Kitty was as good as her word and telephoned her cousin the address of Mademoiselle Mariposa that evening,—a fact that rather surprised Hayden, as he had a sort of indefinable idea that she would conveniently forget her promise.
On his part, he lost no time in seeking the Mariposa, calling at her apartment the next morning, only to be informed by a particularly trim and discreet maid that her mistress received no one save by appointment. Therefore, bowing to the inevitable with what philosophy he could summon, he went home and wrote a note to the seeress, requesting an early interview and signing an assumed name. He was gratified to receive an answer, dictated, the next morning in which Mademoiselle Mariposa stated that she would be pleased to receive him at threeo'clock in the afternoon, on the following Thursday. Thursday, and this was Tuesday. Two days farther away than he desired, but there was nothing to do but curb his impatience, and he set about occupying his mind and incidentally his time until Thursday.
Fortunately, he discovered in glancing over his list of engagements that a number of events dovetailed admirably, thus filling up the hours, and among them was Edith Symmes' luncheon on Wednesday. He heaved a sigh of relief that there were enough things on hand to give time wings, even if artificial ones, when it seemed bent on perversely dragging leaden feet along the ground. In consequence he betook himself to Mrs. Symmes' house on Wednesday with more eagerness than he would otherwise have shown had he not regarded her luncheon as a time‑chaser.
Mrs. Symmes had been early widowed. Her experience of married life included a bare two years, her husband living a twelve‑month longerthan the friends of both had predicted. He was, so it was rumored, a charming fellow of rare artistic taste and discrimination, a dilettante, and a connoisseur of all things beautiful. So sensitively was he organized that inharmonies or discords of color, or any lack of artistic perception affected him acutely, often to the verge of illness, and always irritation. Although he permitted his wife no voice in the decoration and furnishing of either town or country house, almost desperately withheld it from her in fact, he could not control or even influence her taste in dress, and there were those who did not hesitate to whisper that Edith's costumes alone were quite sufficient to have caused his death.
After that event, Mrs. Symmes endured the low‑toned harmonies of her husband's faultless taste for six months, and then declaring her environment depressing to her spirits, she refurnished the house from garret to cellar, perpetrating crimes in decoration which made the horrors of her toilets seem mere peccadillos.
Hayden was soon to realize this, for on arriving at her home on Wednesday he was shown to a drawing‑room large in size but crowded with furniture. Little tables, chairs, footstools, anything which would serve as a stumbling‑block, seemed to be placed in the direct path of the guest advancing toward his hostess.
Robert, seeing that it behooved him to walk as delicately as Agag, reached Mrs. Symmes without misadventure, and after exchanging the usual light‑weight coin of conventional greeting, looked about him for a familiar face. Most of the people he knew only casually; but presently, he spied Mrs. Habersham and made his way toward her as rapidly as the manifold objects in his path permitted.
She was, as usual, in one of the shades of American Beauty, which she so much affected, and which were admirably suited to her, giving depth and opulence, the rich restfulness of color to her too sharply defined and restless beauty. Upon her breast was her silver butterfly andthe enameled chains were about her throat.
"I have walked twice across this room," said Hayden triumphantly, after shaking hands with her, "and I haven't fallen once. If I came here often I should bring an ax, notch the furniture and then clear a path. There goes some one!" as a heavy stumble was heard. "I did better than that."
"Don't boast. Remember that it's the wicked who stand in slippery places," said Bea, with meaning. "But indeed, I am glad you got here. There is some distorted, goggle‑eyed Chinese monster at my elbow, and on the table before me is an ornament which chills the marrow of my bones. I dare not look up."
Hayden gazed bravely about him. "I don't think I ever saw such a hideous room in my life," he said slowly and with conviction.
"There is only one room in the world uglier," Bea assured him, "and that is the dining‑room; but they do say that the wall‑paper in her bed‑room is of a bright scarlet, with large lozengesrepresenting green and blue parrots swinging in gilded cages."
Hayden laughed and shivered. "It takes strong nerves," he said. "Do you suppose there are people who come often?"
"Oh, dear me, yes," returned Mrs. Habersham. "One would dine in Inferno if the food were good. Her table is as perfect as her house and gowns are dreadful, and then Edith herself is very clever and amusing. Here she comes."
