharp elbows. Use them now to the glory of God and for the life of this dear old lady in her faded shawl.”
Suiting actions to her own words, she kicked forth lustily with her square-pointed athletic shoe. The shoe made contact with a grinning youth’s shins. The look of joy on the youth’s face changed to one of sudden pain. He ceased to shove and attempted a retreat. One more grinning face was transformed by an elbow thrust in the stomach. This one doubled up and did his best to back away.
Jeanne added her bit. As Florence had said, her elbows were sharp and effective.
In an incredibly short time there was space for breathing. One moment the little old lady, who was not five feet tall and did not weigh ninety pounds, was in peril of her life; the next she was caught in Florence’s powerful arms and was being borne to safety. And all the time she was screaming:
“Oh! Oh! Oh! It is gone! It is lost! It is lost!”
“Yes,” Florence agreed, as she dropped her to the curbing, well out of the crush, “you have lost a shoe. But what’s a shoe? You would have lost your life. And, after all, how is one to find a shoe in such a place of madness?”
The little old lady made no answer. She sat down upon the curb and began silently to sob while her slight body rocked from side to side and her lips whispered words that could not be heard.
“Was there ever such another night?” Petite Jeanne cried, in real distress. She was little and quick, very emotional and quite French.
“We came here for a gay time,” she went on. “And now, see how it is! We have been tossed about from wave to wave by the crowd, which is a sea, and now it has washed us ashore with a weeping old lady we have never seen before and may never see again.”
“Hush!” Florence touched her lips. “You will distress her. You came here to find joy and happiness. Joy and happiness may be found quite as often by serving others less fortunate than ourselves as in any other way. We will see if this is not true.
“Come!” She placed gentle hands beneath the bent form of the little, old lady on the curb. “Come, now. There is a bright little tea room right over there. A good cup of black tea will cheer you. Then you must tell us all about it.”
A look of puzzled uncertainty gave way to a smile on the wrinkled face as this strange derelict of the night murmured:
“Tea. Yes, yes, a good cup of black tea.”
The tea room was all but deserted. On this wild night of nights people did not eat. Vendors of ice cream sandwiches found no customers. Baskets of peanuts were more likely to be tumbled into the street than eaten. The throng had indeed become a wild, stormy sea. And a stormy sea neither eats nor sleeps.
“Tell me,” said Florence, as the hot tea warmed the white-haired one’s drowsy blood, “why did you weep at the loss of a shoe?”
“A shoe?” The little old lady seemed puzzled. She looked down at her feet. “A shoe? Ah, yes! It is true. One shoe is gone.
“But it is not that.” Her voice changed. Her dull blue eyes took on fresh color. “I have lost more—much more. My purse! Money? No, my children. A little. It is nothing. I have lost my cameo, my only treasure. And, oh, I shall never see it again!” She began wringing her hands and seemed about to give way once more to weeping.
“Tell us about it,” Petite Jeanne put in eagerly. “Perhaps we can help you.”
“Tell you? Help me?” The old eyes were dreamy now. “My cameo! My one great treasure. It was made in Florence so many, many years ago. It was my own portrait done in onyx, pink onyx. I was only a child, sixteen, slight and fair like you.” She touched Jeanne’s golden hair. “He was young, romantic, already an artist. He became very famous when he was older. But never, I am sure, did he carve such a cameo, for, perhaps—perhaps he loved me—just a little.
“But now!” This was a cry of pain. “Now it is gone! And I have kept it all these long years. I should not have come to-night. I had not been to the heart of the city for ten years. But this night they told me I was to see ‘Auld Sandy’ himself. He’s on the radio, you know. He sings old Scotch songs so grandly and recites Burns’ poems with so much feeling. I wanted to see him. I did not dare leave the cameo in my poor room. My cameo! So I brought it, and now—
“But you said you would help me.” Once again her face brightened.
“Yes.” Florence’s tone was eager, hopeful. “We will help you. Someone will find your purse. It will be turned in. The police will have it. We will get it for you in the morning. Only give us your address and we will bring it, your treasure, your cameo.”
“Will you?”
Florence heard that cry of joy, and her heart smote her. Could they find it?
They wrote down the little old lady’s address carefully; then escorting her to the elevated platform, they saw her safely aboard a train.
“Now why did I do that?” Florence turned a face filled with consternation to Petite Jeanne. “Why did I promise so much?”
She was to wonder this many times during that night of mysterious and thrilling adventure.
“Let us go back,” said Petite Jeanne. “See! The trains are loaded with people returning home. The crowd must not be so great. The little lady’s purse must have been kicked about; but we may yet find it.”
“That,” replied Florence, “would seem too good to be true. Yes, let us go back. We must not hope too much, for all that. Many are going, but others are coming. Surely this is one wild night in a great city.”
And so it was. Hardly had they descended the iron steps to the street and walked half a block than the waves of humanity were upon them again.
