“If it wasn’t all so tranquil and beautiful, I’d leave it,” she thought as her eyes took in the scene beneath her feet. Yes, it surely was beautiful. The red brick factory, built beside a rushing stream, quite old and all covered with vines, had a quiet charm all its own. Beside it, reflecting the golden glory of autumn trees, was the millpond. Beyond that the water flowing over the dam, sparkled like a thousand diamonds.
“Yes,” she murmured, “it is beautiful. I did not know that old New England could be so entrancing. And yet, it is not the city, the factory, the hills, the trees that hold you. It’s the people.”
This was true. There was the little family in the canary-cage house who had taken her in. The room she and Verna occupied was so small. There was hardly room to move about. Yet they were happy. Verna was obliging, kind and generous to a fault. More important than that, she was eager to know about everything. And she, Florence, knew so many, many things about which this child of a small city had scarcely dreamed. They talked at night, hours on end.
Strangely enough as she thought of this flower-like girl, a sudden mental image gave her a picture of Hugo, the idol of last night’s affair. She could see him now as plainly as she might if his picture had been thrown upon a screen before her. His dark eyes were flashing, his tangled hair tossing, his white teeth gleaming, as he exclaimed: “That’s fine! Now let’s have a little jazz!”
She shuddered. Somehow, she did not wish to think of Verna and Hugo at the same instant. And yet if asked why, she could not have found a sensible reply.
“Surely,” she said to the trees, the hills and the city before her, “he is handsome, gallant and popular. Who could ask for more?”
And the hills seemed to echo back, “Who? Who? Who?”
Ah yes, who? For all this, Florence was experiencing a feeling of unhappiness over the whole affair. “Why?” she asked herself. “Why?”
She did not have high social ambitions, of this she was certain. Happiness, she knew, could not be attained by sitting close to the head of the table at a banquet, nor of being intimate with great and rich people. Happiness came from within. And yet this had been her first little social venture. Always before she had worked in the gymnasium or on the playground. This time she had planned something different, planned it well. She had dreamed a new dream and the thing had not turned out as she had expected. The thing she had planned would, she had hoped, be beautiful. Had this affair ended beautifully? She was to be told in a few hours that it had been wonderful. Just now she was thinking, “There was plenty of noise.” Once Hugo had dumped out a whole bank of flowers to seize the tub that had held them, and beat it for a drum. Everyone had laughed and shouted. There had been no beautiful moonlight waltz at the end, only a wild burst of sound.
“Probably I’m soft and sentimental,” she told herself. “And yet—” she was thinking of Danby Force. “Our people,” he had said, “seemed a little dull, so I hired Hugo. Thought he might stir them up with his saxophone.”
He had stirred them up—some of them. Some remained just as they had been. Her little family in the canary-cage house were that sort. They lived simply, quietly, snugly in that tiny house. They did not ask for a bigger house. They had no car. They did not crave excitement. Their lives were like small, deep, still running streams.
Once those streams had been disturbed, horribly disturbed. That was when the mill shut down four years before. It was Tom Maver, father of the family, who had told her about it. Tom was a small, quiet sort of man.
“I’ve worked in the mill since I was sixteen,” he said. “Always tending a bank of spinning wheels. Never did anything else. We were happy. Had our home, our garden, our little orchard all snug and cozy.
“Then,” he had sighed, “mills down south where labor is cheap, child labor and all that, cut in on our trade. The mill shut down. I had to find work. I went to a farm. They set me cutting corn, by hand. The corn was taller than I was, and heavier. I lasted three days. My face and hands were cut, and my back nearly broken. I was sick when I came home.” A look of pain overspread his honest face. “I tried ditch-digging and, in winter, putting up ice. That was terrible. I fell in and was nearly drowned. After that I—I just gave up.
“Well,” he sighed, “we didn’t starve, but we didn’t miss it much.
“But now,” he added brightly, “the mill is running and we are happy.”
“Yes,” Florence thought to herself, “they say they are happy, and I believe they are. And that’s what counts most—happiness.” Yes, that was it. They did not need jazz and a saxophone, a grinning Hugo and his roaring tub to make them happy. They had something better, a simple, kindly peace.