"The cause of this delay," smiled Mrs. Symmes in passing, "is Mrs. Ames. I'll give her just one minute more."
Bea smiled perfunctorily, and then turned on Hayden an alarmed face. "I never would have come to‑day—never, if I had fancied she would be present. She will be sure to launch out on Marcia Oldham before luncheon is over. She never misses an opportunity. She has a mania on the subject."
Hayden glanced toward the door with curiosity. "Where is this pepper and vitriol olddame?" he asked, with elaborate carelessness.
"She has not come yet. Did you not hear Edith say that it is she for whom we are waiting? You will see her in a moment, though. She is always late; but she will come, never fear."
Her words were prophetic, for at that moment Mrs. Ames hurried into the room, a wiry, spare old woman with a small hooked nose and a jaw like a nut‑cracker. The skin of her face was yellow and deeply wrinkled, her eyes were those of a fierce, untamed bird, and she was gowned—swathed is the more suitable word—in rusty black with a quantity of dangling fringes and many jingling chains.
Luncheon was announced immediately after her arrival, and to Hayden's dismay he found that it was served at small tables and that he was placed between Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Habersham, with Horace Penfield opposite smiling in faint satirical glee at the situation.
"I shall never forgive Edith Symmes for this, never," was Bea's indignant whisper inHayden's ear. "But just the same, I shall not give that old witch a chance to air any of her grievances. You'll see. With your help and cooperation I intend to monopolize the conversation."
Robert hastily assured her that she could depend on him to the limit of his capacities, and together they seized and held the ball of conversation, occasionally tossing it from one to the other; but never permitting it for a moment to fall into either Penfield's or Mrs. Ames' hands.
Hayden pottered over this incident or that, dawdling through long‑winded tales of travel, and when his recollection or invention flagged Mrs. Habersham introduced topics so inimical to Mrs. Ames' frequently aired views that this lady rose passionately to the fray. Woman's Suffrage, Socialism, the Decline of the Church, Bea, a conservative, flung upon the table and Mrs. Ames pounced upon them as a dog upon a bone, a radical of radicals.
Meantime, Horace Penfield had sat enjoying his luncheon with a cool placidity, and listeningwith a smile of faint amusement to the arguments which surged and eddied about him. He looked for the most part indifferent, although, perhaps, he was only patient.
At last, in an unguarded moment Mrs. Habersham paused for breath, and in the brief ensuing silence Penfield entered the conversation like a thin sharp wedge.
"What a fad those butterflies are among you lovely ladies," he said to Mrs. Habersham. "But yours are paler than most of them, more opaline. Why?"
"Because I wear red so frequently," she replied indifferently. "The purple and yellow butterflies would look horrid with my crimson frocks."
"I really think," said Penfield slowly, meeting her eyes with a cool, blank gaze, "that, saving your presence, Mrs. Habersham, Marcia Oldham has by far the handsomest set I have seen."
At this red rag, purposely fluttered as Haydenfelt before the eyes of Mrs. Ames, that lady sniffed audibly and tossed her head, emitting at the same moment a faint, contemptuous cackle.
"Oh, no," Bea assured him with languor, although the scarlet burned in her cheek. "Marcia's are nothing to compare to Mrs. ——," mentioning the name of the London actress.
"Oh, I must differ from you." Penfield was suavely positive. "I am surprised that you should say that, for Miss Oldham's are quite the most artistic I have seen."
"Naturally Miss Oldham would have the handsomest set in the market, wouldn't she?" queried Mrs. Ames in what no doubt was intended to be a tone of innocent inquiry.
"Marcia's taste is very beautiful," said Mrs. Habersham coldly.
"And very extravagant, I understand." Mrs. Ames was started now; there was no stopping her. "If one wears beautiful things in these days one must expect to pay for them."
Mrs. Habersham shrugged her shoulders andturning to Hayden asked him when he had last seen his cousin Kitty Hampton; but Mrs. Ames' cracked voice rose above their low tones.
"I wish some one would explain to me—perhaps you can, Mr. Penfield—just how a young woman who hasn't a penny to her name can afford a superb necklace. Such things could not have occurred in my young days; but different times, different manners. Humph!"
Before Penfield could reply, Bea Habersham leaned across the table and addressed her clearly: "It seems to me that such imaginary and absurd behavior would be considered as reprehensible to‑day as in the remote era you mention."
