CHAPTER II

“JUST NOTHING AT ALL”

The artist’s name was Marie Mabee. It was in her studio that Florence, on the evening after her strange experience with the crystal ball, found herself seated. It was a marvelous place, that studio. It was a large room. Its polished floor was strewn with all manner of strange Indian rugs. Marie Mabee was American to the tips of her toes. Save for one picture, everything in that room was distinctly American. The spinet desk with chair that matched, the drapes and tapestries, the andirons before the broad open fireplace, the great comfortable upholstered chair, all these were made in America.

The one cherished bit from the Old World that adorned the room was a picture. It was a masterpiece of the nineteenth century. In that picture the sun shone bright upon a flock of sheep hurrying for shelter from a storm that lay black as night against the rugged hills behind. Trees were bending before a gale, the shepherd’s cloak was flying, every touch told of the approaching storm.

“It’s all so very real!” Florence thought to herself as she looked at the picture now. “It is like Marie Mabee herself. She too is real. And the things she creates are real. That is why she is such a great success.”

As if to verify her own conclusion, she looked at a canvas reposing on an easel in the corner. The picture was almost done. It showed Petite Jeanne garbed in a bright gypsy costume, flinging arms wide in a wild gypsy dance. In the background, indistinct but quite real, were wild eager faces, a fiddler, two singing gypsy children, and behind them the night.

Marie Mabee had determined that by her pictures there should be preserved the memory of much that was passing in American life. The gypsies were passing. One by one they were being swallowed up by great cities. Soon the country would know them no more. She had taken Jeanne into her heart and home because in Jeanne’s heart there lived like a flame the spirit of the gypsies at their best, because Jeanne knew all the gypsies and could bring them to the studio to be posed and painted. She had taken in Florence as well; first, because she was Jeanne’s friend, and second, because, with all others, the moment she came to know her she loved her.

“It is all very wonderful!” Florence whispered to herself as, after an exciting day, she sank deeper into the great chair by the fire. “How inspiring to live with one who has made a grand success of life, whose pictures are hung in every gallery and coveted by every rich person in the city! And yet,” she sighed contentedly, “how simple and kind she is! Not the least bit high-hat or superior. Wonder if all truly great people are like that? I wonder—”

She broke short off to listen. A stairway led up from the top of the elevator shaft, one floor below. She did not recognize the tread of the person coming up the stairs. She wondered and shuddered. Somehow she felt that on leaving that room of midnight blue and a crystal ball, she had been followed. Had she? If so, why? She was not long in guessing the reason. Twice in the last few weeks she had whispered a few well-chosen words in the ears of Patrick Moriarity, a bright young policeman who was interested in people, just any kind of people. Patrick had rapped on certain doors and had said his little say. When next Florence passed that way, there was a “For Rent” sign on the door, right where Patrick had rapped.

“Folded their tents like the Arabs And silently stole away,”

she whispered to herself.

She wondered in a dreamy sort of way whether those people, while they reluctantly packed a few tricks of their crooked trade, had recalled a large, ruddy-faced girl who had visited them once or twice to have her fortune told, and did they know she was that girl?

“Fortunes!” she exclaimed. “Fortunes!” Then she laughed a low laugh.

At once her face sobered. Was it, after all, a laughing matter, this having your fortune told? For some surely it was not. She had seen them seated on hard chairs, waiting. There were lines of sorrow and disappointment on their faces. They had come to ask the crystal-gazer, the palmist, the phrenologist, the reader of cards or stars, to tell their fortune. They wanted terribly to know when the tide of fortune would turn for them, when prosperity would come ebbing back again. And she, Florence, all too often could read in their faces the answer which came to her like the wash of the waves on a sandy shore:

“Never—never—never.”

“And what do these tellers of fortunes predict?” she asked herself. She did not know. Only her own fortune she knew well enough. Had she not had it told a half hundred times in the last months?

“My fortune!” she laughed anew. “What a strange fortune it would be if all they told me came true! A castle, a farm, a city flat, a sea island, a mountain home, a dark man for a husband, a light one for a husband, and one with red hair! Whew! I’d have to be a movie actress to have all that.

“And yet—” Once again her smile vanished. Was there, after all, in some of it something real? That crystal ball now—the one she had seen that very afternoon. She had been told that visions truly do come to those who gaze into the crystal ball. Had she not seen visions? And that fair-haired girl, had she not seen visions as well?

Once again her mood changed. What was it this girl had wanted to know? She had said, “My long lost father!” Was her father really lost? Who was her father? She was dressed like a child of the rich. Was she rich? And was she in danger?

“I must know!” Florence sprang to her feet. “I must go back there. I—”

Once again she broke short off. There came a sound from without. A key rattled in the lock.

“Some—someone,” she breathed, starting back, “and he has a key!”

Her eyes were frantically searching for a place of hiding when the door swung open and a tall lady in a sealskin coat appeared.

“Oh! Miss Mabee!” Florence exclaimed. “It is you!”

“Yes. And why not I?” Marie Mabee laughed. “What’s up? How startled you looked!”

“Nothing—just nothing at all,” Florence said in a calmer tone as she sprang forward to assist her hostess with her wraps.

“Did you see anyone on the stairs?” she asked quietly.

“No. Why? Have you stolen something?” Miss Mabee laughed. “Are you expecting the police?”

“No, not that,” Florence laughed in answer. “I’ve only been having my fortune told.”

“Is that so dangerous?” Miss Mabee arched her brows.

“Yes, sometimes I’m afraid it is,” Florence replied soberly. “I know of one case where it cost a poor woman four hundred dollars.”

“How could it?” came in a tone of surprise.

“She had the money. They told her to leave it with them for luck. The luck was all wrong. They vanished.”

“But that is an extreme case.”

“Yes,” Florence replied slowly, “it is extreme. And yet, in days like these, people, who might in happier days be harmless, turn wolf and prey upon the innocent. At least, that’s what Frances Ward says. And she usually knows. She says it is the duty of those who are strong to battle against the wolves.”

“And so you, my beautiful strong one, are battling the wolves? Good for you!” Marie Mabee gave her sturdy arm an affectionate squeeze. “That’s quite all right. Only,” she laughed, “please let me know when the wolves start coming up the stairs.”

“I—I’ll try,” Florence replied in a changed tone.

“And now,” said Marie Mabee, “how about a nice cup of steaming chocolate and some of those rare cakes that just came from that little bakery around the corner?”

“Grand!” Florence exclaimed. “Here is one person who can always eat and never regret.”

“Fine!” the artist exclaimed. “It’s wonderful to be strong and be able to glory in it. On with the feast!”