“Jazz,” she murmured. “It seems to get into people’s very lives.” She was thinking now of a friend, a beautiful girl not yet twenty. Her life was a round of jazz dances. Her doctor had ordered her to an island in Lake Superior for her health. She had been taking drugs for hay fever. This was affecting her heart. On this island there was no hay fever. She had escaped hay fever, but there was no jazz and her cigarettes ran out. “In another week I should have died—simply died,” she had said to Florence. And Florence knew she had spoken the truth. “How terrible to become a slave to habits that are not necessary to our lives!” she whispered. “And yet, I must not judge others. I only can try to select the best from both the old and the new for myself.”
As she sat there looking down upon the city, thinking of its joys and its sorrows, its successes and its perils, she was like some brooding Greek goddess dreaming of the future.
Suddenly she stood up straight and tall. Flinging her arms wide, she remained thus, motionless as a statue. She was beautiful, was this girl of strong heart and a strong body, beautiful as heroic Greek statuary is beautiful. Standing there, she saw the sun come out from behind a cloud to bathe the hillside with its glory of light. Racing down the hill, this narrow patch of light appeared at last to linger lovingly over the little city.
“It is a sign,” the girl whispered. “In the end troubles shall be banished!” For the moment her face was transfigured by some strange light from within. Then she turned to walk slowly down the hill.
As she entered the grounds that surrounded the mill, she was startled to see a strange figure half hidden by a wild cranberry bush at a spot near the gate. At first she believed him to be hiding there and thought swiftly, “This may be the spy!” Next instant she realized that he was raking dead leaves from beneath the bush.
A strange, rather horrible sort of person he appeared to be. His hair was kinky and cut short, his dark face all but covered with a short curly beard. His bare arms were long and hairy. As he rested there, bent over, clawing at the leaves, he resembled an ape. He grinned horribly at the girl as she passed, but did not speak.
“One more newcomer to the community,” was her mental comment. “But of course, since he works about the yard he does not enter the mill. He could scarcely be the spy. And yet—” she wondered how strong the locks and bolts of doors and windows were and whether it were possible, after all, for the spy to come from without, at night.
On enquiry she was to discover that at night the plant was guarded by a watchman, one of the oldest employees of the place, and entirely trustworthy.
For the moment, however, she was bent on entering the mill. She liked its din, loved to see the speeding shuttles and feel the movement of life about her. Besides, she had not forgotten what Danby Force had said: “Things often happen in the mill after a jazz night.” She thought of the girl who had fallen into a vat of blue dye. “Has anything happened today, I wonder?” she whispered to herself.
CHAPTER XVII
A SURPRISE VISIT
To Florence with her interest in mechanical things and her love for the glorious throb of life, the cotton mill was a place of great enchantment. As she entered now she was greeted by the crack-crack-crack of a hundred shuttles and by the boom-bang of weavers’ beams.
“It sounds like a battle,” she told herself. “And so it is—a battle against depression, cold, hunger and despair.” She looked about her. Everywhere hands were busy, faces bright and hearts light.
“And to think,” she whispered, “all unknown to these honest, happy ones, there hangs above them a shadow like some great bombing airplane, a shadow that some day may drop a bomb as if from the sky upon all this glorious harmony of noise and still it forever. Unless—” she was thinking of the spy who, all undiscovered, lingered in their midst. He was a thief. No, he did not take their money, nor their other trifling treasures. He took their means of living—or would if he could.
“And who is he?” she asked herself. “Who?” She thought of the hunchback German who tended the motors, of the two dark-faced silent sisters who so resembled the spy that had escaped. “That one too may come back,” she told herself. Danby Force had said that he was sure they had not discovered all the secrets. “It’s a complicated process. Each secret is known by only one or two workers.” These had been his words. “No one of them knows all of it.” She thought of the black-eyed girl she had seen carrying away the bottle of dye stuff. “She may have wanted to analyse it,” she thought. “More likely that she merely used it to dye that dress she wore last night.” She laughed in spite of herself. Then she recalled the little ape-like man working out there among the shrubbery. He might know a great deal. Who could tell?
“No one knows now.” She clenched her hands tight. “But we shall know!”
