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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42137 ***
+
+A Mystery Story for Girls
+
+THE MAGIC CURTAIN
+
+by
+
+ROY J. SNELL
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Reilly & Lee Co.
+Chicago
+
+Copyright 1932 by
+The Reilly & Lee Co.
+Printed in the U. S. A.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                            PAGE
+       I A Face in the Dark                            11
+      II Petite Jeanne's Masquerade                    22
+     III On the Verge of Adventure                     32
+      IV A Living Statue                               40
+       V The Secret Place                              47
+      VI The Woman in Black                            55
+     VII Dreams of Other Days                          65
+    VIII An Island Mystery                             70
+      IX Caught in the Act                             76
+       X The One Within the Shadows                    88
+      XI A Dance for the Spirits                      100
+     XII The Lost Cameo                               106
+    XIII A Nymph of the Night                         121
+     XIV The Disappearing Parcel                      132
+      XV Strange Voices                               144
+     XVI Through the Window                           156
+    XVII Startling Revelations                        167
+   XVIII They That Pass in the Night                  177
+     XIX The Unseen Eye                               185
+      XX A Place of Enchantment                       191
+     XXI From the Heights to Despair                  197
+    XXII The Armored Horse                            203
+   XXIII Florence Solves a Mystery                    215
+    XXIV The Black Packet                             223
+     XXV The Bearded Stranger                         228
+    XXVI An Exciting Message                          236
+   XXVII Dreaming                                     240
+  XXVIII Florence Crashes In                          247
+    XXIX It Happened at Midnight                      259
+     XXX A Surprise Party                             268
+    XXXI Florence Meets the Lady in Black             278
+   XXXII Sparkling Treasure                           287
+
+
+
+
+                           THE MAGIC CURTAIN
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+                           A FACE IN THE DARK
+
+
+It was that mystic hour when witches are abroad in the land: one o'clock
+in the morning. The vast auditorium of the Civic Opera House was a well
+of darkness and silence.
+
+Had you looked in upon this scene at this eerie hour you would most
+certainly have said, "There is no one here. This grandest of all
+auditoriums is deserted." But you would have been mistaken.
+
+Had you been seated in the box at the left side of this great auditorium,
+out of that vast silence you might have caught a sound. Faint,
+indistinct, like the rustle of a single autumn leaf, like a breath of air
+creeping over a glassy sea at night, it would have arrested your
+attention and caused you to focus your eyes upon a pair of exceedingly
+long drapes at the side of the opera hall. These drapes might have
+concealed some very long windows. In reality they did not.
+
+Had you fixed your attention upon this spot you might, in that faint
+light that was only a little less than absolute darkness, have seen a
+vague, indistinct spot of white. This spot, resting as it did at a
+position above the bottom of the drape where a short person's head would
+have come, might have startled you.
+
+And well it might. For this was in truth the face of a living being. This
+mysterious individual was garbed in a dress suit of solemn black. That is
+why only his face shone out in the dark.
+
+This person, seemingly a golden haired youth with features of unusual
+fineness, had called himself Pierre Andrews when, a short time earlier,
+he had applied for a position as usher in the Opera. Because of his
+almost startling beauty, his perfect manners and his French accent, he
+had been hired on the spot and had been given a position in the boxes
+where, for this "first night" at least, those who possessed the great
+wealth of the city had been expected to foregather.
+
+They had not failed to appear. And why should they fail? Was this not
+their night of nights, the night of the "Grand Parade"?
+
+Ah, yes, they had been there in all their bejewelled and sable-coated
+splendor. Rubies and diamonds had vied with emeralds and sapphires on
+this grand occasion. Yes, they had been here. But now they had departed
+and there remained only this frail boy, hovering there on the ledge like
+a frightened gray bat.
+
+Why was he here? Certainly a timid-appearing boy would not, without some
+very pressing reason, remain hidden behind drapes at the edge of a great
+empty space which until that night had been practically unknown to him.
+
+And, indeed, at this moment the place, with its big empty spaces, its
+covered seats, its broad, deserted stage, seemed haunted, haunted by the
+ghosts of other years, by all those who, creeping from out the past, had
+stalked upon its stage; haunted, too, by those who only one or two short
+years before had paraded there on a "first night" in splendor, but who
+now, laid low by adverse circumstances, crept about in places of poverty.
+Yet, haunted or no, here was this frail boy peeking timidly out from his
+hiding place as the clock struck one.
+
+He had asked a curious question on this night, had this boy of golden
+locks and expressive blue eyes. It was during the recess between acts
+while the curtain was down and the pomp that was Egypt had for a moment
+been replaced by the pomp that is America. Leaning over the balustrade,
+this thoughtful boy had witnessed the "Grand Parade" of wealth and pomp
+that passed below him. Between massive pillars, beneath chandeliers of
+matchless splendor where a thousand lights shone, passed ladies of beauty
+and unquestioned refinement. With capes of royal purple trimmed in ermine
+or sable but slightly concealing bare shoulders and breasts where jewels
+worth a king's ransom shone, they glided gracefully down the long
+corridor. Bowing here and there, or turning to whisper a word to their
+companions, they appeared to be saying to all the throng that beheld
+them:
+
+"See! Are we not the glory that is America in all her wealth and power?"
+
+Then it was that this mysterious boy, poised there upon the ledge still
+half hidden by drapes, had asked his question. Turning to a white-haired,
+distinguished-looking man close beside him, a man whom he had never
+before seen, he had said:
+
+"Is this life?"
+
+The answer he received had been quite as unusual as the question. Fixing
+strangely luminous eyes upon him, the man had said:
+
+"It is a form of life."
+
+"A form of life." Even at this moment the boy, standing in the shadows
+timid and terribly afraid, was turning these words over in his mind. "A
+form of life."
+
+There had been about him, even as he had performed his simple duties as
+usher in the boxes on this night, an air of mystery. He had walked--more
+than one had noted this--with the short, quick steps of a girl. His hair,
+too, was soft and fine, his cheeks like the softest velvet. But then, he
+was French. His accent told this. And who knows what the French are like?
+Besides, his name was Pierre. He had said this more than once. And
+Pierre, as everyone knows, is the name of a boy.
+
+It was during the curtain before the last act that an incident had
+occurred which, for a few of the resplendent throng, had dimmed the glory
+of that night.
+
+No great fuss was made about the affair. A slim girl seated in the box
+occupied by the man whose great wealth had made this opera house
+possible, had leaned over to whisper excited words in this gray-haired
+millionaire's ears. With fingers that trembled, she had touched her bare
+neck.
+
+With perfect poise the man had beckoned to a broad-shouldered person in
+black who had until now remained in the shadows. The man had glided
+forward. Some words had been spoken. Among these words were: "Search
+them."
+
+One would have said that the golden-haired usher standing directly behind
+the box had caught these words for he had suddenly turned white and
+clutched at the railing to escape falling.
+
+Had you looked only a moment later at the spot where he had stood you
+might have noted that he was not there. And now here he was on the ledge,
+still all but concealed by drapes, poised as if for further flight.
+
+And yet he did not flee. Instead, dropping farther into the shadows, he
+appeared to lose himself in thought.
+
+What were these thoughts? One might suppose that he was recasting in his
+mind the events of the immediate past, that he read again the look of
+surprise and consternation on the face of the beautiful child of the very
+rich when she discovered that the string of beautifully matched pearls,
+bought by her father in Europe at a fabulous cost, were gone. One might
+suppose that he once again contemplated flight as the stout, hard-faced
+detective, who had so opportunely materialized from the shadows, had
+suggested searching the ushers and other attendants; that he shuddered
+again as he thought how barely he had escaped capture as, in the darkness
+attending the last act, he had glided past eagle-eyed sleuth Jaeger, and
+concealed himself behind the draperies. One might suppose that he lived
+again those moments of suspense when a quiet but very thorough search had
+revealed neither the priceless pearls nor his own humble person.
+
+Yes, one might suppose all this. Yet, if one did, he would suppose in
+vain. Our minds are the strangest creation of God. "The thoughts of youth
+are long, long thoughts."
+
+The young person still half concealed by draperies and quite hidden by
+darkness was living again, not the scenes enacted among the boxes, but
+those which had been enacted upon the stage.
+
+In his mind's eye he saw again the glory that once was Egypt. Picturing
+himself as the heroine, Aida, he loved the prince of all Egypt's
+warriors, and at the same time shuddered for her people.
+
+As Radames, he heard the shouts of his people when he returned as a
+triumphant victor.
+
+As Amneris, the Egyptian princess in the stately boat of those ancient
+days beneath a golden moon, he glided down the blue Nile. And all the
+time, as the matchless beauty of the scenes and the exquisite melody of
+the music filled him with raptures that could not be described, he was
+saying to himself:
+
+"Oh, for one golden moment to stand before that assembled throng--all the
+rich, the learned of the great of this city--and to feel the glory of the
+past about me! To know love and adventure, the daring of a Captain of the
+Guard, the tender sentiments of an Aida, and to express it all in song!
+To do all this and to feel that every heart in that throng beats in
+rapture or in sorrow, as my own! What glory! What matchless joy!"
+
+And yet, even as these last thoughts passed into eternity, the young head
+with its crown of gold fell forward. There was a moment of relaxation
+expressing pain and all but hopeless despair. Then, like a mouse creeping
+out from the dark, he slipped from his place to glide stealthily along
+among the shadows and at last disappear into that place of darkness that
+is a great auditorium at night.
+
+Having felt his way across a tier of boxes, he vaulted lightly over a low
+rail. Passing through a narrow corridor, he touched a door and pushed it
+noiselessly open. He was met by a thin film of light.
+
+"Too much," he murmured. "I shall be seen."
+
+Backing away, he retraced his steps.
+
+Having moved a long way to the right, he tried still another door.
+
+"Ah, it is better," he breathed.
+
+A moment later he found himself on the ground floor.
+
+"But the way out?" He whispered the words to the vast silence that was
+all about him. No answer came to him. Yet, even as he paused,
+uncertainly, a sound reached his ears.
+
+"A watchman. In the concourse. This is the way."
+
+He sprang toward the stage. A mouse could scarcely have made less sound,
+as, gliding down the carpeted aisle, he at last reached a door at the
+left of the stage.
+
+The door creaked as he opened it. With one wild start, he dashed across
+the gaping stage to enter a narrow passageway.
+
+Another moment and he was before a door that led to the outer air. It was
+locked, from within.
+
+With breath that came short and quick, he stood there listening intently.
+
+"Footsteps." He did not so much as whisper the words. "The watchman.
+There is need for haste.
+
+"The lock. Perhaps there is a key. Ah, yes, here it is!"
+
+His skilled fingers fumbled in the darkness for a moment. The light from
+without streamed in. The door closed. He was gone.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+                       PETITE JEANNE'S MASQUERADE
+
+
+Fifteen minutes after his disappearance into the shadows, the youth,
+still clad in a dress suit, might have been seen walking between the
+massive pillars that front the Grand Opera House. Despite the fact that
+his small white hands clasped and unclasped nervously, he was able to
+maintain a certain air of nonchalance until a figure, emerging from the
+shadow cast by a pillar, sprang toward him.
+
+At that instant he appeared ready for flight. One glance at the other,
+and he indulged in a low chuckle.
+
+"It is you!" he exclaimed.
+
+"It is I. But what could have kept you?" The person who spoke was a girl.
+A large, strongly built person, she contrasted strangely with her slender
+companion.
+
+"Circumstances over which I had no control," the youth replied. "But come
+on!" He shuddered. "I am freezing!"
+
+Having hurried west across the bridge, they entered a long concourse.
+From this they emerged into a railway station. Having crossed the waiting
+room, the slim one entered an elevator, leaving the other to wait below.
+
+When the slim one reappeared he was wrapped from head to toe in a great
+blue coat.
+
+"Ah, this is better, _ma chere_," he murmured, as he tucked a slender arm
+into his companion's own and prepared to accompany her into the chill of
+night.
+
+The apartment they entered half an hour later was neither large nor new.
+It was well furnished and gave forth an air of solid comfort. The living
+quarters consisted of a narrow kitchen and a fair-sized living-room. At
+either side of the living-room were doors that led each to a private
+room.
+
+The big girl walked to the fireplace where a pile of kindling and
+firewood lay waiting. Having touched a match to this pile, she stood back
+to watch it break into a slow blaze, and then go roaring up the chimney.
+
+"See!" she exclaimed. "How cozy we shall be in just a moment."
+
+"Ah, yes, yes, _mon ami_!" The slight one patted her cheek. "We shall
+indeed. But anon--"
+
+The private door to the right closed with a slight rush of air. The slim
+one had vanished.
+
+The stout girl's gown revealed a powerful chest. Every curve of her
+well-formed body suggested strength, while the blonde-haired one, with
+all her slender shapeliness, seemed little more than a child--and a girl,
+at that. Yet, one cannot fully forget the dress suit that at this moment
+must rest upon a hanger somewhere behind that closed door.
+
+"Well, now tell me about it," said the stout one, as, some moments later,
+the blonde one reappeared in a heavy dressing gown and sat down before
+the fire.
+
+"A pearl necklace was stolen," the slight one said in a quiet tone. "It
+was worth, oh, untold sacks of gold. _Mon Dieu!_ How is one to say how
+much? Since I was near, I was suspected. Who can doubt it? I bolted. In
+the darkness I concealed myself in the drapes that seemed to hide a
+window and did not."
+
+"But why did you run? You could not have done worse."
+
+"But, _mon Dieu_! There was talk of searching us. Could I be searched?"
+
+"No." A broad smile overspread the stout girl's face. "No, you could
+not."
+
+"Ah, my good friend! _Ma chere!_ My beloved Florence." The slender one
+patted the other's cheek with true affection. "You agree with me. What
+else can matter? You have made me happy for all my life."
+
+So now you know that this large, capable girl is none other than an old
+friend, one you have met many times, Florence Huyler. But wait, there is
+still more.
+
+"But how now is it all to end?" Two lines appeared between the large
+girl's eyes.
+
+"I shall return!" the other exclaimed. "Tomorrow night I shall go back. I
+must go! It is too wonderful for words. All the rich, the great ones. The
+sable coats, the gowns, the rare jewels. And the stage! Oh, my friend,
+how perfectly exquisite, how glorious!"
+
+"Yes, and they'll arrest you." The large girl's tone was matter-of-fact.
+"And what will you see after that?"
+
+"For what will they arrest me? Did I take the necklace? No! No! Nevair!"
+
+"But you ran away."
+
+"Yes, and for a very good reason." A faint flush appeared on the slim
+one's cheek. "I could not be searched."
+
+"And will you tell them why?"
+
+"Oh, no!"
+
+"Then how can you go back?"
+
+"Listen, my friend." The slim one laid an impressive hand on the other's
+arm. "Sometimes we have good fortune, is it not so? Yes. It is so. The
+young lady, that girl who lost the necklace, she will be there. She is
+kind. Something tells me this. She will not have Pierre Andrews arrested.
+Something tells me so. For look, now, as Pierre I am--how did you say
+it?--very handsome!"
+
+"But, Petite Jeanne!" Florence broke short off. By this exclamation she
+had betrayed a secret. Since, however, only the walls and her companion
+heard it, it did not much matter. Our old friend, Petite Jeanne (the
+little French girl), and Pierre Andrews are one and the same person. On
+the stage Jeanne had played many a role. Now she was playing one in real
+life and playing it for a grand prize.
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+But we must go back a little. Petite Jeanne, as you will recall if you
+have read that other book, _The Gypsy Shawl_, was a little French girl
+found wandering with the gypsies among the hills of France. Brought by a
+rich benefactress to America, she had made a splendid showing on the
+stage as a star in light opera.
+
+All stage productions, however, have their runs and are no more. Petite
+Jeanne's engagement had come to an end, leaving her with a pocketful of
+money and one great yearning, a yearning to have a place upon the stage
+in Grand Opera.
+
+This longing had come to her through contact with a celebrated opera
+star, Marjory Dean. Through Marjory Dean she had secured the services of
+a great teacher. For some time after that she had devoted her entire time
+to the mastering of the technique of Grand Opera and to the business of
+developing her voice.
+
+"You will not go far without study abroad," Marjory Dean had warned her.
+"Yet, who knows but that some golden opportunity may come to you? You
+have a voice, thin to be sure, but very clear and well placed. What is
+still more, you have a feeling for things. You are capable of inspiring
+your audience with feelings of love, hate, hope, despair. This will carry
+you far."
+
+"And I shall work! Oh, how I shall work!" Jeanne had replied.
+
+That had been months ago. But teachers must be paid. Jeanne's pocketful
+of money no longer weighed her down. Then, too, times were hard. The
+little French girl could make people feel the things she did on the stage
+because she, too, had a warm heart. She could not resist wandering from
+time to time into the tenement districts where dwelt her gypsy friends.
+There she found poverty and great need. Always she came away with an
+empty purse. On Maxwell Street it was no better.
+
+"I shall apply for work," she had told Florence at last.
+
+"But what can you do?"
+
+"I can act. I can sing."
+
+"But no one wants you to act or sing."
+
+"On the stage," Jeanne had shrugged, "perhaps no. But in life one may
+always act a part. I shall act. But what shall I be?"
+
+"There, now!" she had cried a moment later. "I shall be a boy. I shall
+become an usher, an usher in Grand Opera. If I may not be on the stage, I
+may at least spend every night in the aisles. I shall see all the operas,
+and I shall earn a little."
+
+"But, Petite Jeanne!"
+
+"No! No! Do not resist me!" Jeanne had cried. "I will do it. I must! It
+is my soul, my life, the stage, the opera. Hours each day I shall be near
+it. Perhaps I may steal out upon the stage and sing an aria when the hall
+is dark. Perhaps, too, I shall meet Marjory Dean, the great one this city
+adores.
+
+"And who knows," she had clasped her hands in ecstasy, "who knows but
+that in some mysterious way my opportunity may come?"
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+"My opportunity," she thought now, as, sitting before the glowing fire,
+she contemplated the future, "appears to be a bed in jail. But who
+knows?"
+
+Jeanne refused to be depressed. Casting off her dressing gown, she sprang
+away in a wild dance as she chanted:
+
+  "Now I am Pierre,
+  Now I am Jeanne.
+  To-night I sleep on eiderdown,
+  To-morrow I am in jail.
+
+"Oh, sweet mystery of life."
+
+Her voice rang out high and clear. Then, like the flash of sunshine
+across the brow of a hill, her mood changed.
+
+"To-morrow!" she exclaimed, dropping into the depths of a great chair by
+the fire. "Why think of to-morrow? See! The tea kettle sings for us. Why
+not one good cup of black tea? And then--sweet dreams."
+
+A moment later there was a clinking of thin china cups. A belated
+midnight lunch was served.
+
+An hour later, as Petite Jeanne twisted her pink toes beneath her
+silk-covered eiderdown, brought all the way from her beloved France, she
+whispered low:
+
+"To-morrow!"
+
+And after a time, once again, faint, indistinct like a word from a dream:
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+                       ON THE VERGE OF ADVENTURE
+
+
+Long after Petite Jeanne's dainty satin slippers had danced her off to
+bed, Florence Huyler sat before the fire thinking. If your acquaintance
+with Florence is of long standing, you will know that she was possessed
+of both courage and strength. For some time a gymnasium director, she had
+developed her splendid physical being to the last degree. Even now,
+though her principal business in life had for some time been that of
+keeping up with the little French girl, she spent three hours each day in
+the gymnasium and swimming pool. Her courage surpassed her strength; yet
+as she contemplated the step Petite Jeanne had taken and the events which
+must immediately follow that move, she trembled.
+
+"It's all too absurd, anyway," she told herself. "She wants to be an
+opera singer, so she dresses herself up like a boy and becomes an usher.
+What good could possibly come of that?"
+
+All the time she was thinking this she realized that her objections were
+futile. Petite Jeanne believed in Fate. Fate would take her where she
+wished to go.
+
+"If she wished to marry the President's son, she'd become a maid in the
+White House. And then--" Florence paused. She dared not say that Petite
+Jeanne would not attain her end. Up to this moment Jeanne had surmounted
+all obstacles. Adopted by the gypsies, she had lived in their camps for
+years. She had inherited their fantastic attitude toward life. For her
+nothing was entirely real, and nothing unattainable.
+
+"But to-morrow night!" Florence shuddered. The little French girl meant
+to don her dress suit and as Pierre Andrews return to her post as usher
+in the boxes of that most magnificent of all opera houses.
+
+"A necklace worth thousands of dollars was stolen." She reviewed events.
