CHAPTER X

THE ONE WITHIN THE SHADOWS

Having accepted an invitation from a daughter of the rich, Jeanne was at once thrown into consternation.

"What am I to wear?" she wailed. "As Pierre I can't very well wear pink chiffon and satin slippers. And of course evening dress does not go with an informal visit to an estate in mid-afternoon. Oh, why did I accept?"

"You accepted," Florence replied quietly, "because you wish to know all about life. You have been poor as a gypsy. You know all about being poor. You have lived as a successful lady of the stage. You were then an artist. Successful artists are middle class people, I should say. But your friend Rosemary is rich. She will show you one more side of life."

"A form of life, that's what he called it."

"Who called it?"

"A man. But what am I to wear?"

"Well," Florence pondered, "you are a youth, a mere boy; that's the way they think of you. You are to tramp about over the estate."

"And ride horses. She said so. How I love horses!"

"You are a boy. And you have no mother to guide you." Florence chanted this. "What would a boy wear? Knickers, a waist, heavy shoes, a cap. You have all these, left from our summer in the northern woods."

Why not, indeed? This was agreed upon at once. So it happened that when the great car, all a-glitter with gold and platinum trimmings, met her before the opera at the appointed hour, it was as a boy, perhaps in middle teens, garbed for an outing, that the little French girl sank deep into the broadcloth cushions.

"Florence said it would do," she told herself. "She is usually right. I do hope that she may be right this time."

Rosemary Robinson had been well trained, very well trained indeed. The ladies who managed and taught the private school which she attended were ladies of the first magnitude. As everyone knows, the first lesson to be learned in the school of proper training is the art of deception. One must learn to conceal one's feelings. Rosemary had learned this lesson well. It had been a costly lesson. To any person endowed with a frank and generous nature, such a lesson comes only by diligence and suffering. If she had expected to find the youthful Pierre dressed in other garments than white waist, knickers and green cap, she did not say so, either by word, look or gesture.

This put Jeanne at her ease at once; at least as much at ease as any girl masquerading as a boy might be expected to achieve.

"She's a dear," she thought to herself as Rosemary, leading her into the house, introduced her in the most nonchalant manner to the greatest earthly paradise she had ever known.

As she felt her feet sink deep in rich Oriental rugs, as her eyes feasted themselves upon oil paintings, tapestries and rare bits of statuary that had been gathered from every corner of the globe, she could not so much as regret the deception that had gained her entrance to this world of rare treasures.

"But would I wish to live here?" she asked herself. "It is like living in a museum."

When she had entered Rosemary's own little personal study, when she had feasted her eyes upon all the small objects of rare charm that were Rosemary's own, upon the furniture done by master craftsmen and the interior decorated by a real artist, when she had touched the soft creations of silk that were curtains, drapes and pillows, she murmured:

"Yes. Here is that which would bring happiness to any soul who loves beauty and knows it when he sees it."

"But we must not remain indoors on a day such as this!" Rosemary exclaimed. "Come!" She seized her new friend's hand. "We will go out into the sunshine. You are a sun worshipper, are you not?"

"Perhaps," said Jeanne who, you must not forget, was for the day Pierre Andrews. "I truly do not know."

"There are many sun worshippers these days." Rosemary laughed a merry laugh. "And why not? Does not the sun give us life? And if we rest beneath his rays much of the time, does he not give us a more abundant life?"

"See!" Pierre, catching the spirit of the hour, held out a bare arm as brown as the dead leaves of October. "I _am_ a sun worshipper!"

At this they went dancing down the hall.

"But, see!" Rosemary exclaimed. "Here is the organ!" She threw open a door, sprang to a bench, touched a switch here, a stop there, then began sending out peals of sweet, low, melodious music.

"A pipe organ!" Jeanne exclaimed. "In your home!"

"Why not?" Rosemary laughed. "Father likes the organ. Why should he not hear it when he chooses? It is a very fine one. Many of the great masters have been here to play it. I am taking lessons. In half an hour I must come here for a lesson. Then you must become a sun worshipper. You may wander where you please or just lie by the lily pond and dream in the sun."

"I am fond of dreaming."

"Then you shall dream."

The grounds surrounding the great house were to the little French girl a land of enchantment. The formal garden where even in late autumn the rich colors of bright red, green and gold vied with the glory of the Indian Summer sunshine, the rock garden, the pool where gold-fish swam, the rustic bridge across the brook, and back of all this the primeval forest of oak, walnut and maple; all this, as they wandered over leaf-strewn paths, reminded her of the forests and hedges, the grounds and gardens of her own beloved France.

"Truly," she whispered to herself, "all this is worth being rich for.

"But what a pity--" Her mood changed. "What a pity that it may not belong to all--to the middle class, the poor.

"And yet," she concluded philosophically, "they have the parks. Truly they are beautiful always."