That evening after working hours she was favored with a surprise visit. She had entered her tiny room in the canary-cage house. Weary and perplexed, wondering uneasily whether she had as yet been of any real service to this unusual community, and wondering too in a disturbed sort of way whether she should not tell Danby Force there was no use of her staying longer, she threw herself on her bed and had fallen half asleep when a touch like the brush of a feather awakened her.
At once she sprang to a sitting position.
“It is I, Verna.” There followed a low laugh. “You have a caller. And such a romantic one! You’d never guess.” Verna laughed a low, happy laugh.
“Danby Force is not romantic,” said the big girl, fumbling at her hair.
“And it’s not Mr. Force,” said Verna. Her cheeks, Florence saw, were flushed. “It is Hugo, Hugo!” There was a note of deep admiration in her tone as she repeated the name a second time softly: “Hugo.”
“Oh, Hugo?” Florence started. Hugo, the one who had stolen her act, was here to see her. She wondered why. And, what was more, this lovely school girl admired him greatly.
“Did you see him?” she asked.
“No. Oh! I wish I had!” Verna clasped her hands. “Mother opened the door. She seated him, then called me from the kitchen to tell you. Aren’t you thrilled? You are not hurrying at all.”
“No,” Florence said quietly, “it isn’t wise to hurry—at least not for a man.” She smiled at this, then gave the girl a pat on the cheek.
She found herself considerably disturbed as she stepped into the little parlor.
“Ah!” Hugo, the magnificent, sprang to his feet at sight of her. And he was, in his own way, magnificent,—bright blue suit, orange colored tie, a flower in his buttonhole, a smile showing all his white teeth. “Ah, Miss Huyler. I came to congratulate you, to tell you how wonderful the party was last night. You certainly are a marvelous hostess. We of the mill—”
He broke short off to stare at something on the wall. He stood there for a count of ten, then he murmured, “How exquisite! How charmingly beautiful!”
He was looking at a picture. It was indeed beautiful. Done by a very great artist who had chanced to visit the little city, it was carefully done,—a picture of a very beautiful face.
“Yes,” Florence said quietly, “that is a picture of Verna, the daughter of this house.”
“Do you mean to say she lives—that she is real!” The man’s astonishment was genuine.
“Yes,” Florence replied.
“I must meet her.” Hugo smiled a dazzling smile.
“She’s only a child in high school.”
“High school,” he murmured low. “Ah, that is the age of romance, of exquisite grace and beauty. I must meet her,” he repeated.
For just no real reason at all Florence wished to say, “I hope you never do,” and there came also a temptation to emphasize her thought with two or three words that do not often appear in print. What she did say was, “Won’t you have a seat? You wanted to see me about something?”
“Yes—yes—ah—” Hugo appeared to dance toward a chair. He sat down with the flourish of an expert rider mounting a horse. “Yes,—er—” He was on his feet again, circling about that picture. At last, like a bee that has circled a flower, his gaze came to a center close to the picture. “Ah yes,” he murmured. “A very great artist. A priceless thing!” Heaving a sigh, he tore himself away.
“Yes, Miss Huyler.” His change of poise and tone was fairly stunning. As he wheeled about he was once more the social conquistador, seeking, the girl knew not what advantage. “Yes, Miss Huyler, we admire you. In fact we enjoyed the party so much we wish you to organize another within a week, a truly wonderful party, a harvest ball. A thing to be done in costume, a masked ball.”
Florence might have reminded him that she had started her little social meeting as one sort of affair and that he had ended it in quite a different manner. She might have told him that if he wanted any sort of party at all, he was quite free to get it up as he chose. She did nothing of the kind. Instead, she said: “And does Mr. Force approve?”
“Oh, Force!” Hugo made a dismissing gesture. “He doesn’t mind. He wants this dead old town wakened up!”
“Does he?” Florence said quietly.
“Does he?” Hugo stared. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Florence started. “Yes, yes, I suppose that is why I’m here,” she replied hurriedly. It would never do for any of these people to guess why she was here. “Yes. And I am sure the party will be all right. I can count on your assistance and—and all the others?”