Mrs. Ames held her lorgnon to her eyes with one withered, yellow hand, each finger covered to the swollen knuckles with diamonds dim with dust, then she dropped it in her lap with another dry cackle and said with a complete change of tone, as if reverting to some new topic of conversation:
"Mr. Penfield was speaking of your friend,Miss Oldham, a moment or two ago, Mrs. Habersham. Perhaps you will be able to tell me the identity of the rather elderly, ordinary‑looking man with whom I have seen her several times lately?"
It seemed to Hayden that Bea's face grew a shade paler, but his momentary apprehension gave way to a swift admiration for her poise, the casual and careless indifference with which she answered:
"I am sure I can't imagine, Mrs. Ames. Marcia has many friends, more I fancy than you dream of." He also felt a swift longing to take Horace Penfield by the scruff of his thin, craning neck and drop him from the window instead of permitting him to sit there calmly sipping his liqueur with that faint, amused smile as of gratified malice about his lips.
Then he drew a breath of relief. Every one was rising.
"You were magnificent," he whispered as he drew aside for Bea to pass.
She smiled gratefully at him. "Thank goodness, it's to be bridge now and not conversation."
A few minutes later they were all seated at the card‑tables and except for the occasional low‑toned voicing of the conventions of the game, a grateful silence reigned.
But at the close of the afternoon, just as they were leaving, Bea asked Hayden if he would not drive down‑town with her and let her drop him at his apartment. He accepted gladly, hoping in the brief intimacy of the drive homeward together that she would speak of Marcia.
But for a season, Mrs. Habersham cared only to discuss the scene they had just left; the fortunes of the game; the excellencies of this player, the atrocities of that; the eccentricities of their hostess and her apparently ineradicable passion for ugliness.
"It is true," she assured him, "about the red paper and the green and blue parrots in gilt cages; a woman who has seen it swore upon her honor."
They had by this time turned into the Park, and Bea leaned forward to inhale the fresher air. Night was falling fast; the spreading lawn‑spaces, the dense shrubbery, the irregularly disposed trees were no longer distinct, but melted together, indistinguishable and unfeatured blurs in the deepening twilight.
Bea drooped her brow on her hand and sat in silence for a few moments. Then she turned to Hayden, her lips compressed, her hands clasped tightly together.
"Isn't it awful! Isn't it dreadful!" she cried. "To think of that old witch of Endor saying all those horrible untrue things about poor lovely Marcia, and worse, spreading them broadcast?"
Hayden lifted his chin in quick determination. "Mrs. Habersham, I can not be ignorant of what you refer to. I have, to my annoyance"—he hesitated and then deliberately chose another word—"to my pain, heard various hints and innuendoes before of the same kind. Now, why is this? Just malice, envy, jealousy?Why"—his indignation vibrated through his voice—"should one so lovely, so above reproach, as Miss Oldham, be the victim of that sort of thing?"
"Because," said Bea bitterly, "Marcia attends strictly to her own business and does not request any advice or permit any interference. Oh, Mr. Hayden, it is useless to tell you what a dear she is. I know from what you have just said that you do, you must admire her. No one could help it," she added, with a simple and loyal conviction. "So you may understand how difficult it is for us who love her, for the very few of us who are in some measure in her confidence, to have to accept the fact that there are certain things in her life which appear odd, which are not—" She broke off, looking at him uncertainly.
"Mrs. Habersham—" Hayden had turned about in his seat so that he could gaze more directly at her, and now, although his face had grown pale, he smiled down upon her his charmingsmile. "Mrs. Habersham, let me go further and tell you that I have never met a woman in my life toward whom I have felt as I do toward Miss Oldham. Why not put it frankly and tell you the exact truth? I love her."
Bea's eyes brightened delightedly and then grew a little sad. "I suspected as much," she said gently, "and yet, I hardly knew whether you had the courage or not. Now," impulsively moving nearer to him, "I will be as frank as you have been. Nothing in all the world, nothing would please me half so much as for you and Marcia to love each other. I don't know you awfully well, Mr. Hayden, and yet," she laughed, "I do in a way. True, we have only met a few times; but for many years I have been well acquainted with Kitty's 'Bobby,' But," and her dark eyes smiled on him with a soft shining in their depths, "I think that just now when there is all this unkind whispering it is a beautiful and courageous thing for you to love Marcia, and Iwant to assure you that all the support I can give to your cause is yours."
