“JUST NOTHING AT ALL”
The artist’s name was Marie Mabee. It was in her studio that Florence, on
the evening after her strange experience with the crystal ball, found
herself seated. It was a marvelous place, that studio. It was a large
room. Its polished floor was strewn with all manner of strange Indian
rugs. Marie Mabee was American to the tips of her toes. Save for one
picture, everything in that room was distinctly American. The spinet desk
with chair that matched, the drapes and tapestries, the andirons before
the broad open fireplace, the great comfortable upholstered chair, all
these were made in America.
The one cherished bit from the Old World that adorned the room was a
picture. It was a masterpiece of the nineteenth century. In that picture
the sun shone bright upon a flock of sheep hurrying for shelter from a
storm that lay black as night against the rugged hills behind. Trees were
bending before a gale, the shepherd’s cloak was flying, every touch told
of the approaching storm.
“It’s all so very real!” Florence thought to herself as she looked at the
picture now. “It is like Marie Mabee herself. She too is real. And the
things she creates are real. That is why she is such a great success.”
As if to verify her own conclusion, she looked at a canvas reposing on an
easel in the corner. The picture was almost done. It showed Petite Jeanne
garbed in a bright gypsy costume, flinging arms wide in a wild gypsy
dance. In the background, indistinct but quite real, were wild eager
faces, a fiddler, two singing gypsy children, and behind them the night.
Marie Mabee had determined that by her pictures there should be preserved
the memory of much that was passing in American life. The gypsies were
passing. One by one they were being swallowed up by great cities. Soon
the country would know them no more. She had taken Jeanne into her heart
and home because in Jeanne’s heart there lived like a flame the spirit of
the gypsies at their best, because Jeanne knew all the gypsies and could
bring them to the studio to be posed and painted. She had taken in
Florence as well; first, because she was Jeanne’s friend, and second,
because, with all others, the moment she came to know her she loved her.
“It is all very wonderful!” Florence whispered to herself as, after an
exciting day, she sank deeper into the great chair by the fire. “How
inspiring to live with one who has made a grand success of life, whose
pictures are hung in every gallery and coveted by every rich person in
the city! And yet,” she sighed contentedly, “how simple and kind she is!
Not the least bit high-hat or superior. Wonder if all truly great people
are like that? I wonder—”
She broke short off to listen. A stairway led up from the top of the
elevator shaft, one floor below. She did not recognize the tread of the
person coming up the stairs. She wondered and shuddered. Somehow she felt
that on leaving that room of midnight blue and a crystal ball, she had
been followed. Had she? If so, why? She was not long in guessing the
reason. Twice in the last few weeks she had whispered a few well-chosen
words in the ears of Patrick Moriarity, a bright young policeman who was
interested in people, just any kind of people. Patrick had rapped on
certain doors and had said his little say. When next Florence passed that
way, there was a “For Rent” sign on the door, right where Patrick had
rapped.
“Folded their tents like the Arabs
And silently stole away,”
she whispered to herself.
She wondered in a dreamy sort of way whether those people, while they
reluctantly packed a few tricks of their crooked trade, had recalled a
large, ruddy-faced girl who had visited them once or twice to have her
fortune told, and did they know she was that girl?
“Fortunes!” she exclaimed. “Fortunes!” Then she laughed a low laugh.
At once her face sobered. Was it, after all, a laughing matter, this
having your fortune told? For some surely it was not. She had seen them
seated on hard chairs, waiting. There were lines of sorrow and
disappointment on their faces. They had come to ask the crystal-gazer,
the palmist, the phrenologist, the reader of cards or stars, to tell
their fortune. They wanted terribly to know when the tide of fortune
would turn for them, when prosperity would come ebbing back again. And
she, Florence, all too often could read in their faces the answer which
came to her like the wash of the waves on a sandy shore:
“Never—never—never.”
“And what do these tellers of fortunes predict?” she asked herself. She
did not know. Only her own fortune she knew well enough. Had she not had
it told a half hundred times in the last months?
“My fortune!” she laughed anew. “What a strange fortune it would be if
all they told me came true! A castle, a farm, a city flat, a sea island,
a mountain home, a dark man for a husband, a light one for a husband, and
one with red hair! Whew! I’d have to be a movie actress to have all that.
“And yet—” Once again her smile vanished. Was there, after all, in some
of it something real? That crystal ball now—the one she had seen that
very afternoon. She had been told that visions truly do come to those who
gaze into the crystal ball. Had she not seen visions? And that
fair-haired girl, had she not seen visions as well?
Once again her mood changed. What was it this girl had wanted to know?
She had said, “My long lost father!” Was her father really lost? Who was
her father? She was dressed like a child of the rich. Was she rich? And
was she in danger?
“I must know!” Florence sprang to her feet. “I must go back there. I—”
Once again she broke short off. There came a sound from without. A key
rattled in the lock.
“Some—someone,” she breathed, starting back, “and he has a key!”
Her eyes were frantically searching for a place of hiding when the door
swung open and a tall lady in a sealskin coat appeared.
“Oh! Miss Mabee!” Florence exclaimed. “It is you!”
“Yes. And why not I?” Marie Mabee laughed. “What’s up? How startled you
looked!”
“Nothing—just nothing at all,” Florence said in a calmer tone as she
sprang forward to assist her hostess with her wraps.
“Did you see anyone on the stairs?” she asked quietly.
“No. Why? Have you stolen something?” Miss Mabee laughed. “Are you
expecting the police?”
“No, not that,” Florence laughed in answer. “I’ve only been having my
fortune told.”
“Is that so dangerous?” Miss Mabee arched her brows.
“Yes, sometimes I’m afraid it is,” Florence replied soberly. “I know of
one case where it cost a poor woman four hundred dollars.”
“How could it?” came in a tone of surprise.
“She had the money. They told her to leave it with them for luck. The
luck was all wrong. They vanished.”
“But that is an extreme case.”
“Yes,” Florence replied slowly, “it is extreme. And yet, in days like
these, people, who might in happier days be harmless, turn wolf and prey
upon the innocent. At least, that’s what Frances Ward says. And she
usually knows. She says it is the duty of those who are strong to battle
against the wolves.”
“And so you, my beautiful strong one, are battling the wolves? Good for
you!” Marie Mabee gave her sturdy arm an affectionate squeeze. “That’s
quite all right. Only,” she laughed, “please let me know when the wolves
start coming up the stairs.”
“I—I’ll try,” Florence replied in a changed tone.
“And now,” said Marie Mabee, “how about a nice cup of steaming chocolate
and some of those rare cakes that just came from that little bakery
around the corner?”
“Grand!” Florence exclaimed. “Here is one person who can always eat and
never regret.”
“Fine!” the artist exclaimed. “It’s wonderful to be strong and be able to
glory in it. On with the feast!”