A STARTLING REVELATION
And tomorrow did tell. Scarcely had Jeanne paid her two dollars to the
fortune teller, Myrtle Rand, than the fortune Florence had promised her
began unfolding itself.
“The cards say this—” Myrtle Rand shuffled and dealt, shuffled and dealt
again. “I see this and this and this in the crystal ball.” Nothing of
importance was changed. Jeanne had heard it all before. Florence had told
her.
“But how could she know that the fortune teller would say all this?” she
kept asking herself. “And almost all of it untrue.”
She was still asking herself this question when she joined Florence for
lunch two hours later.
“How could you know?” she demanded.
“Very simple,” Florence replied in high glee. “I told her all that over
the phone.”
“But why?” Jeanne stared.
“Can’t you see?” Florence replied, “I was testing her system which, after
all, is a very simple one. The first time you visited her she, on a very
simple pretext, got the name and address of someone who knows you. On
still another pretext she called me on the phone to ask about you,
thinking me your hair-dresser, and I told her things that were entirely
untrue.”
“And if they had been true,” Jeanne exclaimed, “if I had known nothing of
the phone call, how astonished I should have been to find that she could
get so much of my past from the cards and the crystal ball!”
“To be sure. And, quite naturally, you would have had great faith in her
prophecies for the future.”
“Florence!” Jeanne cried, “she is a fraud!”
“Yes,” Florence agreed. “But not a very great fraud.
“Tillie, Fronie and Dick will have ice cream and cake for dinner,” she
said softly.
“Who are they?” Jeanne asked in surprise.
“They are three foundlings that Myrtle Rand is befriending. So-o,”
Florence ended slowly, “I shall not write up Myrtle Rand, at least not
with her real name and address. I shall, however, make a good story of
our grand discovery.
“And that,” she added abruptly, “brings me to another subject. Sandy is
flying north tomorrow to witness the moose trapping.”
“Tomorrow!”
“That’s it. You may as well hurry home and pack your bag. As for me, that
may spell defeat. I’ll have to write my own stories, and if I fail—” She
did not finish, but the look on her face was a sober one. She had come to
love her strange task. She had planned some things that to her seemed
quite important. She must not fail.
That evening at ten they sat once more before the fire, Florence, Jeanne
and Miss Mabee. Because Jeanne was to go flying away through the clouds
next morning, they were in a mellow mood.
Marie Mabee rested easily in her deeply cushioned chair before the fire.
She was wrapped in a dressing gown of gorgeous hue, a bright red, trimmed
in deepest blue. Upon the sleeves was some strange Oriental design. On
her feet, stretched out carelessly before the fire, were low shoes of
shark skin, red like the gown. With her sleek black hair combed straight
back from the high forehead, with her deep dark eyes shining and her
unique profile half hidden by shadows, she seemed to Florence some
strange princess just arrived from India.
“What is it,” Marie Mabee spoke at last, “what is it we ask of life?”
“Peace. Happiness. Beauty,” Jeanne spoke up quickly.
“Success. Power,” Florence added.
“Peace—” Marie Mabee’s tone was mellow. “Ah, yes, how many there are who
seek real peace and never find it! I wonder if we have it, you and you
and I.” She spread her long slender hands out before the fire.
“And why not?” She laughed a laugh that was like the low call of birds at
sunset. “Is this not peace? We are here before the fire. No one wishes to
do us harm, or at least they cannot reach us. We have food, shelter and a
modest share of life’s beautiful things. Do we not have peace? Ah, yes.
But if not, then it is our own fault.
“‘The mind has its own place, and of itself can make a heaven of hell, or
a hell of heaven.’
“But beauty?” Her tone changed. She sat bolt upright. “Yes, we want
beauty.” Her eyes swept the room. There were elaborate draperies, a tiny
clock of solid gold, an ivory falcon, an exquisite bust of pure white
marble, all the works of art she had gathered about her, and above them
all, one great masterpiece, “Sheep on the Hillside.” “Yes,” she agreed,
“we have a craving for beauty. All have that perhaps. Some much more than
others. But beauty—” she sprang to her feet. “Beauty, yes! Yes, we must
have beauty first, last and always.”
