Some business matters connected with his profession occupied the greater part of Hayden's time for the next day or so; but in his first moments of leisure, he hastened to look up Kitty Hampton.
About five o'clock of a raw winter afternoon, he stopped at her house, intending under a pretense of a craving for hot tea to win Kitty to speech of her friend Marcia. Well‑simulated shivers, a reference to the biting air, would secure his cousin's solicitude, then, at perhaps the third cup, he would in a spontaneous burst of confidence confess to a more than passing interest. This would at once gain Kitty's warm if unstable attention, her impulsive sympathy, and ——. At this moment, the severe and forbidding butler informed him that Mrs. Hamptonwas not at home, was out of town, and all further inquiries were met by a polite and non‑committal "I don't know, sir."
Hayden turned away both disappointed and resentful. On the occasion of their walk, a few days before, Kitty had not mentioned to him any contemplated journey, and now, just as he was counting on enlisting her good offices, she had left him completely in the lurch, and all his plans for again meeting Marcia Oldham were, as he expressed it, up in the air.
To add to his general sense of disappointment and injury, he had had a brief line from Penfield saying that he had so far made no progress in some investigations he was making, but felt, nevertheless, that he was on the correct trail and hoped to turn up something within a short time.
Three or four days passed, the end of the week arrived, and still Kitty had not returned. Hayden felt like a man on a desert island who watches ships passing back and forth laden with merry pleasure‑parties, too much absorbed in their ownamusements or too indifferent to his sufferings to rescue him; and his sense of isolation and depression was greatly increased by the one, last, unnecessary, bitter drop in his cup—for the lady of his dreams had wantonly mocked him. Her promises had been idle as the wind. She had assured him that she would be anything but difficult to discover, had given the impression that he might chance to meet her at any moment, but the hopes she had held out were cheats, and she had succeeded either wilfully or by force of circumstances in very successfully eluding him. She had vanished as completely as if she had been that shadowy astral wraith they had jestingly discussed, and he was not only baffled and perplexed but wounded.
His pride, very sore pride at present, was touched, and he told himself that since she chose thus to withdraw he would certainly not make a definite and overt attempt to follow. Then, by way of adhering strictly to this very good resolution, he proceeded to accept every social invitationwhich came his way, went religiously to luncheons, dinners, dances, anything that offered. He even invaded shops and strolled up and down Fifth Avenue; but New York was empty of her. She had vanished as suddenly as she had appeared.
One evening, just as he was really beginning to despair of ever seeing her again and feeling more dejected and miserable every minute in consequence, he stopped in at one of the theaters to see an act or two of a new play in which an English actress of great reputation, not only because of her beauty but also for the artistic quality of her acting, was appearing. To his own surprise, the first act interested him sufficiently to remain, a resolution that later he could not sufficiently commend, for, when the actress appeared in the second act, the street dress she had worn previously had been changed for a superb evening gown.
As she came forward to the footlights Hayden started as if he had received an electric shock and leaned eagerly forward fumbling for his glasses,for there upon her bosom, gleaming against the lace of her gown, was a great silver butterfly glittering with diamonds, while about her beautiful shoulders fell a familiar chain of tiny, enameled butterflies, azure, deep purple, yellow and orange, and strung together with jewels.
Hayden sat through the rest of the play in a daze. To his excited fancy there were butterflies, butterflies everywhere, the air seemed full of them. They served to bring up the image of Marcia Oldham very vividly before him. He turned now and again and carefully scanned the house, half believing that she was present and he might at any moment encounter her eyes. But no such luck awaited him, and his surprise was all the more marked when just as he was leaving the theater after the play was finished he felt a light touch on his arm and looked down to see the laughing face of Kitty Hampton.
"Kitty!" Hayden clutched her with such a grip that she winced. "Where have you been? Although I have daily beaten on your doors andrung you up on the telephone, I couldn't find a trace of you."
She laughed. "Who says I haven't well‑trained servants! Come, drive home with me," stepping into her waiting electric brougham. "Warren will be there. He just got back this afternoon, and he will be so glad to have you. You see, I was becoming so bored and cross, and I got to hate the sight of everything and everybody to such an extent, that I just ran away from it all, down into the country; and the best part of it was, that I actually persuaded Marcia Oldham to go with me. Think of that! But I succeeded in convincing her that it was her duty to go with me, that I was really on the verge of an illness and needed her care. Marcia is strong on duty, you know. I tried my best to persuade her to do the play with me to‑night, but she wouldn't. She said she had no end of things to look after.
"Oh, I am so glad I met you! It is sheer luck. You see there were some people to dinner, and afterward, there were enough for bridgewithout me, so I just slipped away without a word to anybody and hid myself in a box. And I do hope you're hungry, Bobby. I am dreadfully. Nothing makes me so hungry as a play. Well, we'll all have some supper after a bit."
Hayden's heart sang. He had sought and sought and all his seeking had been vain, and here, by a mere chance, at an unlooked‑for moment, the knowledge he had so ardently sought was his. He could afford to wait now; he leaned back comfortably and listened with an air of most eager interest to his cousin's chatter.
Kitty had quite recovered her spirits, and when they stopped before her door she was in the full tide of some gay reminiscences, and she continued her animated recital until they reached her drawing‑room.