“Absolutely! Absolutely! That’s the spirit!” Hugo sprang forward to grasp her hand. For Florence that was a disturbing handclasp. Hugo’s hand was hot and trembling. After holding her hand ten seconds too long for her comfort, he suddenly dropped it to do three more turns about the room. Then, making a grab at his hat, and snatching a look at his watch, he exclaimed: “Must be going!” At that he bolted out of the room.
“What a remarkable person!” she thought a trifle wearily. “He’s a living impersonation of jazz.” He was a great deal more than that, but this she was to discover at a later date.
In the meantime she went to her room for a look at her mail. This was followed by a few moments of thinking. Those were very solemn thoughts indeed. “How,” she asked herself, “is this affair to end? Shall I discover the spy? If so, how and when? Will the spy be a man or a woman? Will there be a struggle, a trial perhaps?” She shuddered. “After all,” she thought, “perhaps I should have accomplished more by attempting to follow the dark lady’s trail.”
In time her thoughts began to wander. She thought of Hugo. “At least,” she told herself, “he has good taste in art. That is a lovely picture of Verna.”
Drawn by this thought, she left her room to wander into the small living room. Instantly her lips parted in a suppressed cry of surprise. The picture was gone!
“But then,” she thought, “why raise an alarm? I have been out of the room for some time. Perhaps a member of the family has carried it away.” She decided at last upon a course of watchful waiting. “I’ll find it in another room,” she told herself. But would she?
CHAPTER XVIII
THE RED DEVIL
Has the little airplane stewardess been quite forgotten? Such vivid personalities as hers are never long forgotten. These were busy days for her. A trip to Boston and return; a day of rest; a sudden call for a special trip to the Arizona desert—she was ever on the wing.
With all this she had not forgotten her promise to Danby Force. Pictures of the dark lady with a torn ear were made and quietly distributed among her fellow-workers. She was surprised at the results. Ladies resembling this suspected one began, it seemed to her, to travel by air in whole platoons. She heard from one in Dallas, another in Boston. One was seen boarding a plane in Seattle and another in Portland, Maine. One and all were investigated and found lacking in one particular or another. So, at the end of a week the missing lady was still missing.
One day the chief stewardess said to her, “I have a very interesting request for your services. You’ll want to go, I’m sure. A group of very learned people are to visit a little city down east called Happy Vale. Ever hear of it?”
“Happy Vale.” Rosemary said the words slowly. Then with a sudden start she exclaimed, “That’s the home of Danby Force. That’s where the industrial spies are supposed to be at work. I wonder—”
She broke off to stare out of the window.
“Of course,” she said in a changed tone. “Surely, I’ll be glad to go.”
“Danby Force,” she thought as she left the room. “He must have requested that I come with the party. I wonder if it has anything to do with the dark lady. Wonder if he’s found her, wants me to identify her, or—or something.
“Anyway,” she concluded, “he’s a fine young man. It will be a real adventure to visit his city.”
Then, as if Fate had whispered some word of warning in her ear, she made her way slowly toward a certain hangar.
Arrived at the hangar she sought out a certain airplane, then called:
“Jerry! Oh Jerry! Come here!”
“At your service!” said Jerry, a bright young mechanic, grinning broadly as he extended a greasy hand.
“Thanks, Jerry.” The girl gripped his hand.
“Jerry,” she said, “have you time to look over this motor a bit?”
“Sure, Miss Sample. But what—why that plane belongs to Willie VanGeldt, the rich young bum. Why—”
“Jerry,” Rosemary smiled, “curiosity once killed a cat. Will you look it over while I go in and make my report?”
“Sure, Miss Sample.”
Fifteen minutes later when Rosemary reappeared, Jerry made a wry face.
“Terrible, Miss Sample, just terrible! Carbon in the cylinders, oil in the spark plugs, everything wrong! Wonder it runs at all.
“It’s a shame!” he went on. “It really is! Here we are keeping everything perfect. Motors dragged out and overhauled every three hundred hours, everything just perfect. And these amateurs!”
“I know, Jerry,” Rosemary broke in. “But tell me, have you a couple of mechanics who’d like to earn some overtime by overhauling this motor?”