“The tide is set against us.” Florence urged her companion into the momentary security of a department store entrance. There, from a vantage point of safety, they watched the crowds surging by. They were at a point where the pressure of the throng was broken. It was interesting to study the faces of those who emerged into a place of comparative quiet. Some were exuberant over the struggle they had waged and won, others crushed. Here was one in tears and there was one who had fainted, being hurried away by others to a place of first aid.
“They are poor,” Petite Jeanne murmured. “At least they are not rich, nor even well-to-do. They are working people who came for a good time. Are they having it? Who can tell? Surely, never before have they seen so many people. And perhaps they never will see so many again. To-morrow they will talk. How they will talk of this night’s adventure! As for me,” she sighed, “I prefer a quiet place beneath the stars.”
“Do you?” Florence spoke up quickly. “Then we will go to just such a place.”
“Surely not in this great city.”
“Ten minutes by elevated train, ten minutes walk after that, and we are there. Come! We can never hope to reach the spot where the cameo was lost. Come!”
Nor did she fail to make good her promise. Twenty minutes later they were walking in a spot where, save for the low swish of water against rocks, silence reigned supreme.
“How strange! How fascinating! What stillness!” Petite Jeanne gripped her companion’s arm hard. “Here are silence, starlight, moonlight, grass beneath one’s feet and the gleam of distant water in our eyes.”
“Yes.” Florence’s tone was low like the deep notes of a cello. “And only a short time ago, perhaps a year ago, the waters of the lake lay ten feet deep at the very spot on which we stand. Such is the wondrous achievement of man when inspired by a desire to provide a quiet place for a weary multitude. This is ‘made land’ a park in the making. Great squares of limestone were dumped in the lake. With these as a barrier to hold back the onrush of the lake waters, men have hauled in sand, clay, ashes, all the refuse of a great city. Nature has breathed upon that ugly pile of debris. The sun has caressed it, the wind smoothed it, rain beat down upon it, birds brought seeds, and now we have soft earth, grass, flowers, a place of beauty and quiet peace.”
The place they had entered is strange. A great city, finding itself cramped for breathing space, has reached out a mighty hand to snatch land from the bottom of the lake. Thirty blocks in length, as large as an ordinary farm, this space promises to become, in the near future, a place of joy forever.
At the time of our story it was half a field of tangled grass and half a junk pile. As the two girls wandered on they found themselves flanked on one side by a tumbled line of gigantic man-made boulders and on the other by a curious jumble of waste. Steel barrels, half rusted away, lay among piles of cement blocks and broken plaster.
“Come,” said Florence, “let us go out upon the rocks.”
A moment of unsteady leaping from spot to spot, and they sat looking out on a band of gold painted across the waters by the moon.
“How still it is!” Jeanne whispered. “After all the shouting of the throng, I feel that I may have gone suddenly deaf.”
“Itisstill,” Florence replied. “No one here. Not a soul. Only you and I, the moon and the night.”
And yet, even as she spoke, a sudden chill gripped her heart. She had caught a sound. Someone was among the rocks close at hand; there could be no mistaking that. Who could it be?
Her heart misgave her. Had she committed a dangerous blunder? She had been here before, but never at night. The city, with all its perils, its evil ones, was but a few steps away. As she listened she even now caught indistinctly the murmur of it. Someone was among the rocks. He might be advancing. Who could it be, at this hour of the night?
Strangely enough at this instant one thought entered her mind: “Nothing must happen to me. I have a sacred duty to perform. I have pledged myself to return that priceless cameo to that dear little old lady.”
At the same instant the light from a distant automobile, making a turn on the drive, fell for a space of seconds upon the tumbled pile of rocks. It lit up not alone the rocks but a face; a strangely ugly face, not ten paces away.
One second the light was there. The next it was gone. And in that same second the moon went under a cloud. The place was utterly dark.
Florence had never seen the face lit up there in the night; yet it struck fear to her heart. What must we say, then, of Petite Jeanne? For this was the face of one who, more than any others, inspired her with terror. He it had been who called after her at the door of the opera, he who had looked out from the bushes as she slept in the sun. At sight of him now, she all but fell among the rocks from sheer panic.
As for Florence, she was startled into action. They were, she suddenly realized, many blocks from any human habitation, on a deserted strip of man-made shore land lighted only by stars and the moonlight. And at this moment the moon, having failed them, had left the place black as a tomb.
With a low, whispered “Come!” and guided more by instinct than sight, she led Jeanne off the tumbled pile of rocks and out to the path where grass grew rank and they were in danger at any moment of tripping over pieces of debris.
“Who—who was that?”
Florence fancied she heard the little French girl’s heart beating wildly as she asked the question.
“Who can tell? There may be many. See! Yonder, far ahead, is a light.”
The light they saw was the gleam of a camp fire. In this desolate spot it seemed strangely out of place; yet there is that about fire and light that suggests security and peace. How often in her homeland had Petite Jeanne felt the cozy warmth of an open fireplace and, secure from all danger, had fallen asleep in the corner of a gypsy’s tent. How often as a child had Florence, in a cane-seated rocker, sat beside the humble kitchen stove to hear the crackle of the fire, to watch its glow through its open grate and to dream dreams of security and peace.