There were a number of people present who seemed just to have left the bridge‑tables and were still discussing the game. Warren Hampton, a tall, quiet, rather elderly man, welcomed Hayden cordially. They had always been goodfriends, and this was the first time they had met for several years. The rest, Hayden had either met casually or had to make the acquaintance of. Among this latter group was Mrs. Habersham, mentioned by Penfield as one of Marcia Oldham's most loyal friends, and Hayden was tremendously interested in discovering in her the dark woman with the rose‑colored gown and the cerise wings in her hair with whom Marcia had talked that night at the opera.
Somewhat to his disappointment, he was not seated near her at the very jolly little supper which was served later, but was placed instead between Kitty and a sallow, angular, vivacious woman with an unbecoming blue fillet in her hair. He had been talking to Mrs. Habersham and Hampton, and had not really happened to glance at Kitty since they had entered the room, but after they were seated at the table, he turned to speak to her and was absolutely struck dumb.
He drew his hand across his brow as if to brush away the cobwebs in his brain. What wasthis? From what sort of an obsession was he suffering? He had been thinking so much of those butterflies that he saw them wherever he looked; but, poor victim of delusion that he was, he could swear that on Kitty's breast, gleaming against the laces of her gown, was the same silver butterfly which had earlier adorned the English actress, the same unique and beautiful chain of tiny, brilliant, enameled butterflies. He felt an imperative desire to put out his finger and touch them, to ask Kitty if she really wore them, or if he but dreamed them.
"Bobby," murmured his cousin solicitously, "what on earth is the matter with you? You look as if you had just seen a ghost. Your eyes are popping out of your head, and you're staring at my butterflies as if they positively frightened you."
He drew a long breath of relief. "They're enough to make any one's eyes pop out."
She touched the huge silver insect on her breast. "Are they not dreams?" she said complacently."One is simply nobody this winter unless one has them; and the beauty of it is they are so difficult to secure."
"Miss Oldham wears a set," he announced boldly.
"Oh, of course." She shot him a quick, rather surprised glance. "Have you met Marcia yet?"
"Yes—just met her, not very long ago."
"How odd that she didn't speak of it!" exclaimed Kitty. "But," enthusiastically, "isn't she a dear? Do you know, Bobby, I do not believe that there is any one in the world, with the possible exception of Warren, that I am half so fond of as I am Marcia? She is everything, the most all‑around person you can imagine, and so gifted. She did the loveliest little water‑color for me while we were away. I will show it to you some time."
At this moment, their conversation was interrupted by the lady with the blue fillet. She had not succeeded in getting even a hearing from the man on the other side of her. He showed amarked preference for his lobster in aspic, entirely ignoring the charms of her conversation and giving her very definitely to understand that he longed to be left to a silent contemplation and appreciation of the merits of the Hampton's chef.
"Oh, Kitty!" The blue fillet leaned across Hayden. "Bea Habersham was telling us that you had been to see this new fortune‑teller. Is she really as good as Bea says?"
"Indeed she is!" cried Kitty, plunging into this new subject with her usual enthusiasm. "She's the most remarkable thing you ever heard of, and the beauty of it is that you don't have to go into any dens and caves to find her—none of the black holes where you tremble for your life and begin to fear that you'll never get out again. And she has the most charming studio."
"Bea said it was the dreamiest thing you ever saw and that she herself was a vision. Do you suppose she gets herself up that way really to conceal her identity, or is it to arouse more interest and enthusiasm?"
"How does she get herself up?" asked Hayden, with, however, no particular interest in his tones.
"Tell him, Kitty. I haven't been fortunate enough to see her yet," replied the blue fillet—Mrs. Edith Symmes, by the way.
"Oh, it is too fascinating for anything." Kitty was eager to discuss her own particular find. "She is tall and graceful, oh, grace itself, and she wears a long black gown, Paris unmistakably, and"—Kitty threw great emphasis on this "and," and paused a moment for dramatic effect—"she wears a mantilla about her head, and a little black mask, with fringe falling from it so that even her mouth is concealed. It gives you the queerest creepy feeling when she comes into the room."
"How odd! How deliciously dreadful!" Mrs. Symmes shivered luxuriously. "Do write or telephone her and make an appointment for me, Kitty, dear. They say that if I do so onmy own account I shall have to wait weeks and weeks, there are so many ahead of me; but you've been such an awfully efficient press‑agent that she will do anything for you."
"But her prices! Her dreadful prices!" sighed a plaintive feminine voice from the other side of the table. "Have you seen her, Mr. Hayden?"
"Indeed I have not," returned Hayden, "and I haven't the faintest intention of seeing her. I can't understand why you waste your money on those people. They have absolutely nothing to tell you, and they are fakers and worse, in every instance. You know it, each one of you, and yet you continue to patronize them."
"Hear him preach!" scoffed his cousin.
"Kitty, you are the source of all our information this evening," broke in a woman on her left. "Do tell us if it is true that Marcia Oldham's engagement to Wilfred Ames is really announced."
Hayden, his eyes on Kitty's face, could positively see it stiffen. "I really know nothing about it," she answered coldly.
"But they are together so much."
"There are always a lot of men about Marcia." Kitty's tone was ominously curt.
