“Mind if I take your ship up for a little spin?” Mark said bluntly.

“But no.” The girl spoke slowly. “That is, if I may go, and if she will go with us.” She nodded her head toward Rosemary.

Rosemary had little desire to fly in a small plane. She had always traveled in the magnificent big bi-motored transportation planes which, she believed, were safe as walking. She had it on the tip of her tongue to refuse, when the girl cast her an appealing look that she could not well disregard.

“Yes,” she said, “yes, surely I will go.”

Three minutes later they were in the air. Ten minutes later, with a sigh of relief Rosemary found her feet once more on the solid earth.

“You’d be surprised!” Mark whispered enthusiastically. “Never saw a better equipped plane, nor one in finer condition. That motor is a joy! The radio is perfect. Everything, just everything. If all the amateurs were as careful this world of the air would be one great big joy.”

“Wonderful little plane!” he exclaimed, gripping the little French girl’s hand. “And how wonderfully cared for!”

“But why not?” The girl showed all her white teeth in a smile. “We gypsy people have a saying, ‘Life is God’s most beautiful gift to man.’ This is true, I am sure. Then why should anyone do less than the very best that he might keep that gift?”

“Why indeed? And thanks for the good word.”

“Do you travel much?” It was a new voice that asked this question. The rather mysterious Danby Force had come up unobserved.

“Oh yes! We are gypsies. All gypsies travel much,” was the girl’s reply.

“Where will you go next?”

“Over the mountains to Cheyenne.”

“Ah, then you will be going part way back the way we came,” Danby Force said. There was an eager note in his voice. “I wonder if it would be possible for you to take a passenger and to pause for a brief time at a safe landing field?”

Rosemary started. So Danby Force meant to return. He was going back to the lodge. Had he, after all, taken the dark-faced lady’s bag? Had he hidden it there? Would he return and carry it away? If so, why? Why? Such were the questions that crowded her mind. And she did not like them. She did like Danby Force. She wanted to believe that he was incapable of doing a thing dishonest or dishonorable. She had not forgotten his delightful words about God’s invisible power in our lives.

But the little French girl was speaking. “If it will help someone,” she was saying. “We will take you over the mountains and stop at this safe place you speak of.”

“It will help—help a great deal, I assure you!” Danby Force exclaimed. “It may help three thousand people.”

“There it is again,” Rosemary thought. “Always speaking of thousands.”

“We might as well get over to the airport,” Mark, the pilot, suggested to Rosemary. “The dark lady has had ample time to lodge her complaint.”

They went, but much to their surprise found that no complaint had been filed. What was more, the dark lady had vanished. No one about the place could tell them how she had gone, nor where.

“It’s the strangest business I ever had anything to do with!” Mark grumbled. “Loses her bag, valuable papers and all, and still no complaint. But believe me!” he exclaimed, “we’ve not heard the last of this!” Nor had they.

CHAPTER III
THE “FLYING CORNTASSEL”

The evening after her arrival in Salt Lake City, Rosemary Sample, the young airplane stewardess, overheard a conversation that interested her greatly and at the same time strengthened her faith in the rather mysterious young man, Danby Force.

She might have thought of herself as an eavesdropper had not the incident occurred in that most public of all public places, the lobby of a large hotel, the Hotel Temple Square. Not that she was staying at so expensive a place. Far from that, she occupied a room in a clean, modest-priced rooming house. But Rosemary had a weakness for large downy chairs, soft lights, expensive draperies and all that and, since at this time of year this hotel was not crowded, she could see no reason why she might not indulge these tastes for an hour or two at least.

She was buried deep in a heavily upholstered chair, thinking dreamily of her home in Kansas, of her mother, father, and the young people of the old crowd back home. She was smiling at the name they had given her, “The Flying Corntassel of Kansas,” when, chancing to look up, she beheld a vision of beauty all wrapped in deep purple and white. To her astonishment she realized that this was none other than the flying gypsy’s adopted daughter who called herself Petite Jeanne. She wore a long cape of purple cloth trimmed with white fox fur.

At the same moment someone else caught the vision, Danby Force. And Danby Force had something to say about it.

