CHAPTER XXIII

THE GYPSY’S WARNING

When Rosemary Sample discovered that the person who had attached herself to the learned party being conducted through the textile mill was none other than the spy, she found herself in a tight position. This visit of the wise men, she realized from the look on Danby Force’s serious face, was an occasion of no small importance. “A group of University professors do not charter a plane every day in the week in order that they may be conducted through a factory or mill,” she assured herself. “If I cry ‘WOLF!’—if I let them know there is an industrial spy in their midst, everything will be thrown into confusion. The charm will have been broken, the entire effect lost.

“I’ll keep an eye on this spy,” she thought, “I’ll see that nothing is taken from the mill. When the tour is over I will see that she is taken into account and made, at least, to explain why she is here.” That the matter would go much farther than that, she did not doubt. Would there be a struggle? She shuddered.

During the half hour that followed, though no one would have guessed it, Rosemary heard not a word that her good friend Danby Force was saying to the learned professors.

And then, at the very end, Danby did something that commanded her attention in spite of herself. The guests were passing one at a time through a narrow door. Danby was working levers on a peculiar instrument.

“Perhaps you would like to know—” there was an amused look on his face. “All of you might like to know what I am doing. I am spraying you with the light from an X-ray lamp.

“In your case I am sure it is quite unnecessary. But it is a precaution we take with all those who pass through our mill. In these days of keen industrial struggle there are spies everywhere seeking to secure advantages through trickery. They often carry tiny cameras concealed upon their persons. Should there be one such among you, the X-ray light would entirely ruin his negatives. His picture-taking would be without result.”

As he made this explanation Danby caught and held the little stewardess’ interest for a brief interval. Fatal interest. Ten seconds later, when she gripped his arm to whisper, “Danby Force! There—there is your spy!” she found herself staring at empty space. The spy had vanished.

Danby stared at her in amazement. “What? You don’t mean—” He was apparently unable to finish.

“Yes, yes! She was here. She was dressed as a young man. But it was a woman. I saw her fumbling at the back of her coat, as only a woman would. And now—now she’s gone!”

“Quick!” He whispered low, that the professors might not hear. “Run outside. Perhaps you can see her. If you do, ask any man about the plant to seize her. He’d do it at the risk of his life.”

There was no demand for such heroism. The spy had vanished. Look where she might, call others to her aid as she did, the little stewardess could find no trace of her.

When, disappointed and downhearted, she returned to the office of the plant, Danby Force only smiled and said quietly, “Forget it. We will catch up with her yet. You’ll see!

“And now,” he added briskly, “come with me. We are to take this group of learned men for a tour of our little city. Then, I regret to say, we must part once more. You are to start them back to Chicago in just one hour.”

What Rosemary saw in that hour’s ride through shady streets and narrow, beautiful lanes more than once caused her throat to tighten with pure joy at the realization that here at least was one community where happiness and simple prosperity reigned. The streets were clean, the narrow lawns well cared for, the small homes painted, and the people, for the most part, smiling.

Yet, even as her heart swelled with admiration for those who could bring such a state of affairs into being, her mind was filled with misgiving.

“It doesn’t seem possible that one selfish person could spoil all this,” she said in a low tone to Danby.

“Yet it _is_ possible.” His brow wrinkled. “Once the secrets of our new processes are in the hands of unscrupulous persons, they will be exploited. And that will bring ruin to us.

“We have not tried to expand,” he said a moment later. “Perhaps we should have done so. But it has seemed to us that much of the unhappiness of the world has been brought about by the desire of honest but misguided men to tear down factories and build bigger, to cut costs, to sell cheaper in every market. Our aim has been an honest living, and simple contentment for all.”

“Simple contentment for all,” the girl whispered to herself. “What would that not mean if it were realized by every person in this great land of ours!”

Yet, even as she thought this, an imaginary colossal figure appeared to loom above her, the figure of a dark-faced woman who never smiled, and she seemed to be saying:

“My bag! My traveling bag! It is gone!”

“And yet it was not gone,” the girl told herself.

“There’s a golden-haired French girl,” Danby Force was speaking again. “She travels in an airplane with a gypsy woman and a child. Strange combination,” he mused. Then, more briskly, “They have a secret of dyeing in purple that would be of immense value to us. But it belongs to hundreds of gypsies in France. Dare we ask her to reveal that secret? Have we a right to it? That, for the moment, is a question. I am unable to answer.”

“Yes,” Rosemary replied, “I too know Petite Jeanne. She is a dear!”

Little did either of them realize that at this very moment Jeanne was close at hand, on Happy Vale’s landing field. Rosemary left that very field an hour later without discovering Jeanne’s presence.