+"Petite Jeanne was near. When they looked for her, she had vanished. She
+stole the necklace. What could be more certain than this? She stole it!
+They will say that. They'll arrest her on sight.
+
+"She stole it." She repeated the words slowly. "Did she?"
+
+The very question shocked her. Petite Jeanne was no thief. This she knew
+right well. She had no need to steal. She still had a little money in the
+bank. Yet, as a means to an end, had she taken the necklace, intending
+later to return it?
+
+"No! No!" she whispered aloud. "Jeanne is reckless, but she'd never do
+that!
+
+"But where is the necklace? Who did take it?" For a time she endeavored
+to convince herself that the precious string of pearls, having become
+unclasped, had slipped to the floor, that it had been discovered and even
+now was in its youthful owner's possession.
+
+"No such luck." She prodded the fire vigorously. "In the end fortune
+smiles upon us. But in the beginning, nay, nay!
+
+"And to-morrow evening--" She rose to fling her splendid arms wide.
+"To-morrow my little friend walks in, after many brave detectives have
+spent the day in a vain search for her, and says quite nonchalantly:
+
+"'There you are, madame. Shall I remove your sable coat? Or will you wear
+it? And will you have the chair, so? Or so? _Voila!_'
+
+"Who can say it is not going to be dramatic? Drama in real life! That's
+what counts most with Jeanne. Oh, my dear little Jeanne! What an adorable
+peck of trouble you are!"
+
+And all the time, quite lost in the big, eager, hungry world that waited
+just outside her window, the little French girl lay among her pink
+eiderdown quilts and slept the sleep of the just.
+
+The cold gray dawn of the morning after found Petite Jeanne considerably
+shaken in her mind regarding the outcome of this, her latest adventure.
+
+"Will they truly arrest me?" she asked herself as, slipping into a heavy
+robe, she sought the comfort of an early fire. "And if they arrest me,
+what then?" She shuddered. She had once visited a police court in this
+very city. An uninviting place it had been, too. With judge and lawyers
+alternately laughing and storming at crestfallen individuals who stood,
+some quite bewildered, others with an air of hopelessness about them,
+with two women weeping in a corner, and with an ill-smelling, ogling
+group of visitors looking on, the whole place had depressed her beyond
+words.
+
+"Am I to stand there to be stared at? Will the lawyers and the judge make
+a joke of my misfortune?" She stamped her little foot angrily. "No! No!
+Nevair! They shall not!
+
+"And yet," she thought more soberly, "I must go back. I truly must!
+
+"Oh, why did I run away? Why did I not say: 'Search me if you must. You
+will see that I do not have your necklace!'
+
+"But no!" She flushed. "As Petite Jeanne I might be searched. But as
+Pierre. Ah, no! No!"
+
+A cup of steaming coffee revived her spirits; but for a few hours only.
+Then the dull, drab day bore down upon her with greater force than ever.
+
+And indeed it was no sort of day to enliven spirits and bolster up
+courage. Gray skies, gray streets, gray fog, dripping walls of great
+buildings, these were all about her. And in the end a slow, weepy,
+drizzling rain began to fall.
+
+There is but one way to endure such a day. That is to don storm rubbers,
+raincoat and an old hat, and defy it. Defy it Petite Jeanne did. And once
+in the cool damp of it all, she found relief.
+
+She wandered on and on. The fog grew thicker. Clouds hung dark and low.
+Lights began to appear. Yet it was not night.
+
+Of a sudden, as she wandered aimlessly on, she became conscious of an
+astonishing fact: numbers of people were hurrying past her. A strange
+proceeding on a drab day when men prefer to be indoors. But strangest of
+all, each one of these individuals was shorter than Petite Jeanne
+herself. And the little French girl was far from tall.
+
+"How extraordinary!" she murmured under her breath. "It is as if I were
+some half-grown Gulliver in the land of the Pygmies."
+
+She knew this was pure fancy. But who were these people? A look into one
+storm-clad, bemuffled face told her the answer:
+
+"Orientals. But where can they be going? They must have come from many
+places."
+
+The question absorbed her attention. It drove trouble from her mind. She
+followed the one whose face she had scrutinized. In time she saw him dart
+up a short flight of stairs to enter a door on which were inscribed the
+words: "Members Only."
+
+Other figures appeared. One and all, they followed in this one's wake.
+
+As Jeanne looked up she saw that the three-story building was possessed
+of a highly ornamented front. Strange and grotesque figures, dragons,
+birds of prey, great, ugly faces all done in wood or metal and painted in
+gaudy colors, clustered in every available niche.
+
+Suddenly she was seized with a desire to follow these little men.
+
+"But no!" she whispered. "They would never allow me to pass."
+
+She looked for the street number. There was none. She walked a few paces
+to the left.
+
+"Seven, three, seven," she read aloud. She gave a sudden start. She knew
+this location. Only three blocks away was a costumer's shop. For a dollar
+or two this costumer would turn her into any sort of person she might
+choose to be, a pirate, an Eskimo, yes, even a Chinaman. That was his
+business. At once Jeanne was on her way to that shop.
+
+In an astonishingly short time she was back; or at least some person
+answering her description as to height, breadth of shoulders, glove
+number, etc., was coming down the street. But was it Jeanne? Perhaps not
+one of her best friends could have told. Certainly in the narrow hallway
+of that mysterious building, which little men were still entering, her
+nationality was not challenged. To these mysterious little people, who
+were gathering for who knows what good or evil reason, she was for the
+moment an Oriental.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+                            A LIVING STATUE
+
+
+In the meantime Florence, too, had gone for a walk in the rain. The
+discovery she made that day was destined to play a very large part in her
+immediate future.
+
+Florence by nature belonged to the country, not to the city. Fate had, by
+some strange trick, cast her lot in the city. But on every possible
+occasion she escaped to quiet places where the rattle and bang of city
+life were gone and she might rest her weary feet by tramping over the
+good, soft, yielding earth.
+
+Since their rooms were very near the heart of the city, at first thought
+it might seem impossible for her to reach such a spot of tranquility
+without enduring an hour-long car ride.
+
+This was not true. The city which had for so long been Florence's home is
+unique. No other in the world is like it. Located upon a swamp, it turned
+the swamp first into a garden, then into a city where millions live in
+comfort. Finding a stagnant river running into the lake, it turned the
+river about and made it a swift one going from the lake. Lacking islands
+upon its shore-line, this enterprising metropolis proceeded to build
+islands. A brisk twenty-minute walk brought Florence to one of these
+islands.
+
+This island at that time, though of a considerable size, was quite
+incomplete. In time it was to be a place where millions would tread. At
+that moment, save for one dark, dome-shaped building at its north end, it
+was a place of desolation, or so it seemed to Florence.
+
+At either end the land rose several feet above the surface of the lake.
+In the center it was so low that in time of storm waves dashed completely
+over it.
+
+Since the island had been some years in building a voluntary forest which
+might better, perhaps, be called a jungle, had sprung up on its southern
+extremity. Beyond this jungle lay the breakwater where in time of storm
+great waves mounted high and came crashing down upon heaps of limestone
+rocks as large as small houses.
+
+To the left of this jungle, on the side facing the lake, was a narrow,
+sandy beach. It was toward this beach that Florence made her way. There
+she hoped to spend an hour of quiet meditation as she promenaded the
+hard-packed sand of the beach. Vain hope. Some one was there before her.
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+Petite Jeanne had entered many strange places. None was more strange nor
+more fantastically beautiful than the one she found within the four walls
+of that dragon-guarded building in the heart of a great city.
+
+Playing the role of an American born Chinese lady, she passed the
+attendant and climbed two flights of stairs unmolested.
+
+As she reached the top of the second flight she found her feet sinking
+deep in the thick pile of an Oriental rug. One glance about her and she
+gripped at her heart to still it.
+
+"It is a dream!" she told herself. "There is no place like this."
+
+Yet she dared not distrust her senses. Surely the lovely Chinese ladies,
+dressed in curious Chinese garments of matchless silk, gliding silently
+about the place, were real; so, too, was the faint, fragrant odor of
+incense, and the lamps that, burning dimly, cast a shadow of purple and
+old rose over all.
+
+"Dragons," she murmured, "copper dragons looking as old as time itself.
+Smoke creeps from their nostrils as if within them burned eternal fire.
+Lamps made of three thousand bits of glass set in copper. Banners of
+silk. Pictures of strange birds. Who could have planned all this and
+brought it into being?
+
+"And there," she whispered, as she dared a few steps across the first
+soft-carpeted space, "there is an altar, an altar to a god wholly unknown
+to me. The ladies are kneeling there. Suppose they invite me to join
+them!" At once she felt terribly frightened. She sank deep in the
+shadows. She was playing the part of a Chinese lady, yet she knew nothing
+of their religion. And this appeared to be a temple.
+
+She was contemplating flight when a sound, breaking in upon her
+attention, caused her to pause. From somewhere, seemingly deep down and
+far away, came the dong-dong of a gong. Deep, serene, melodious, it
+seemed to call to her. A simple, impulsive child of nature, she murmured:
+
+"It calls. I shall go."
+
+Turning her back to the broad stairs that led down and away to the cool,
+damp, outer air, she took three steps downward on a narrow circular
+staircase which led, who could tell where?
+
+Smoke rose from the spaces below, the smoke of many incense burners.
+
+Pausing there, she seemed about to turn back. But again came the deep,
+melodious, all but human call of the gong. Moving like one in a trance,
+she took three more steps downward and was lost from sight.
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+The person who had disturbed Florence's hoped-for hour of solitude on the
+island beach was a girl. Yet, as Florence first saw her, she seemed less
+a living person than a statue. Tanned by the sun to a shade that matched
+the giant rock on which she stood, clad only in a scant bathing suit that
+in color matched her skin, standing rigid, motionless, she seemed a thing
+hewn of stone to stand there forever.
+
+Yet, even as Florence looked on entranced, she flung her arms high, gave
+vent to a scream that sent gulls scurrying from rocky roosts, and then,
+leaping high, disappeared beneath the dull surface of the water.
+
+That scream, together with the deft arching of her superb body as she
+dove, marked her as one after Florence's own kind. Gone was her wish for
+solitude. One desire possessed her now: to know this animated statue of
+the island.
+
+"Where does she live?" she asked herself. "How can she dare to visit this
+desolate spot alone?"
+
+Even as she asked this question, the girl emerged from the water, shook
+back her tangled hair, drew a rough blue overall over her dripping
+bathing suit, and then, leaping away like a wild deer, cleared the
+breakwater at a bound and in a twinkling lost herself on a narrow path
+that wound through the jungle of low willows and cottonwoods.
+
+"She is gone!" Florence exclaimed. "I have lost her!" Nevertheless, she
+went racing along the beach to enter the jungle over the path the girl
+had taken. She had taken up a strange trail. That trail was short. It
+ended abruptly. This she was soon enough to know.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+                            THE SECRET PLACE
+
+
+Petite Jeanne was a person of courage. Times there had been when, as a
+child living with the gypsies of France, she had believed that she saw a
+ghost. At the heart of black woods, beneath a hedge on a moonless night
+some white thing lying just before her had moved in the most
+blood-chilling fashion. Never, on such an occasion, had Jeanne turned to
+flee. Always, with knees trembling, heart in her throat, she had marched
+straight up to the "ghost." Always, to be sure, the "ghost" had vanished,
+but Jeanne had gained courage by such adventures. So now, as she glided
+down the soft-carpeted, circular staircase with the heavy odor of incense
+rising before her and the play of eerie green lights all about her, she
+took a strong grip on herself, bade her fluttering heart be still, and
+steadily descended into the mysterious unknown.
+
+The scene that met her gaze as at last she reached those lower levels,
+was fantastic in the extreme. A throng of little brown people, dressed in
+richest silks, their faces shining strangely in the green light, sat in
+small circles on rich Oriental rugs.
+
+Scattered about here and there all over the room were low pedestals and
+on these pedestals rested incense burners. Fantastic indeed were the
+forms of these burners: ancient dragons done in copper, eagles of brass
+with wings spread wide, twining serpents with eyes of green jade, and
+faces, faces of ugly men done in copper. These were everywhere.
+
+As Jeanne sank silently to a place on the floor, she felt that some great
+event in the lives of these people was about to transpire. They did not
+speak; they whispered; and once, then again, and yet again, their eyes
+strayed expectantly to a low stage, built across the far end of the room.
+
+"What is to happen?" the girl asked herself. She shuddered. To forget
+that she was in a secret place at the very heart of a Chinese temple
+built near the center of a great city--this was impossible.
+
+"I shouldn't be here," she chided herself. "Something may happen to me. I
+may be detained. I may not be able to reach the Opera House in time. And
+then--"
+
+She wondered what that would mean. She realized with a sort of shock that
+she was strangely indifferent to it all. Truth was, events had so shaped
+themselves that she was at that moment undecided where her own best good
+lay. She had ventured something, had begun playing the role of a boy. She
+had done this that she might gain a remote end. The end now seemed very
+remote indeed. The perils involved in reaching that end had increased
+four-fold.
+
+"Why go back at all?" she asked herself. "As Pierre I can die very
+comfortably. As Petite Jeanne I can live on. And no one will ever know. I
+am--"
+
+Her thoughts were interrupted, not by a sound nor a movement, but by a
+sudden great silence that had fallen, like a star from the sky at night,
+upon the assembled host of little people.
+
+Petite Jeanne was not a stranger to silence. She had stood at the edge of
+a clearing before an abandoned cabin, far from the home of any living man
+just as the stars were coming out, when a hush had fallen over all; not a
+leaf had stirred, not a bird note had sounded, and the living, breathing
+world had seemed far away. She had called that silence.
+
+She had drifted with idle paddle in a canoe far out upon the glimmering
+surface of Lake Huron. There, alone, with night falling, she had listened
+until every tiniest wavelet had gone to rest. She had heard the throb of
+a motor die away in the distance. She had felt rather than heard the
+breath of air stirred by the last lone seagull on his way to some rocky
+ledge for rest. She had at last listened for the faintest sound, then had
+whispered:
+
+"This is silence."
+
+It may have been, but never had a silence impressed her as did the
+silence of this moment as, seated there on the floor, far from her
+friends, an uninvited guest to some weird ceremony, she awaited with
+bated breath that which was to come.
+
+She had not long to wait. A long tremulous sigh, like the tide sweeping
+across the ocean at night, passed over the motionless throng; a sigh,
+that was all.
+
+But Petite Jeanne? She wished to scream, to rise and dash out of the room
+crying, "Fire! Fire!"
+
+She did not scream. Something held her back. Perhaps it was the sigh, and
+perhaps the silence.
+
+The thing that was happening was weird in the extreme. On the stage a
+curtain was slowly, silently closing. No one was near to close it. It
+appeared endowed with life. This was not all. The curtain was aflame.
+Tongues of fire darted up its folds. One expected this fire to roar. It
+did not. Yet, as the little French girl, with heart in throat and finger
+nails cutting deep, sat there petrified, flames raced up the curtain
+again and yet again. And all the time, in great, graceful folds, it was
+gliding, silently gliding from the right and the left.
+
+"Soon it will close," she told herself. "And then--"
+
+Only one thought saved Jeanne from a scream that would have betrayed her;
+not a soul in that impassive throng had moved or spoken. It was borne in
+upon her that here was some form of magic which she did not know.
+
+"It's a magic curtain." These words, formed by her lips were not so much
+as whispered.
+
+But now from a dark corner of the stage a figure appeared. A weird
+stooping figure he was, clothed all in white. He moved toward the curtain
+with slow, halting steps. He seemed desirous of passing between the folds
+of the curtain before the opening; yet a great fear appeared to hold him
+back.
+
+At this moment there came to Jeanne's mind words from a very ancient
+book:
+
+"_Draw not nigh hither. Put off thy shoes from thy feet._"
+
+"The burning bush!" she whispered. "It burned but was not consumed; a
+magic bush. This is a magic curtain."
+
+"_Remove thy shoes._"
+
+She seemed to hear someone repeat these words.
+
+Her hands went to her feet. They were fully clad. A quick glance to right
+and left assured her that not another person in the room wore shoes.
+
+"My shoes will betray me!" Consternation seized her. One look backward, a
+stealthy creeping toward the soft-carpeted stair, another stealthy move
+and she was on her way out.
+
+But would she make it? Her heart was in her throat. A quarter of the way
+up she was obliged to pause. She was suffocating with fear.
+
+"I must be calm," she whispered. "I must! I must!" Of a sudden life
+seemed a thing of solemn beauty. Somehow she must escape that she might
+live on and on.
+
+Once again she was creeping upward. Did a hand touch her foot? Was
+someone preparing to seize her? With an effort, she looked down. No one
+was following. Every eye was glued upon the magic curtain. The curtain
+was closed. The white-robed figure had vanished. What had happened? Had
+he passed through? Had the curtain consumed him? She shuddered. Then,
+summoning all her courage, she leaped up the stairs, glided silently
+across the room above, and passed swiftly on until she gained the open
+air.
+
+Then how she sped away! Never had she raced so swiftly and silently as
+now.
+
+It was some time before she realized how futile was her flight. No one
+pursued her.
+
+In time she was able to still her wildly beating heart. Then she turned
+toward home.
+
+Once she stopped dead in her tracks to exclaim: "The magic curtain! Oh!
+Why did I run away?"
+
+Then, as another mood seized her, she redoubled her pace. Florence, she
+hoped, awaited her with a roaring fire, a cup of hot chocolate and a good
+scolding.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+                           THE WOMAN IN BLACK
+
+
+By the time she reached the doorway that led to her humble abode, Petite
+Jeanne was in high spirits. The brisk walk had stirred her blood. Her
+recent adventure had quickened her imagination. She was prepared for
+anything.
+
+Alas, how quickly all this vanished! One moment she was a heroine
+marching forth to face that which life might fling at her; the next she
+was limp as a rag doll. Such was Petite Jeanne. The cause?
+
+The room she entered was dark; chill damp hung over the place like a
+shroud. Florence was not there. The fire was dead. Cheer had passed from
+the place; gloom had come.
+
+Jeanne could build a fire. This is an art known to all wanderers, and she
+had been a gypsy. But she lacked the will to put her skill to the test,
+so, quite in despair, she threw herself in a chair and lay there, looking
+for all the world like a deserted French doll, as she whispered to
+herself:
+
+"What can it matter? Life is without a true purpose, all life. Why should
+one struggle? Why not go down with the tide? Why--"
+
+But in one short moment all this was changed. The door flew open.
+Florence burst into the room and with her came a whole gust of fresh lake
+air, or so it seemed to Jeanne.
+
+"You have been to the island!" she exclaimed, as she became a very
+animated doll.
+
+"Yes, I have been there." Excitement shone from the big girl's eyes. "And
+I have made a surprising discovery. But wait. What ails the fire?"
+
+"There is no fire."
+
+"But why?"
+
+Jeanne shrugged. "One does not know," she murmured.
+
+Seizing the antiquated wood-hamper that stood by the hearth, Florence
+piled shavings and kindling high. Then, after scratching a match, she
+watched the yellow flames spread as shadows began dancing on the wall.
+
+"You have been surrendering to gloom," she said reprovingly. "Don't do
+it. It's bad for you. Where there is light there is hope. And see how our
+fire gleams!"
+
+"You speak truth, my friend." Jeanne's tone was solemn.
+
+"But tell me." Her mood changed. "You have met adventure. So have I." Her
+eyes shone.
+
+"Yes." Florence was all business at once. "But take a look at the clock.
+There is just time to rush out for a cup of tea, then--"
+
+"Then I go to jail," replied Jeanne solemnly. "Tell me. What does one
+wear in jail?"
+
+"You are joking," Florence replied. "This is a serious affair. But, since
+you will go, it will not help to be late. We must hurry."
+
+A moment later, arm in arm, they passed from the outer door and the dull
+damp of night swallowed them up.
+
+When, a short time later, Petite Jeanne, garbed as Pierre Andrews, stole
+apprehensively through the entrance to the great opera house, her
+ever-fearful eyes fell upon two men loitering just within.
+
+The change that came over one of these, a tall, dark young man with a
+steely eye, as he caught sight of Jeanne was most astonishing. Turning
+square about like some affair of metal set on wheels, he appeared about
+to leap upon her. Only a grip on his arm, that of his more stocky
+companion, appeared to save the girl.
+
+"Watch out!" the other counseled savagely. "Think where you are!"
+
+On the instant the look in those steely eyes changed. The man became a
+smiling wolf.
+
+"Hey there, boy!" he called to Jeanne.
+
+But Jeanne, in her immaculate suit of black, gave but one frightened
+backward look, and then sped for the elevator.
