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's engagement 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 belief that 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 portiere 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 only
light 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 to pursue 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, and
long, 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,
senor. 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, senor, 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, senor; 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 pretty and 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 'senorita?'"
"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 great coils 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, senor."
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 she
asked 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 face and 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 second nature.
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, senorita, 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 us toll 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 will tell 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, senor; 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 to operate
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. Even if 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, senorita. 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, senorita, 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't say 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.