“What a gorgeous cape, and what marvelous color!” he exclaimed. There was in his tone not a trace of flattery. He spoke with the sincerity of one who really knows beauty of texture when he sees it.

“Yes,” the little French girl agreed, “it is very beautiful. It was sent to me only last month by my gypsy friends in France. Since I have had a little money I have helped them at times. Their life is hard. These days are very hard.

“The cloth,” she went on after a time, “was woven by hand from pure sheep’s wool taken from the high French Alps.”

“And the color?” Danby Force asked eagerly.

“Ah-h—” the little French girl smiled. “That is a deep secret that only the gypsies know. There are those who say the kettle of color only boils at midnight and that then the color is mixed with blood. That is nonsense. These are good gypsies, Christian gypsies, just as the great preacher, Gypsy Smith was. But they have their secrets and they keep them well.

“Perhaps,” she added after a moment’s thought, “this is the royal purple one reads of in the Bible. Who can tell?”

“That,” said Danby Force, “is a valuable secret.” He motioned the little French girl to a seat and took one close beside her.

“I know a man,” he said after a moment of silence, “who made some valuable discoveries regarding colors. He could dye cloth in such a manner that it would not fade, yet the process was not costly.

“This man had spent his boyhood in a town where textile mills had flourished. After his remarkable secret discoveries he returned to that town to find the people idle, the mills falling into decay. The weaving industry had moved south where there was cotton and cheap labor—pitifully cheap!”

Danby Force paused to stare at the pattern of the thick carpet on the floor. He appeared to be making a mental comparison between that carpet and the cheap rag rugs on the floors in that forgotten town.

Rosemary stole a look at the little French girl’s face. It was all compassion.

“And this little forgotten town?” suggested Petite Jeanne at last.

“It is forgotten no longer.” Danby Force smiled a rare smile. “The man who possessed those rare secrets of color gave them to his home town. Since they were able to produce cloth that was cheap, and better than any other of its kind, the mills began to flourish again and the people to work and smile.

“But now,” he added as a shadow passed over his interesting face, “their prosperity is threatened once more.”

Then, as if he had been about to divulge a forbidden secret, he sprang to his feet. “I must be going. We leave at eight. That right?”

“It is quite right,” agreed Petite Jeanne.

Rosemary Sample went to her rest that night with a strange sense of futile longing gnawing at her heart. What was its cause? She could not tell. Had she become truly interested in that strange young man, Danby Force, who talked so beautifully of God’s unseen power, who spoke of doing good to thousands, and yet who might have—. She would not say it even to herself, yet she could not avoid thinking. Could she become seriously interested in such a young man? She could not be sure.

“That charming little French girl is carrying him away in the morning,” she assured herself. “I may never see him again.

“He is going back to the hunting lodge. I wonder—”

She tried to picture in her mind the bit of life’s drama that would be enacted by Danby Force and the little French girl after they had landed and gone down the narrow trail to the lodge. In the midst of this rather vain imagining she fell asleep.

She awoke next morning prepared for one more journey through the air, one more group of passengers. “Wonder if there will be any interesting ones?” she whispered. “Wonder if that dark-faced woman will return with me?” She shuddered. “She’s like a raven, Poe’s raven. Wonder if she’s filed a complaint about her missing bag. And if she has, what will come of it?”

After oatmeal, coffee and rolls eaten at a counter with the capable and ever friendly Mark Morris at her side, she felt well fortified for the day’s adventures, come what might.

We advertise our occupation in life by the posture we assume. The barber has his way of standing that marks him as a barber. The clerk of a department store puts on a mask in the morning and takes it off at night. The posture of an airplane stewardess is one suggesting the jaunty joy of life pictured by a blue bird on the tiptop of a tree, seventy feet in air.

“Safe?” her posture says plainer than words. “Of course it’s safe to fly. Look at me, I’ve flown four hundred thousand miles.”

Rosemary Sample was an airplane stewardess to the very tips of her fingers. Her task was a dual one, to inspire confidence and to entertain. She did both extremely well. Yet she too must be entertained. She must receive a thrill now and again. Riding in a plane brought no thrill to her. Only her passengers could bring her the change she craved.