"Oh, it is perfectly useless to try to get either Kitty or Bea Habersham to talk about Marcia," murmured Edith Symmes in Hayden's ear. "They simply will not do it, and it is sheer waste of breath to ask them any questions. Now, I happen to know that the engagement is not definitely announced." Hayden drew a long breath. It was as if some weight had been lifted from him. "Marcia is odd, you know, awfully odd; but just the same, in that slow, unyielding way of his, Wilfred is determined to marry her, and"—she lifted her eyes—"his mother is crazy, simply crazy about it. For a while she contented herself with merely clawing the air whenever Marcia's name was mentioned; but after her nice, quiet, stupid worm of a Wilfred turned anddefinitely announced to her his intentions, she hustled herself into her black bombazine and has literally made a house‑to‑house canvas, telling everywhere her tale of woe. Poor old dame, it is rather hard on her!"
"Why?" asked Hayden, ice in his voice. "I should think that she would consider her son an especially fortunate man."
His companion gave a short laugh of irrepressible amusement. "I wish she could hear you say that, and might I be there to see the fun, from a safe corner, mind you! 'The shouting and the tumult' would be worth while, I can assure you. Oh‑h," with one of her affected little shivers, "I wish you could hear some of the things she says about Marcia! Of course, one can not exactly blame the poor old soul, for to say the least, Marcia, dear as she is, certainly lays herself open to conjecture."
Hayden did not reply. He was rudely and unmistakably giving the impression of not havingheard a word she said; but this attempt on his part, instead of offending his thin and voluble companion, only seemed to amuse her inordinately.
"Do you know, Kitty," announced the plaintive‑voiced lady across the table, "that your butterflies are really the prettiest ones I've seen, prettier than Mrs. ——," mentioning the English actress, "for I got a good look at them at a reception the other day, and yours are quite as lovely as Bea's. Dear me!" in almost weeping envy. "I wish I could afford a chain of them."
Edith Symmes had a positive explosion of her noiseless, faintly malicious laughter. "Did you hear that?" she whispered to Hayden. "Whine‑y Minnie over there is as rich as cream; and yet, she can't afford those dreamy butterflies, while Marcia Oldham, who hasn't a cent in the whole world, wears a set which, as usual, surpasses every other woman's. It is a most amazing and amusing social riddle. Even you, whoare evidently one of her admirers, must admit that."
"I can't really afford anything worth while this year," sighed the dolorous lady characterized as whine‑y Minnie, "but I must try and get an appointment with that fortune‑teller, even if it is hideously expensive. What did you say her name is, Kitty?"
"An odd name," mimicked Hayden, catching his cousin's eye and unable to resist a school‑boy temptation to tease her. "An odd name." He reproduced Kitty's high lisping tones perfectly.
"Bobby, if you mock me, I'll give you something that will make you laugh on the other side of your mouth," she said rapidly under her breath, and reverting to the phraseology of childhood. "Did you ask her name, Minnie? Itisan odd name. Mademoiselle Mariposa. Sometimes called 'The Veiled Mariposa.'"
Hayden's laughing face stiffened as if he had received a shock from an electric battery. Mariposa! Mariposa!—the butterfly. Horace Penfield'swords recurred to him; "I am willing to bet now that you will hear of The Veiled Mariposa in a very short time, and that, too, from a most unexpected source."
Hayden had elected to spend one evening at home, a most unusual decision for him, but one which the night fully justified, for a February gale was in full progress and was forcing every citizen whether comfortably housed or uncomfortably out in it, to stand at attention and listen to its shrieking iterations of "a mad night, my masters."
But to be quite accurate, the state of the weather had nothing whatever to do with the state of Hayden's mind. Let it be said, by way of explanation, that since his return to New York, he had been going out so steadily, accepting so many invitations, meeting so many people, pursuing the social game so ardently, that the thought of a quiet evening at home, recommended itself very alluringly to his imagination, and bysheer virtue of contrast, assumed almost the proportions of an exciting diversion.
Tatsu had, as usual, deftly, silently and with incredible rapidity arranged everything for his comfort; and his leisurely dinner completed, Robert settled himself for a long solitary evening undisturbed by any men dropping in to interrupt his meditations, or by any vagrant desires to wander out. The gale precluded both possibilities. It had risen to its height now, and filled the air with the steady roar of artillery. Great dashes of rain spattered sharply against the window panes, and Hayden would lift his head to listen and then sink back more luxuriously than ever into the depths of his easy chair. It was the sort of night to throw, occasionally, another log on the fire and watch the flames dance higher—illuminate with their glowing radiance the dim corridors and the vast and stately apartments of aChateau en Espagne. What an addition those new pictures are to the noble gallery! And the vast library with the windows opening on theMoorish court! But some of the tapestries need renovating, those priceless tapestries!
Illustration 2
Then, surfeited with gazing on so much beauty and splendor, one turns to more homely comforts, and while the logs sink to a bed of glowing ashes, dreams over one's favorite essays, or skims the cream of the last new novel.