“That motor? Willie VanGeldt’s? You pay for it? Honest, Miss Sample, he’s not worth it! He ain’t worth much of anything. That’s my guess.”
“Everyone is worth something,” Rosemary replied soberly. “I don’t want to see him get himself killed. It will be bad for aviation in general. And besides, Jerry, I’ve a feeling about that airplane—one I can’t explain. So you just get that motor fixed up, and I’ll pay the men, pay them tomorrow.”
“All right, Miss Sample. But—”
Rosemary had vanished.
So Rosemary Sample, still dreaming of her approaching visit to Happy Vale, crossed the airport grounds, and entered the low depot to order a sandwich and cup of coffee, and to sit staring absently at the wall until the coffee was cold.
At the same time, in a far away city coming events were casting their shadows before them, and in that very city the little French girl Petite Jeanne was preparing for a visit to a great concert hall. This visit was to have the most astounding results. So, like some famous stage manager, Fate was getting ready to assemble the cast for the final scenes in our little drama.
Even while Rosemary Sample sat staring at the ceiling, Florence was saying to Danby Force: “I think the Harvest Dance would be a fine thing. Not that we harvest anything but bright prints,” she laughed. “But these golden days surely call for glorious good times. Only—” she hesitated.
“Only what?” He urged her on.
“I wish we could lay out a plan and stick to it, in—in spite—”
“In spite of our good man Hugo,” he laughed. “Well, this time we’ll do just that. We’ll arrange an attractive printed program. On the card every other offering will be an old-fashioned dance. The last shall be a waltz in your artificial moonlight. And I—” he laughed low. “I speak for that last dance right now.”
“Oh!” Florence flushed in spite of herself. “And I—I accept.
“Do you know,” she said a moment later, “I’ve thought of something that might be done. The floor, you know, is very large. Why not send out in the country and get a dozen corn shocks and set them up about the room?”
“A dance among the corn shocks!” Danby Force exclaimed. “A great idea! We’ll do it. We’ll have the place lighted with imitation jack-o-lanterns. That will be a grand ball indeed.”
And it was, even for Florence, up to a certain point. Then something happened, as things have a way of doing, that for a time at least spoiled her fun.
The mixed program of modern and old-fashioned dances served to hold the hilarity to a moderate level. More than once a man in a red devil costume, whom Florence recognized as Hugo, attempted to bribe the musicians into changing the program, but it was no go. They had their orders. They would follow them.
It was this same red devil who caused all of Florence’s trouble, which in the end turned into quite a joy. She was standing on the side line between dances when the red devil peeked round a corn shock, then as he approached her whispered, “I am told that this beautiful child who lives at your house is here. Do me the favor to tell me how she is dressed.”
“I—I really don’t know.” Florence was both surprised and frightened. She had not known that Verna was to be there. Indeed she was under the impression that her parents had forbidden her coming.
“Oh yes you know!” the red devil hissed in her ear. “You know well enough, but you won’t tell. It’s all right. I’ll find out. I take what I want!” There was a serpent-like hiss in his voice. Then he was gone.
Florence stared at the corn shock behind which he had vanished. Her mind was in a whirl. Was Verna truly here? If she was, she must find and warn her. The words of Rosa, tragic words, came to her: “He is a bad, bad man!” His own words still rang in her ears: “I take what I want.”
“Does he?” she asked herself fiercely. “Perhaps he does.” Strangely enough, she saw in her mind’s eye at that moment the picture of Verna.
Florence had developed an unusual gift. She had discovered long ago that she could recognize friends, even at some distance, by their habitual movements. If they were walking, rowing or playing a game, it was all the same. She had developed this gift until now she could recognize people instantly under any circumstances. “I must find Verna,” she whispered, gripping at her heart to still its wild panic.
A dance began. Her partner came to claim her. It chanced to be a waltz. As she floated about among the corn shocks, she was looking, looking, looking.
And then she saw her. “A fairy!” she whispered to herself. “Verna is dressed as a fairy, all in white, with wings. How exquisite!”
She wanted to break away and warn her at once. This might make a scene. She would wait until the dance was over. She lost sight of her entirely.