As she began marching slowly back and forth before the fire, Florence was
shocked by the thought that she resembled a sleek black leopard.
“Nonsense!” she whispered to herself.
“Happiness? Yes.” Marie Mabee dropped back to her place of repose.
“Happiness may be had by all. The simplest people are happiest because
their wants are few. Or are they?”
Neither Jeanne nor Florence knew the answer. Who does?
“But success,” Florence insisted. “Yes, and power.”
“Success?” There was a musing quality in Marie Mabee’s voice. “I wonder
if success is what I am always striving for? Or do I make pictures
because I enjoy creating beauty?
“After all—” she flung her arms wide. “What does it matter?
“But power!” Her tone changed. “No! No! I have no desire for power. Leave
that to the rich man, to the rulers, anyone who desires it. I have no use
for power. Give me peace, beauty, happiness, and, if you insist, success,
and I will do without all the rest.”
After that, for a long time there was silence in the room. Florence
studied the faces of her companions, each beautiful in its own way, she
wondered if they were thinking or only dreaming.
For herself, she was soon lost in deep thought. To her mind had come a
picture of Frances Ward. Her littered desk, her tumbled hair, her bright
eager eyes, the slow procession of unfortunate and unhappy ones that
passed all day long before that desk of hers—all stood out in bold
relief.
“What does Frances Ward want?” she asked herself. “Peace ... beauty ...
happiness ... success?” She wondered.
Here were two people, Marie Mabee and Frances Ward. How strangely
different they were! And yet, what wonderful friends they had both been
to her!
“Life,” she whispered, “is strange. Perhaps there was a time when Frances
Ward too wanted peace, beauty, happiness, success for herself, just as
Miss Mabee does. But now she desires happiness for others—that and that
alone.
“Perhaps,” she concluded, “I too shall want only that when I am old.
“And yet—”
Ah, that disquieting “And yet—.” She was wondering in her own way what
the world would be like if everyone sought first the happiness of others.
Upon her thoughts there broke the suddenly spoken words of Marie Mabee,
“Let us have beauty. By all means! Beauty first, last and always!”
Two hours later Florence sat alone in the half darkness that enshrouded
the studio. The others had retired for the night. She was still engaged
in the business of putting her thoughts to bed.
It was a strange little world she found herself in at this time. Having
started out, with an amused smile, to discover novel and interesting
newspaper stories about people who pretended to understand other men’s
minds, who read their bumps, studied the stars under which they were
born, psychoanalyzed their minds, told their fortunes and all the rest,
she found herself delving deeper, ever deeper into the mysteries of their
strange cults. Ever striving to divide the true from the false, tracking
down, as best she could, those who were frauds and robbers, she had at
last got herself into a difficult if not dangerous situation.
“There’s that gypsy woman who stole from a poor widow,” she told herself.
“Jeanne’s going away. That cannot wait. I’ll have to find that gypsy. And
then—?”
Then there was June Travis and her lost father. Madame Zaran was on her
trail; the voodoo priestess too. June had made one more visit to the
priestess. She was afraid the girl had said too much. At any rate, she
was sure the priestess had demanded a large fee for finding the lost
father.
“_I_ shall find him,” the big girl said, springing to her feet. “I must!”
Her eyes fell upon a picture standing on a low easel in the corner. It
was the one done on thin paper. “That is for Tum Morrow’s party,” she
thought. “Well, Tum Morrow’s party will have to wait.
“Jeanne’s going away will leave us lonely,” she sighed. “But who can
blame her? Isle Royale was beautiful in summer. What must it be in
winter?”
For a time she stood there dreaming of rushing waters, leaf-brown trails
and sighing spruce trees. Then she turned to make her way slowly across
the room, up the narrow stairway and into her own small chamber.
One question remained to haunt her even in her dreams. Were all fortune
tellers like Myrtle Rand? Did they secure their facts in an underhanded
manner, then pass them on to you as great surprises? Who could answer
this? Surely not Florence.