It was such an evening as this that Hayden had planned; but plans, as immemorial experience has taught us, but never quite convinced us, "gang aft a‑gley," and Robert's were no exception to the rule. Between him and the open page before him, he saw continually the face of Marcia Oldham. The sweet, wistful, violet eyes gazed earnestly at him, the delicately cut mouth with the dimple in one corner smiled at him and his book presently dropped from his fingers and lay unheeded on the rug while he dreamed dreams and saw visions. Gradually, his thoughts wandered from the future and its hopes to the past, and for the first time since his return the old wanderlust stole over him, the wanderlust temporarilylulled and quiescent, but always there, that passion for change which was so integral a part of his nature. But he no longer wished for new scenes with no companionship but that of a man friend or so, he dreamed instead of a season of wandering with Marcia, with her to travel the uncharted, with her to "follow October around the earth." He wondered if the lovely lady of the silver butterfly cared only to breathe the air of cities, or if she, like himself, delighted in gazing upon the strange and unaccustomed, in getting,
"Out in the world's wide spaces,Where the sky and the desert meet,Where we shake from our feet all tracesOf the dust of the city street?"
"Out in the world's wide spaces,Where the sky and the desert meet,Where we shake from our feet all tracesOf the dust of the city street?"
He believed she did. He could not be so strongly conscious of some secret and indefinable sympathy existing between them if their tastes were not similar. Ah well, whatever her tastes might be he could gratify them,—providing, ofcourse, that she chose to look kindly upon him, and if things only came his way, a little, just a little, and surely he had reason to be gratified by the turn events had taken since he had come to New York.
He had, of course, taken a chance in telling Horace Penfield as much as he had about The Veiled Mariposa, the lost mine on which he had founded his hopes. Hayden drew his shoulders up to his ears and pulled down the corners of his mouth, the picture of a school‑boy convicted of stealing jam. He had had reason on many occasions to convict himself of such indiscretions. He reflected a little dolefully, that he would probably be a very poor business man, that is, if business depended on caution and a lack of confidence in his fellow‑beings. But, bent on cheering himself, even if Horace should break faith with him and prattle to the limit—and Horace's limit was a long one, the blue canopy of heaven, when it came to gossip—what possible harm could it do? In fact, it might serve Haydenimmeasurably, for the talk might reach the ears of those who held some interest in the property and thus get him into immediate communication with them. In any event, let Horace gossip as he would, it could do no possible injury, for Robert held the key of the situation with his carefully drawn maps and his many photographs. Blessings on his camera!
There was a wild dash of hail against the window, a shriek of the wind, and Hayden looked up surprised at the interruption and then fell again into his reverie. What an odd thing that had been for Penfield to say, that about hearing of the Veiled Mariposa, and how remarkably it had been confirmed. From a source, too, that he would least have expected it. That prophecy had certainly been literally fulfilled. Little Kitty Hampton was the last person he should have expected to mention The Veiled Mariposa.
A Fortune‑teller! The Veiled Mariposa! There was, there could be no question of coincidence here. It was design, beyond allperadventure, and design he meant very speedily to fathom. Hayden set his nice, square jaw firmly, and when Hayden set his jaw that way, you might look for things to happen. He might be over‑impulsive and lacking in caution, but he had plenty of initiative, pluck and determination. Then, his face relaxed and softened. He threw his cigarette into the bed of ashes on the hearth and stretched his arms above his head. Ah‑h‑h! He felt like Monte Cristo. Surely, surely, the world was his. Had he not, all in the space of a few weeks, found his heart's love, and a clue to his fortune?
Again, he started, but this time not at the storm which seemed to be dying down a bit, but at a sharp ring from the telephone on a desk at the other side of the room.
"The deuce!" exclaimed Hayden getting on his feet. "Who on earth is calling me such a night as this?" He walked over and lifted the receiver with the usual curt, "Hello!"
"Is this Mr. Hayden's apartment?" asked avoice which made him start. It was low, full, deliciously musical and with an unmistakable Spanish accent.
"Yes, and this is Mr. Hayden speaking," was Robert's response, with a lightning change of tone. A quick, excited thrill of interest ran over him. He strove to place that voice, ransacked his memory in the effort to do so, but quite in vain. He was, however, in spite of such swift, momentary precautions, absolutely convinced that he was listening to those enchanting tones for the first time. "Who is this speaking?" he asked. But only a burst of low, rippling laughter with a faint hint of mockery in it reached him.
"I'm afraid I'm rude enough to insist upon maintaining my incognito to‑night," was the demure answer.
"But that puts me at once at a disadvantage," protested Hayden.
"Naturally," the laughter in her voice was irresistible now. "That is where a man ought to be."
"That is where he usually is anyway," he remarked. "But you must admit that there is something awfully uncanny about a situation like this. On so wild a night one would be justified in expecting almost any kind of a ghostly visitant."
"Bar them out," she advised. "Remember Poe's Raven who still is sitting, never flitting, on the pallid bust of Pallas, just above the chamber door."
Hayden glanced up involuntarily. "There isn't any pallid bust of Pallas," he announced. "But that jolly old raven's method of paying a visit was crude and commonplace compared to yours. He came tapping and rapping in the most old‑fashioned way; but you reach me with a wonderful disembodied voice through the ever mysterious avenue of the telephone. It really makes me creepy. Won't you locate it? Give it a name?"