+
+Her heart was doing double time as she saw the elevator door silently
+close.
+
+"Who could that man be?" she questioned herself breathlessly. "He can't
+have been a detective. They do not stand on ceremony. He would be here by
+my side, with a hand on my arm. But if not a detective, what then?" She
+could form no answer.
+
+In the meantime, the dark, slim man was saying to the stocky one:
+
+"Can you beat it? You can't! Thought he'd cut for good! My luck. But no!
+Here he is, going back."
+
+"What do you care?" the other grumbled. "They'll take him, and that's the
+end of it. Come on outside." His eyes strayed to the corner. A
+deep-chested man whose coat bulged in a strange way was loitering there.
+"Air's bad in here."
+
+They passed out into the night. And there we leave them. But not for
+long. Men such as these are found in curious places and at unheard-of
+hours.
+
+But Jeanne? With her heart stilled for a brief period of time, she rose
+to the floor above, only to be thrown into a state of mind bordering on
+hysteria at thought of facing the ordeal that must lie just before her.
+
+Seeking a dark corner, she closed her eyes. Allowing her head to drop
+forward, she stood like one in prayer. Did she pray, or did she but
+surrender her soul and body to the forces of nature all about her? Who
+can say but that these two are the same, or at least that their effect is
+the same? However that may be, it was a changed Jeanne who, three minutes
+later, took up her post of duty in the boxes, for hers was the air of a
+sentry. Her movements were firm and steady, the look upon her face as
+calm as the reflection of the moon upon a still pool at midnight.
+
+That which followed was silent drama. Throughout it all, not a word was
+spoken, no, not so much as whispered. The effect was like a thing of
+magic. Jeanne will never erase those pictures from her memory.
+
+Scarcely had she taken her place at the door leading to the box than the
+great magnate, J. Rufus Robinson, and his daughter, she of the lost
+pearls, appeared. Jeanne caught her breath as she beheld the cape of
+green velvet trimmed with white fur and the matchless French gown of
+cream colored silk she wore. There was no lack of jewels despite the lost
+pearls. A diamond flashed here, a ruby burned there, yet they did not
+outshine the smile of this child of the rich.
+
+"I am seeing life," Jeanne whispered to herself. "I must see more of it.
+I must! I just must!"
+
+Yet, even as she whispered these words she thought of the bearded man
+with those luminous eyes. She had asked him if all this was life--this
+wealth, this pomp and circumstance. And he had replied quite calmly: "It
+is a form of life."
+
+At that instant Jeanne thought of impending events that hung over her
+like a sword suspended by a hair, and shuddered.
+
+Assisting the millionaire's daughter to remove her wrap, she carried it
+to the cloak-room at the back, then assisted the pair to arrange their
+chairs. This done, she stepped back, a respectful distance.
+
+While this was being done, a man, gliding forward with silent unconcern,
+had taken a place in the shadows at the back of the box. Deeper in the
+shadows stood a woman in black. Jeanne did not see the woman. She did see
+the man, and shuddered again. He, she realized, was the detective.
+
+As she turned her back, the detective moved, prepared without doubt to
+advance upon her. But a curious thing happened. The woman in the shadows
+darted forward. Touching the arm of the rich young lady, she pointed at
+Jeanne and nodded her head. The girl in turn looked at the detective and
+shook her head. Then both the detective and the woman in black lost
+themselves in the shadows at the back of the box.
+
+All this was lost to Jeanne. Her back had been turned. Her mind had been
+filled by a magic panorama, a picture of that which was to pass across
+the opera stage that night. Thus does devotion to a great art cause us to
+forget the deepest, darkest trouble in our lives.
+
+All during that long evening Petite Jeanne found herself profoundly
+puzzled. Why was nothing said to her regarding the pearls? Why was she
+not arrested?
+
+"They have been found," she told herself at last. Yet she doubted her own
+words, as well she might.
+
+Two incidents of the evening impressed her. As she left the box during an
+intermission the rich girl turned a bright smile full upon her as she
+said:
+
+"What is your name?"
+
+Caught off her guard, the little French girl barely escaped betraying her
+secret. The first sound of "Jeanne" was upon her lips when of a sudden,
+without so much as a stammer or blush, she answered:
+
+"Pierre Andrews, if you please."
+
+"What a romantic name." The girl smiled again, then passed on.
+
+"Now why did she do that?" Jeanne's head was in a whirl.
+
+Scarcely had she regained her composure when a voice behind her asked:
+"Are you fond of the opera?"
+
+"Oh, yes! Yes, indeed I am." She turned about.
+
+"Then you may see much of it this season." The mysterious woman in black
+was already turned about. She was walking away. Jeanne did not see her
+face, yet there was that about her voice, a depth, a melodious resonance,
+a something, that thrilled her to the very tips of her slender toes.
+
+"Will wonders never end?" she asked herself, and found no answer.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+                          DREAMS OF OTHER DAYS
+
+
+Petite Jeanne left the opera house that night in a brown study. She was
+perplexed beyond words. The necklace had not been found. She had made
+sure of that when, between the second and third act, she had discovered
+on a bulletin board of the lobby a typewritten notice of the loss and an
+offer of a reward for the return of the pearls.
+
+"If the pearls had been found that notice would have been taken down,"
+she assured herself. "But if this is true, why did I go unmolested? One
+would suppose that at least I would be questioned regarding the affair.
+But no!" She shrugged her graceful shoulders. "They ask me nothing. They
+look and look, and say nothing. Oh, yes, indeed, they say: 'What is your
+name?' That most beautiful rich one, she says this. And the dark one who
+is only a voice, she says: 'Do you like the opera?' She asks this. And
+who is she? I know that voice. I have heard it before. It is very
+familiar, yet I cannot recall it. If she is here again I shall see her
+face."
+
+Having thus worked herself into a state of deep perplexity that rapidly
+ripened into fear, she glided, once her duties were done, down a narrow
+aisle, across the end of the stage where a score of stage hands were busy
+shifting scenes, then along a narrow passage-way, with which, as you will
+know from reading _The Golden Circle_, she was thoroughly familiar. From
+this passageway she emerged upon a second and narrower stage.
+
+This was the stage of the Civic Theatre. The stage was dark. The house
+was dark. Only the faintest gleam of light revealed seats like ghosts
+ranged row on row.
+
+How familiar it all seemed to her. The time had been when, not many
+months back, she had stood upon that stage and by the aid of her
+God-given gift, had stirred the audience to admiration, to laughter and
+to tears.
+
+As she stood there now a wave of feeling came over her that she could not
+resist. This stage, this little playhouse had become to her what home
+means to many. The people who had haunted those seats were _her_ people.
+They had loved her. She had loved them. But now they were gone. The house
+was dark, the light opera troop was scattered. She thought she knew how a
+mother robin must feel as she visits her nest long after the fledglings
+have flown.
+
+Advancing to the center of the stage, she stretched her arms wide in mute
+appeal to the empty seats. But no least whisper of admiration or
+disapproval came back to her.
+
+A moment she stood thus. Then, as her hands dropped, her breast heaved
+with one great sob.
+
+But, like the sea, Jeanne was made of many moods. "No! No!" She stamped
+her small foot. "I will not come back to this! I will not! The way back
+is closed. Only the door ahead is open. I will go on.
+
+"Grand Opera, this is all now. This is art indeed. Pictures, music,
+story. This is Grand Opera. Big! Grand! Noble! Some day, somehow I shall
+stand upon that most wonderful of all stages, and those people, those
+thousands, the richest, the most learned, the most noble, they shall be
+my people!"
+
+Having delivered this speech to the deserted hall, she once again became
+a very little lady in a trim black dress suit, seeking a way to the outer
+air and the street that led to home.
+
+She had come this way because she feared that the slender, dark-faced
+stranger who had accosted her earlier in the evening would await her at
+the door.
+
+"If he sees me he will follow," she told herself. "And then--"
+
+She finished with a shudder.
+
+In choosing this way she had counted upon one circumstance. Nor had she
+counted in vain. As she hurried down the dark aisle toward the back of
+the theatre which was, she knew, closed, she came quite suddenly upon a
+man with a flashlight and time clock.
+
+"Oh, Tommy Mosk!" she exclaimed in a whisper. "How glad I am that you are
+still here!"
+
+The watchman threw his light upon her face.
+
+"Petite Jeanne!" he exclaimed. "But why the masquerade?" Tommy belonged
+to those other days and, with the rest, had come to love the simple,
+big-hearted little light opera star. "Petite Jeanne! But why--"
+
+"Please don't make me tell." She gripped his arm. "Only let me out, and
+see me safe into a taxi. And--and--" She put a finger to her lips. "Don't
+whisper a word."
+
+"I--it's irregular, but I--I'll do it," he replied gallantly.
+
+Jeanne gave his arm another squeeze and they were away.
+
+Three minutes later, still dressed as Pierre, the usher, she was huddled
+on the broad seat of a taxi, speeding for home.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+                           AN ISLAND MYSTERY
+
+
+When Florence, whose work as physical director required her attention
+until late hours three nights in the week, arrived, she found the little
+French girl still dressed as Pierre, curled up in a big chair shuddering
+in the cold and the dark.
+
+"Wh-what's happened?" She stared at her companion in astonishment.
+
+"N-n-nothing happened!" wailed Petite Jeanne. "That is why I am so very
+much afraid. They have said not one word to me about the pearls. They
+believe I have them. They will follow me, shadow me, search this place.
+Who can doubt it? Oh, _mon Dieu_! Such times! Such troubles!
+
+"And yes!" she cried with a fresh shudder. "There is the slim, dark-faced
+one who is after me. And how can I know why?"
+
+"You poor child!" Florence lifted her from the chair as easily as she
+might had she been a sack of feathers. "You shall tell me all about it.
+But first I must make a fire and brew some good black tea. And you must
+run along and become Petite Jeanne. I am not very fond of this Pierre
+person." She plucked at the black coat sleeve. "In fact I never have
+cared for him at all."
+
+Half an hour later the two girls were curled up amid a pile of rugs and
+cushions before the fire. Cups were steaming, the fire crackling and the
+day, such as it had been, was rapidly passing into the joyous realm of
+"times that are gone," where one may live in memories that amuse and
+thrill, but never cause fear nor pain.
+
+Jeanne had told her story and Florence had done her best to reassure her,
+when the little French girl exclaimed: "But you, my friend? Only a few
+hours ago you spoke of a discovery on the island. What was this so
+wonderful thing you saw there?"
+
+"Well, now," Florence sat up to prod the fire, "that was the strangest
+thing! You have been on the island?"
+
+"No, my friend. In the fort, but not on the island."
+
+"Then you don't know what sort of half wild place it is. It's made of the
+dumping from a great city: cans, broken bricks, clay, everything. And
+from sand taken from the bottom of the lake. It's been years in the
+making. Storms have washed in seeds. Birds have carried in others. Little
+forests of willow and cottonwood have sprung up. The south end is a
+jungle. A fit hide-out for tramps, you'd say. All that. You'd not expect
+to find respectable people living there, would you?"
+
+"But how could they?"
+
+"That's the queer part. They could. And I'm almost sure they do. Seems
+too strange to be true.
+
+"And yet--" She prodded the fire, then stared into the flames as if to
+see reproduced there pictures that had half faded from her memories. "And
+yet, Petite Jeanne, I saw a girl out there, quite a young girl, in
+overalls and a bathing-suit. She was like a statue when I first saw her,
+a living statue. She went in for a dip, then donned her overalls to dash
+right into the jungle.
+
+"I wanted to see where she went, so I followed. And what do you think!
+After following a winding trail for a little time, I came, just where the
+cottonwoods are tallest, upon the strangest sort of dwelling--if it was a
+dwelling at all--I have ever seen."
+
+"What was it like?" Jeanne leaned eagerly forward.
+
+"Like nothing on land or sea, but a little akin to both. The door was
+heavy and without glass. It had a great brass knob such as you find on
+the cabin doors of very old ships. And the windows, if you might call
+them that, looked like portholes taken from ships.
+
+"But the walls; they were strangest of all. Curious curved pillars rose
+every two or three feet apart, to a considerable height. Between these
+pillars brick walls had been built. The whole was topped by a roof of
+green tile."
+
+"And the girl went in there?"
+
+"Where else could she have gone?"
+
+"And that was her home?"
+
+"Who could doubt it?"
+
+"America--" Jeanne drew a long breath. "Your America is a strange place."
+
+"So strange that even we who have lived here always are constantly
+running into the most astonishing things.
+
+"Perhaps," the big girl added, after a brief silence, "that is why
+America is such a glorious place to live."
+
+"But did you not endeavor to make a call at this strange home?" asked
+Jeanne.
+
+"I did. Little good it did me! I knocked three times at the door. There
+was no answer. It was growing dark, but no light shone from those
+porthole windows. So all I could do was to retrace my steps.
+
+"I had gone not a dozen paces when I caught the sound of a half
+suppressed laugh. I wheeled about, but saw no one. Now, what do you make
+of that?"
+
+"It's a sweet and jolly mystery," said Jeanne. "We shall solve it, you
+and I."
+
+And in dreaming of this new and apparently harmless adventure, the little
+French girl's troubles were, for the time being at least, forgotten. She
+slept soundly that night and all her dreams were dreams of peace.
+
+But to-morrow was another day.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+                           CAUGHT IN THE ACT
+
+
+And on that new day, like a ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds
+after a storm, there came to Jeanne an hour of speechless joy.
+
+Having exercised as ever her gift of friendship to all mankind, she was
+able, through her acquaintance with the watchman, to enter the opera
+house when she chose. There was only one drawback to this; she must enter
+always as Pierre and never as Petite Jeanne.
+
+Knowing that some sort of rehearsal would be in progress, she garbed
+herself in her Pierre costume and repaired to the place which to her, of
+all places on earth, seemed the home of pure enchantment--the opera.
+
+Even now, when the seats were clothed like ghosts in white sheets, when
+the aisles, so often adorned with living models all a-glitter with silks
+and jewels, and echoing with the sound of applause and laughter, were
+dark and still, the great hall lost none of its charm.
+
+As she tripped noiselessly down the foyer where pillars cut from some
+curious stone flanked her on every side and priceless chandeliers hung
+like blind ghosts far above her head, she thought of the hundreds who had
+promenaded here displaying rich furs, costly silks and jewels. She
+recalled, too, the remark of that strangely studious man with a beard:
+
+"It is a form of life."
+
+"I wonder what he meant?" she said half aloud. "Perhaps some day I shall
+meet him again. If I do, I shall ask him."
+
+But Jeanne was no person to be living in the past. She dreamed of the
+future when only dreams were at her command. For her the vivid, living,
+all-entrancing _present_ was what mattered most. She had not haunted the
+building long before she might have been found curled up in a seat among
+the dark shadows close to the back row on the orchestra floor. She had
+pushed the white covering away, but was still half hidden by it; she
+could be entirely hidden in a second's time if she so willed.
+
+Behind and above her, black chasms of darkness, the boxes and balconies
+loomed. Before her the stage, all dark, seemed a mysterious cave where a
+hundred bandits might hide among the settings of some imposing scene.
+
+She did not know the name of the opera to be rehearsed on this particular
+afternoon. Who, then, can describe the stirring of her blood, the
+quickening of her heart-beats, the thrill that coursed through her very
+being when the first faint flush of dawn began appearing upon the scene
+that lay before her? A stage dawn it was, to be sure; but very little
+less than real it was, for all that. In this matchless place of amusement
+shades of light, pale gray, blue, rosy red, all come creeping out, and
+dawn lingers as it does upon hills and forests of earth and stone and
+wood.
+
+Eagerly the little French girl leaned forward to catch the first glimpse
+of that unknown scene. Slowly, slowly, but quite surely, to the right a
+building began looming out from that darkness. The trunk of a tree
+appeared, another and yet another. Dimly a street was outlined. One by
+one these objects took on a clearer line until with an impulsive
+movement, Jeanne fairly leaped from her place.
+
+"It is France!" she all but cried aloud. "My own beloved France! And the
+opera! It is to be 'The Juggler of Notre Dame'! Was there ever such
+marvelous good fortune!"
+
+It was indeed as if a will higher than her own had planned all this, for
+this short opera was the one Jeanne had studied. It was this opera, as
+you will remember from reading _The Golden Circle_, that Jeanne had once
+witnessed quite by chance as she lay flat upon the iron grating more than
+a hundred feet above the stage.
+
+"And now I shall see Marjory Dean play in it once more," she exulted.
+"For this is a dress rehearsal, I am sure of that."
+
+She was not long in discovering that her words were true. Scarcely had
+the full light of day shone upon that charming stage village, nestled
+among the hills of France, than a company of peasants, men, women and
+children, all garbed in bright holiday attire, came trooping upon the
+stage.
+
+But what was this? Scarcely had they arrived than one who loitered behind
+began shouting in the most excited manner and pointing to the road that
+led back to the hills.
+
+"The juggler is coming," Jeanne breathed. "The juggler of Notre Dame."
+She did not say Marjory Dean, who played the part. She said: "the
+juggler," because at this moment she lived again in that beautiful
+village of her native land. Once again she was a gypsy child. Once more
+she camped at the roadside. With her pet bear and her friend, the
+juggler, she marched proudly into the village to dance for pennies before
+the delighted crowd in the village square.
+
+What wonder that Petite Jeanne knew every word of this charming opera by
+heart? Was it not France as she knew it? And was not France her native
+land?
+
+Breathing deeply, clutching now and then at her heart to still its wild
+beating, she waited and watched. A second peasant girl followed the first
+to the roadside. She too called and beckoned. Others followed her. And
+then, with a burst of joyous song, their gay garments gleaming like a bed
+of flowers, their faces shining, these happy villagers came trooping
+back. And in their midst, bearing in one hand a gay, colored hoop, in the
+other a mysterious bag of tricks, was the juggler of Notre Dame.
+
+"It is Marjory Dean, Marjory herself. She is the juggler," Jeanne
+whispered. She dared not trust herself to do more. She wanted to leap to
+her feet, to clap her hands and cry: "Ray! Ray! Ray! _Vive! Vive! Vive!_"
+
+But no, this would spoil it all. She must see this beautiful story
+through to its end.
+
+So, calming herself, she settled back to see the juggler, arrayed in his
+fantastic costume, open his bag of tricks. She saw him delight his
+audience with his simple artistry.
+
+She watched, breathless, as a priest, coming from the monastery, rebuked
+him for practicing what he believed to be a sinful art. She suffered with
+the juggler as he fought a battle with his soul. When he came near to the
+door of the monastery that, being entered, might never again be
+abandoned, she wished to rise and shout:
+
+"No! No! Juggler! Stay with the happy people in the bright sunshine. Show
+them more of your art. Life is too often sad. Bring joy to their lives!"
+
+She said, in reality, nothing. When at last the curtain fell, she was
+filled with one desire: to be for one short hour the juggler of Notre
+Dame. She knew the words of his song; had practiced his simple tricks.
+
+"Why not? Sometime--somewhere," she breathed.
+
+"Sometime? Somewhere?" She realized in an instant that no place could be
+quite the same to her as this one that in all its glories of green and
+gold surrounded her now.
+
+When the curtain was up again the stage scene remained the same; but the
+gay peasants, the juggler, were gone.
+
+After some moments of waiting Jeanne realized that this scene had been
+set for the night's performance, that this scene alone would be rehearsed
+upon the stage.
+
+"They are gone! It is over!" How empty her life seemed now. It was as if
+a great light had suddenly gone out.
+
+Stealing from her place, she crept down the aisle, entered a door and
+emerged at last upon a dark corner of the stage.
+
+For a moment, quite breathless, she stood there in the shadows, watching,
+listening.
+
+"There is no one," she breathed. "I am alone."
+
+An overpowering desire seized her to don the juggler's costume, to sing
+his songs, to do his tricks. The costume was there, the bag of tricks.
+Why not?
+
+Pausing not a second, she crept to the center of the stage, seized the
+coveted prizes, then beat a hasty retreat.
+
+Ten minutes later, dancing lightly and singing softly, she came upon the
+stage. She was there alone. Yet, in her mind's eye she saw the villagers
+of France, matrons and men, laughing lovers, dancing children, all before
+her as, casting her bag upon the green, she seized some trifling baubles
+and began working her charms.
+
+For her, too, the seats were not dark, covered empties, but filled with
+human beings, filled with the light and joy of living.
+
+Of a sudden she seemed to hear the reproving words of the priest.
+
+Turning about, with sober face, she stood before the monastery door.