Her ungloved hand lay on her knee, and Hayden lifted it and lightly kissed it. "Dear lady," he began, his voice a little broken.
"Oh, wait!" She lifted the same hand in admonition. "My support may not amount to anything. Reserve your gratitude. Marcia is extremely reticent about her own affairs, but, nevertheless, I can give you a crumb of comfort. No matter what every one says, I am sure that she and Wilfred Ames are not engaged and that she does not begin to see as much of him as people think; and I do know"—again her voice was shaken with indignation—"that there wouldn't begin to be as much of this unpleasant talk if it were not for his mother's wicked, frantic fears. Why, what does she wish? She might be glad, proud to have such a daughter‑in‑law as Marcia. Oh, Mr. Hayden, I can't talk about it. It makes me too angry."
"Mrs. Habersham"—Hayden spoke with that quiet, forceful determination which was under all his impulses the real key‑note of his character—"I desire nothing so much in the world as to be of assistance to Miss Oldham. Can't we"—his smile had never been more winning—"can't we clear away these cobwebs of mystery which surround her?"
"Ah," cried Bea Habersham, tears in her eyes, "we who love her all long to do that."
"Then you will help me?"
"Oh, you give me hope that it is a possibility," with one of her radiant changes of mood. "But," and she fell again into depression, "I can not help you. You must do it all, all yourself."
Even to the impatient heart of youth the longed‑for, entreated to‑morrow comes with a suddenness which has its elements of shock. The Thursday which Hayden had regarded as so remote was actually here, and he, opening his eyes to the fact after a sound night's rest, was aware of that faint shrinking which comes to us all in that moment of embarkation upon the unknown and uncharted.
This day, he felt, was to be a day of revelations; in an hour, a moment, he might, nay he was sure that he would, learn certain facts, touch certain clues which might change and direct his whole future existence. As he dressed he caused the various circumstances of the past few weeks to marshal themselves in orderly array and pass in review before him.
He, by some irony of chance, had been so fortunate as to discover the wonderful lost Mariposa, the Veiled Mariposa; but although a vast fortune lay before his eyes, within his grasp, he was withheld from profiting by this strange stumble upon Golconda by the intangible potent arm of the law. And all his diligent efforts to find the owners of the property had been in vain. Then he had come to New York, largely to enjoy a long‑anticipated vacation, and before he had had time to make definite plans and decide upon the best methods of prosecuting his search for the owners of the mine, he heard, by the merest chance, of a fortune‑teller who called herself Mariposa and who always appeared veiled. This fanciful symbolism might of course be the merest coincidence; but Hayden could not so view it. It was too significant not to smack of design.
And then, by another curious turn of the wheel, he had met a strange and lovely lady with a chain of jeweled butterflies about her throat, a great silver butterfly upon her breast.What significance could be attached to them? Apparently none. They seemed the fad of several great ladies and a very beautiful and extravagant fad; but what was the inner meaning, if indeed there was any? Yet, look at the matter dispassionately as he would, he could not rid himself of the idea that these delicately fashioned, fluttering things had a significance. Well, perhaps the day would disclose it. There was no use in his attempting to arrive at a solution of these enigmas. He could but await the pleasure of destiny. And further, there was that mysterious telephone message, a still unsolved enigma. Daily, he had waited for another message from the golden voiced unknown, but so far, all his waiting and hoping had met with a barren reward.
Then his thoughts reverted to his conversation with Mrs. Habersham, and his heart rose buoyantly with hope. She had, at least, assured him of one thing, and that was that there was nothing definite in these reports of Marcia'sengagement to Wilfred Ames; and there were secret intimations prompted not of his vanity, but of a belief in the sympathetic understanding existing between Marcia and himself, which confirmed him in his determination to make the most of a fighting chance.
He managed, with these reflections, his correspondence and the various details of some business matters, to pass the morning; but when at three o'clock he made his way to the Mariposa's apartment he found himself to his own disgust in an unwonted state of excitement, which, as usual with him, revealed itself only in a more calm and leisurely demeanor; but when on stepping from the elevator he realized that his hands were like ice, he was for the moment irritated at his lack of nerve, and then he quickly bolstered himself up with the reflection that the day of destiny comes only once in a lifetime and one would have arrived at a state of vegetable stolidity to meet it unmoved. Then he laughed at himself for clinging so obstinately to the beliefthat this was the day of his destiny, and this laughter cleared his mental atmosphere. He was himself again, in command of his self‑assurance and good spirits.