"Scientists," she reminded him in her delicious, broken English, "can reconstruct allkinds of extinct animals and birds from one small bone, or a tooth, or a beak, or hoof."
"So might I," Hayden valorously asserted, "if I had as much to go on; but a voice is different."
"Quite beyond your powers," she taunted.
"Not at all. I hadn't finished," Hayden was something of a Gascon at heart, "I will go the scientists one better and reconstruct you from a voice." He put back his hand and drew up a chair. He was enjoying himself immensely. "Now," impressively, "you are dark, dark and lovely and young, and you are sweet as chocolate and stimulating as coffee. And you wear a rose in your hair and silken skirts like poppy‑petals, and the tiniest of black slippers over white silk stockings; and you flutter an enormous fan that sends the fragrance of the jasmine on your breast all through the air, and you have a beautiful name—oh a name as enchanting as your voice, have you not, Anita, Rosita, Chiquita,Pepita, Carmencita, and all the rest of it?"
"You are impertinent, much too bold," she admonished. "I will not talk to you any more if you are not quite respectful; but the first part of your description was pretty. Let me, if I can, do even half so well. You, señor, are rather tall and quite slender, no superfluous flesh, all muscle, and your eyes are a dark gray and your hair is brown, so is your face, by the way; and you have a cool, leisurely sort of manner, although your speech is quite rapid, and you have a charming, oh, a most unusually charming smile."
"But you know me!" cried Hayden naively. "Of course, of course," as her laughter swelled, "I know you've flattered me to death," the red rising in his tanned cheek, "with all that rot about my grin. But," speaking louder in the effort to drown those trills and ripples of melodious laughter, more elfishly mocking and elusive than ever, "your portrait of me, no matterhow grossly exaggerated, is in the main, correct."
"Still talking?" droned the menacing voice of Central.
"But it isn't fair," Hayden continued to protest to the Unknown. "You have me at a disadvantage, and I am going to drop all courtesy and any pretense of good manners. Now, are you ready? Yes? Well then, who are you and what do you want?"
"Who am I? Ah, señor, a waif of the wind, adrift on the night's Plutonian shore; but an hour or two ago, the gale caught me up in Spain and swept me over the seas. Regard me as a voice, merely a voice that would hold speech with so distinguished a naturalist."
"A naturalist!" exclaimed Hayden both disappointed and disconcerted. "You have mistaken your man. I can lay no claims to any scientific accomplishments or achievements."
"Oh, pardon!" There was an affected and exaggerated horror in her tones. "I have madea mistake, oh, a great mistake. I had fancied that you were a collector of butterflies."
Hayden nearly dropped the receiver. There was the smallest of pauses and then he spoke in his accustomed tone, a little cooler and more leisurely than usual, with some fleeting idea of caution.
"Ah, yes, yes, I am somewhat interested in that line. But the fact is known to few. Perhaps you will kindly tell me how you learned of my enthusiasm?"
"Are you quite sure that you may not have mentioned the subject to me yourself." Her voice was full of subtle emphasis.
"No, señorita," he laughed. "That will not do. You can not throw me off the track that way, by trying to make me doubt my memory."
"Then, truly, you do not recall the old glad days in Spain?" her voice questioned incredulously, doubted, took on a little fall of disappointment, almost of wounded vanity or sentiment.
"Señorita, emphatically, no. Had I, in the old glad days in Spain, or the old glad days anywhere else, ever met a woman with a voice like yours, I should never have forgotten her in a thousand years. No, señorita. Try something else. That will not do."
"Zip!" There was unmistakable temper in the exclamation.
"We were speaking of butterflies," said Hayden, alarmed lest she should ring him off. "Are you at all interested in that line?"
"Indeed, yes," she assured him, "although I doubt very much if my interest is anything like as scientific as yours. I fancy I am more interested in them because of their wonderful beauty, than for any more particular reason. And what in all the world, señor, is so beautiful as the butterflies of the tropics? Do you remember how they come floating out into the sunlight from the dark mysterious depths of the forests? Such colors! Such iridescence on their wings; but the most beautiful of all are thegreat gray ones, señor, the silver butterflies."
Again Hayden started violently and again succeeded in controlling the surprise her words aroused in him. "I quite agree with you," he said politely. "The silver butterfly is one of the most beautiful of all the tropical varieties."
"Yes, truly." Again there was the hint of irresistible laughter in the lady's tones. "But there is a curious little fact that I fancy very few of you naturalists know, and that is that it is not confined absolutely to the tropics. Doubt the assertion if you will, but I make it calmly: I, señor, with my own eyes have seen silver butterflies at New York, and in the most unlikely places; oh, places you would never dream of, the opera, for instance."
"You surprise me!" Hayden was prepared for anything now, and his voice was carefully indifferent, almost drawling; but his mind was working like lightning. What on earth could this mean? Was it a possibility that it might be Marcia,—Marcia Oldham herself, thus cleverlydisguising her voice? No, no, a thousand times, no. He hastily rejected the thought. Even if she possessed the skill—nevertheless the very tones themselves revealed a woman of a totally different type and temperament.
"I am so anxious to see your collection," continued the rich, warmly‑colored voice. "I am wondering if you have been able to secure a specimen of a very rare butterfly indeed, one which some naturalists believe is quite extinct. It is called 'The Veiled Mariposa.'"