That afternoon, on wandering across the grounds before the mill, Florence came face to face with Hugo. He appeared quite worried and ill at ease. His attempt to favor her with one of his dazzling smiles was a failure.

“Does he know I took the picture?” she asked herself after he had passed on. “Does he know about the camera? And was it his camera?”

As she closed her eyes and tried to picture to herself the face of the spy she had so long sought, she saw not Miriam Dvorac and her dark sister, not Hans Schneider, not Ina Piccalo and not the curious person who trimmed the shrubs about the grounds. Instead, a very different face appeared, a smiling face she had seen many times before. Startled by this picture, she exclaimed: “No! No! It cannot be!” And yet the picture remained.

Yes, as Florence had guessed, Hugo was troubled, so very much troubled that any person with an eye for such things could have told it quickly enough. And he was superstitious. Oh, very much so! Selfish people who think much of their own happiness and very little of others are likely to be superstitious. So, when one of his fellow-workers told him that something very strange had happened—that two gypsies, one very old and dark, and one young, blonde and beautiful, had come flying in from the air, he said at once: “It is Fate. I shall have my fortune told.”

Jeanne was not in sight when he arrived. Madame Bihari, seated upon her bright rug before the tent, was shuffling her witch cards. Shuffling, dealing, then gathering them up to shuffle and deal again, she did not so much as look up as Hugo, magnificent in his bright garments, approached. His roving eyes sought in vain for the beautiful young gypsy. His countenance fell.

“But after all,” he reasoned, “I came to have my fortune told. The older ones are best for that.”

“Old woman,” he said rather rudely, “tell my fortune.”

Madame did not look up. Her face darkened as she cut and dealt the cards.

Hugo appeared to understand, for he said in a quiet tone, “I would like my fortune told.”

Madame looked up. Something like a dark frown passed over her face. Madame had lived long and in many lands. There were faces that to her were like an open book in a bright light. She read them with greatest ease.

“Today,” she said slowly, “we have traveled far.”

Then she shuffled and dealt once more.

Hugo grew impatient. He opened his lips to utter harsh words, when Madame said:

“Cross my palm with silver.”

Carelessly, Hugo threw a silver half dollar on the rug. The frown on Madame’s face deepened.

“Here are the cards,” she said in an even tone. “You must sit down before me. You must shuffle them well. You will cut them with your left hand—this is very important, then you will deal them six in a row, then eight in a row for five rows, after that six in a row once more. All must be face up with pictures toward me. To deal wrongly is sure to bring bad fortune.”

Hugo’s hand trembled as he cut and dealt the cards. Darkness had fallen. Only the glimmer of a small fire lighted up the cards and Madame’s dark face. Despite his care, he turned the picture of a snake toward himself.

“Ah!” Madame snatched at the card. “You have redoubled your misfortune.”

“Here! Give me the cards! I’ll deal them again!” Hugo exclaimed.

“What is done is done.” Madame’s voice seemed to come from the depths of a well.

And “Ah!” she muttered after one moment of scrutinizing the cards. “What an evil fortune you have laid out before me!”

At this Hugo appeared to exert all his will to snatch away the cards, but seemed powerless to move a muscle. So he sat there staring.

“The mountain, the broken glass—” Madame was speaking now in a monotonous singsong. “The fox, the dog, the rapier, the lightning, the lion, all clustered about you and all telling of misfortune! My life has been long, but never have I read such omens of evil!

“And such a jolly life as you have lived!” She went on without looking up. “Everything has been yours—youth, love, friends, happiness—all that you could ask.”

“And now?” The words stuck in Hugo’s throat.

“Now—” Madame’s voice rose. “Now it were better for you if you were not in your native land. Discovery is at hand. Hate will enter where admiration and love have lingered long. The wealth you have hoped for will never come. You shall wander far alone without a friend.”

After Madame had ended this long utterance of prophecy, she sat for one full moment staring gloomily at the cards. Would she have changed their reading if she could? Who can say? How had she known so much? Had someone told her? Certainly not. Had the cards truly guided her? Again we must reply, who knows? There is wisdom in every land that to us, who think ourselves so very wise, is hidden.

When Madame looked up at last, Hugo was gone. Darkness had closed about the place where he had been. With a heavy high, Madame gathered up her cards. Then, having thrown fresh fuel on the fire, she called softly: “Jeanne! My Petite Jeanne!”

Jeanne peered with sleepy eyes from within the tent. “Jeanne,” Madame said, “tonight I have told a fortune. Ah, such a terrible fortune! Tomorrow, my Jeanne, tomorrow and the day that is to follow, strange things will happen, very strange indeed.”

She did not describe the person whose fortune had been told, nor had Jeanne seen him. She had been asleep in the tent. Perhaps this was unfortunate. But you alone shall be the judge.