His ring was answered immediately by the trim maid who conducted him through a narrow hall and into a small reception‑room where she requested him to wait while she informed her mistress of his presence.
Left alone he glanced curiously about him. There was certainly no mystery here. The room was agreeably light and sunshiny. It was furnished with several comfortable chairs, and a large round table in the center of the room. Upon this were scattered some of the latest magazines surrounding a vase of fresh and fragrant flowers.
Hayden turned over the pages of one of the books for a moment and then the dark‑eyed, rosy, white‑capped maid reappeared and announced that Mademoiselle Mariposa would see him at once.
A few paces down the narrow hall, she drew aside the curtain before the door of mademoiselle's consulting‑room, and stood aside for Hayden to enter, letting the portière fall noiselessly behind him. But Robert instead of advancing and taking a chair, although there was none to invite him to do so, for the room was empty, stood transfixed upon the threshold, almost open‑mouthed.
Ah, here was the atmosphere he had so sadly missed in the small parlor. This room was large, and it seemed to one entering it for the first time to extend indefinitely, for upon the walls, against a soft, low‑toned background, were painted the bare trunks and branches of leafless trees, a forest of them apparently, so admirable and so illusive was the perspective. The eye seemed to plunge into interminable forest vistas of dead leaves covering the ground and even floating on dim, moveless pools. The rounded ceiling was painted with silver‑edged clouds, and the onlylight fell from a skylight like a great yellow moon.
When Hayden finally drew his attention from the walls and ceiling sufficiently to realize that he was not in the autumn woods, he noticed that this apartment was scantily furnished. Two or three chairs, a small table or so. On one of these tables was a bronze tripod upholding a crystal ball and a silk cushion upon which to rest one's hand during a palm‑reading. On another table were several astrological charts and small books, presumably works of reference.
As he still stood motionless there was a slight rustle at the door, the curtain parted and the Mariposa entered clad as always in her graceful black gown, the mantilla and the mask. It was the most effective of disguises and yet, it was negatived, nullified by a positive force of personality so unmistakable and definite that the disguise instead of concealing served more subtly to reveal and even accentuate individuality.
"How do you do, Mr. Hayden?" ignoring the name he had signed to his note and speaking with a marked Spanish accent meanwhile seating herself at the table holding the crystal globe.
"Ah!" cried Hayden, starting forward excitedly. "The waif of the wind! The lovely disembodied voice! How entirely delightful!"
Never had he been more interested and with every moment that passed, he was experiencing a pleasant sense of reassurance. For days he had been putting from him the latent but constant fear that Marcia Oldham and Mademoiselle Mariposa were identical; but a personal atmosphere is unmistakable, and in spite of her excellent and efficient disguise, Hayden felt instinctively that this was no delicate and wistful violet, but a gorgeous tropical bloom swaying from the tallest trees and exulting in torrid sunshine and fierce tempest. Her voice, too, was deeper and fuller, and the accent was, beyond question, genuine.
"I am afraid it is impossible to disguise my accent," she laughed but did not seem inclined topursue the subject further. "Do you prefer a palm‑reading, the crystal‑gazing or both?" she asked, and although the words were the usual commonplace phrases that she probably repeated a dozen times a day, uttered monotonously enough, yet through some vibrant, ringing quality her most ordinary utterances were endued with life.
"I hardly know," he said in answer to her question, and falling in with her mood. "What would you advise?"
"Why not try the crystal?" she said. "You will, I am sure, find it more interesting." Without waiting for his answer, she lifted the crystal ball from its tripod to the silken cushion, and began intently to gaze into its depths.
And now Hayden drew a sigh of intense relief. There was no longer any ground for the shadow of a doubt, for the hands of Mademoiselle Mariposa were not the hands of Marcia Oldham. Marcia's hands, as he had particularly noticed, were small and white, with very pink palms, andlong, pointed, rosy‑tipped fingers; while this woman's hands were smooth and creamy, the color of old ivory, with square fingers.