+
+And then, like some bird discovered in a garden, she wanted to run away.
+For there, in very life, a little way back upon the vast stage, stood all
+the peasants of the opera. And in their midst, garbed in street attire,
+was Marjory Dean!
+
+"Who are you? How do you dare tamper with my property, to put on my
+costume?" Marjory Dean advanced alone.
+
+There was sternness in her tone. But there was another quality besides.
+Had it not been for this, Jeanne might have crumpled in a helpless heap
+upon the stage. As it was, she could only murmur in her humblest manner:
+
+"I--I am only an usher. See!" She stripped off the juggler's garb, and
+stood there in black attire. "Please do not be too hard. I have harmed
+nothing. See! I will put it all back." This, with trembling fingers, she
+proceeded to do. Then in the midst of profound silence, she retreated
+into the shadows.
+
+She had barely escaped from the stage into the darkness of the opera pit
+when a figure came soft-footedly after her.
+
+She wished to flee, but a voice seemed to whisper, "Stay!"
+
+The word that came ten seconds after was, "Wait! You can't deceive me.
+You are Petite Jeanne!"
+
+It was the great one, Marjory Dean, who spoke.
+
+"Why, how--how could you know?" Jeanne was thrown into consternation.
+
+"Who could not know? If one has seen you upon the stage before, he could
+not be mistaken.
+
+"But, little girl," the great one's tone was deep and low like the mellow
+chimes of a great clock, "I will not betray you.
+
+"You did that divinely, Petite Jeanne. I could not have done it better.
+And you, Jeanne, are much like me. A little make-up, and there you are,
+Petite Jeanne, who is Marjory Dean. Some day, perhaps, I shall allow you
+to take my place, to do this first act for me, before all this." She
+spread her arms wide as if to take in a vast audience.
+
+"No!" Jeanne protested. "I could never do that. Never! Marjory Dean,
+I--no! No!"
+
+She broke off to stare into the darkness. No one was there!
+
+"I could almost believe I imagined it," she told herself.
+
+"And yet--no! It was true. She said it. Marjory Dean said that!"
+
+Little wonder, then, that all the remaining hours of that day found on
+her fair face a radiance born, one might say, in Heaven.
+
+Many saw that face and were charmed by it. The little rich girl saw it as
+Jeanne performed her humble duties as Pierre. She was so taken by it
+that, with her father's consent, she invited Pierre to visit her at her
+father's estate next day. And Pierre accepted. And that, as you well may
+guess, leads to quite another story.
+
+
+
+
+                               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.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+                        A DANCE FOR THE SPIRITS
+
+
+When Jeanne arrived at the rooms late that night, after her evening among
+the opera boxes, she found a half burned out fire in the grate and a
+rather amusing note from Florence on the table:
+
+"I am asleep. Do not disturb me." This is how the note ran.
+
+She read the note and smiled. "Poor, dear, big Florence," she murmured.
+"How selfish I am! She works hard. Often she needs rest that she does not
+get. Yet I am always hoping that she will be here to greet me and to
+cheer me with jolly chatter and something warm to drink."
+
+Still in this thoughtful mood, she entered her chamber. She did not
+switch on the light at once, but stood looking out of the window.
+Somewhat to her surprise, she saw a dark figure lurking in the shadows
+across the street.
+
+"Who could it be?" she whispered.
+
+She had little hope of solving this problem when an automobile light
+solved it for her and gave her a shock besides. The light fell full upon
+the man's face. She recognized him instantly.
+
+"Jaeger!" She said the name out loud and trembled from head to foot.
+
+Jaeger was the detective who haunted the boxes at the opera.
+
+"He is shadowing me!" She could not doubt this. "He believes I stole
+those pearls. Perhaps he thinks he can catch me trying them on. Not much
+chance of that." She laughed uneasily. "It is well enough to know you are
+innocent; but to convince others, that is the problem."
+
+She thought of the lady in black. "If only I could see her, speak to
+her!" She drew the shades, threw on the light and disrobed, still in a
+thoughtful mood. She was remembering the voice of that lady.
+
+There was something hauntingly familiar about that voice. It brought to
+her mind a feeling of forests and rippling waters, the scent of balsam
+and the song of birds. Yet she could not tell where she had heard it
+before.
+
+Joan of Arc was Jeanne's idol. Once as a child, wandering with the
+gypsies, she had slept within the shadows of the church where Joan
+received her visions. At another time she had sat for an entire forenoon
+dreaming the hours away in the chamber that had once been Joan's own.
+Yet, unlike Joan, she did not love wearing the clothes of a boy. She was
+fond of soft, clinging, silky things, was this delicate French child. So,
+dressed in the silkiest of all silks and the softest of satin robes, she
+built herself a veritable mountain of pillows before the fire and,
+sinking back into that soft depth, proceeded to think things through.
+
+To this strange girl sitting at the mouth of her cave made of pillows,
+the fire on the hearth was a magic fire. She prodded it. As it blazed
+red, she saw in it clearly the magic curtain. She felt again the thrill
+of this mysterious discovery. Once more she was gazing upon strange
+smoking images, bronze eagles, giants' heads, dragons. She smelled the
+curious, choking incense. And again the feeling of wild terror seized
+her.
+
+So real was the vision that she leaped to her feet, sending the soft
+walls of her cave flying in every direction.
+
+Next instant she was in complete possession of her senses. "Why am I
+afraid?" she asked herself. "Why was I afraid then? It is but a stage
+setting, some Oriental magic."
+
+A thought struck her all of a heap. "Stage setting! That's it!" she
+exclaimed in a low whisper. "Why not? What a wonderful setting for some
+exotic little touch of Oriental drama!
+
+"I must return to that place. I must see that Magic Curtain once more."
+She rearranged the door to her cave. "I must take someone with me. Why
+not Marjory Dean?"
+
+The thought pleased her. She mused over it until the fire burned low.
+
+But with the dimming of the coals her spirits ebbed. As she gazed into
+the fire she seemed to see a dark and evil face leering at her, the man
+who had called to her at the opera door.
+
+Had she seen that same face staring at her on that other occasion when
+she slept in the sun on the Robinson estate, she might well have
+shuddered more violently. As it was, she asked but a single question:
+"Who is he?"
+
+She threw on fuel. The fire flamed up. Once more she was gay as she heard
+Marjory Dean whisper those magic words:
+
+"You did that divinely, Petite Jeanne. I could not have done it better.
+Some day, perhaps, I shall allow you to take my place."
+
+"Will you?" she cried, stretching her arms wide. "Oh! Will you, Marjory
+Dean?"
+
+After this emotional outburst she sat for a long time quite motionless.
+
+"I wonder," she mused after a time, "why this desire should have entered
+my heart. Why Grand Opera? I have done Light Opera. I sang. I danced.
+They applauded. They said I was marvelous. Perhaps I was." Her head fell
+a little forward.
+
+"Ambition!" Her face was lifted to the ceiling. "It is ambition that
+drives us on. When I was a child I danced in the country lanes. Then I
+must go higher, I must dance in a village; in a small city; in a large
+city; in Paris. That so beautiful Paris! And now it must be Grand Opera;
+something drives me on."
+
+She prodded the fire and, for the last time that night, it flamed high.
+
+Springing to her feet she cast off her satin robe to go racing across the
+floor in the dance of the juggler. Low and clear, her voice rose in a
+French song of great enchantment. For a time her delicate, elf-like form
+went weaving in and out among the shadows cast by the fire. Then, all of
+a sudden, she danced into her chamber. The show, given only for spirits
+and fairies, was at an end.
+
+"To-morrow," she whispered low, as her eyes closed for sleep, "to-morrow
+there is no opera. I shall not see Marjory Dean, nor Rosemary, nor those
+dark-faced ones who dog my steps. To-morrow? Whom shall I see? What
+strange new acquaintance shall I make; what adventures come to me?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+                             THE LOST CAMEO
+
+
+In spite of the fact that the Opera House was dark on the following
+night, adventure came to Petite Jeanne, adventure and excitement
+a-plenty. It came like the sudden rush of an ocean's wave. One moment she
+and Florence were strolling in a leisurely manner down the center of
+State Street; the next they were surrounded, completely engulfed and
+carried whither they knew not by a vast, restless, roaring, surging sea
+of humanity.
+
+For many days they had read accounts of a great autumn festival that was
+to occur on this night. Having never witnessed such a fete, save in her
+native land, Petite Jeanne had been eager to attend. So here they were.
+And here, too, was an unbelievable multitude.
+
+Petite Jeanne cast a startled look at her companion.
+
+Florence, big capable Florence, smiled as she bent over to speak in the
+little French girl's ear.
+
+"Get in front of me. I'll hold them back."
+
+"But why all this?" Petite Jeanne tried to gesture, only to end by
+prodding a fat man in the stomach.
+
+"This," laughed Florence, "is Harvest Jubilee Night. A city of three
+million invited all its citizens to come down and enjoy themselves in six
+city blocks. Bands are to play. Radio stars are to be seen. Living models
+will be in all the store windows.
+
+"The three million are here. They will hear no bands. They will see no
+radio stars, nor any living models either. They will see and hear only
+themselves."
+
+"Yes. And they will feel one another, too!" the little French girl cried,
+as the crush all but pressed the breath from her lungs. The look on her
+face was one of pure fright. Florence, too, was thinking serious
+thoughts. That which had promised only a bit of adventure in the
+beginning bade fair to become a serious matter. Having moved down the
+center of a block, they had intended turning the corner. But now, caught
+in the tremendous crush of humanity, by the thousands upon thousands of
+human beings who thronged the streets, carried this way and that by
+currents and counter-currents, they were likely to be carried anywhere.
+And should the crush become too great, they might well be rendered
+unconscious by the vise-like pressure of the throng.
+
+This indeed was Harvest Jubilee Night. The leading men of this city had
+made a great mistake. Wishing to draw thousands of people to the trading
+center of the city, they had staged a great fete. As Florence had said,
+men and women of note, actors, singers, radio stars were to be found on
+grand stands erected at every street crossing. All this was wonderful, to
+be sure! Only one fact had been lost sight of: that hundreds of thousands
+of people cannot move about freely in the narrow space of six city
+blocks.
+
+Now, here were the laughing, shouting, crowding, groaning, weeping
+thousands. What was to come of it all? Petite Jeanne asked herself this
+question, took one long quivering breath, then looked up at her stout
+companion and was reassured.
+
+"We came here for a lark," she told herself. "We must see it through.
+
+"I only hope," she caught her breath again, "that I don't see anyone in
+this crowd who makes me trouble. Surely I cannot escape him here!" She
+was thinking of the dark-faced man with the evil eye.
+
+"Keep up courage," Florence counseled. "We'll make it out of here safe
+enough."
+
+But would they? Every second the situation became more tense. Now they
+were carried ten paces toward Wabash Avenue; now, like some dance of
+death, the crowd surged backward toward Dearborn Street. And now, caught
+in an eddy, they whirled round and round.
+
+In such a time as this the peril is great. Always, certain persons,
+deserting all caution, carried away by their own exuberance, render
+confusion worse confounded. Bands of young men, perhaps from high school
+or college, with hands on shoulders, built up flying wedges that shot
+through the crowd like bullets through wood.
+
+Just such a group was pressing upon the stalwart Florence and all but
+crushing the breath out of her, when for the first time she became
+conscious of a little old lady in a faded shawl who fairly crouched at
+her feet.
+
+"She's eighty if a day," she thought, with a sudden shock. "She'll be
+killed unless--
+
+"Petite Jeanne," she screamed, "there are times when human beings have
+neither eyes, ears nor brains. They can always feel. You have sharp
+elbows. Use them now to the glory of God and for the life of this dear
+old lady in her faded shawl."
+
+Suiting actions to her own words, she kicked forth lustily with her
+square-pointed athletic shoe. The shoe made contact with a grinning
+youth's shins. The look of joy on the youth's face changed to one of
+sudden pain. He ceased to shove and attempted a retreat. One more
+grinning face was transformed by an elbow thrust in the stomach. This one
+doubled up and did his best to back away.
+
+Jeanne added her bit. As Florence had said, her elbows were sharp and
+effective.
+
+In an incredibly short time there was space for breathing. One moment the
+little old lady, who was not five feet tall and did not weigh ninety
+pounds, was in peril of her life; the next she was caught in Florence's
+powerful arms and was being borne to safety. And all the time she was
+screaming:
+
+"Oh! Oh! Oh! It is gone! It is lost! It is lost!"
+
+"Yes," Florence agreed, as she dropped her to the curbing, well out of
+the crush, "you have lost a shoe. But what's a shoe? You would have lost
+your life. And, after all, how is one to find a shoe in such a place of
+madness?"
+
+The little old lady made no answer. She sat down upon the curb and began
+silently to sob while her slight body rocked from side to side and her
+lips whispered words that could not be heard.
+
+"Was there ever such another night?" Petite Jeanne cried, in real
+distress. She was little and quick, very emotional and quite French.
+
+"We came here for a gay time," she went on. "And now, see how it is! We
+have been tossed about from wave to wave by the crowd, which is a sea,
+and now it has washed us ashore with a weeping old lady we have never
+seen before and may never see again."
+
+"Hush!" Florence touched her lips. "You will distress her. You came here
+to find joy and happiness. Joy and happiness may be found quite as often
+by serving others less fortunate than ourselves as in any other way. We
+will see if this is not true.
+
+"Come!" She placed gentle hands beneath the bent form of the little, old
+lady on the curb. "Come, now. There is a bright little tea room right
+over there. A good cup of black tea will cheer you. Then you must tell us
+all about it."
+
+A look of puzzled uncertainty gave way to a smile on the wrinkled face as
+this strange derelict of the night murmured:
+
+"Tea. Yes, yes, a good cup of black tea."
+
+The tea room was all but deserted. On this wild night of nights people
+did not eat. Vendors of ice cream sandwiches found no customers. Baskets
+of peanuts were more likely to be tumbled into the street than eaten. The
+throng had indeed become a wild, stormy sea. And a stormy sea neither
+eats nor sleeps.
+
+"Tell me," said Florence, as the hot tea warmed the white-haired one's
+drowsy blood, "why did you weep at the loss of a shoe?"
+
+"A shoe?" The little old lady seemed puzzled. She looked down at her
+feet. "A shoe? Ah, yes! It is true. One shoe is gone.
+
+"But it is not that." Her voice changed. Her dull blue eyes took on fresh
+color. "I have lost more--much more. My purse! Money? No, my children. A
+little. It is nothing. I have lost my cameo, my only treasure. And, oh, I
+shall never see it again!" She began wringing her hands and seemed about
+to give way once more to weeping.
+
+"Tell us about it," Petite Jeanne put in eagerly. "Perhaps we can help
+you."
+
+"Tell you? Help me?" The old eyes were dreamy now. "My cameo! My one
+great treasure. It was made in Florence so many, many years ago. It was
+my own portrait done in onyx, pink onyx. I was only a child, sixteen,
+slight and fair like you." She touched Jeanne's golden hair. "He was
+young, romantic, already an artist. He became very famous when he was
+older. But never, I am sure, did he carve such a cameo, for,
+perhaps--perhaps he loved me--just a little.
+
+"But now!" This was a cry of pain. "Now it is gone! And I have kept it
+all these long years. I should not have come to-night. I had not been to
+the heart of the city for ten years. But this night they told me I was to
+see 'Auld Sandy' himself. He's on the radio, you know. He sings old
+Scotch songs so grandly and recites Burns' poems with so much feeling. I
+wanted to see him. I did not dare leave the cameo in my poor room. My
+cameo! So I brought it, and now--
+
+"But you said you would help me." Once again her face brightened.
+
+"Yes." Florence's tone was eager, hopeful. "We will help you. Someone
+will find your purse. It will be turned in. The police will have it. We
+will get it for you in the morning. Only give us your address and we will
+bring it, your treasure, your cameo."
+
+"Will you?"
+
+Florence heard that cry of joy, and her heart smote her. Could they find
+it?
+
+They wrote down the little old lady's address carefully; then escorting
+her to the elevated platform, they saw her safely aboard a train.
+
+"Now why did I do that?" Florence turned a face filled with consternation
+to Petite Jeanne. "Why did I promise so much?"
+
+She was to wonder this many times during that night of mysterious and
+thrilling adventure.
+
+"Let us go back," said Petite Jeanne. "See! The trains are loaded with
+people returning home. The crowd must not be so great. The little lady's
+purse must have been kicked about; but we may yet find it."
+
+"That," replied Florence, "would seem too good to be true. Yes, let us go
+back. We must not hope too much, for all that. Many are going, but others
+are coming. Surely this is one wild night in a great city."
+
+And so it was. Hardly had they descended the iron steps to the street and
+walked half a block than the waves of humanity were upon them again.
+
+"The tide is set against us." Florence urged her companion into the
+momentary security of a department store entrance. There, from a vantage
+point of safety, they watched the crowds surging by. They were at a point
+where the pressure of the throng was broken. It was interesting to study
+the faces of those who emerged into a place of comparative quiet. Some
+were exuberant over the struggle they had waged and won, others crushed.
+Here was one in tears and there was one who had fainted, being hurried
+away by others to a place of first aid.
+
+"They are poor," Petite Jeanne murmured. "At least they are not rich, nor
+even well-to-do. They are working people who came for a good time. Are
+they having it? Who can tell? Surely, never before have they seen so many
+people. And perhaps they never will see so many again. To-morrow they
+will talk. How they will talk of this night's adventure! As for me," she
+sighed, "I prefer a quiet place beneath the stars."
+
+"Do you?" Florence spoke up quickly. "Then we will go to just such a
+place."
+
+"Surely not in this great city."
+
+"Ten minutes by elevated train, ten minutes walk after that, and we are
+there. Come! We can never hope to reach the spot where the cameo was
+lost. Come!"
+
+Nor did she fail to make good her promise. Twenty minutes later they were
+walking in a spot where, save for the low swish of water against rocks,
+silence reigned supreme.
+
+"How strange! How fascinating! What stillness!" Petite Jeanne gripped her
+companion's arm hard. "Here are silence, starlight, moonlight, grass
+beneath one's feet and the gleam of distant water in our eyes."
+
+"Yes." Florence's tone was low like the deep notes of a cello. "And only
+a short time ago, perhaps a year ago, the waters of the lake lay ten feet
+deep at the very spot on which we stand. Such is the wondrous achievement
+of man when inspired by a desire to provide a quiet place for a weary
+multitude. This is 'made land' a park in the making. Great squares of
+limestone were dumped in the lake. With these as a barrier to hold back
+the onrush of the lake waters, men have hauled in sand, clay, ashes, all
+the refuse of a great city. Nature has breathed upon that ugly pile of
+debris. The sun has caressed it, the wind smoothed it, rain beat down
+upon it, birds brought seeds, and now we have soft earth, grass, flowers,
+a place of beauty and quiet peace."
+
+The place they had entered is strange. A great city, finding itself
+cramped for breathing space, has reached out a mighty hand to snatch land
+from the bottom of the lake. Thirty blocks in length, as large as an
+ordinary farm, this space promises to become, in the near future, a place
+of joy forever.
+
+At the time of our story it was half a field of tangled grass and half a
+junk pile. As the two girls wandered on they found themselves flanked on
+one side by a tumbled line of gigantic man-made boulders and on the other
+by a curious jumble of waste. Steel barrels, half rusted away, lay among
+piles of cement blocks and broken plaster.
+
+"Come," said Florence, "let us go out upon the rocks."
+
+A moment of unsteady leaping from spot to spot, and they sat looking out
+on a band of gold painted across the waters by the moon.
+
+"How still it is!" Jeanne whispered. "After all the shouting of the
+throng, I feel that I may have gone suddenly deaf."
+
+"It _is_ still," Florence replied. "No one here. Not a soul. Only you and
+I, the moon and the night."
+
+And yet, even as she spoke, a sudden chill gripped her heart. She had
+caught a sound. Someone was among the rocks close at hand; there could be
+no mistaking that. Who could it be?
+
+Her heart misgave her. Had she committed a dangerous blunder? She had
+been here before, but never at night. The city, with all its perils, its
+evil ones, was but a few steps away. As she listened she even now caught
+indistinctly the murmur of it. Someone was among the rocks. He might be
+advancing. Who could it be, at this hour of the night?
+
+Strangely enough at this instant one thought entered her mind: "Nothing
+must happen to me. I have a sacred duty to perform. I have pledged myself
+to return that priceless cameo to that dear little old lady."
+
+At the same instant the light from a distant automobile, making a turn on
+the drive, fell for a space of seconds upon the tumbled pile of rocks. It
+lit up not alone the rocks but a face; a strangely ugly face, not ten
+paces away.