What wonder, then, that these two bewildered and frightened ones, at sight of a glowing fire, should leap forward with cries of joy on their lips?
Nor were they destined to disappointment. The man who had built that fire loved its cheerful gleam just as they did, and for the very same reason: it whispered to him of security and peace.
He was old, was this man. His face had been deeply tanned and wrinkled by many a sun. His hair was snow white. A wandering philosopher and preacher, he had taken up his abode in a natural cavern between great rocks. He welcomed these frightened girls to a place of security by his fireside.
“Probably nothing to frighten you,” he reassured them. “There are many of us sleeping out here among the rocks. In these times when work is scarce, when millions know not when or where they are to eat and when, like our Master, many of us have nowhere to lay our heads, it will not seem strange that so many, some by the aid of a pile of broken bricks and some with cast-off boards and sheet-iron, should fashion here homes of a sort which they may for a brief time call their own.
“Of course,” he added quickly, “all too soon this will be a thing of the past. Buildings will rise here and there. They are rising even now. Three have been erected on these very shores. Scores of buildings will dot them soon. Palm trees will wave, orange trees blossom, grass and flowers will fringe deep lagoons where bright boats flash in the sun. All this will rise as if by magic and our poor abodes built of cast-off things will vanish, our camp fires gleam no more.” His voice trailed off into nothingness. For a time after that they sat there silent, staring at the fire.
“That,” said Florence, speaking with some effort, “will be too bad.”
“No, I suppose not.” The old man’s voice was mellow. “It’s going to be a Fair, a great Exposition. Millions of eager feet will tramp over the very spot where we now sit in such silence and peace. They are to call it the ‘Century of Progress.’ Progress,” he added dreamily. “Progress. That is life. There must be progress. Time marches on. What matter that some are left behind?
“But, see!” His tone changed. “Great clouds are banking up in the west. There will be a storm! My poor shelter does well enough for me. For you it will not suffice.
“You will do well to go forward,” he advised, as they sprang to their feet. “It is a long way back over the path you have come. If you go forward it is only a matter of a few blocks to a bridge over the railroad tracks. And across that bridge you will find shelter and a street car to carry you home.”
As he stood there by the fire, watching their departure, he seemed a heroic figure, this wandering philosopher.
“Surely,” Florence whispered to herself, “it is not always the rich, the famous, the powerful who most truly serve mankind.”
Once more she was reminded of the little old lady and her one treasure, the priceless cameo fashioned by skilled and loving fingers so many years ago.
“And I promised to return it to her!” This thought was one almost of despair.
“And yet,” she murmured, “I made that promise out of pure love. Who knows how Providence may assist me?”
There appeared to be, however, little time for thoughts other than those of escape from the storm. Their hurried march south began at once.
* * * * * * * *
As for the man who had so inspired them with terror, the one of the evil eye, he had not followed them. There is some reason to doubt that he so much as saw them. Had his attention been directed toward them, it seems probable that he would have passed them by as unknown to him and quite unimportant for he, as we must recall, knew Jeanne only as the boy usher, Pierre.
Truth was, this young man, who would have laughed to scorn any suggestion that his home might be found in this tumbled place, was engaged in a special sort of business that apparently required haste; for, after passing down the winding path at a kind of trotting walk, he hastened past a dark bulk that was a building of some size, turned to the right, crossed a temporary wooden bridge to come out at last upon the island which was also a part of the city’s “made land.” It was upon this island that Florence, a few evenings before, had discovered the mysterious girl and the more mystifying house that was so much like a ship, and yet so resembled a tiny church.
Even while the two girls talked to the ragged philosopher, this evil-eyed one with the dark and forbidding face had crossed the island and, coming out at the south end, had mounted the rock-formed breakwater where some frame-like affair stood.
At the far end of the frame was a dark circle some twenty feet in diameter. This circle was made of steel. It supported a circular dip-net for catching fish. There was a windlass at the end of the pole supporting the net. By unwinding the windlass one might allow the net to sink into the water. If luck were with him, he might hope to draw it up after a time with a fair catch of perch or herring.
All day long this windlass might be heard screaming and creaking as it lifted and lowered the net. For the present it was silent. The fisherman slept. Not so this dark prowler.
The man with the evil eye was not alone upon the rocks that night, though beyond a shadow of a doubt he believed himself to be. Off to the left, at a distance of forty yards, a dark figure, bent over in a position of repose and as still as the rocks themselves, cast a dark shadow over the near-by waters. Did this figure’s head turn? Who could say? Certainly the man could not, for he believed himself alone. However, he apparently did not expect to remain unmolested long, for his eyes were constantly turning toward the barren stretch of sand he had crossed.
His movements betrayed a nervous fear, yet he worked rapidly. Having searched about for some time, he located a battered bucket. This he filled with water. Bringing it up, he threw the entire contents of the bucket upon the windlass. Not satisfied with this, he returned for a second bucket of water and repeated the operation.