“There’s always one,” she had a way of saying to her friends, “one passenger who is worth five hours of study.”

She was not long in finding the “one” on this journey back to Chicago. Strangely enough, he took the seat vacated by the dark-complexioned lady. Yet, how different he was! He was young, not much over twenty, Rosemary thought.

“Hello, little girl!” were his first words. “What’s your name?”

“Rosemary Sample.” She smiled because she was saying to herself, “He’ll do the talking. That’s fine. I’m too tired to talk.”

“So you’re a sample.” He laughed. “I’d like a dollar bottle of the same.”

“A sample’s all there is and all there can be,” she replied quickly.

“What! You mean to say you couldn’t grow?”

“Exactly. Five feet four inches tall, weight a hundred and twenty pounds. Those are the regulations for a stewardess. You can be smaller, but no larger. You see,” she laughed, “they couldn’t make the airplane cabins to fit the stewardesses, tall, short, thin or thick, so the stewardess must be picked to fit the cabin.”

“Oh!” The young man’s grin was frank, honest and friendly. “Well, this is my first trip in these big birds. I’ve got a little ship all my own, only just now she’s busted up quite a bit.”

“Cracked up? Too bad!” Rosemary was truly sorry. She was going to like this passenger. Besides, to one who sails the air a crack-up is just as true an occasion for sorrow as a shipwreck is to a mariner on the high seas. “What happened?” she asked quietly. “Bad storm?”

“No.” He laughed lightly. “Couple of struts got loose. I nearly lost control two thousand feet up. Cracked up in a corn field. Shucked a lot of corn.” He laughed rather loudly.

Rosemary’s face was sober. She had seen his kind before. They went in for flying because it promised thrills. They neglected their planes. If they crashed and were not killed, they turned it into a joke. The whole thing made her feel sick inside. She loved flying. She thought of it as one of God’s latest and most marvelous gifts to man. She knew too that nothing very short of perfection in care, equipment and piloting could put it in the place in every man’s life where it belonged.

“So you laugh at a crash that results from carelessness?” Her lips were white. “That’s the sort of thing that makes life hard for all of us who are trying to make flying seem a safe and wonderful thing. Nothing but selfishness could make one laugh at a tragedy or a near tragedy that is his own fault. It—”

But she stopped herself. After all, she was a stewardess, being paid to be pleasant.

Springing to her feet, she moved up the aisle to see that the airplane load of traveling salesmen forward had the papers, pencils, magazines and pillows they needed.

“So you’re a sample,” said the youth as she returned to her seat. “Don’t know as I want a full bottle after all.”

“In the end you’ll take it.” She was smiling now. “Or someone will be setting up a marble marker where little Willie lies. And that,” she added slowly, “would be too bad.”

She spoke, not of herself, but her attitude toward aviation. He knew this. She could read it in his eyes.

“Tha—thanks for these few kind words,” he replied rather lamely.

Five minutes later this young man, who went by the name of William VanGeldt and whose family evidently were possessed of considerable wealth, was speaking in glowing tones of his mother. He had, the young stewardess discovered, beneath his thin coating of indifference to the serious things of life, a warm heart full of appreciation for the ones who had given of their best that his life might be well worth living.

“He’ll take the full bottle,” she whispered to herself. “And he’ll get to like it.” She was to learn the truth of these words in days that were to come.

CHAPTER IV
WITH THE AID OF PROVIDENCE

To the little French girl, Petite Jeanne, each day dawned as a bright new adventure. Mysteries might come and go, as indeed they often had, but adventure! Ah yes, adventure was always with her.

Nor had her new treasure, the airplane with its gauze-like wings, lessened her opportunity for adventure. Indeed it had increased it tenfold. To Rosemary Sample one might say, “Well, you’re off to another airplane journey,” and she undoubtedly would answer with a sigh, “Yes, one more trip.” Not so Petite Jeanne. She was not reckless, this slender child of the air. Her motor was inspected often, each guy and strut tested, her radio tuned to the last degree of perfection. For all that, each day as she took to the air it was with such a leaping of the heart as comes only with fresh adventure.