+
+One second the light was there. The next it was gone. And in that same
+second the moon went under a cloud. The place was utterly dark.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+                          A NYMPH OF THE NIGHT
+
+
+Florence had never seen the face lit up there in the night; yet it struck
+fear to her heart. What must we say, then, of Petite Jeanne? For this was
+the face of one who, more than any others, inspired her with terror. He
+it had been who called after her at the door of the opera, he who had
+looked out from the bushes as she slept in the sun. At sight of him now,
+she all but fell among the rocks from sheer panic.
+
+As for Florence, she was startled into action. They were, she suddenly
+realized, many blocks from any human habitation, on a deserted strip of
+man-made shore land lighted only by stars and the moonlight. And at this
+moment the moon, having failed them, had left the place black as a tomb.
+
+With a low, whispered "Come!" and guided more by instinct than sight, she
+led Jeanne off the tumbled pile of rocks and out to the path where grass
+grew rank and they were in danger at any moment of tripping over pieces
+of debris.
+
+"Who--who was that?"
+
+Florence fancied she heard the little French girl's heart beating wildly
+as she asked the question.
+
+"Who can tell? There may be many. See! Yonder, far ahead, is a light."
+
+The light they saw was the gleam of a camp fire. In this desolate spot it
+seemed strangely out of place; yet there is that about fire and light
+that suggests security and peace. How often in her homeland had Petite
+Jeanne felt the cozy warmth of an open fireplace and, secure from all
+danger, had fallen asleep in the corner of a gypsy's tent. How often as a
+child had Florence, in a cane-seated rocker, sat beside the humble
+kitchen stove to hear the crackle of the fire, to watch its glow through
+its open grate and to dream dreams of security and peace.
+
+What wonder, then, that these two bewildered and frightened ones, at
+sight of a glowing fire, should leap forward with cries of joy on their
+lips?
+
+Nor were they destined to disappointment. The man who had built that fire
+loved its cheerful gleam just as they did, and for the very same reason:
+it whispered to him of security and peace.
+
+He was old, was this man. His face had been deeply tanned and wrinkled by
+many a sun. His hair was snow white. A wandering philosopher and
+preacher, he had taken up his abode in a natural cavern between great
+rocks. He welcomed these frightened girls to a place of security by his
+fireside.
+
+"Probably nothing to frighten you," he reassured them. "There are many of
+us sleeping out here among the rocks. In these times when work is scarce,
+when millions know not when or where they are to eat and when, like our
+Master, many of us have nowhere to lay our heads, it will not seem
+strange that so many, some by the aid of a pile of broken bricks and some
+with cast-off boards and sheet-iron, should fashion here homes of a sort
+which they may for a brief time call their own.
+
+"Of course," he added quickly, "all too soon this will be a thing of the
+past. Buildings will rise here and there. They are rising even now. Three
+have been erected on these very shores. Scores of buildings will dot them
+soon. Palm trees will wave, orange trees blossom, grass and flowers will
+fringe deep lagoons where bright boats flash in the sun. All this will
+rise as if by magic and our poor abodes built of cast-off things will
+vanish, our camp fires gleam no more." His voice trailed off into
+nothingness. For a time after that they sat there silent, staring at the
+fire.
+
+"That," said Florence, speaking with some effort, "will be too bad."
+
+"No, I suppose not." The old man's voice was mellow. "It's going to be a
+Fair, a great Exposition. Millions of eager feet will tramp over the very
+spot where we now sit in such silence and peace. They are to call it the
+'Century of Progress.' Progress," he added dreamily. "Progress. That is
+life. There must be progress. Time marches on. What matter that some are
+left behind?
+
+"But, see!" His tone changed. "Great clouds are banking up in the west.
+There will be a storm! My poor shelter does well enough for me. For you
+it will not suffice.
+
+"You will do well to go forward," he advised, as they sprang to their
+feet. "It is a long way back over the path you have come. If you go
+forward it is only a matter of a few blocks to a bridge over the railroad
+tracks. And across that bridge you will find shelter and a street car to
+carry you home."
+
+As he stood there by the fire, watching their departure, he seemed a
+heroic figure, this wandering philosopher.
+
+"Surely," Florence whispered to herself, "it is not always the rich, the
+famous, the powerful who most truly serve mankind."
+
+Once more she was reminded of the little old lady and her one treasure,
+the priceless cameo fashioned by skilled and loving fingers so many years
+ago.
+
+"And I promised to return it to her!" This thought was one almost of
+despair.
+
+"And yet," she murmured, "I made that promise out of pure love. Who knows
+how Providence may assist me?"
+
+There appeared to be, however, little time for thoughts other than those
+of escape from the storm. Their hurried march south began at once.
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+As for the man who had so inspired them with terror, the one of the evil
+eye, he had not followed them. There is some reason to doubt that he so
+much as saw them. Had his attention been directed toward them, it seems
+probable that he would have passed them by as unknown to him and quite
+unimportant for he, as we must recall, knew Jeanne only as the boy usher,
+Pierre.
+
+Truth was, this young man, who would have laughed to scorn any suggestion
+that his home might be found in this tumbled place, was engaged in a
+special sort of business that apparently required haste; for, after
+passing down the winding path at a kind of trotting walk, he hastened
+past a dark bulk that was a building of some size, turned to the right,
+crossed a temporary wooden bridge to come out at last upon the island
+which was also a part of the city's "made land." It was upon this island
+that Florence, a few evenings before, had discovered the mysterious girl
+and the more mystifying house that was so much like a ship, and yet so
+resembled a tiny church.
+
+Even while the two girls talked to the ragged philosopher, this evil-eyed
+one with the dark and forbidding face had crossed the island and, coming
+out at the south end, had mounted the rock-formed breakwater where some
+frame-like affair stood.
+
+At the far end of the frame was a dark circle some twenty feet in
+diameter. This circle was made of steel. It supported a circular dip-net
+for catching fish. There was a windlass at the end of the pole supporting
+the net. By unwinding the windlass one might allow the net to sink into
+the water. If luck were with him, he might hope to draw it up after a
+time with a fair catch of perch or herring.
+
+All day long this windlass might be heard screaming and creaking as it
+lifted and lowered the net. For the present it was silent. The fisherman
+slept. Not so this dark prowler.
+
+The man with the evil eye was not alone upon the rocks that night, though
+beyond a shadow of a doubt he believed himself to be. Off to the left, at
+a distance of forty yards, a dark figure, bent over in a position of
+repose and as still as the rocks themselves, cast a dark shadow over the
+near-by waters. Did this figure's head turn? Who could say? Certainly the
+man could not, for he believed himself alone. However, he apparently did
+not expect to remain unmolested long, for his eyes were constantly
+turning toward the barren stretch of sand he had crossed.
+
+His movements betrayed a nervous fear, yet he worked rapidly. Having
+searched about for some time, he located a battered bucket. This he
+filled with water. Bringing it up, he threw the entire contents of the
+bucket upon the windlass. Not satisfied with this, he returned for a
+second bucket of water and repeated the operation.
+
+Satisfied at last, he drew a package wrapped in black oilcloth from
+beneath his coat and tossed it to the center of the dangling net. Then
+with great care lest the rusty windlass, for all the careful soaking he
+had given it, should let out a screeching complaint, he quietly lowered
+the net into the lake. The water had done its work; the windlass gave
+forth no sound.
+
+After this he turned and walked slowly away.
+
+He was some fifty feet from the windlass, busy apparently in
+contemplating the dark clouds that threatened to obscure the moon, when
+almost at the same instant two causes for disturbance entered his not
+uneventful life. From the direction of the lake came a faint splash. At
+the brow of the little ridge over which he had passed to reach this spot,
+two men had appeared.
+
+That the men were not unexpected was at once evident. He made no attempt
+to conceal himself. That the splash puzzled him went without question. He
+covered half the distance to the breakwater, then paused.
+
+"Poof! Nothing! Wharf rat, perhaps," he muttered, then returned to his
+contemplation of the clouds. Yet, had he taken notice before of that
+silent figure on the rocks, he might now have discovered that it had
+vanished.
+
+The two men advanced rapidly across the stretch of sand. As they came
+close there was about their movements an air of caution. At last one
+spoke:
+
+"Don't try anything, Al. We got you."
+
+"Yeah?"
+
+"Yes. And the goods are on you!"
+
+"Yeah?"
+
+The dark, evil-eyed one who was apparently known as Al, stood his ground.
+
+The moon lost itself behind a cloud. The place went dark. Yet when the
+moon reappeared, bringing out the gleam of an officer's star upon the
+breast of one of the newcomers, he stood there motionless.
+
+"Will you hand it over, or shall we take you in?" It was the man with the
+star who spoke.
+
+"You've got nothing on me!" Al threw open his coat. "Look me over."
+
+"We will. And then--"
+
+"Yeah? And then?"
+
+"We'll see."
+
+At that instant, all unseen, a dripping figure emerged from the water
+close to the submerged fishing net. It was the figure that, but a short
+half hour before had rested motionless upon the rocks; a slender girl
+whose figure was for a second fully outlined by a distant flash of
+lightning. She carried some dark object beneath her right arm.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+                        THE DISAPPEARING PARCEL
+
+
+In the meantime Florence and Jeanne were making the best of their
+opportunity to leave the "made land." They hoped to cross the bridge and
+reach the car line before the threatened storm broke. Petite Jeanne was
+terribly afraid of lightning. Every time it streaked across the sky she
+gripped her strong companion's arm and shuddered.
+
+It was impossible to make rapid progress. From this point the beaten path
+disappeared. There were only scattered tracks where other pedestrians had
+picked their way through the litter of debris.
+
+Here Florence caught her foot in a tangled mass of wire and all but fell
+to the ground; there Jeanne stepped into a deep hole; and here they found
+their way blocked by a heap of fragments from a broken sidewalk.
+
+"Why did we come this way?" Petite Jeanne cried in consternation.
+
+"The other was longer, more dangerous. Cheer up! We'll make it." Florence
+took her arm and together they felt their way forward through the
+darkness that grew deeper and blacker at every step.
+
+Rolling up as they did at the back of a city's skyscrapers, the mounting
+clouds were terrible to see.
+
+"The throng!" Petite Jeanne's heart fairly stopped beating. "What must a
+terrific thunderstorm mean to that teaming mass of humanity?"
+
+Even at her own moment of distress, this unselfish child found time for a
+compassionate thought for those hundreds of thousands who still thronged
+the city streets.
+
+As for the crowds, not one person of them all was conscious that a
+catastrophe impended. Walled in on every side by skyscrapers, no
+slightest glance to the least of those black clouds was granted them.
+Their ears filled by the honk of horns, the blare of bands and the shouts
+of thousands, they heard not one rumble of distant thunder. So they
+laughed and shouted, crowded into this corner and that, to come out
+shaken and frightened; but never did one of them say, "It will storm."
+
+Yet out of this merry-mad throng two beings were silent. A boy of sixteen
+and a hunchback of uncertain age, hovering in a doorway, looked, marveled
+a little, and appeared to wait.
+
+"When will it break up?" the boy asked out of the corner of his mouth.
+
+"Early," was the reply. "There's too many of 'em. They can't have much
+fun. See! They're flooding the grandstands. The bands can't play. They'll
+be going soon. And then--" The hunchback gave vent to a low chuckle.
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+After snatching a pair of boy's strap-overalls from the rocks the girl,
+who had emerged from the water beside the submerged net, with the dark
+package under her arm hurried away over a narrow path and lost herself at
+once in the tangled mass of willows and cottonwood.
+
+She had not gone far before a light appeared at the end of that trail.
+
+Seen from the blackness of night, the structure she approached took on a
+grotesque aspect. With two small round windows set well above the door,
+it seemed the face of some massive monster with a prodigious mouth and
+great gleaming eyes. The girl, it would seem, was not in the least
+frightened by the monster, for she walked right up to its mouth and,
+after wrapping her overalls about the black package which still dripped
+lake water, opened the door, which let out a flood of yellow light, and
+disappeared within.
+
+Had Florence witnessed all this, her mystification regarding this child
+of the island might have increased fourfold.
+
+As you already know, Florence was not there. She was still with Petite
+Jeanne on the strip of "made land" that skirted the shore. They were more
+than a mile from the island.
+
+They had come at last to a strange place. Having completely lost their
+way in the darkness, they found themselves of a sudden facing a blank
+wall.
+
+A strange wall it was, too. It could not be a house for, though made of
+wood, this wall was composed not of boards but of round posts set so
+close together that a hand might not be thrust between them.
+
+"Wh--where are we?" Jeanne cried in despair.
+
+"I don't know." Florence had fortified her mind against any emergency. "I
+do know this wall must have an end. We must find it."
+
+She was right. The curious wall of newly hewn posts did have an end. They
+were not long in finding it. Coming to a corner they turned it and again
+followed on.
+
+"This is some enclosure," Florence philosophized. "It may enclose some
+form of shelter. And, from the looks of the sky, shelter is what we will
+need very soon."
+
+"Yes! Yes!" cried her companion, as a flare of lightning gave her an
+instant's view of their surroundings. "There is a building looming just
+over there. The strangest sort of building, but a shelter all the same."
+
+Ten minutes of creeping along that wall in the dark, and they came to a
+massive gate. This, too, was built of logs.
+
+"There's a chain," Florence breathed as she felt about. "It's fastened,
+but not locked. Shall we try to go in?"
+
+"Yes! Yes! Let us go in!" A sharp flash of lightning had set the little
+French girl's nerves all a-quiver.
+
+"Come on then." There was a suggestion of mystery in Florence's tone. "We
+will feel our way back to that place you saw."
+
+The gate swung open a crack. They crept inside. The door swung to. The
+chain rattled. Then once more they moved forward in the dark.
+
+After a time, by the aid of a vivid flash, they made out a tall, narrow
+structure just before them. A sudden dash, and they were inside.
+
+"We--we're here," Florence panted, "but where are we?"
+
+"Oo--o! How dark!" Petite Jeanne pressed close to her companion's side.
+"I am sure there are no windows."
+
+"The windows are above," whispered Florence. A flash of lightning had
+revealed an opening far above her head.
+
+At the same instant she stumbled against a hard object.
+
+"It's a stairway," she announced after a brief inspection. "A curious
+sort of stairway, too. The steps are shaped like triangles."
+
+"That means it is a spiral stairway."
+
+"And each step is thick and rough as if it were hand-hewn with an axe.
+But who would hew planks by hand in this day of steam and great
+sawmills?"
+
+"Let's go up. We may be able to see something from the windows."
+
+Cautiously, on hands and knees, they made their way up the narrow
+stairway. The platform they reached and the window they looked through a
+moment later were quite as mysterious as the stairway. Everywhere was the
+mark of an axe. The window was narrow, a mere slit not over nine inches
+wide and quite devoid of glass.
+
+Yet from this window they were to witness one of God's greatest wonders,
+a storm at night upon the water.
+
+The dark clouds had swung northward. They were now above the surface of
+the lake. Blackness vied with blackness as clouds loomed above the water.
+Like a great electric needle sewing together two curtains of purple
+velvet for a giant's wardrobe, lightning darted from sky to sea and from
+sea to sky again.
+
+"How--how marvelous! How terrible!" Petite Jeanne pressed her companion's
+arm hard.
+
+"And what a place of mystery!" Florence answered back.
+
+"But what place _is_ this?" Jeanne's voice was filled with awe. "And
+where are we?"
+
+"This," Florence repeated, "is a place of mystery, and this is a night of
+adventure.
+
+"Adventure and mystery," she thought to herself, even as she said the
+words. Once more she thought of the cameo.
+
+"I promised to return it to-morrow. And now it seems I am moving farther
+and farther from it."
+
+Had she but known it, the time was not far distant when, like two bits of
+flotsam on a broad sea, she and the lost cameo would be drifting closer
+and closer together. And, strange as it may seem, the owner of the cameo,
+that frail, little, old lady, was to play an important part in the lives
+of Petite Jeanne and Florence.
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+In the meantime the two officers and the man of the evil eye were playing
+a bit of drama all their own on the sand-blown desert portion of the
+island.
+
+"You'll have to come clean!" the senior officer was saying to the man
+whom he addressed as Al.
+
+"All you got to do is search me. You'll find nothing on me, not even a
+rod." The man stood his ground.
+
+"Fair enough." With a skill born of long practice, the veteran detective
+went through the man's clothes.
+
+"You've cachéd it," he grumbled, as he stood back empty-handed.
+
+"I'm not in on the know." The suspicion of a smile flitted across the
+dark one's face. "Whatever you're looking for, I never had it."
+
+"No? We'll look about a bit, anyway."
+
+The officers mounted the breakwater to go flashing electric lanterns into
+every cavity. As the boom of thunder grew louder they abandoned the
+search to go tramping back across the barren sand.
+
+Left to himself, Al made a pretense of leaving the island, but in reality
+lost himself from sight on the very brush-grown trail the nymph of the
+lake had taken a short time before.
+
+"Well, I'll be--!" he muttered, as he brought up squarely before the
+structure that seemed a monster's head, whose eyes by this time were
+quite sightless. The light had blinked off some moments before.
+
+After walking around the place twice, he stood before the door and lifted
+a hand as if to knock. Appearing to think better of this, he sank down
+upon the narrow doorstep, allowed his head to fall forward, and appeared
+to sleep.
+
+Not for long, however. Foxes do not sleep in the night. Having roused
+himself, he stole back over the trail, crept to the breakwater, lifted
+himself to a point of elevation, and surveyed the entire scene throughout
+three lightning flashes. Then, apparently satisfied, he made his way to
+the windlass he had left an hour or two before. He repeated the process
+of drowning the complaining voice of the windlass and then, turning the
+crank, rapidly lifted the dripping net from the bottom of the lake.
+
+With fingers that trembled slightly, he drew a small flashlight from his
+pocket to cast its light across the surface of the net.
+
+Muttering a curse beneath his breath, he flashed the light once again,
+and then stood there speechless.
+
+What had happened? The meshes of that net were fine, so fine that a dozen
+minnows not more than two inches long struggled vainly at its center. Yet
+the package he had thrown in this net was gone.
+
+"Gone!" he muttered. "It can't have floated. Heavy. Heavy as a stone. And
+I had my eyes on it, every minute; all but--but the time I went down that
+trail.
+
+"They tricked me!" he growled. He was thinking now of the policemen. "But
+no! How could they? I saw them go, saw them on the bridge. Couldn't have
+come back. Not time enough."
+
+At this he thrust both hands deep in his pockets and went stumping away.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XV
+                             STRANGE VOICES
+
+
+As for Florence and Jeanne, they were still hidden away in that riddle of
+a place by the lake shore on "made land."
+
+A more perplexing place of refuge could not have been found. What was it?
+Why was it here? Were there men about the place within the palisades?
+These were the questions that disturbed even the stout-hearted Florence.
+
+They were silent for a long time, those two. When at last Jeanne spoke,
+Florence started as if a stranger had addressed her.
+
+"This place," said Petite Jeanne, "reminds me of a story I once read
+before I came to America. In my native land we talked in French, of
+course, and studied in French. But we studied English just as you study
+French in America.
+
+"A story in my book told of early days in America. It was thrilling, oh,
+very thrilling indeed! There were Indians, real red men who scalped their
+victims and held wild war dances. There were scouts and soldiers. And
+there were forts all built of logs hewn in the forest. And in these forts
+there were--"
+
+"Fort," Florence broke in, "a fort. Of course, that is what this is, a
+fort for protection from Indians."
+
+"But, Indians!" Jeanne's tone reflected her surprise. "Real live, wild
+Indians! There are none here now!"
+
+"Of course not!" Florence laughed a merry laugh. "This is not, after all,
+a real fort. It is only a reproduction of a very old fort that was
+destroyed many years ago, old Fort Dearborn."
+
+"But I do not understand. Why did they put it here?" Petite Jeanne was
+perplexed.
+
+"It is to be part of the great Fair, the Century of Progress. It was
+built in order that memories of those good old frontier days might be
+brought back to us in the most vivid fashion.
+
+"Just think of being here now, just we alone!" Florence enthused. "Let us
+dream a little. The darkness is all about us. On the lake there is a
+storm. There is no city now; only a village straggling along a stagnant
+stream. Wild ducks have built their nests in the swamps over yonder. And
+in the forest there are wild deer. In the cabins by the river women and
+children sleep. But we, you and I, we are sentries for the night. Indians
+prowl through the forest. The silent dip of their paddles sends their
+canoes along the shallow water close to shore.