Hayden felt as if in some peculiar, intuitive sort of way, he had expected this from the first. For a moment or two, he could not control his excitement. His mouth felt curiously dry, and he noticed that his hand was trembling.
"I—I think I have heard of it," he said at last, and objurgated himself for his stammering banality.
"But," and the word seemed to express a pout, "I understood that it was in your collection."
"Ah, one must not trust too much to report and rumor," Hayden reminded her.
"Then it is not in your collection?" she persisted.
"Señorita, my collection is a large one." He smiled amusedly at the thought of this hypothetical collection, and the grandiloquent tone in which he referred to it. "I can not say, offhand, just what varieties it contains."
"True," assented the voice reasonably, and Hayden felt that its possessor was probably a person who was reasonable when one would naturally expect her to be capricious, and capricious when one would naturally expect her to be reasonable. "True," she repeated thoughtfully, "I only wanted to say, señor, that should you find that you have that particular butterfly, I am in touch with certain collectors who would be willing to pay a large price for it."
"I have no desire to sell outright, señorita, please understand that," Hayden spoke quickly,taking a high tone. "But should I care to consider your proposition, how am I to communicate with you? Shall I ring up Central and say: 'Please give me the delicious voice?'"
"Ah, señor, you are of an absurdity! Never fear, you will hear from me again, and soon. Good‑by." Her voice died away like music.
Hayden mechanically hung up the receiver, and then sat for a moment or two staring rather stupidly before him. At last, he shook his head and laughed in whimsical perplexity: "Who would ever have considered New York the haunt and home of mystery?" he murmured. "Every day connects me with a new one, and the charming ladies who seem involved in them apparently take delight in leaving me completely in the air, suspended, like Mahomet's coffin, 'twixt Heaven and earth, with the pleasing promise that I shall hear from them again—and soon."
An afternoon or two later, having perfected a little plan in his mind, Hayden again called on his cousin to be informed that she was not at home. Kitty, he reflected, was never at home when any one wanted to find her. Therefore, with time on his hands, he turned into the Park and decided to stroll there for an hour or so. It was an almost incredibly mild afternoon for the season of the year, mild and soft and gray; the leafless boughs of the trees upheld the black irregular network of their twigs against the gray sky, with its faint, dull reflection of sunset gold, and the twilight brooded in the mists on the edge of distance as if it awaited the hour to send its gray veils floating over the face of the earth.
Hayden walked slowly, and in this direction or that as his fancy dictated. It was not anafternoon for violent exercise; but for loitering and reverie. Presently, he looked up from his musings, to see, to his infinite surprise and delight, Marcia Oldham approaching him down a twilight vista with the gold behind her.
She, too, was influenced by the day and the hour, for she seemed to walk in a dream, and came quite near him without seeing him. She was all in black, and her furs, also black, were slipping from her shoulders, while her muff dangled from a cord about her wrist. Hayden thought she looked a little tired and certainly pale; but that might have been due to the black hat and the lace veil she had thrown back from her face the better to enjoy the air.
She came quite close to him before she saw him, and as she lifted her eyes and met his she started slightly, a start of unmistakable amazement, and as it seemed to him, although perhaps this was but the reflection of his hopes, of pleasure.
"I began to fear that we were never going tomeet again," he said after they had exchanged the conventional greetings, and he had asked and had received permission to walk with her in whatever direction she might be taking.
"I have been away for a week," she answered, "and there has been a number of things to see to since my return. I have been very busy. You know I have a studio away from my home where I paint all day. Your cousin has bought a number of my pictures."
"She spoke of them. I am anxious to see them; and I knew you were away," he said. "I knew it psychologically. The town was full of people and yet, at the same time, it was very empty." That faint and lovely carnation on her cheek! "And Kitty Hampton told me that you had been away with her," he rather tamely concluded.
"Yes," she said, it seemed to him indifferently. Then with a change of tone, as if warning him from dangerous ground: "How absurd our acquaintance has been!"
"Does it strike you so?" he asked sadly. "To me it is the most delightful, the most beautiful thing that ever happened."
"I should not be at all surprised," she said calmly, almost too calmly, and with premeditated irrelevance, "if Kitty and Bea were both of them awaiting me now." His boldness was incapable of ruffling her composure; but, nevertheless, he saw with a secret joy the telltale and uncontrollable carnation again fly to her cheek.
But Hayden had not even approached the limits of his courage. He had been too much baffled in his attempts to find her, she had proved too elusive for him to permit her lightly to slip through his fingers again, as it were, now, when he had the opportunity to press his claims for further recognition. Should a man who had succeeded more than once through bold but not displeasing words in causing the scarlet to stain that cheek of cream, carelessly forgo any chance for future experiment?
"Surely, you won't leave me on yourdoor‑step this dreary afternoon," he pleaded. "I would never have suspected you of such hardness of heart. Why, it amounts almost to—to—brutality," casting about him for a good strong word. "You will pass on into light and warmth and comfort; tea, the cheering cup, and cakes, no doubt cakes, while I am left out in this gray depressing atmosphere, night coming on, the rain falling—"
"Rain! Oh, nonsense. You have overshot your mark." She lifted her face to the sky. "Not a drop," scornfully.