It was beside a broad pool where lily pads lay upon placid waters that Jeanne at last found a place of repose beneath the mellow autumn sun, to settle down to the business of doing her bit of sun worship.

It was truly delightful, this spot, and very dreamy. There were broad stretches of water between the clusters of lily pads. In these, three stately swans, seeming royal floats of some enchanted midget city, floated. Some late flowers bloomed at her feet. Here bees hummed drowsily. A dragon fly, last of his race, a great green ship with bulging eyes, darted here and there. Yet in his movements there were suggestions of rest and dreamy repose. The sun was warm. From the distance came the drone of a pipe organ. It, too, spoke of rest. Jeanne, as always, had retired at a late hour on the previous night. Her head nodded. She stretched herself out upon the turf. She would close her eyes for three winks.

"Just three winks."

But the drowsy warmth, the distant melody, the darting dragon fly, seen even in her dreams, held her eyes tight closed.

As she dreamed, the bushes not five yards away parted and a face peered forth. It was not an inviting face. It was a dark, evil-eyed face with a trembling leer about the mouth. Jeanne had seen this man. He had called to her. She had run away. That was long ago, before the door of the opera. She did not see him now. She slept.

A little bird scolding in a tree seemed eager to wake her. She did not wake.

The man moved forward a step. Someone unseen appeared to move behind him. With a wolf-like eye he glanced to right and left. He moved another step. He was like a cat creeping upon his prey.

"Wake up, Jeanne! Wake up! Wake! Wake! Wake up!" the little bird scolded on. Jeanne did not stir. Still the sun gleamed warm, the music droned, the dragon fly darted in her dreams.

But what is this? The evil-eyed one shrinks back into his place of hiding. No footsteps are heard; the grass is like a green carpet, as the master of the estate and his wife approach.

They would have passed close to the sleeping one had not a glance arrested them.

"What a beautiful boy!" whispered the lady. "And see how peacefully he sleeps! He is a friend of Rosemary, a mere child of the opera. She has taken a fancy to him."

"Who would not?" the man rumbled low. "I have seen him at our box. There was the affair of the pearls. He--"

"Could a guilty person sleep so?"

"No."

"Not upon the estate of one he has robbed."

"Surely not. Do you know," the lady's tone became deeply serious, "I have often thought of adopting such a child, a boy to be a companion and brother to Rosemary."

Could Jeanne have heard this she might well have blushed. She did not hear, for the sun shone on, the music still droned and the dragon fly darted in her dreams.

The lady looked in the great man's eyes. She read an answer there.

"Shall we wake him and suggest it now?" she whispered.

Ah, Jeanne! What shall the answer be? You are Pierre. You are Jeanne.

But the great man shakes his head. "The thing needs talking over. In a matter of so grave importance one must look carefully before one moves. We must consider."

So the two pass on. And once again Jeanne has escaped.

And now Rosemary comes racing down the slope to discover her and to waken her by tickling her nose with a swan's feather.

"Come!" she exclaims, before Jeanne is half conscious of her surroundings. "We are off for a canter over the bridle path!" Seizing Jeanne's hand, she drags her to her feet. Then together they go racing away toward the stables.

The remainder of that day was one joyous interlude in Petite Jeanne's not uneventful life. Save for the thought that Rosemary believed her a boy, played with her and entertained her as a boy and was, perhaps, just a little interested in her as a boy, no flaw could be found in this glorious occasion.

A great lover of horses since her days in horse-drawn gypsy vans, she gloried in the spirited brown steed she rode. The day was perfect. Blue skies with fleecy clouds drifting like sheep in a field, autumn leaves fluttering down, cobwebs floating lazily across the fields; this was autumn at its best.

They rode, those two, across green meadows, down shady lanes, through forests where shadows were deep. Now and again Rosemary turned an admiring glance upon her companion sitting in her saddle with ease and riding with such grace.

"If she knew!" Jeanne thought with a bitter-sweet smile. "If she only knew!"

"Where did you learn to ride so well?" Rosemary asked, as they alighted and went in to tea.

"In France, to be sure."

"And who taught you?"

"Who but the gypsies?"

"Gypsies! How romantic!"

"Romantic? Yes, perhaps." Jeanne was quick to change the subject. She was getting into deep water. Should she begin telling of her early life she must surely, sooner or later, betray her secret.

"Rich people," she thought, as she journeyed homeward in the great car when the day was done, "they are very much like others, except when they choose to show off. And I wonder how much they enjoy that, after all.

"But Rosemary! Does she suspect? I wonder! She's such a peach! It's a shame to deceive her. Yet, what sport! And besides, I'm getting a little of what I want, a whole big lot, I guess." She was thinking once more of Marjory Dean's half-promise.

"Will she truly allow me to be her understudy, to go on in her place when the 'Juggler' is done again?" She was fairly smothered by the thought; yet she dared to hope--a little.