CHAPTER XIII

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.