And so it was that, as she climbed into the cockpit, with Madame Bihari, Danby Force, and the tiny gypsy girl at her back, she touched the controls of her perfect little plane for all the world as if never before had her fingers known that touch. And as, after skimming along the air above the foothills, she began climbing toward one lone snowy peak among the Rockies, her heart was filled to overflowing with a fresh zest for living.

“Just to live,” she whispered, “to live, to love, to dream, to hope and sometimes see our hopes fulfilled! To see the dew on the grass in the early morning, to hear the robins chirping in the early evening, to watch children play, to feel the wind playing in your hair, to feel the warm sunshine kiss your cheeks, to watch the red and gold of evening sky. Ah yes, and to watch that snowy peak just before me, watch it grow and grow and grow—that is life—beautiful, wonderful, glorious life!”

The airplane, which might have seemed to one far away a giant silver insect, went gliding about the white capped mountain to drop at last with scarcely a bump upon that landing field that had at other times been a pasture above the clouds.

How convenient it would be if at times one’s spirit might, for a space of a half hour or more, leave the body that, closing about it, holds it in one place, and go with the speed of light to distant scenes. The spirit of Rosemary Sample, speeding away toward Chicago, might for a quarter hour or more have been spared from the great trans-continental airplane. No one surely would have begrudged so faithful a worker such a short period of recreation. And surely Rosemary would have been thrilled by the opportunity of following our little company on the mountain crest as they left Jeanne’s plane and followed the trail winding down to the hunting lodge.

Had the spirit of Rosemary truly been with them, she must surely have been asking herself, “Why is Danby Force here? What does he expect to find at the lodge? Did he take the dark lady’s traveling bag? Is it hidden there? Will he find it? And if he does, what will he take from it? ‘Valuable papers’ were the dark lady’s words. Were there such papers? There is some relation between this fine-appearing young man and that lady. What can it be?” So the spirit of Rosemary Sample might have spoken to itself had it followed down the mountainside. But the spirit of Rosemary Sample was not there. Rosemary Sample, body, soul and spirit, was in the trans-continental plane speeding on toward Chicago. And beside her, now talking loudly and boastfully of his dangerous exploits as an amateur aviator, and now speaking in kindly and gentle tones of his mother, was young Willie VanGeldt.

“I should not care for him at all,” Rosemary told herself. Yet there was something about him, his light and good-natured views of life, his smile perhaps, something about him that claimed her interest.

“As if the stars had willed that for a time our lives should run together, like trains on parallel tracks,” she whispered to herself. Little did she guess the part that this youth with his wealth and his reckless ways would play in her life, nor that which she would play in his.

In the meantime Jeanne, Danby Force and their gypsy companions were wending their way down the trail that led to the hunting lodge.

“I shan’t detain you long,” Danby Force was saying to Jeanne. “It’s just a little thing I want to look into up here.”

Jeanne, whose curiosity had not as yet been aroused, scarcely heard him. She was awed and charmed by the grandeur and beauty of the mountains. To look up two thousand feet to the snow-clad rocks that were the mountain peaks, then to look down quite as far to the tree-grown canyons far below—ah that was grand!

When at last they came in sight of the rustic lodge, flanked as it was by massive rocks and half covered by overhanging boughs of evergreens, she stopped in her tracks to stand there lost in admiration.

“Ah!” she murmured, “What a grand solitude is here! Who would not wish to return many, many times!”

She was soon enough to learn that it was not solitude the interesting young man, Danby Force, sought. For, contrary to Rosemary Sample’s suspicion, he had not hidden the dark lady’s traveling bag. He had returned to seek it. How did he hope to succeed when, on that other occasion, all others had failed? Well may one ask. Yet Danby Force did not lack for hope. He believed in a kind Providence that sometimes guides an honest soul in its search for hidden things. With the aid of this Providence he might succeed where others had failed.

CHAPTER V
DANBY’S SECRET

Before leaving Salt Lake City, in accord with the customs of all gypsies, Madame Bihari and Jeanne had laid in a supply of provisions. Having come upon them while in the act, Danby Force had added a few luxuries to the stock. They were therefore prepared for a stay of some length if need be.