Never before had a waltz seemed so long. She glided in and out among the corn shocks, in and out, in and out, until it seemed to her that dawn must come and a new day begin.
When at last the music stopped she fairly tore herself from her partner and was away on her quest. But where was that white fairy? Ten minutes of frantic search convinced her that she was too late. Verna was not there. Neither was the red devil.
Sick at heart, she crept away to the dressing room. There she sank into a chair to surrender herself to despair. But not for long. Before her was a wooden bench. On this bench lay a large suit of rough coveralls, a pair of cotton gloves and an ugly mask. This was a corn husker’s outfit abandoned by one of the masqueraders. Ten minutes later Florence had vanished; so too had the coveralls, mask and gloves.
Fifteen minutes later the red devil and the exquisite fairy might have been seen walking along a narrow bridle path, lined on either side by tall bushes. The red devil, if observed by some old, wise person, would have been said to be in the act of practicing his art. He was doing, at that moment, nothing that might be called reprehensible. He was in the act of beguiling the exquisite fairy. That was all.
Surely no more perfect setting could have been found for a love tryst. The moon, full and golden, hung over great masses of dark foliage. The air was filled with faint noises, the chirp of a cricket, the rasping of a katydid, the call of some bird in his sleep, the distant bay of a hound. The air touched the fairy’s cheek like a faint caress.
“You are beautiful,” the red devil murmured low.
“Oh!” the fairy breathed.
“More lovely than a flower, more delicate than a rose, more graceful than—”
The red devil broke off suddenly to listen. “Thought I heard a sound.” His voice took on a sudden gruffness.
A moment later he was his own sweet devil of a self again, murmuring: “If I had all the flowers of this beautiful world I would not look at them, but at you. If I might touch the stars I would touch your hand instead. Your lips—”
They had by this time all but reached the end of the lane. One moment more, and they would have been in the open woods, when something quite terrible occurred.
A figure that loomed large in the half darkness leaped at the red devil. Startled, the red devil swung out with both fists. He missed. Something very like a sledge-hammer struck him on the side of the jaw. With one wild scream, the exquisite fairy was away. But not the red devil.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FIRE-BIRD
Strange as it may seem, it was at this very hour that Petite Jeanne received one of the most unusual thrills of her not uneventful life. She and Madame Bihari were back in Chicago. The Ballet Russe, too, was in that city. And to Jeanne who, as you may know, was one of the finest of gypsy dancers, anything like the Ballet Russe was a call which, if need be, would draw from her purse the last silver coin.
“The Ballet Russe!” she exclaimed to Madame. “We must go. And ah yes, tonight we must go! This is the last performance.”
“Impossible, my pretty one,” Madame said with slow regret. “I have promised to say farewell to our good friends of Bohemia. They are leaving tomorrow for their native land.
“But you, my child, you must go. Put on your bright gown of a thousand beads and your purple cape with the white fox collar, and go. Surely no one, not even the Fire-Bird, shall outshine my Petite Jeanne.”
So Jeanne went alone. She secured a seat at the side of the gallery where she might look almost directly down upon the dancers. And was that an hour of pure joy for Jeanne! Not for months had she witnessed anything half so charming. The lights were so bright, the costumes so beautiful, the dancers so light-footed and droll, and the music so entrancing that she at times believed herself transported to another world.
The first piece was a bit of exquisite nonsense. But when the time came for that entrancing story, “The Fire-Bird,” to be told in pantomime, music and dancing, Jeanne sat entranced. Once before, as a small child, she had seen this in Paris. Now it came to her as a thing of renewed and eternal beauty.
As the lights of the great Auditorium went dark and the orchestra took up an entrancing strain, Jeanne saw at the back of the stage a tree that seemed all aglow with light. And before this tree, dancing like some enchanted fairy, was a creature that, in that uncertain light, seemed half maiden, half bird.
“The Fire-Bird!” Jeanne’s lips formed the words they did not speak.
Soon the beautiful, glimmering Fire-Bird began to seem ill at ease. The shadow of a young man appeared in the background.
“Prince Ivan,” Jeanne whispered.
The Prince pursued the Fire-Bird. Round and round they danced. How light was the step of the Fire-Bird! She seemed scarcely a feather’s weight. How Jeanne envied her!