For a few moments there was silence between them, and then the fortune‑teller began to speak in low familiar contralto tones, tones so near the brink of music that one expected trills and ripples of melody.
"I see mountains, yes, mountains, great bare hills; they change and vary in appearance, but there are always mountains; and I see wide burning deserts stretching on and on, and now there are forests, dark, impenetrable, vast forests. You have traveled much in foreign lands, señor. Now bridges and railroads, oh quite clearly, and natives—Chinese, blacks, Indians—much work in building railroads in many lands. Ah, clouds, clouds, clouds! Now they clear a little. Oh, señor, it is mountains again, ranges of them. They become more clear, always more clear, and now your figure. I see you very plainly. You are in the mountains. You follow a little trail.It winds curiously among the rocks, twisting, turning, occasionally descending, often doubling on itself. Clouds again, clouds! Ah, now I see you again and in the broad sunshine. You are greatly excited. Your face is white, your eyes are shining—and your hands are full of nuggets, golden nuggets, free gold, señor; it shines and gleams like fire in the sun. Wonderful! I have rarely had so clear a vision!"
Hayden deliberately leaned forward and lifted the crystal from the silken cushion to its tripod. "I thought so," he said. "There, mademoiselle, I believe we can talk better with that out of the way. What language do you prefer? English or Spanish?"
She laughed. Airy, full laughter, trembling like her voice on the brink of music and falling in sparkling cascades into an ocean of melody. "But you are bold!" she cried. "Bold as brass."
"Not at all," said Hayden politely. "All this crystal‑gazing is very interesting, very prettyand effective, and serves admirably to show just as much of your hand as you desire me to know. But you forget, mademoiselle, that you revealed your rather wide knowledge of my affairs the other evening over the telephone. By the way, mademoiselle, it's sheer curiosity on my part and I beg you to pardon it," he spoke a little diffidently, "but why 'mademoiselle' with Mariposa? Why not 'señorita?'"
"Euphony," she laughed, "nothing more, I assure you. It is more musical."
"Exactly. But tell me, mademoiselle, shall we not take up matters where we dropped them the other evening? You have no objection I hope to discussing business?"
She appeared to ponder this proposition a moment. "Bah!" she cried suddenly. "You are right, quite right. It is an opportunity not to be wasted. But one moment, I can not talk with this on."
She swept off the mantilla and threw it aside. Her brown hair was rolled and twisted in greatcoils about her head, there were tendrils of it which sprang thickly about her brow and neck. The mask which concealed her face was held by a ribbon tied at the back of her head. She pulled at this but only succeeded in knotting it, and with an exclamation of impatience, she bent toward Hayden, murmuring:
"Please, señor."
He skilfully untied the knot, but while at this occupation the tendrils, shining like gold in the warm, yellow glow of the moon skylight, curled about his fingers, electric, tingling, leaving a faint, stinging remembrance.
"Oh, thank you."
She pulled off the mask and tossed it aside with a long breath of relief, and looked up, encountering Hayden's curious and admiring gaze. In that moment of unveiling, he saw before him a lady of high emprise.
"A diamond‑drill of a woman!" cried Robert to himself; and the steel of him paid her gallant homage, homage all the more sincere in that sheasked it not, neither craved nor stooped to win it. All she asked was the game, the game with the odds against her. Cool, resourceful, she was concerned with neither doubts nor scruples. To such natures all roads lead to Rome. Before them lie the city of their hopes. That the roads are rocky and beset with unknown perils does not alarm, deter, or even particularly interest them. They see only Rome.
In that brief scrutiny permitted himself by a well‑bred man, Hayden decided that she was a Gipsy. Her rather short face, with the full, square chin, was of a clear brown; her intense and vivid eyes were green, a beautiful and rare shade of olive. Her mouth was large, merry and inscrutable, with a particularly short upper lip, a mouth as reckless as Mercutio's. It would be difficult to say which impression predominated, beauty or force of character, or if, indeed, one could be disassociated from the other. Divorced from the sheer individuality, the power which she expressed in every movement, every line of faceand figure, would she have been beautiful at all?
While Robert considered this question the Mariposa looked at her watch, then touched an electric bell. It was answered by her private secretary, a dark, pale, colorless young woman whom Hayden had not seen before.