In spite of this, Danby Force said as he entered the lodge, “We won’t be here long I hope. I came to look for that bag.” He favored Jeanne with a smile.

“Oh, a mystery!” she cried. “A missing bag. Was it yours? And how was it lost?”

“Oh! Of course!” he exclaimed. “You don’t know a thing about it! How stupid of me! Sit down and I’ll tell you about it. At least—” he hesitated, “I’ll tell you some things.”

Madame Bihari had kindled a fire in the huge fireplace. The glow of it lighted up the little French girl’s face. It made her look extraordinarily beautiful. Danby Force took in a long breath before he began.

That which he told her after all was not so very much—at least he did not tell her why he was so intensely interested in that traveling bag. He did tell her all that had passed in that cabin on the previous day.

“So you see,” he ended, “that the bag must be here somewhere. You don’t carry away a leather bag a foot high and two feet long in your mouth, nor inside your shoe either.” The little French girl joined him in a low laugh.

“But no!” she exclaimed. “And yet I cannot see how it could matter so much.”

“It’s the papers in that bag,” he explained. “She did not steal those papers, that dark lady. She is no common thief. They are hers in a way. And yet she could use them to ruin the prosperity and happiness of three thousand people.”

“But why would she do such a terrible thing?” The little French girl spread her hands in horror.

“There are reasons. She is a truly bad woman,” he said briefly.

“I will help you.” On Petite Jeanne’s face was written a great desire. “And these others I will help if I can.

“To do something for others—” she spoke slowly. “To really do things and to love doing them! Ah, there is the key to all true happiness! In the terrible times that are passing, if we have learned this, then it is worth while.”

“Yes,” said Danby Force, taking her slender hand in a solemn grip. “It is worth it.”

“But come!” Jeanne sprang to her feet. “We must find this so important bag.

“Where,” she asked a moment later, “did this lady sleep?”

“In here.” Danby Force led the way to the bunk room.

“In which bunk?” Jeanne insisted.

“I think that one. I can’t be sure.” Danby Force pointed to the darkest corner.

“When we gypsies are camping in tents,” said Jeanne, “when we are afraid of thieves, we put the things we treasure most at the bottom of our bed where no one can touch them without touching our toes.”

After casting the gleam of a flashlight upon the bunk Danby Force had indicated, she seized the blankets and threw them back.

At once an exclamation escaped Danby’s lips:

“The bag!”

It was true. There, well flattened out beneath the blankets, lay a flexible leather traveling bag. When he had seized upon it, the young man found it unlocked and empty.

“She tricked me,” he murmured. “The bag was not lost. It was hidden. She put on the extra clothes she carried and wore them beneath a long coat. She carried the papers in some concealed pockets. By pretending that the bag was lost she has thrown me completely off her track.

“I was not sure—” He was speaking slowly, calmly now. “I could not be sure that she was what we suspected her of being. I had been away from our plant when she was employed there. I did not believe she knew me, so I followed her. This act, this hiding of the bag proves that she is the person we thought her and that she did know me. Now she has escaped me. She is gone. Who can say how or where? The trail is old by now. I cannot follow her.”

Moving slowly, like one in a dream, he retraced his steps to his place by the fire, then sank gloomily into a chair. For a long time he sat staring into the fire.

“Do something for someone else,” he murmured after poking the fire until it glowed red. “Yes, that’s the thing. That should be the slogan of our generation—do something for someone else. But when there are those who block all your efforts, what then?”

He looked up for a moment. By chance his gaze fell upon a broad window. Through that window one’s eyes beheld a magnificent sight—the topmost peak of the mountain’s jagged crest, rearing high in all its glory.

For a full moment the young man’s gaze remained fixed upon this crown of beauty. Then in a voice mellowed by reverence, he murmured:

“I am going to tell you,” he said, turning to the little French girl. “Perhaps you can help me.”

“I can but try,” Petite Jeanne’s tone was deep and serious.

“I told you of the man who made priceless discoveries regarding color.”