And yet there were those who would have said, “Petite Jeanne is a more splendid dancer.”
The Prince seized the Fire-Bird in his arms. She struggled in vain to escape. She entreated him. She attempted to charm and beguile him. He released her only, in beautiful and fantastic dance rhythm, to capture her again. At last, on being given one of her shining feathers as a charm against all evil, he granted her the freedom she asked.
The Fire-Bird vanishes. Day begins to dawn upon the stage. The music is low and enchanting. Then a bevy of dancing girls emerge from a castle gate. These are Princesses, bewitched and enslaved by a wizard.
As the thirteen Princesses danced upon the stage, Jeanne received a momentary shock. One of these, the third from their leader, had about her an air of familiarity. Jeanne was a dancer. She had learned to recognize other dancers by their movements. But this one—
“Where have I seen her?” she whispered.
Closing her eyes, she attempted to call forth upon the dimly lighted picture gallery of memory some scene of other days, some open air arena, some stage where this one had danced.
“No, no!” She tapped her small foot. “It will not come. And yet I have seen her!”
Then again she gave herself over to the story unfolding so beautifully before her.
In the story played out for Jeanne, Prince Ivan falls in love with the most beautiful of the enchanted Princesses. There follows a marvelous dance done by the maidens. Jeanne as she watched had eyes for but one dancer, the mysterious person she felt she should know, but could not recall.
Dawn comes. The enchanted ones disappear through the gate of the castle. Prince Ivan, in the abandon of love, follows. There comes the unearthly din of gongs and bells. A host of weird creatures come out to attack him. They are powerless because of the magic feather, gift of the Fire-Bird. Ivan is not afraid.
Then comes the terrible wizard who, if he could, would destroy Ivan with his very breath.
For the time Jeanne forgot the mysterious dancer who had once more appeared upon the scene. Carried away by the story, Jeanne had eyes only for the brave little Prince and the terrible creature who seeks his destruction. As the wizard approaches step by step, his hand trembling with rage, his small hard foot stamping the floor, Jeanne actually trembled with fear. Then, as Prince Ivan waved the magic feather and called upon the Fire-Bird to aid him, when the splendid dancing Fire-Bird appeared upon the scene, Jeanne wanted to scream for joy.
Such enchantment passes rapidly. When at last Ivan had triumphed and the wizard been destroyed, Jeanne thought again of the mysterious dancer who had, she was sure, played some part in her past life.
“If you please—” she spoke to her nearest neighbor whose opera glass dangled idly from a ribbon. “Just for one moment, may I borrow it?”
“Certainly.” The lady smiled.
Strangely enough, as she put the glass to her eyes, the little French girl found herself all atremble. “Coming events cast their shadows before them.” Scarcely had the glass been focussed upon the mysterious dancer than her hand dropped limply to her lap.
“It cannot be!” she murmured aloud. “But yes! It is she! It can be no other. There is the dark face. Even beneath her make-up one feels it. There is the torn ear. I can’t be wrong. It is the dark lady! It is the spy!”
Twenty seconds later the opera glasses were in their owner’s hands. Jeanne had vanished.
CHAPTER XX
SOMEONE VANISHES
Poor red devil! He surely was in for it!
What a pity that anyone so jolly, so full of the froth and bubble of life, should find any hard spots on his joyous glide through life! Pity or no pity, he was in for it!
He was soft from too much eating, too much drinking and too many good times. There was jazz in his blood, plenty of it. But one cannot defend one’s self with the jittering rhythm of jazz. Hugo, the red devil, went down and came up again. He went down and was soundly beaten by this mysterious intruder. He roared for help, but there was no help near. He had chosen a lonely spot for his promenade. In the end he began whimpering like a baby. Then the intruder left him. And as he left, Hugo fancied he heard him mutter, “You take what you want.” He was, however, too dazed and befuddled to tell truly whether he had heard aright or no.
When Danby Force came to claim Florence for the last dance of the evening, he was surprised to find an unaccustomed wealth of color in her cheeks. He fancied too that she seemed agitated and quite unusually excited. Her breath seemed to come with a little catch.