He stripped his glove from his hand and held out the bare palm. "I thought so," with calm triumph. "A steady drizzle. You don't feel it yet because of your hat; but you will presently. It will very shortly turn to a drenching shower; that especial sort of cloud yonder," waving his stick toward the west, "always indicates a drenching shower. Oh," in answer to her incredulous smile, "you can't tell me anything about weather conditions, I've lived too much inthe open not to be thoroughly conversant of them. So you see I know what I'm talking about when I say that a woman who would leave a man on a door‑step on an afternoon like this is the kind that would shut up the house and go away for the summer leaving the cat to forage for itself."
"But think of your nice warm apartment, and the subways and street‑cars and taxicabs and hansoms which will swiftly bear you thither."
His glance was a reproachful protest. "Every form of conveyance you have mentioned is drafty. Coming from the hot climates I have lived in so long—" He paused and coughed tentatively. "But what is the use of all this thrust and parry?" pressing his advantage. "Are you or are you not going to give me a cup of tea?"
At this very direct question, the laughter, the gaiety vanished from her face. She looked thoughtful and seemed to consider so trivial a matter quite unnecessarily. Then, apparentlyarriving at a sudden decision, she said with a sort of sweet, prim courtesy: "I should be very glad to have you come in with me and meet my mother. I think it is very probable that we will find Kitty, and perhaps Bea, there before us."
"Thank you very much," he said, with equal formality. "I very much appreciate your letting me come."
The remainder of their walk he found delightful. Marcia was pleased to throw off, in a measure, the reserve, the absorption which seemed almost habitual with her, and she chatted with him frankly, occasionally even playfully, as they strolled along.
"Why," he asked her curiously, "did you put that hypothetical question to me that evening at the Gildersleeve, about the young woman living in the country and sending her astral body on little visits to town?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," she laughed. "It often amuses me to indulge in little fanciful flights like that."
"I think you were purposely trying to mystify me," he said. "You saw that I was going to be a bore and you pretended to be a ghost, trusting to your noiseless and mysterious manner of appearing and disappearing to work on my fears and frighten me off. And, truth to tell, there is something uncanny about your peculiarly soundless and rustleless movements."
"Oh, absurd!" she cried, the very tips of her ears red. Hayden might well exult in his ability to make her blush. "How you do romance! The whole situation was an absolutely simple one. Old Mr. ——" He fancied she caught her breath sharply, but if it were so she recovered herself immediately and went on: "The man with whom I was dining—I had to see him that evening. He was leaving town. I was leaving him at the station when I bowed to you and Mr. Penfield from the motor, and, as I was saying, I had to see him before he left on a—a business matter, and naturally, it wasmuch easier to talk it over with him at the Gildersleeve than any place else."
She smiled as she finished, and Hayden saw more in that smile than she intended or desired he should. It was in itself a full period, definitely closing the subject. It also held resentment, annoyance that she had permitted herself to fall into so egregious a blunder as an explanation.
"Oh, how I love a winter evening like this!" she went on hurriedly. "Once in a while, they stray into the heart of winter from the sun‑warmed autumn, and they get so cold, poor little waifs from Indian Summer, that they wrap themselves in all the clouds and mists they can find. Ah, isn't it soft and dim and sweet and mysterious? The wind sings such an eerie little song, and the tiny, pale crescent moon is just rising. Look, it has a ring about it! It will rain to‑morrow. Oh, dear!"
They had left the Park a few minutes before and turned in the direction of Riverside Drive,and a short walk brought them to the home in which Marcia's father had installed his family a few months before the crash came and his subsequent death. It was a handsome house, within as well as without; dark, stately, and sumptuous in effect. The sound of voices and laughter reached their ears as they ascended the stairs, and when they entered the drawing‑room they found a number of people there before them.
There was Kitty looking more than ever like a charming, if not very good little boy, and dressed beautifully, if incongruously, in a trailing limp gown of champagne color and wistaria most wonderfully blended, when her face, her figure, the way she wore her hair, seemed to cry aloud for knickerbockers; and there was Bea Habersham in velvet, of the cerise shade she so much affected, and Edith Symmes suggesting nothing so much as a distinguished but malevolent fairy, her keen, satirical, sallow face looking almost livid in contrast with a terrible gown which shespoke of with pride as "this sweet, gaslight‑green frock of mine."
"Mother, Mr. Hayden has come in with me for a cup of tea. He doesn't know yet that you make the very best tea in all the world." Marcia's voice, in speaking to her mother, seemed to take on an added gentleness. It struck Hayden that so she might speak to a small child.
Mrs. Oldham greeted Hayden most graciously, but he could not fail to notice that she turned to her daughter with an indefinable displeasure in both glance and manner. She was a small woman, barely as high as Marcia's shoulder; a surprise always, when noted, for the carriage of her head and shoulders gave the impression of her being above medium height; she had evidently been an extremely pretty creature of the Dresden‑china type, and she still bore the manner and assurance of beauty, fortifying this mental attitude by a genius for dress. Thus she succeeded in maintaining an illusion perfectly satisfactory to herself, if not quite to others, forit was rather a hungry beast of an illusion and demanded constant oblation and sacrifice.