Jeanne leaned far forward to listen. In the corner the gypsy woman sat stolid in silence. The child was playing with some bright feathers in a spot of sunlight on the floor. The place was very still.

“Yes—yes,” the little French girl whispered.

“Perhaps I told you he returned to his home town to find it in desolation and that he gave his precious secrets to his town, and how it prospered after that.”

“You have told me,” replied Petite Jeanne, “but you have not told all. Were you the discoverer of these rare colors?”

“I—?” The word came in shocked surprise. “No, it was not I.”

There was a period of silence. Then in a voice raised scarcely above a whisper he said:

“It was my father.”

“Oh!” the little French girl breathed.

“He made these discoveries while serving as an industrial chemist in the Great War,” Danby Force went on after a time. “The war was terrible for him. He was gassed. He did not live many years. There—there’s a library in his town now, a splendid tribute to his memory.

“And I—” he spoke slowly. “I, his only son, have tried to guard his secrets well. But now it seems I am about to fail.”

“But you have not. Not yet?” The little French girl’s tone was eager.

“No, perhaps not yet.”

“Then you shall not!” Petite Jeanne sprang to her feet. “I shall help you. We all can help. This young lady, this stewardess you have told me of, she travels far. She can watch. But tell me,” she demanded eagerly, “tell me of this dark-faced woman. One must know much if one is to be truly helpful.” She sank back into her chair.

“That woman!” Danby’s tone became animated. “I am convinced that she is an industrial spy.”

“An industrial spy?” Jeanne’s eyes opened wide.

“Yes. An industrial spy is one who makes it his business to spy out the secret processes of his fellow workers, then to sell these secrets to others.

“Sometimes he is one of your fellow countrymen. More often he is from another land. In these days of extreme difficulty and great struggle to make goods cheaply and to sell in many markets, there are many, many spies.

“At first we trusted this woman. For three months she was employed in our factory. And to think—” springing to his feet, he began pacing the floor. “To think that all that time she was spying out secrets that rightly belong to our people!

“These spies!” he exclaimed bitterly. “They fasten cameras beneath their jackets. A tiny lens is concealed as a button. They take pictures, hundreds of them. They make drawings. If they may, they carry away secret receipts.”

“Did that woman do all this?” Jeanne asked.

“I am not sure that she has the secret formula. If she has not, then all may not be lost. And yet, she may have all the information needed. If she has, she will carry it back to her own country and we are ruined, for hers is a land where the poor slave long hours for little pay.”

“We must find her!” the little French girl exclaimed. “We shall, I am sure of that.”

“Yes, we must find her,” Danby agreed. “It is known that she is an alien in this country without passport. If only she can be found, she may be sent back to her own country with pockets empty as far as industrial secrets are concerned.”

Then, as if he wished to forget it all for a little space of time, that he might revel in the comfort and natural beauty of his surroundings, Danby Force shook himself, glanced away at the snow-capped mountains, then dropped into a chair to sit musing before the glowing fire.

The little French girl had wandered to the back of the cabin. Presently he heard her light footsteps approaching. Looking up suddenly, he caught a vision of pure loveliness. Jeanne had slipped over her shoulders the purple cape with its faultless white fox collar. Just at that instant she was standing by a window where the light turned her hair into pure gold.

“How—how perfect!” he breathed. “But why so pensive?” he asked as he caught a glimpse of her face.

“I was thinking,” said Jeanne slowly. “Wondering. Should you lose your precious secrets, then perhaps I might coax the secret of this royal purple from my gypsy friends. That would help you. Is it not so?”

“Yes, yes,” he agreed eagerly. “It would help a great deal!”

“But would it be right?” Jeanne’s brow wrinkled. “In France there are many poor gypsies, thousands perhaps, who weave cloth and dye it too. If the secret were lost to them, then perhaps they would go hungry.”

“That,” said Danby Force, “requires much thinking. We must do no wrong. And we must find that woman!” He sprang from his chair.

“Yes,” Jeanne agreed. “We must! But first we must eat.” She laughed a merry laugh. “See! Our good Madame Bihari has prepared a gypsy feast. I am sure you will enjoy it.”