+
+"See! There is a flash of light. What is that on the lake? Indian canoes?
+Or floating logs?
+
+"Shall we arouse the garrison? No! No! We will wait. It may be only logs
+after all. And if Indians, they may be friendly, for this is supposed to
+be a time of peace, though dark rumors are afloat."
+
+Florence's voice trailed away. The low rumble of thunder, the swish of
+water on a rocky shore, and then silence.
+
+Petite Jeanne shook herself. "You make it all so very real. Were those
+good days, better days than we are knowing now?"
+
+"Who can tell?" Florence sighed. "They seem very good to us now. But we
+must not forget that they were hard days, days of real sickness and real
+death. We must not forget that once the garrison of this fort marched
+forth with the entire population, prepared to make their way to a place
+of greater safety; that they were attacked and massacred by the
+treacherous red men.
+
+"We must not forget these things, nor should we cease to be thankful for
+the courage and devotion of those pioneers who dared to enter a
+wilderness and make their homes here, that we who follow after them might
+live in a land of liberty and peace."
+
+"No," Petite Jeanne's tone was solemn, "we will not forget."
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+In the meantime the pleasure-seeking throng, all unconscious of the storm
+that had threatened to deluge them, still roamed the streets. Their
+ranks, however, were thinning. One by one the bands, which were unable to
+play because of the press, and might not have been heard because of the
+tumult, folded up their music and their stands and instruments and, like
+the Arabs, "silently stole away." The radio stars who could not be seen
+answered other calls. Grandstands were deserted, street cars and elevated
+trains were packed. The great city had had one grand look at itself. It
+was now going home.
+
+And still, lurking in the doorway, the grown boy in shabby clothes and
+the hunchback lingered, waiting, expectant.
+
+"It won't be long now," the hunchback muttered.
+
+"It won't be long," the other echoed.
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+Petite Jeanne, though a trifle disappointed by the dispelling of the
+mystery of their immediate surroundings, soon enough found herself
+charmed by Florence's vivid pictures of life in those days when Chicago
+was a village, when the Chicago River ran north instead of south, and
+Indians still roamed the prairies in search of buffaloes.
+
+How this big, healthy, adventure-loving girl would have loved the life
+they lived in those half forgotten days! As it was, she could live them
+now only in imagination. This she did to her heart's content.
+
+So they lingered long, these two. Seated on a broad, hand-hewn bench,
+looking out over the dark waters, waiting in uncertainty for the possible
+return of the storm that, having spent its fury in a vain attempt to
+drown the lake, did not return, they lived for the most part in the past,
+until a clock striking somewhere in the distance announced the hour of
+midnight.
+
+"Twelve!" Petite Jeanne breathed in great surprise. "It will not rain
+now. We must go."
+
+"Yes." Florence sprang to her feet. "We must go at once."
+
+The moon was out now; the storm had passed. Quietly enough they started
+down the winding stairs. Yet startling developments awaited them just
+around the corner.
+
+In the meanwhile on the city streets the voice of the tumult had died to
+a murmur. Here came the rumble of a passing train; from this corner came
+the sound of hammers dismantling grandstands that the morning rush might
+not be impeded. Other than these there was no sign that a great city had
+left its homes and had for once taken one long interested look at itself
+only to return to its homes again.
+
+As Florence and Jeanne stepped from the door of the blockhouse they were
+startled by the sound of voices in low but animated conversation.
+
+"Here, at this hour of the night!" At once Florence was on the defensive.
+The fort, she knew, was not yet open to the public. Even had it been,
+located as it was on this desolate stretch of "made land," it would be
+receiving no visitors at midnight.
+
+"Come!" she whispered. "They are over there, toward the gate. We dare not
+try to go out, not yet."
+
+Seizing Jeanne by the hand, she led her along the dark shadows of a wall
+and at last entered a door.
+
+The place was strange to them; yet to Florence it had a certain
+familiarity. This was a moment when her passion for the study of history
+stood her in good stead.
+
+"This is the officers' quarters," she whispered. "There should be a door
+that may be barred. The windows are narrow, the casements heavy. Here one
+should be safe."
+
+She was not mistaken. Hardly had they entered than she closed the door
+and let down a massive wooden bar.
+
+"Now," she breathed, "we are safe, unless--"
+
+She broke short off. A thought had struck her all of a heap.
+
+"Unless what?" Jeanne asked breathlessly.
+
+"Unless this place has a night watchman. If it has, and he finds us here
+at this hour of the night we will be arrested for trespassing. And then
+we will have a ride in a police wagon which won't be the least bit of
+fun."
+
+"No," agreed Jeanne in a solemn tone, "it won't."
+
+"And that," whispered Florence, as she tiptoed about examining things,
+"seems to be about what we are up against. I had thought the place a mere
+unfurnished wooden shell. That is the way the blockhouse was. But see! At
+the end of this room is a fireplace, and beside it are all sorts of
+curious cooking utensils, great copper kettles, skillets of iron with
+yard-long handles and a brass cornhopper. Coming from the past, they must
+be priceless."
+
+"And see! There above the mantel are flintlock rifles," Jeanne put in.
+"And beside the fireplace are curious lanterns with candles in them. How
+I wish we could light them."
+
+"We dare not," said Florence. "But one thing we can do. We can sit in
+that dark corner where the moon does not fall, and dream of other days."
+
+"And in the meantime?" Jeanne barely suppressed a shudder.
+
+"In the meantime we will hope that the guard, if there be one, goes out
+for his midnight lunch and that we may slip out unobserved. Truly we have
+right enough to do that. We have meant no harm and have done none."
+
+So, sitting there in the dark, dreaming, they played that Florence was
+the youthful commander of the fort and that the slender Jeanne was his
+young bride but recently brought into this wilderness.
+
+"The wild life and the night frighten you," Florence said to Jeanne. "But
+I am young and strong. I will protect you. Come! Let us sit by the fire
+here and dream a while."
+
+Jeanne laughed a low musical laugh and snuggled closer.
+
+But, for Jeanne, the charm of the past had departed. Try as she might,
+she could not overcome the fear that had taken possession of her upon
+realizing that they were not alone.
+
+"Who can these men be?" she asked herself. "Guards? Perhaps, and perhaps
+not."
+
+She thought of the dark-faced man who so inspired her with fear. "We saw
+him out there on the waste lands," she told herself, as a chill coursed
+up her spine. "It is more than probable that he saw us. He may have
+followed us, watching us like a cat. And now, at this late hour, when a
+piercing scream could scarcely be heard, like a cat he may be ready to
+spring."
+
+In a great state of agitation she rose and crept noiselessly toward the
+window.
+
+"Come," she whispered. "See yonder! Two men are slinking along before
+that other log building. One is stooped like a hunchback. He is carrying
+a well-filled sack upon his back. Surely they cannot be guards.
+
+"Can it be that this place is left unguarded, and that it is being
+robbed?"
+
+Here was a situation indeed. Two girls in this lonely spot, unguarded and
+with such prowlers about.
+
+"I am glad the door is b-barred." Jeanne's teeth chattered.
+
+Having gone skulking along the building across the way, the men entered
+and closed the door. Two or three minutes later a wavering light appeared
+at one of the narrow windows.
+
+"Perhaps they are robbing that place of some precious heirlooms!"
+Florence's heart beat painfully, but she held herself in splendid
+control.
+
+"This buil-building will be next!" Jeanne spoke with difficulty.
+
+"Perhaps. I--I think we should do something about it."
+
+"But what?"
+
+"We shall know. Providence will guide us." Florence's hand was on the
+bar. It lifted slowly.
+
+What was to happen? They were going outside, Jeanne was sure of that. But
+what was to happen after that? She could not tell. Getting a good grip on
+herself, she whispered bravely:
+
+"You lead. I'll follow."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+                           THROUGH THE WINDOW
+
+
+"Come!" Florence whispered, as the door of the ancient barracks swung
+open and they tiptoed out into the night. "We must find out what those
+men are doing. This place was built in memory of the past for the good of
+the public. Generous-hearted people have loaned the rare treasures that
+are stored here. They must not be lost."
+
+Skirting the buildings, gliding along the shadows, they made their way
+past the powder-magazine all built of stone, moved onward the length of a
+log building that loomed in the dark, dashed across a corner and arrived
+at last with wildly beating hearts at the corner of the building from
+which the feeble, flickering light still shone.
+
+"Now!" Florence breathed, gripping her breast in a vain attempt to still
+the wild beating of her heart. "Not a sound! We must reach that window."
+
+Leading the way, she moved in breathless silence, a foot at a time along
+the dark wall. Now she was twenty feet from the window, now ten, now--.
+She paused with a quick intake of breath. Did she hear footsteps? Were
+they coming out? And if they did?
+
+Flattening herself against the wall, she drew Jeanne close to her. A
+moment passed. Her watch ticked loudly. From some spot far away a hound
+baying the moon gave forth a long-drawn wail.
+
+Two minutes passed, three, four.
+
+"They--they're not coming out."
+
+Taking the trembling hand of the little French girl in her own, she once
+more led her forward.
+
+And now they were at the window, peering in with startled eyes.
+
+What they saw astonished them beyond belief.
+
+Crouching on the floor, lighted only by a flashlight lantern, was a grown
+boy and a hunchbacked man. The boy at that moment was in the act of
+dumping the contents of a large bag upon the log floor of the building.
+
+"Loot!" whispered Florence.
+
+"But why do they pour it out?"
+
+Florence placed two fingers on her companion's lips.
+
+That the articles had not been taken from the fort they realized at once,
+for the boy, holding up a modern lady's shoe with an absurdly high heel,
+gave forth a hoarse laugh.
+
+There were other articles, all modern; a spectacle-case with broken
+lenses inside but gold rims still good, another pair of glasses with horn
+rims that had not been broken; and there were more shoes.
+
+And, most interesting of all, there were several purses. That the strange
+pair regarded these purses with the greatest interest was manifested by
+the manner in which they had their heads together as the first was
+opened.
+
+Shaking the contents into his huge fist, the hunchback picked out some
+small coins and handed them to the boy. A glittering compact and a folded
+bill he thrust into the side pocket of his coat. The boy frowned, but
+said not a word. Instead he seized upon a second pocket-book and prepared
+to inspect it for himself.
+
+"Pickpockets!" Jeanne whispered. "They have been working on that helpless
+throng. Now they have come here to divide their loot."
+
+Florence did not answer.
+
+The crouching boy was about to open the second purse, the hunchback
+making no protest, when to the girls there came cause for fresh anxiety.
+From the far side of the enclosure there came the rattle of chains.
+
+"Someone else," Florence whispered, "and at this hour of the night. But
+they cannot harm us," came as an after-thought. "The chain is fastened on
+the inside." She was thankful for this, but not for long.
+
+"But how did these get in?" Petite Jeanne pointed to the crouching pair
+within.
+
+"Let's get out!" Jeanne pleaded. "This is work for an officer. We can
+send one."
+
+"Someone is at the gate," Florence reminded her.
+
+Then there happened that which for the moment held them glued to the
+spot. Having thrust a hand into the second purse, a small one, well worn,
+the crouching boy drew forth an object that plainly puzzled him. He held
+it close to the light. As he did so, Florence gave vent to an involuntary
+gasp.
+
+"The cameo! The lost cameo!" she exclaimed half aloud. "It must belong to
+our little old lady of the merry-mad throng."
+
+At the same instant there came from behind her a man's gruff voice in
+angry words:
+
+"Here, you! What you doing? Why do you lock the gate? Thought you'd keep
+me out, eh?
+
+"But I fooled you!" the voice continued. "I scaled the palisades."
+
+Instantly there came sounds of movement from within. The crouching
+figures were hastily stuffing all that pile back into the sack and at the
+same time eagerly looking for an avenue of escape.
+
+Florence caught the gleam of a star on the newcomer's coat.
+
+"Oh, please!" she pleaded. "We have taken nothing, meant no harm. The
+storm--
+
+"But please, officer," her tone changed, "that pair within have been
+doing something, perhaps robbing. They have a precious cameo that belongs
+to a dear old lady. Please don't let them escape."
+
+In answer to this breathless appeal the officer made no reply. Instead he
+strode to the window, looked within, then rapped smartly on the sash with
+his club. At the same time he pointed to his star.
+
+The strange intruders could not fail to understand. They shouldered their
+sack and came forth meekly enough.
+
+"You come with me, all of you!" the officer commanded. "Let's get this
+thing straight.
+
+"Now then," he commanded, after they had crossed the enclosure in silence
+and he had lighted a large lamp in a small office-like room, "dump that
+stuff on the floor."
+
+"I want to tell ye," the hunchback grumbled, "that we hain't no thieves,
+me an' this boy. We hain't. We--"
+
+"Dump it out!" The officer's tone was stern.
+
+The hunchback obeyed. "We found this, we did; found all of it."
+
+"Ye-s, you found it!" The officer bent over to take up a purse. He opened
+it and emptied a handful of coins on the table at his side.
+
+"Purses!" he exclaimed. "How many?" He counted silently. "Seven of 'em
+and all full of change. And you found 'em! Tell that to the judge!"
+
+"Honest, we found them." The grown boy dragged a ragged sleeve across his
+eyes. "We was down to the Jubilee. People was always crushin' together
+and losin' things in the scramble, shoes and purses an' all this." He
+swept an arm toward the pile. "So we just stayed around until they was
+gone. Then we got 'em."
+
+"And you thought because you found 'em they were yours?"
+
+"Well, ain't they?" The hunchback grew defiant.
+
+"Not by a whole lot!" The officer's voice was a trifle less stern. "If
+you find a purse or any other thing on the street, if it's worth the
+trouble, you're supposed to turn it in, and you leave your name. If it's
+not called for, you get it back. But you can't gather things up in a sack
+and just walk off. That don't go.
+
+"See here!" He held up a tiny leather frame taken from the purse he had
+emptied. "That's a picture of an old lady with white hair; somebody's
+mother, like as not. What's it worth to you? Not that!" He snapped his
+fingers. "But to the real owner it's a precious possession."
+
+"Yes, yes," Florence broke in eagerly, "and there's a ragged little purse
+in that pile that contains a dear old lady's only real possession, a
+cameo."
+
+"How'd you know that?" The officer turned sharply upon her.
+
+"We saw it in his hand." She held her ground, nodding at the boy. "We
+were with the lady, helping her out of the crush, when she lost it."
+
+"You--you look like that kind," the officer said slowly, studying her
+face. "I--I'm going to take a chance. Got her address?"
+
+"Yes, yes," eagerly.
+
+"Give it to me."
+
+"Here. Write it down."
+
+"Good. Now then, you pick out the purse and show me this thing you call a
+cameo. Never heard of one before, but if it's different from everything
+else I've seen it must be one of them cameos."
+
+"Oh tha-thank you!" Florence choked. She had made a promise to the little
+old lady. Now the promise was near to fulfillment.
+
+The purse was quickly found and the cameo exposed to view.
+
+"That's a cameo all right," the officer grinned. "It's nothing else I
+ever saw. You take it to her and may God bless you for your interest in
+an old lady."
+
+Florence found her eyes suddenly dimmed.
+
+"As for you!" The officer's tone grew stern once more as he turned to the
+marauding pair. "You give me your names and tell me where you live. I'll
+just keep all this stuff as it is, and turn it in. If any of it remains
+unclaimed we'll let you know."
+
+Glad to know that they were not to be sent to jail for a misdemeanor they
+had committed in ignorance, the strange pair gave their names and place
+of residence and then disappeared into the shadows whence they had come.
+
+The officer, whose duty it was to keep an eye on lake shore property,
+escorted the girls to the street car line, then bade them good-night.
+
+There were times when the little French girl could not sleep. On
+returning to her room, she found that, despite the lateness of the hour,
+her nerves were all a-tingle, her eyes wide and staring.
+
+Long after Florence had retired for the night, she lay rolled in a soft,
+woolly blanket, huddled up in a great chair before the fire.
+
+At first, as she stared at the fire she saw there only a confusion of
+blurred impressions. In time these impressions took form and she saw much
+of her own life spread out before her. The opera, its stage resplendent
+with color, light and life; the boxes shrouded in darkness; these she
+saw. The great estate, home of Rosemary Robinson, was there, and the
+glowing magic curtain that appeared to burn but was not consumed; these
+were there too.
+
+As in a dream she heard voices: The lady in black spoke, Jaeger, the
+detective, and Rosemary. She seemed to catch the low murmur of the
+hunchback and that boy of his; heard, too, the sharp call of the man with
+the evil eye.
+
+"All this," she said aloud, "fits in somehow. 'There is a destiny that
+shapes our ends, rough hew them how we may.' If I could see it all as it
+is to be when all is finished they would all have their places, their
+work to do, the little old lady, the crushing throng, the hooters, yes,
+even the one with the dark face and evil eye: all these may serve me in
+the end.
+
+"Serve me. Poor little me!" She laughed aloud, and, blazing with a merry
+crackle, the fire appeared to laugh back.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+                         STARTLING REVELATIONS
+
+
+The circular fishing net, which had for so unusual a purpose been lowered
+into the lake at the dead of night and brought up later, quite empty,
+belonged to a youth, known among his acquaintances as "Snowball."
+Snowball was black, very black indeed.
+
+When Snowball arrived at his net next morning he found a white man
+sitting by his windlass. This young man's eye had a glint of blue steel
+in it that set the black boy's knees quivering.
+
+"That your net?" The stranger nodded toward the lake.
+
+"Yaas, sir!"
+
+"Deep down there?"
+
+"Tol'able deep. Yaas, sir."
+
+"Swim?"
+
+"Who? Me? Yaas, sir."
+
+"Here." The man slipped a bill between two boards and left it fluttering
+there. "Skin off and dive down there. Black package down there. See?
+Bring it up. See?"
+
+"Yaas, sir. Oh, yas, yas, sir." There surely was something strange about
+the glint of those eyes.
+
+Snowball struggled out of his few bits of loose clothing and, clad only
+in trunks, disappeared beneath the surface of the lake.
+
+A moment later he came to the surface.
+
+"Got it?" Those eyes again.
+
+"N--no, sir." The black boy's teeth chattered. "Nothin' down there. Not
+nothin' at all."
+
+"Go down again. You got poor eyes!" The man made a move. Snowball
+disappeared.
+
+He came up again sputtering. "Hain't nothin'. Tellin' y' th' truth, sir.
+Just nothin' at all."
+
+The stranger made a threatening move. Snowball was about to disappear
+once more, when a shrill laugh came rippling across the rocks.
+
+The man turned, startled, then frowned.
+
+"What's pleasing you, sister?" He addressed this remark to a slim girl in
+a faded bathing suit, seated on a rock a hundred feet away.
+
+"Snowball's right." The girl laughed again. "Nothing down there. Nothing
+at all."
+
+The man gave her a quick look, then sprang to his feet. The next instant
+he was scrambling over the rocks.
+
+When he arrived at the spot where the girl had been, she was nowhere to
+be seen. It was as if the lake had swallowed her up; which, perhaps it
+had.
+
+Apparently the man believed it had, for he sat down upon the rocks to
+wait. Ten minutes passed. Not a ripple disturbed the surface.
+
+He looked toward the windlass and the net. Snowball, too, had vanished.
+
+"Crooks!" he muttered. "All crooks out here!"
+
+At that, after picking his way across the breakwater, he took to the
+stretches of sand and soon disappeared.
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+When, later that same day, Petite Jeanne started away, bent on the joyous
+business of returning a lost cameo to a dear old lady, she expected to
+come upon no fresh mystery.
+
+"Certainly," she said to Florence, who, because of her work, could not
+accompany her, "in the bright light of day one experiences no thrills."
+Surprise came to her all the same.
+
+She had reached the very street crossing at which she was to alight
+before she realized that the address the little old lady had given was in
+Chinatown.
+
+"Surprise number one," she murmured. "A white lady living in Chinatown. I
+can't be wrong, for just over there is the temple where I saw the magic
+curtain." If other evidence were lacking, she had only to glance at the
+pedestrians on the street. Nine out of every ten were Chinese.
+
+For a moment she stood quite still upon the curb. Perhaps her experience
+on that other occasion had inspired an unwarranted fear.
+
+"For shame!" She stamped her small foot. "This is broad day! Why be
+afraid?"
+
+Surprise number two came to her upon arriving at the gate of the place
+she sought. No dingy tenement this. The cutest little house, set at the
+back of a tiny square of green grass, flanked a curious rock garden where
+water sparkled. The whole affair seemed to have been lifted quite
+complete from some Chinese fairy book.
+
+"It's the wrong address." Her spirits drooped a little.