"Eunice," said the Mariposa carelessly, "I do not wish to be disturbed for an hour. Whoever calls within that time, tell them that it is impossible for me to give them a reading to‑day. Make other appointments for them at as early a date as possible. That is all." The depressed young woman bowed and withdrew.
"It is exactly half‑after three, Mr. Hayden." She snapped her watch shut. "Now we can talk. I fancy you are quite right. The crystal really did not—what do you say—did not, cut very much ice."
"You think then that, as you suggested the other evening, we shall probably find an interest in common?" he said.
"Undoubtedly. Several of them, perhaps."
He bent nearer. "Including butterflies?" he suggested.
She showed her white and even teeth. "Including butterflies," she repeated.
"But first," he said impetuously, "do allay the curiosity which, I assure you, would otherwise continue to come between me and any business matters we might discuss."
She looked at him with an inquiry which held a sort of prescient reserve. He could see that if not actually on guard, she held herself in readiness to be so.
"What do you mean?"
"You," he said daringly. "I have sat here watching and waiting to catch you tripping in that faultless accent of yours. It must be real. I have lived too much in Southern countries to be deceived."
She looked gratified, her pleasure showing itself in a deepening color. "It was adopted for business purposes, now it has become secondnature. I, too, have lived much in Southern countries. The Romany strain, my mother was a Gipsy. You are a brother, Mr. Hayden, if not in blood, in kind. That kind that is so much more than kin. You are here to‑day, there to‑morrow. The doom of the wanderer is on you, and the blessing. Take it on the word of a fortune‑teller." She spread out her hands smiling her wide, gay smile with a touch of irony, of feminine experience, the serpent‑bought wisdom of Eve in it. "You know what it means to hear the red gods calling, calling; to know that no matter what binds you, whether white arms or ropes of gold, you have to go."
"You show yourself a true daughter of the road, señorita, and a student of Kipling. We brothers of the wild are usually not much given to books."
"That is true," she assented. "I have heard them say: 'We know cities and deserts, men and women of every race. What can books give us?' But I tell them: 'Everything can pay ustoll if we ask it. A star in the sky, the tiniest grain of sand on the beach. We can demand their secrets and they will not withhold them.'" She mused a moment. "One must learn from all sources, knock upon every door. When I weary of gaining wisdom from the ant or considering a serpent on the rock, or the way of a man with a maid, why, I turn to books. They are my solace, my narcotics, my friends, and my teachers. I take a few, a very few with me on any rough journey I may be making; but when I am here or in London or Paris, any place where I may be living for months at a time, I have my books about me."
"But why do you tell fortunes?" asked Hayden involuntarily, and immediately flushed to the roots of his hair. There was the vaguest something in her smiling gaze, the merest flicker of an eyelash, which convicted him of impertinence. "Forgive me. I—I beg your pardon," he stammered.
She ignored his apologies. "Some day I willtell you," she whispered, going through a pantomime of looking about her cautiously as if it were a state secret of the most tremendous importance. "But we have talked enough about myself now, señor; the topic for discussion to‑day is butterflies."
"An interesting subject might be The Veiled Mariposa," he said.
"Just so. Why beat about the bush?" He felt that she disdained subterfuges, although when necessary for her purposes, he was assured that she could use diplomacy, as a master of fence might his foils. "You, Mr. Hayden, have been lucky enough to find the lost Mariposa, the lost Veiled Mariposa. Is it not so? But you are in a peculiarly tantalizing position. You can not convert gold into gold. Strange. It sounds so simple. But your hands are tied."
"Perfectly true," Hayden assented.
"Then to put the matter in a nutshell and to descend from metaphor to plain business facts, you can not organize a company and begin tooperate the mine or rather group of mines, for the reason that you can not secure a clear title, and what is worse, you have not, so far, succeeded in finding any trace of the present owners."
"You seem to know a lot about the matter," said Hayden pleasantly, "but do you know, I think that you are wrong on one point. I think, indeed I am quite sure, that I have found the owners, at least one of them."
"Yes?" Her tone still questioned. "And what then?"
"Well," he went slowly now, "there are some questions I would like to ask them. They may regard it as an awful impertinence; but it would be a lot of satisfaction to me."
"What would be the nature of those questions?"