He said nothing about it and soon they were floating across the floor to the music of the old but ever beautiful waltz, “Over the Waves.”
“Ah,” Florence whispered as, like light row boats on moonlit waters they glided on and on, “how beautiful! Nothing could be more wonderful. I wish it might go on forever.”
Danby Force did not answer. A slight tightening of the hand was his only reply.
“But look!” he exclaimed suddenly. “Your knuckles are bleeding!”
“It’s nothing,” she laughed. “I can’t make the silly things stop.” Deftly she twisted her handkerchief about the offending knuckles. Then the dance went on.
“I fell upon something rather rough and bad,” she said after a time in quite an absent-minded manner.
“Have you found our spy?” Danby Force asked, after thanking her for his good time when the dance was over.
“Not yet.” Suddenly Florence felt very weary.
“I’m working on it. There’s a hunchback German and two dark-faced ladies and a little fellow like an ape who rakes leaves. It must be one of these.”
“But may not be,” he said quietly. “You will do well to keep right on looking.”
“Now what did he mean by that?” she asked herself after he was gone. “Does he suspect someone else, someone who has not even caught my attention? Perhaps I’m not much good as a lady cop after all.”
With that she entered the little cottage that for the time was her home.
The instant she entered her room she shot an anxious look toward Verna’s bed. Then she heaved a sigh of relief. Verna was sleeping peacefully. A single tear that glistened on her cheek detracted not one whit from her beauty.
The big girl smiled as her eyes fell upon the crumpled fairy’s wings that lay upon a chair. “Wings all crumpled but the fairy’s safe, tha—thank God!” She choked a little over these last words.
For a long time after her light was out, she lay in her bed looking at the moon shining through her window. Had one been present who could see in the dark, he might have found her lips smiling. Florence was large, too large and strong for a girl. Many a time she had shed bitter tears over this. Many a time too she had looked upon her slim and willowy sisters and felt her heart burn with envy. But tonight as she stirred beneath the covers, as she sensed the glorious strength of her arms, her limbs, her whole superb body, she was filled with such a warmth of gladness as one does not soon forget.
“Thank you, God!” she whispered. “Thanks for making me big and strong!” At that she fell asleep.
And tomorrow was another day.
Back in Chicago the night was not over for the little French girl. To her unutterable surprise, she had discovered among the dancing girls of the Ballet Russe the dark lady who she believed was the industrial spy. At once Jeanne had stepped from her place and vanished.
How she managed to make her way unchallenged to the wings of the stage, she will never quite know. Enough that she at last was there, nor, unless carried away by the heels, would she budge from the place until she had gotten one good look at that mysterious lady.
“And after that,” she told herself, “I shall call the police.”
By the time she had made her way to the wings of the stage, the last production of the evening, “The Beautiful Blue Danube,” had begun. Nothing ever done by the Ballet Russe is more charming than the Blue Danube. The music and dancing were so lovely that for a space of time Jeanne quite forgot her mission. But not for long. Soon her eyes were upon the dancing girls. As, swinging and swaying, rising on tip-toe, seeming to float in air, they approached her, she caught her breath, then whispered: “It is this one. No, that one—or that one.”
In the end, to her great disappointment, she discovered that it was not one of them all. They all had perfect ears.
What had happened? Had she been mistaken? Impossible. Had she been tricked? This was possible.
“But no,” she thought to herself. “That dark lady will come on later. In this picture she has a separate part.”
So, standing on tip-toe, longing every second to throw away her purple cape and join the dancers, she watched and waited—waited in vain for, when the curtain fell, no dark lady with a torn ear had appeared upon the stage.
Then of a sudden someone said, “Well! How did you get here?”
“I am a dancer,” Jeanne replied quick-wittedly. “Perhaps after a while I shall be given a chance to try my skill.”
“Perhaps, and again perhaps not.” The tall, dark man looked at her doubtfully. But Jeanne, in her gown of many silver beads and her purple cape, was very charming. Few could resist her. So she stayed.
“But tell me!” she exclaimed. “There was one of the dancing girls I have known. She was third in the Fire-Bird. Where is she?”
“Ah yes.” The tall, dark man shrugged. “Where is she? She is gone.”