+
+But no. One bang at the gong that hung just outside the door, and the
+little old lady herself was peeping through a narrow crack.
+
+"Oh! It is you!" she exclaimed, throwing the door wide. "And you have my
+cameo!"
+
+"Yes," Jeanne smiled, "I have your cameo."
+
+Because she was French, Jeanne was not at all disturbed by the smothering
+caress she received from the old lady of this most curious house.
+
+The next moment she was inside the house and sinking deep in a great heap
+of silky, downy pillows.
+
+"But, my friend," she exclaimed, as soon as she had caught her breath
+after a glance about the room where only Oriental objects, dragons,
+curious lanterns, silk banners, and thick mats were to be found, "this is
+Chinatown, and you are not Oriental!"
+
+"No, my child. I am not." The little lady's eyes sparkled. "But for many
+years my father was Consul to China. I lived with him and came to know
+the Chinese people. I learned to love them for their gentleness, their
+simplicity, their kindness. They loved me too a little, I guess, for
+after my father died and I came to America, some rich Chinese merchants
+prepared this little house for me. And here I live.
+
+"Oh, yes," she sighed contentedly, "I do some translating for them and
+other little things, but I do not have a worry. They provide for me.
+
+"But this!" She pressed the cameo to her lips. "This comes from another
+time, the long lost, beautiful past when I was a child with my father in
+Venice. That is why I prize it so. Can you blame me?"
+
+"No! No!" The little French girl's tone was deeply earnest. "I cannot. I,
+too, have lived long in Europe. France, my own beautiful France, was my
+childhood home.
+
+"But tell me!" Her tone took on an excited note. "If you know so much of
+these mysterious Chinese, you can help me. Will you help me? Will you
+explain something?"
+
+"If I can, my child. Gladly!"
+
+"A few days ago," the little French girl leaned forward eagerly, "I saw
+the most astonishing curtain. It burned, but was not consumed, like the
+burning bush."
+
+"You saw that?" It seemed that the little lady's eyes would pop from her
+head. "You saw that? Where?"
+
+"Over yonder." Jeanne waved a hand. "In that Chinese temple."
+
+"I--did not--know it--was--here." The little lady spoke very slowly.
+
+"Then you have seen it!" In her eagerness Jeanne gripped the arms of her
+chair hard. "Tell me! What is it? How is it done? Could one borrow it?"
+
+"Borrow it? My child, you do not know what you are asking!
+
+"But you--" She lowered her voice to a shrill whisper. "How can you have
+seen it?"
+
+Quite excitedly and with many a gesture, the little French girl told of
+her visit to the Chinese temple on that rainy afternoon.
+
+"Oh, my child!" The little lady was all but in tears as she finished,
+tears of excitement and joy. "My dear child! You cannot know what you
+have done, nor how fortunate you are that you escaped unharmed."
+
+"But this is America, not China!" Jeanne's tone showed her amazement.
+
+"True, my child. But every great American city is many cities in one. On
+the streets you are safe. When you pry into the secrets of other people,
+that is quite another matter."
+
+"Secrets!"
+
+"The Chinese people seem to be simple, kindly, harmless folks. So they
+are, on the street. But in their private dealings they are the most
+secretive people in the world.
+
+"That temple you visited!" It was her turn to lean far forward. "That is
+more than a temple. It is a place of business, a chamber of commerce and
+the meeting place of the most powerful secret society the Chinese people
+have ever known, the Hop Sing Tong."
+
+"And that meeting, the magic curtain--" Jeanne's eyes went wide.
+
+"That was beyond doubt a secret meeting of the Tong. You came uninvited.
+Because of the darkness you escaped. You may thank Providence for that!
+But never, never do that again!"
+
+"Then," Jeanne's tone was full of regret, "then I may never see the magic
+curtain again."
+
+"O, I wouldn't say that." The little lady smiled blandly. "Seeing the
+magic curtain and attending the meeting of a secret society are two
+different matters. The Chinese people are very kind to me. Some of the
+richest Chinese merchants--"
+
+"Oh! Do you think you could arrange it? Do you think I might see it, two
+or three friends and I?"
+
+"It might be arranged."
+
+"Will you try?"
+
+"I will do my best."
+
+"And if it can be, will you let me know?" Jeanne rose to go.
+
+"I will let you know."
+
+As Jeanne left the room, she found herself walking in a daze.
+
+"And to think!" she whispered to herself, "that this little old lady and
+her lost cameo should so soon begin to fit into the marvelous pattern of
+my life."
+
+She had wonderful dreams, had this little French girl. She would see the
+magic curtain once more. With her on this occasion should be Marjory
+Dean, the great opera star, and her friend Angelo who wrote operas. When
+the magic curtain had been seen, an opera should be written around it, an
+Oriental opera full of mystery; a very short opera to be sure but an
+opera all the same.
+
+"And perhaps!" Her feet sped away in a wild fling. "Perhaps I shall have
+a tiny part in that opera; a very tiny part indeed."
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+                      THEY THAT PASS IN THE NIGHT
+
+
+The opera presented that night was Wagner's _Die Valkyre_. To Petite
+Jeanne, the blithesome child of sunshine and song, it seemed a trifle
+heavy. For all this she was fascinated by the picture of life as it might
+have been lived long before man began writing his own history. And never
+before had she listened to such singing.
+
+It was in the last great scene that a fresh hope for the future was borne
+in upon her. In the opera, Brunhilde having, contrary to the wishes of
+the gods, interceded for her lover Sigmund, she must be punished. She
+pleads her own cause in vain. At last she asks for a special punishment:
+that she be allowed to sleep encircled by fire until a hero of her people
+is found strong enough to rescue her.
+
+Her wish is granted. Gently the god raises her and kisses her brow.
+Slowly she sinks upon the rock while tongues of flame leap from the
+rocks. Moment by moment the flames leap higher until the heroine is lost
+from sight.
+
+It was at the very moment when the fires burned fiercest, the orchestra
+played its most amazing strains, that a great thought came to Jeanne.
+
+"I will do it!" she cried aloud. "How wonderful that will be! We shall
+have an opera. The magic curtain; it shall be like this."
+
+Then, realizing that there were people close at hand, she clapped a hand
+to her lips and was silent.
+
+A moment more and the strains of delectable music died away. Then it was
+that a man touched Jeanne's arm.
+
+"You are French." The man had an unmistakable accent.
+
+"Yes, monsieur."
+
+"I would like a word with you."
+
+"Yes, yes. If you will please wait here." As Pierre, in a dress suit,
+Jeanne still had work to do.
+
+Her head awhirl with her bright new idea, her eyes still seeing red from
+the fires that guarded Brunhilde, she hurried through with her humble
+tasks. Little wonder that she had forgotten the little Frenchman with the
+small beard. She started when he touched her arm.
+
+"Pardon, my son. May I now have a word with you?"
+
+She started at that word "son," but quickly regained her poise.
+
+"Surely you may." She was at his command.
+
+"I am looking," he began at once, "for a little French girl named Petite
+Jeanne."
+
+"Pet--Petite!" The little French girl did not finish. She was trembling.
+
+"Ah! Perhaps you know her."
+
+"No, no. Ah, yes, yes," Jeanne answered in wild confusion.
+
+"You will perhaps tell me where she lives. I have a very important
+message for her. I came from France to bring it."
+
+"From France?" Jeanne was half smothered with excitement. What should she
+do? Should she say: "I am Petite Jeanne?" Ah, no; she dared not. Then an
+inspiration came to her.
+
+"You wish this person's address? This Petite Jeanne?"
+
+"If you will," the man replied politely.
+
+"Very well. I will write it down."
+
+Drawing a small silver pencil from her pocket with trembling fingers, she
+wrote an address upon the back of a program.
+
+"There, monsieur. This is it.
+
+"I think--" She shifted her feet uneasily. "I am sure she works rather
+late. If you were to call, perhaps in an hour, you might find her there."
+
+"So late as this?" The Frenchman raised his eyebrows.
+
+"I am sure she would not mind."
+
+"Very well. I shall try. And a thousand thanks." He pressed a coin in her
+unwilling hand. The next moment he had vanished.
+
+"Gone!" she murmured, sinking into a seat. "Gone! And he had an important
+message for me! Oh! I must hurry home!"
+
+Even as she spoke these words she detected a rustle at the back of the
+box. Having turned quickly about, she was just in time to see someone
+pass into the narrow aisle. It was the lady in black.
+
+"I wonder if she heard?" Jeanne's heart sank.
+
+As she left the Opera House the little French girl's spirits were low.
+
+The lady in black frightened her. "What can she mean, always dogging my
+footsteps?" she asked herself as she sought the street.
+
+"And that dark-faced one? I saw him again to-night by the door. Who is
+he? What can he want?"
+
+There was a little group of people gathered by the door. As she passed
+out, she fancied she caught a glimpse of that dark, forbidding face,
+those evil eyes.
+
+With a shudder she sped away. She was not pursued.
+
+At her apartment she quickly changed into her own plain house dress.
+Having lighted the living-room fire, she waited a little for the return
+of Florence, who should have been home long before.
+
+"What can be keeping her?"
+
+With nervous, uncertain steps, she crossed to her own chamber door.
+Having entered, she went to the window. Her room was dark. The street
+below was half dark. A distant lamp cast a dim, swaying light. At first
+no one was to be seen. Then a single dark figure moved stealthily up the
+street. The swaying light caused this person to take on the appearance of
+an acrobat who leaped into the air, then came down like a rubber ball.
+Even when he paused to look up at the building before him, he seemed to
+sway like a drunken sailor.
+
+"That may be the man." Her pulse quickened.
+
+A moment more and a car, careering down the street, lighted the man's
+face. It did more. It brought into the open for a second another figure,
+deeper in the shadows.
+
+"What a strange pair!" she murmured as she shrank back.
+
+The man least concealed was the dark-faced one with the evil eye. The
+other man was Jaeger, the detective.
+
+"But they are not together," she assured herself. "Jaeger is watching the
+other, and the dark one is watching me."
+
+Even as she said this, a third person came into view.
+
+Instantly, by his slow stride, his military bearing, she recognized the
+man.
+
+"It is he!" She was thrown into a state of tumult. "It is my Frenchman."
+
+But what was this? He was on the opposite side of the street, yet he did
+not cross over, nor so much as glance that way. He marched straight on.
+
+She wanted to rush down the stairs and call to him; yet she dared not,
+for were not those sinister figures lurking there?
+
+To make matters worse, the dark-faced one took to following the
+Frenchman. Darting from shadow to shadow, he obviously believed himself
+unobserved. False security. Jaeger was on his trail.
+
+"What does it all mean?" Jeanne asked herself. "Is this little Frenchman
+after all but a tool of the police? Does he hope to trap me and secure
+the pearls--which I do not have? Or is he with that evil one with the
+desperate eyes? Or is it true that he came but now from France and bears
+a message for me?"
+
+Since she could answer none of these questions, she left her room, looked
+to the fastening of the outer door, then took a seat by the fire. There
+for a long time she tried to read her fortune in the flames, but
+succeeded in seeing only a flaming curtain that was not consumed.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+                             THE UNSEEN EYE
+
+
+Five days passed. Uneventful days they were for Petite Jeanne; yet each
+one was charged with possibilities both wonderful and terrible. She saw
+no more of Marjory Dean. What of her promise? Had she forgotten?
+
+The little old lady of the cameo she visited once. The Chinese gentleman
+who might secure for her one more shuddering look at the magic curtain
+was out of town.
+
+Never did she enter the opera at night without casting fearful glances
+about lest she encounter the dark-faced man of the evil eye. He was never
+there. Where was he? Who was he? What interest could he have in a mere
+boy usher of the opera? To these questions the little French girl could
+form no answer.
+
+There were times when she believed him a gypsy, or at least a descendant
+of gypsies from France. When she thought of this she shuddered anew. For
+in France were many enemies of Bihari's band. And she was one of that
+band.
+
+At other times she was able to convince herself that she had seen this
+dark-faced one at the back of the boxes on that night when the priceless
+pearls had vanished. Yet how this could be when Jaeger, the detective,
+and the mysterious lady in black haunted those same shadows, she could
+not imagine.
+
+Of late Jaeger was not always there. Perhaps he was engaged in other
+affairs. It might be that on that very night Jeanne had seen him follow
+the dark-faced one, he had made an important arrest. If so, whom had he
+apprehended, the dark-faced one or the little Frenchman with a military
+bearing?
+
+Jeanne could not but believe that the little man from France was honest
+and sincere, that he truly bore an important message for her.
+
+"But why then did he not come that night and deliver it?" she said to
+Florence.
+
+"Perhaps he lost his way."
+
+"Lost his way? How could he? He was here, just across the way."
+
+"You say two men followed him?"
+
+"Yes, yes!"
+
+"Then he may have been frightened off."
+
+"If so, why did he not return?"
+
+"Who can say?"
+
+Ah, yes, who could? Certainly no one, for no one knew the full truth,
+which was that in her excitement Jeanne had mixed her numbers and,
+instead of presenting him with her own address, had sent him five blocks
+down the street where, as one must know, he found no little French girl
+named Petite Jeanne. So here is one matter settled, straight off. But
+what of the business-like little Frenchman? Did he truly bear a message
+of importance? If so, what was the message? And where was the man now?
+Not so easy to answer, these questions.
+
+Jeanne asked herself these questions and many more during these days
+when, as Pierre, she served the occupants of the boxes faithfully, at the
+same time drinking in all the glory and splendor of music, color and
+drama that is Grand Opera at its best.
+
+A glimpse now and then of the lady in black lurking in deep shadows never
+failed to thrill her. Never did she see her face. Not once did there come
+to her a single intimation of the position she filled at the opera. As
+she felt that unseen eye upon her, Jeanne experienced a strange
+sensation. She went hot and cold all over. Then a great calm possessed
+her.
+
+"It is the strangest thing!" she exclaimed to Florence one night. "It is
+like--what would you call it?--a benediction. I am dreadfully afraid; yet
+I find peace. It is like, shall I say, like seeing God? Should you be
+afraid of God if you saw Him?"
+
+"Yes, I think I might," Florence answered soberly.
+
+"Yet they say God is Love. Why should one fear Love?"
+
+"Who knows? Anyway, your friend is not God. She is only a lady in black.
+Perhaps she is not Love either. Her true name may be Hate."
+
+"Ah, yes, perhaps. But I feel it is not so. And many times, oh my friend,
+when I _feel_ a thing is so it _is_ so. But when I just think it is true,
+then it is not true at all. Is this not strange?"
+
+"It is strange. But you gypsies are strange anyway."
+
+"Ah, yes, perhaps. For all that, I am not all gypsy. Once I was not gypsy
+at all, only a little French girl living in a little chateau by the side
+of the road."
+
+"Petite Jeanne," Florence spoke with sudden earnestness, "have you no
+people living in France?"
+
+"My father is dead, this I know." The little French girl's head drooped.
+"My mother also. I have no brothers nor sisters save those who adopted me
+long ago in a gypsy van. Who else can matter?"
+
+"Uncles and aunts, cousins, grandparents?"
+
+"Ah, yes." The little French girl's brow clouded. "Now I remember. There
+was one--we called her grandmother. Was she? I wonder. We play that so
+many things are true, we little ones. I was to see her twice. She was,
+oh, so grand!" She clasped her hands as if in a dream. "Lived at the edge
+of a wood, she did, a great black forest, in a castle.
+
+"A very beautiful castle it was to look at on a sunny day, from the
+outside. Little towers and spires, many little windows, all round and
+square.
+
+"But inside?" She made a face and shuddered. "Oh, so very damp and cold!
+No fires here. No lights there. Only a bit of a brazier that burned
+charcoal, very bright and not warm at all. A grandmother? A castle? Ah,
+yes, perhaps. But who wants so grand a castle that is cold? Who would
+wish for a grandmother who did not bend nor smile?
+
+"And besides," she added, as she sank into a chair, "she may not have
+been my grandmother at all. This was long ago. I was only a little one."
+
+"All the same," Florence muttered to herself, some time later, "I'd like
+to know if that was her grandmother. It might make a difference, a very
+great difference."
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX
+                         A PLACE OF ENCHANTMENT
+
+
+Then came for Petite Jeanne an hour of swiftly passing glory.
+
+She had arisen late, as was her custom, and was sipping her black coffee
+when the telephone rang.
+
+"This is Marjory Dean." The words came to her over the wire in the
+faintest whisper. But how they thrilled her! "Is this Petite Jeanne? Or
+is it Pierre?" The prima donna was laughing.
+
+"It is Petite Jeanne at breakfast," Jeanne answered. Her heart was in her
+throat. What was she to expect?
+
+"Then will you please ask Pierre if it will be possible for him to meet
+me at the Opera House stage door at three this afternoon?"
+
+"I shall ask him." Jeanne put on a business-like tone. For all that, her
+heart was pounding madly. "It may be my great opportunity!" she told
+herself. "I may yet appear for a brief space of time in an opera. What
+glory!"
+
+After allowing a space of thirty seconds to elapse, during which time she
+might be supposed to have consulted the mythical Pierre, she replied
+quite simply:
+
+"Yes, Miss Dean, Pierre will meet you at that hour. And he wishes me to
+thank you very much."
+
+"Sh! Never a word of this!" came over the phone; then the voice was gone.
+
+Jeanne spent the remainder of the forenoon in a tumult of excitement. At
+noon she ate a light lunch, drank black tea, then sat down to study the
+score of her favorite opera, "The Juggler of Notre Dame."
+
+It is little wonder that Jeanne loved this more than any other opera. It
+is the story of a simple wanderer, a juggler. Jeanne, as we have said
+before, had been a wanderer in France. She had danced the gypsy dances
+with her bear in every village of France and every suburb of Paris.
+
+And Cluny, a suburb of Paris, is the scene of this little opera. A
+juggler, curiously enough named Jean, arrives in this village just as the
+people have begun to celebrate May Day in the square before the convent.
+
+The juggler is welcomed. But one by one his poor tricks are scorned. The
+people demand a drinking song. The juggler is pious. He fears to offend
+the Virgin. But at last, beseeching the Virgin's forgiveness, he grants
+their request.
+
+Hearing the shouts of the crowd, the prior of the monastery comes out to
+scatter the crowd and rebuke the singer. He bids the poor juggler repent
+and, putting the world at his back, enter the monastery, never more to
+wander over the beautiful hills of France.
+
+In the juggler's poor mind occurs a great struggle. And in this struggle
+these words are wrung from his lips:
+
+  "But renounce, when I am still young,
+  Renounce to follow thee, oh, Liberty, beloved,
+  Careless fay with clear golden smile!
+  'Tis she my heart for mistress has chosen;
+  Hair in the wind laughing, she takes my hand,
+  She drags me on chance of the hour and the road.
+  The silver of the waters, the gold of the blond harvest,
+  The diamonds of the nights, through her are mine!
+  I have space through her, and love and the world.
+  The villain, through her, becomes king!
+  By her divine charm, all smiles on me, all enchants,
+  And, to accompany the flight of my song,
+  The concert of the birds snaps in the green bush.
+  Gracious mistress and sister I have chosen.
+  Must I now lose you, oh, my royal treasure? Oh, Liberty, my beloved,
+  Careless fay of the golden smile!"
+
+"Liberty ... careless fay of the golden smile." Jeanne repeated these
+words three times. Then with dreamy eyes that spanned a nation and an
+ocean, she saw again the lanes, the hedges, the happy villages of France.
+
+"Who better than I can feel as that poor juggler felt as he gave all this
+up for the monastery's narrow walls?" she asked. No answer came back. She
+knew the answer well enough for all that. And this knowledge gave her
+courage for the hours that were to come.
+
+She met Marjory Dean by one of the massive pillars that adorn the great
+Opera House.
+
+"To think," she whispered, "that all this great building should be
+erected that thousands might hear you sing!"
+
+"Not me alone." The prima donna smiled. "Many, many others and many, I
+hope, more worthy than I."
+
+"What a life you have had!" the little French girl cried rapturously.
+"You have truly lived!
+
+"To work, to dream, to hope," she went on, "to struggle onward toward
+some distant goal, this is life."
+
+"Ah, no, my child." Marjory Dean's face warmed with a kindly smile. "This
+is not life. It is but the beginning of life. One does not work long,
+hope much, struggle far, before he becomes conscious of someone on the
+way before him. As he becomes conscious of this one, the other puts out a
+hand to aid him forward. Together they work, dream, hope and struggle
+onward. Together they succeed more completely.