"Among other things"—he still spoke slowly, seeming to consider his words—"I should like to ask them why, for years now, they should have let a valuable property remain idle. Evenif they have the wealth of Midas it is still a puzzle. No one is ever quite rich enough, you know, and down there is Tom Tiddler's ground to their hand."
"Well, what do you make of it—this puzzle?" She was looking steadily at a ring she was turning about on her finger.
"This!" He leaned forward. For the life of him he could not keep a faint ring of triumph out of his tone. "This, señorita. There is only one reasonable, credible solution—" He paused cruelly.
"Yes?" Her eyes were on his, eager, almost voracious. "Yes?"
"The present owners can not locate the mine, or else they think it not worth the trouble and expense of attempting to do so. That they have allowed the estate to lie idle and in a measure go to waste is also curious and puzzling. I can not explain that."
"Admitting such a thing for the sake of argument," she asked, "what then?"
"Well, I think we will have several things to say to each other then. For, if either of my suppositions is anywhere near correct their hands are tied just as much as mine, so I think we shall have to talk business, do not you?"
"I quite agree with you and I should add, the sooner the better."
"The sooner the better," he echoed, with emphasis.
She nodded. Again, she studied her nails, pink as almond‑flowers, with interest.
"And you really believe, you are quite convinced, that this lost or abandoned mine is all that tradition says of it?" she asked at last.
"More," he replied laconically. "I have prospected over every foot of it, and I know that it contains a fortune. A fortune"—he struck the table with the palm of his hand—"beyond the dreams of avarice."
There were dancing sparkles in her green eyes. "Let me congratulate you, 'O gallant knight,gaily bedight, in sunshine or in shadow,' that you have been lucky enough to find Eldorado."
She rose in a sweeping impetuosity, drew up her slender height, and made him a curtsy, a flower bending buoyantly to the breeze, and springing upright again.
"But"—two or three sliding steps of the fandango, and then in her chair—"where did you find Eldorado? That's the history a daughter of the road wants to know. Is it truly 'over the mountains of the moon, down the valley of the shadow?'"
She swept him along on the tide of her high spirits; her laughter ran silver cascades down to the ocean of melody; her sun‑flecked eyes held the heart‑warming glow, the stimulation of wine. She was a breeze blowing from the South.
"The romance!" she cried. "Behold an anomaly! Some one actually longing for a traveler's tale. Begin!" Her voice rang imperious, alluring.
Hayden almost caught at the table, a giddiness of the mind, perhaps of the senses, confused him. His face was a shade paler.
"It is too plain and rough a tale to be told except as a matter of business. You are kind; but I should not venture to bore you."
She accepted temporary defeat nonchalantly. "But you"—she did not change her position even by the movement of a finger, and yet, the whole expression of her figure became suddenly tense as a strung bow—"are you so sure that you could ever find your way thither again?"
He looked at her in surprise. "You give me very little credit for ordinary common sense, mademoiselle," he said shortly. "Of course, I made a map, and have any number of photographs." Immediately, he could have bitten his tongue.
"Ah, of course, naturally."
Her indifference, the absent‑minded answer reassured him. He did not notice that her whole figure had relaxed.
There was a faint tap on the door and the subdued secretary stood on the threshold. "It is half‑after four o'clock, mademoiselle, and your next client is waiting."
Hayden rose. "Time's up," he said. "But, señorita, when do you think the heirs will be ready to talk business?"
"I think I can promise you an interview within a very short time; and in the meanwhile I will communicate with you. Oh, by the way, in private and domestic life, my name is Carrothers, Ydo Carrothers. Y‑d‑o," spelling it, "pronounced Edo."
"Ydo," he exclaimed. "It is a name made in Spain; in color it is red and yellow, and it smells of jasmine."
"Yes." She laughed at his description. "The Romany strain again, you see."
"One moment," he insisted. "How did you know my traveler's tale? Was it Penfield?"
"Never mind. It is sufficient that I know it. Good‑by." She held out her hand. "You can'tsay I haven't told you a good fortune, can you?"
As Hayden passed through the narrow hall he saw sitting in the reception‑room the next client—the gray‑haired man with whom Marcia had dined that evening at the Gildersleeve. But a further surprise awaited him; for just as he reached the door leading from the apartment the rosy and smiling little maid was admitting Wilfred Ames. Hayden almost ran into him, and Ames, with a stare, muttered a surly recognition and passed on in.