Danby Force did enjoy that feast. A meat pie filled with all sorts of strange and delicious flavors, a drink that was not quite hot chocolate nor quite anything else, thin cakes baked on the coals, and after that fruit and bonbons. What wonder they lingered over the repast—lingered indeed too long, for, when at last they stepped from the doorway all the mellow sunshine had vanished and in its place dark clouds, like massive trains with huge silently rolling wheels were moving up the mountainside.

“Good!” Jeanne clapped her hands. “Now we shall remain in this most wonderful place all night. And Madame Bihari, she shall tell your fortune.”

“My fortune?” The young man stared at her.

“But yes!” Jeanne did not laugh. “You are in trouble. There are many things you wish to know. To be sure you must have your fortune told. And Madame Bihari, she tells fortunes beautifully, I assure you!” She went dancing, light as a fairy across the broad veranda to disappear like some woods sprite along a winding trail.

CHAPTER VI
THE GYPSY WITCH CARDS

So that evening Danby Force consented to have his fortune told. Being a practical young man who thought in terms of dollars and cents, and seldom found time for dreaming, he was not likely to take the matter seriously. Why did he consent? Perhaps it was because he liked Petite Jeanne and wished to please her. And then again there may have been in his nature, as there is in many another practical person’s, a feeling for the mysterious, the thing that cannot be entirely explained. And who can say that this race of wanderers, these gypsies, may not have hidden away in their breasts some secrets unknown to others? Surely, as we have seen, they could make a cape of royal purple such as is known among no other people. Whatever the reason, Danby Force consented to have his fortune told.

That night the great lounge of the hunting lodge presented to Jeanne a setting both weird and wonderful. She loved it. Flames in the great fireplace sent shadows chasing one another from beam to beam of the ceiling. Two candles, one at each end of the long table, casting each its yellow gleam, brought out the handsome smiling face of Danby Force, but left Madame Bihari in all but complete darkness. From the mantel above the fire came the slow tick-tock of a clock. Once, from without, the girl thought she caught the challenging cry of some wild thing, perhaps a wolf.

“There,” said Madame Bihari, looking up at Danby Force, “are the cards. You shall shuffle them, my young friend. You shall cut them with your left hand. Then you shall place them on the table in positions I shall tell you of.” Madame Bihari talked at this moment just as Jeanne had always imagined a wooden man might talk, each word spoken in the same low, slow tone.

“There are the cards,” Jeanne thought to herself. Yes, there they were. How many times she had watched Madame Bihari tell fortunes from those cards! As she closed her eyes she could see some rich and dignified dame, at the steps of a castle in France, spread out those same cards, then sit intent, motionless, expectant as Madame Bihari told her fortune.

“And how cleverly she tells them!” Jeanne whispered to herself. “There was the Chateau Buraine. Madame said, ‘It will be destroyed by fire.’ Two months later it was in ashes. And the gypsies did not set the fire. Mais no! No! They were all away at the Paris Fair.”

“Now—” Madame was speaking once more to Danby. “Now you have shuffled, you have cut the cards. You shall now lay them face-up in rows, six in the first row, then eight in a row for five rows, and last, six in a row.”

Jeanne watched fascinated as the cards were turned up. She knew those cards by heart. Each had its number. On each card was a different picture, a serpent, a sun, a moon, children at play, a house, a cloud, a tree, a mouse, a bear; yes, yes, there were pictures and each picture had its meaning, a good prophecy or a bad one. Health, happiness, riches, love, enemies, failure, deception, sickness, death—all these and many more were prophesied by these pictures.

Most important of all was one card, the picture of a gentleman in evening coat and tall, starched collar. His number was 19. It was this card that, in the next moment or two, would stand for the young man, Danby Force. Would he be surrounded by cards telling of success, love and happiness, or by those telling of dire misfortune? She held her breath as Danby, his fingers trembling slightly, dealt the cards.

Did Jeanne believe in all this? Had you asked her, she would perhaps have found no reply. She had lived long with the gypsies, had Petite Jeanne. How could she escape believing? And, after all, who would wish to escape? Who is there in all the world that cares to say, “I know all about these things. There is no truth in them?”