Her hair, like Marcia's, was dark with the same loose and heavy waves, and her features exhibited the same delicate regularity; but the strength and sweetness of character so marked in the daughter's face were lacking in the mother's. Two rather striking blemishes on the older woman's beauty, a wandering eye and a scar on the soft cheek, she took her own peculiar method of ignoring, thus completely and effectively discounting any unfavorable opinion in the mind of the beholder. Consequently, she frequently referred to them, never as blemishes, but as slight but significant evidences of a distinctive and distinguished individuality.
"Oh, Marcia! What a dream of a hat!" cried Kitty. "And new. It's a Henri Dondel or a Carlier."
Marcia laughed her gentle and charming laugh. "Yes, it's new and I'm so glad you like it."
"New, new, new," said her mother petulantly. "It's something new every day. I never saw such a spendthrift. It's a good thing my wants are so few."
Marcia did not appear to hear this, and almost immediately her attention was taken up by the entrance of Wilfred Ames, big, stolid and good‑looking, while hard upon his heels followed Horace Penfield.
Mrs. Oldham, seeing that Penfield had gravitated toward the three women, Edith Symmes, Kitty and Bea, and that Ames had drawn Marcia a little apart, urged Hayden to come and sit beside her tea‑table and let her brew him a cup of fresh tea.
"It's really a rest for me, Mr. Hayden," she said pathetically, "for truly, it is very little rest I get. This big house to look after—Marcia is not the least assistance to me in housekeeping—and a daughter on one's mind." She sighed heavily. "It is enough to make Mr. Oldham turn over in his grave if he could see all thecare and responsibility that is thrown on my shoulders. He couldn't endure the thought of such a thing. He always said to me: 'Those little feet were made to tread on flowers.' He was so absurd about my feet, you know. Not that they are anything remarkable; but I'm from the South, Mr. Hayden, and it's only natural that I should have beautiful feet.
"But then, as I often told him, he was just so constituted that he could see nothing in me but absolute perfection. Why, do you know, one of my eyes has a slight, oh, a very slight defect, you have probably not noticed it. Well, we had been married for years before he ever saw it. I happened to mention it and he simply would not believe me until I convinced him by standing before him in a very strong light with my eyes wide open. Do let me give you a little more tea. No? Then some sugar or lemon, just to freshen up a bit what you have. How handsome Marcia and Wilfred look standing together, she is so dark and he is so fair. He is a dearfellow and so steady and sedate. I love him like a son, and I consider his influence over Marcia excellent.
"She is, of course, the dearest thing in the world to me, Mr. Hayden. You will understand that, but I feel a mother's solicitude, and she has certain traits which I fear may become exaggerated faults. She is inclined to be head‑strong, heedless, wilful, and I'm afraid, sweet as Mrs. Hampton and Mrs. Habersham are—dear girls! I love them like my own daughters—that they encourage Marcia in her defiance of proper authority and her dreadful extravagance. But," sighing, "she is young and pretty and she does not think; although Mr. Oldham used often to say: 'Marcia will never have her mother's beauty.' What do you think of such an absurdity?"
"I think if Diogenes had met Mr. Oldham he would have blown out his light and gone back to the seclusion of his bath‑tub for the rest of his life."
"Oh!" Mrs. Oldham looked puzzled. "Oh, Diogenes! Oh, yes, searching for an honest man. Mr. Hayden, what a charming thing of you to say! I must remember that, and so witty, too! Edith dear," as Mrs. Symmes approached them, "you can't fancy what a wit Mr. Hayden is."
"Oh, yes, I can," returned Mrs. Symmes, "and that is the reason I have come to drag him away from you. Here is Mr. Penfield to take his place, and tell you a lot of new scandals all springing directly from the seven deadly old sins. Come and sit on the sofa with me, Mr. Hayden."
"Rescued!" he muttered feebly when they had sat down in a remote corner. "I had an idea that I was never going to escape, that it would run on for ever and ever."
"Poor Marcia!" murmured Mrs. Symmes, glancing toward the window where Marcia and Ames stood, still engrossed in conversation. "And poor Wilfred! You haven't seen his OldMan of the Sea yet—meaning his mother?"
"No, is she, too, a Venus with a bad eye?"
"Quite the reverse." Faint sparkles of amusement came into her eyes, amusement which was always touched with a slight malice. "Mr. Hayden, some people are coming to take luncheon with me next Wednesday, I may count on you, may I not?"
"Indeed, yes," he assured her. "I should like nothing better."
She rose and he with her. Every one was doing the same. With a purpose which had been maturing in his mind during the last hour, Hayden approached Kitty and Marcia, who stood together talking in low tones as Kitty caught her furs about her.
"Miss Oldham," Hayden's voice was delightfully ingratiating, "don't you or Kitty want to give me the address of this wonderful fortune‑teller, Mademoiselle Mariposa?"
"But you said you took no interest in such things," Kitty spoke quickly. "You insistedthat they were all fakers and frauds. Why do you want to go now?"
"But I have an idea that I have met the lady," he asserted.
Marcia gave a quick start; but Kitty laughed. "I defy you to pierce her disguise," she asserted, "and tell whether you have met her or not, unless, of course, she acknowledges the acquaintance. I will telephone you her address the moment I reach home. I do not remember the number."