Anyway, here was Madame Bihari, Danby Force, Petite Jeanne. Here were the dancing shadows. There were the cards. And there—Jeanne caught her breath. Yes, there was the man in evening dress. There was card number 19. Every card placed close to him must have a very special meaning. Leaning back into the shadows, she waited. When all the cards were down, Madame Bihari would study them. There would be a silence, three minutes, four, five minutes long, then Madame would speak.

In her eagerness to catch every word, Jeanne moved close up beside Danby Force.

Silence followed, such a silence as makes a roar of the wind singing down the chimney. From the mountainside there came the whisper of spruce trees. Torn, twisted, and tangled by storms, those trees stood there like horrible dwarfs whispering of love and life, of hatred and death. Once Jeanne, moved by who knows what impulse, went tip-toeing from her place to press her nose against the glass and peer into that darkness. Then, as if all the gnarled trees had been shaking fists at her, she sprang back to her place close to Danby Force.

When at last Madame Bihari broke the silence, she spoke in a deep melodious tone:

“Ah. The snake!”

“The snake!” Jeanne murmured low. She shuddered.

“But he is not too near.” There was a measure of relief in Madame’s tone. “And see! Between Monsieur and the snake is the Book. Ah! That is good! The Book stands for mystery that shall be solved. And the Eye!” Her tone became animated.

“Oh! The Eye!” Jeanne was smiling now, for well she knew that the Eye betokened great interest taken by friends.

“Friends,” she whispered to Danby Force, when Madame had told of the Eye, “Friends, they are everything!”

“Yes.” Danby’s tone was full of meaning. “Friends, loyal friends, they are worth more than all else in this life! And, thank God, I have many friends!”

“And see!” Madame exclaimed. “Here is the Moon. A very good sign.

“But the fox! Ah, this is bad! This speaks of distrust. There are those, Monsieur, whom you must not trust too much—perhaps some who are very close to you.”

“Yes, I—”

Madame did not permit the young man to finish. “The Sun!” Her face darkened. “The Sun tells of future vexation.”

“I shouldn’t wonder.” Danby Force laughed. “Indeed I have had quite a lot of that already. But come! I shall be having the jitters from all this evil prophecy. Let’s get our little blonde-haired friend to make us a steaming cup of chocolate, and please put in just one spoonful of malted milk and a marshmallow.” He touched Jeanne’s golden locks gently.

“But one moment!” Madame protested. “Here is the pig close at hand. He tells of great abundance.”

“Perhaps that means that I am to have two cups of chocolate.” Danby laughed once more.

“But yes!” Jeanne joined him in the laugh. “Three if you say so.”

“One moment more, I pray you!” Madame’s tone was very earnest. “I read in these cards that there is one who calls himself your friend. He has dark and curly hair. He smiles. He dances. He is very much alive. But ah! He is a rascal! You must beware!”

“I shall beware. Thank you,” Danby said soberly.

“And now!” exclaimed Jeanne, springing to her feet, “Our cup of cheer!”

When their light repast was over, when Madame sat nodding by the fire that had burned low, Jeanne spoke to Danby Force in words of exceeding soberness. “You must not treat too lightly Madame’s forecast with the cards. Indeed you must not! She is old. She has told fortunes since she was a child. The rich and the very great, they have listened often to her fortunes. Truly they have.

“Once—” her voice dropped to a whisper. “Once she said to a man, a very great man who lived in a castle on a hill: ‘You shall die. In two months you will be dead.’ And in two months his heart stopped. He was dead, dead.”

For some time after that she sat staring at the fire. When she spoke again it was in a changed tone:

“But you, my friend, you did not have a bad fortune. Indeed not! There were troubles. They come to all. You will overcome them. There were those you must not trust. You will discover that they are traitors. In the end you shall have honor, perhaps much money, and always I am sure—” her voice dropped, “Always you shall have many, many friends.”

“Ah yes,” he whispered. “Please, dear little French girl, many friends!”

After that, for a long time, with the fire gleaming brightly before them and the murmur of the wild out-of-doors coming down the chimney to them, they sat reading their own fortunes in the flames.