+
+"And then," her tone was mellow, thoughtful, "there comes the time when
+the one who had been given the helping hand by one before looks back and
+sees still another who struggles bravely over the way he has come. His
+other hand stretches back to this weaker one. And so, with someone before
+to assist, with one behind to be assisted, he works, dreams, hopes and
+struggles on through his career, be it long or short. And this, my child,
+is life."
+
+"Yes, I see it now. I knew it before. But one forgets. Watch me. I shall
+cling tightly to your hand. And when my turn comes I shall pray for
+courage and strength, then reach back to one who struggles a little way
+behind."
+
+"Wise, brave child! How one could love you!"
+
+With this the prima donna threw her arm across Jeanne's shoulder and
+together they marched into the place of solemn enchantment, an Opera
+House that is "dark."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI
+                      FROM THE HEIGHTS TO DESPAIR
+
+
+"To-day," said Marjory Dean, as they came out upon the dimly lighted
+stage, "as you will see," she glanced about her where the setting of a
+French village was to be seen "we are to rehearse 'The Juggler of Notre
+Dame.' And to-day, if you have the courage, you may play the juggler in
+my stead."
+
+"Oh!" Jeanne's breath came short and quick. Her wild heartbeats of
+anticipation had not been in vain.
+
+"But the company!" she exclaimed in a low whisper. "Shall they know?"
+
+"They will not be told. Many will guess that something unusual is
+happening. But they all are good sports. And besides they are all of
+my--what is it you have called it?--my 'Golden Circle.'"
+
+"Yes, yes, your 'Golden Circle.'"
+
+"And those of our 'Golden Circle' never betray us. It is an unwritten
+law."
+
+"Ah!" Jeanne breathed deeply. "Can I do it?"
+
+"Certainly you can. And perhaps, on the very next night when the
+'Juggler' is done--oh, well, you know."
+
+"Yes. I know." Jeanne was fairly choking with emotion.
+
+When, however, half an hour later, garbed as the juggler with his hoop
+and his bag of tricks, she came before the troop of French villagers of
+the drama, she was her own calm self. For once again as in a dream, she
+trod the streets of a beautiful French village. As of yore she danced
+before the boisterous village throng.
+
+Only now, instead of stick and bear, she danced with hoop and bag.
+
+She was conscious at once that the members of the company realized that
+she was a stranger and not Marjory Dean.
+
+"But I shall show them how a child of France may play her native drama."
+At once she lost herself in the character of Jean, the wandering-juggler.
+
+Eagerly she offered to do tricks with cup and balls, to remove eggs from
+a hat.
+
+Scorned by the throng, she did not despair.
+
+"I know the hoop dance."
+
+The children of the troop seized her by the hands to drag her about. And
+Jeanne, the lithe Jeanne who had so often enthralled thousands by her
+fairy-like steps, danced clumsily as the juggler must, then allowed
+herself to be abused by the children until she could break away.
+
+"What a glorious company!" she was thinking in the back of her mind. "How
+they play up to me!"
+
+"My lords," she cried when once more she was free, "to please you I'll
+sing a fine love salvation song."
+
+They paid her no heed. As the juggler she did not despair.
+
+As Jeanne, she saw a movement in a seat close to the opera pit. "An
+auditor!" Her heart sank. "What if it is someone who suspects and will
+give me away!" There was scant time for these thoughts.
+
+As the juggler she offered songs of battle, songs of conquest, drama. To
+all this they cried:
+
+"No! No! Give us rather a drinking song!"
+
+At last yielding to their demand she sang: "Hallelujah, Sing the
+Hallelujah of Wine."
+
+Then as the prior descended upon the throng, scattering them like tiny
+birds before a gale, she stood there alone, defenseless, as the prior
+denounced her.
+
+Real tears were in her eyes as she began her farewell to the glorious
+liberty of hedge and field, river, road and forest of France.
+
+This farewell was destined to end unfinished for suddenly a great bass
+voice roared:
+
+"What is this? You are not Marjory Dean! Where is she? What are you doing
+here?"
+
+A huge man with a fierce black mustache stood towering above her. She
+recognized in him the director of the opera, and wished that the section
+of the stage beneath her feet might sink, carrying her from sight.
+
+"Here I am," came in a clear, cold tone. It was Marjory Dean who spoke.
+She advanced toward the middle of the stage.
+
+Riveted to their places, the members of the company stood aghast. Full
+well they knew the fire that lay ever smouldering in Marjory Dean's
+breast.
+
+"And what does this mean? Why are you not rehearsing your part?"
+
+"Because," Miss Dean replied evenly, "I chose to allow another, who can
+do it quite as well, to rehearse with the company."
+
+"And I suppose," there was bitter sarcasm in the director's voice, "she
+will sing the part when that night comes?"
+
+"And if she did?"
+
+"Then, Miss Dean, your services would no longer be required." The man was
+purple with rage.
+
+"Very well." Marjory Dean's face went white. "We may as well--"
+
+But Petite Jeanne was at her side. "Miss Dean, you do not know what you
+are saying. It is not worth the cost. Please, please!" she pleaded with
+tears in her voice. "Please forget me. At best I am only a little French
+wanderer. And you, you are the great Marjory Dean!"
+
+Reading the anguish in her upturned face, Marjory Dean's anger was turned
+to compassion.
+
+"Another time, another place," she murmured. "I shall never forget you!"
+
+Half an hour later the rehearsal was begun once more. This time Marjory
+Dean was in the stellar role. It was a dead rehearsal. All the sparkle of
+it was gone. But it was a rehearsal all the same, and the director had
+had his way.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXII
+                           THE ARMORED HORSE
+
+
+As for Jeanne, once more dressed as Pierre and feeling like just no one
+at all, she had gone wandering away into the shadows of the orchestra
+floor, when suddenly she started. Someone had touched her arm.
+
+Until this moment she had quite forgotten the lone auditor seated there
+in the dark. Now as she bent low to look into that person's face she
+started again as a name came to her lips.
+
+"Rosemary Robinson!"
+
+"It is I," Rosemary whispered. "I saw it all, Pierre." She held Jeanne's
+hand in a warm grasp. "You were wonderful! Simply magnificent! And the
+director. He was beastly!"
+
+"No! No!" Jeanne protested. "He was but doing his duty."
+
+"This," Rosemary replied slowly, "may be true. But for all that you are a
+marvelous 'Juggler of Notre Dame.' And it is too bad he found out.
+
+"But come!" she whispered eagerly, springing to her feet. "Why weep when
+there is so much to be glad about? Let us go exploring!
+
+"My father," she explained, "has done much for this place. I have the
+keys to every room. There are many mysteries. You shall see some of
+them."
+
+Seizing Jeanne's hand, she led the way along a corridor, down two gloomy
+flights of stairs and at last into a vast place where only here and there
+a light burned dimly.
+
+They were now deep down below the level of the street. The roar and
+thunder of traffic came to them only as a subdued rumble of some giant
+talking in his sleep.
+
+The room was immense. Shadows were everywhere, shadows and grotesque
+forms.
+
+"Where are we?" Jeanne asked, scarcely able to repress a desire to flee.
+
+"It is one of the property rooms of the Opera House. What will you have?"
+Rosemary laughed low and deep. "Only ask for it. You will find it here.
+All these things are used at some time or another in the different
+operas."
+
+As Jeanne's eyes became accustomed to the pale half-light, she realized
+that this must be nearly true. In a corner, piled tight in great dark
+sections, was a miniature mountain. Standing on edge, but spilling none
+of its make-believe water, was a pond where swans were wont to float.
+
+A little way apart were the swans, resting on great heaps of grass that
+did not wither and flowers that did not die.
+
+In a distant corner stood a great gray castle. Someone had set it up,
+perhaps to make sure that it was all intact, then had left it standing.
+
+"What a place for mystery!" Jeanne exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, and listen! Do you hear it?"
+
+"Hear what?"
+
+"The river. We are far below the river. Listen. Do you not hear it
+flowing?"
+
+"I hear only the rumble of traffic."
+
+"Perhaps I only imagine it, but always when I visit this place I seem to
+hear the river rushing by. And always I think, 'What if the walls should
+crumble?'"
+
+"But they will not crumble."
+
+"We shall hope not.
+
+"But see." The rich girl's mood changed. "Here is a charger! Let us mount
+and ride!"
+
+She sprang toward a tall object completely covered by a white cloth. When
+the cloth had been dragged off, a great steed all clad in glittering
+armor stood before them.
+
+"Come!" Rosemary's voice rose high. "Here we are! You are a brave knight.
+I am a defenseless lady. Give me your hand. Help me to mount behind you.
+Then I will cling to you while we ride through some deep, dark forest
+where there are dragons and cross-bowmen and all sorts of terrifying
+perils."
+
+Joining her in this spirit of make-believe, Jeanne assisted her to the
+back of the inanimate charger.
+
+Having touched some secret button, Rosemary set the charger in motion.
+They were riding now. Swaying from side to side, rising, falling, they
+seemed indeed to be passing through some dark and doleful place. As
+Jeanne closed her eyes the illusion became quite complete. As she felt
+Rosemary clinging to her as she might cling to some gallant knight, she
+forgot for the time that she was Petite Jeanne and that she had suffered
+a dire disappointment.
+
+"I am Pierre!" she whispered to herself. "I am a brave knight. Rosemary
+loves me."
+
+The disquieting effect of this last thought awakened her to the realities
+of life. Perhaps, after all, Rosemary did love her a little as Pierre. If
+this were true--
+
+Sliding off the steed, then lifting Rosemary to the floor, she exclaimed:
+
+"Come! Over yonder is a castle. Let us see who is at home over there."
+
+Soon enough she was to see.
+
+The castle was, as all stage castles are, a mere shell; very beautiful
+and grand on the outside, a hollow echo within. For all that, the two
+youthful adventurers found a certain joy in visiting that castle. There
+was a rough stairway leading up through great empty spaces within to a
+broad, iron-railed balcony. From this balcony, on more than one night, an
+opera lover had leaned forth to sing songs of high enchantment, luring
+forth a hidden lover.
+
+They climbed the stairs. Then Petite Jeanne, caught by the spell of the
+place, leaned far out of the window and burst into song, a wild gypsy
+serenade.
+
+Rosemary was leaning back among the rafters, drinking in the sweet
+mystery of life that was all about her, when of a sudden the French
+girl's song broke off. Her face went white for an instant as she swayed
+there and must surely have fallen had not Rosemary caught her.
+
+"Wha--what is it?" she whispered hoarsely.
+
+For a space of seconds there came no answer, then a low whisper:
+
+"Those eyes! I saw them. Those evil eyes. Back of the mountain. They
+glared at me."
+
+"Eyes?"
+
+"The dark-faced man. He--he frightens me! The way out! We must find it!"
+
+Roused by her companion's fears, Rosemary led the way on tiptoe down the
+stairs. Still in silence they crossed the broad emptiness of the castle,
+came to a rear door, tried it, felt it yield to their touch, and passed
+through, only to hear the intruder come racing down the stairs.
+
+"He--he did not see us!" Rosemary panted. "For now we are safe.
+This--come this way!"
+
+She crowded her way between a stairway lying upon its side and a property
+porch. Jeanne, whose heart was beating a tattoo against her ribs,
+followed in silence.
+
+"What a brave knight I am!" she told herself, and smiled in spite of her
+deathly fears.
+
+"The way out," Rosemary whispered over her shoulder. "If I only can find
+that!"
+
+A sound, from somewhere behind, startled them into renewed effort.
+
+Passing through a low forest of property trees, they crossed a narrow
+bare space to find themselves confronted by a more formidable forest of
+chairs and tables. Chairs of all sorts, with feet on the floor or high in
+air, blocked their way.
+
+As Rosemary attempted to creep between two great piles, one of these
+toppled to the floor with a resounding crash.
+
+"Come!" Her tone was near despair. "We must find the way out!"
+
+As for Jeanne, she was rapidly regaining her composure. This was not the
+only time she had been lost in an Opera House. The Paris Opera had once
+held her a prisoner.
+
+"Yes, yes. The way out!" She took the lead. "I think I see a light, a
+tiny red light."
+
+For a second she hesitated. What was this light? Was it held in the hand
+of the unwelcome stranger? Was it an "Exit" light?
+
+"It's the way out!" she exulted. A quick turn, a sharp cry and she went
+crashing forward. Some object had lain in her path. She had stumbled upon
+it in the dark.
+
+What was it? This did not matter. All that mattered were Rosemary and the
+way out.
+
+Where was Rosemary? Leaping to her feet, she glanced wildly about. A move
+from behind demoralized her. One more wild dash and she was beneath that
+red light. Before her was a door. And at that door, pressing the knob,
+was Rosemary.
+
+Next instant they had crowded through that door.
+
+But where were they? Narrow walls hemmed them in on every side.
+
+"It's a trap!" Rosemary moaned.
+
+Not so Jeanne. She pressed a button. They were in a French elevator. They
+went up.
+
+Up, up they glided. The light of a door came, then faded, then another
+and yet another.
+
+In consternation lest they crash at the top, Jeanne pressed a second
+button. They came to a sudden halt. A light shone above them. A second,
+slower upward glide and they were before still another door. The door
+swung open. Still filled with wild panic, they rushed into a room where
+all was dark, and lost themselves in a perfect labyrinth where costumes
+by hundreds hung in rows.
+
+Crowded together, shoulder to shoulder, with scarcely room to breathe,
+they stood there panting, waiting, listening.
+
+Slowly their blood cooled. No sound came to their waiting ears. Still
+Jeanne felt Rosemary's heart beating wildly.
+
+"To her I am a knight," she thought. "I am Pierre."
+
+Then a thought struck her all of a heap. "Perhaps I am not Pierre to her.
+She may suspect. Yes, she may know!" A cold chill gripped her heart. "If
+she finds out, what an impostor she will believe me to be!
+
+"And yet," she thought more calmly, "I have meant no wrong. I only wanted
+to be near the opera, to be ready for any great good fortune that might
+befall me.
+
+"Besides, how could she know? Who would tell her? The lady in black? But
+how could she know? No! No! My secret is safe.
+
+"Come!" she whispered a moment later, "I think we have escaped from those
+most terrible eyes."
+
+Creeping out, they made their way along a corridor that welcomed them
+with ever-increasing brightness until they stood before a passenger
+elevator. A moment later they stood in the clear bright light of late
+autumn afternoon.
+
+Throwing back her chest, the little French girl, who for a moment was
+Pierre, drank in three deep breaths, then uttered a long-drawn:
+
+"Wh-e-w!"
+
+"This," said Rosemary, extending her hand as she might had she been
+leaving a party, "has been delightful. So perfectly wonderful. Let's do
+it again sometime.
+
+"One more thing!" She whispered this. "They have never found my pearls.
+But it really does not matter, at least not very much. What are pearls
+among friends?"
+
+Before Petite Jeanne could recover from her surprise she was gone.
+
+"I suppose," she sighed as she turned to go on her way, "that some people
+have many terrible adventures and want none, and some have none but want
+many. What a crazy, upside-down world this is, after all."
+
+She was well on her way home when a question, coming into her mind with
+the force of a blow, left her stunned.
+
+"Why did Rosemary say: 'The pearls have not been found. It does not
+matter?'
+
+"Does she believe I took the pearls?" she asked herself, when she had
+partially recovered her poise. "And was she telling me I might keep them?
+
+"How absurd! And yet, what did she mean?
+
+"And, after all, how could she help believing that I took them? I ran
+away. There has been no explanation. Unless--unless she knows that I am
+Petite Jeanne and not Pierre! And how could she know?"
+
+That night as, once more playing the role of Pierre, she entered the
+boxes, she found Jaeger, the detective, in his place. And, lurking deep
+in the shadows was the lady in black. She shuddered anew.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXIII
+                       FLORENCE SOLVES A MYSTERY
+
+
+That night, by the light of a fickle moon that ever and anon hid himself
+behind a cloud, Florence made her way alone to the shores of that curious
+island of "made land" on the lake front. She had determined to delve more
+deeply into the mysteries of this island. On this night she was destined
+to make an astonishing discovery.
+
+It was not a promising place to wander, this island. There, when the moon
+hid his face, darkness reigned supreme.
+
+Yet, even at such times as these, she was not afraid. Strong as a man,
+endowed with more than the average man's courage, she dared many things.
+There were problems regarding that island which needed solving. She meant
+to solve them. Besides, the place was gloriously peaceful, and Florence
+loved peace.
+
+She did not, however, love peace alone. She yearned for all manner of
+excitement. Most of all she was enchanted by sudden contrast. One moment:
+silence, the moon, the stars, placid waters, peace; the next: a sound of
+alarm, darkness, the onrush of adventure and unsolved mystery. This, for
+Florence, was abundance of life.
+
+She had come to the island to find peace. But she would also probe into a
+mystery.
+
+As she neared the southern end of the island where stood the jungle of
+young cottonwood trees, she paused to look away at the ragged shore line.
+There, hanging above the rough boulders, was Snowball's fishing derrick.
+Like a slim, black arm, as if to direct the girl's search out to sea, it
+pointed away toward black waters.
+
+"No! No!" Florence laughed low. "Not there. The mystery lies deep in the
+heart of this young forest."
+
+Straight down the path she strode to find herself standing at last before
+that challenging door of massive oak.
+
+"Ah!" she breathed. "At home. They can't deny it." Light was streaming
+through the great round eyes above her.
+
+Her heart skipped a beat as she lifted a hand to rap on that door. What
+sort of people were these, anyway? What was she letting herself in for?
+
+She had not long to wait. The door flew open. A flood of white light was
+released. And in that light Florence stood, open-mouthed, speechless,
+staring.
+
+"Wa-all," came in a not unfriendly voice, "what is it y' want?"
+
+"Aunt--Aunt Bobby!" Florence managed to stammer.
+
+"Yes, that's me. And who may you be? Step inside. Let me have a look.
+
+"Florence! My own hearty Florence!" The aged woman threw two stout arms
+about the girl's waist. "And to think of you findin' me here!"
+
+For a moment the air was filled with exclamations and ejaculations. After
+that, explanations were in order.
+
+If you have read _The Thirteenth Ring_, you will remember well enough
+that Aunt Bobby was a ship's cook who had cooked her way up and down one
+of the Great Lakes a thousand times or more, and that on one memorable
+journey she had acted as a fairy godmother to one of Florence's pals.
+Florence had never forgotten her, though their journeys had carried them
+to different ports.
+
+"But, Aunt Bobby," she exclaimed at last, "what can you be doing here?
+And how did such a strange home as this come into being?"
+
+"It's all on account of her." Aunt Bobby nodded toward a slim girl who,
+garbed in blue overalls, sat beside the box-like stove. "She's my
+grandchild. Grew up on the ship, she did, amongst sailors. Tie a knot and
+cast off a line with the best of them, she can, and skin up a mast better
+than most.
+
+"But the captain would have it she must have book learnin'. So here we
+are, all high and dry on land. And her a-goin' off to school every
+mornin'. But when school is over, you should see her--into every sort of
+thing.
+
+"Ah, yes," she sighed, "she's a problem, is Meg!"
+
+Meg, who might have been nearing sixteen, smiled, crossed her legs like a
+man, and then put on a perfect imitation of a sailor contemptuously
+smoking a cob pipe--only there was no pipe.
+
+"This place, do you ask?" Aunt Bobby went on. "Meg calls it the
+cathedral, she does, on account of the pillars.
+
+"Them pillars was lamp-posts once, broken lamp-posts from the boulevard.
+Dumped out here, they was. The captain and his men put up the cathedral
+for us, where we could look at the water when we liked. Part of it is
+from an old ship that sank in the river and was raised up, and part, like
+the pillars, comes from the rubbish heap.
+
+"I do say, though, they made a neat job of it. Meg'll show you her
+stateroom after a bit.
+
+"But now, Meg, get down the cups. Coffee's on the stove as it always was
+in the galleys."
+
+Florence smiled. She was liking this. Here she was finding contrast. She
+thought of the richly appointed Opera House where at this moment Jeanne
+haunted the boxes; then she glanced about her and smiled again.
+
+She recalled the irrepressible Meg as she had seen her, a bronze statue
+against the sky, and resolved to know more of her.
+
+As they sat dreaming over their coffee cups, Aunt Bobby began to speak of
+the romance of other days and to dispense with unstinting hand rich
+portions from her philosophy.
+
+"Forty years I lived on ships, child." She sighed deeply. "Forty years!
+I've sailed on big ones and small ones, wind-jammers and steamers. Some
+mighty fine ones and some not so fine. Mostly I signed on freighters
+because I loved them best of all. They haul and carry.
+
+"They're sort of human, ships are." She cupped her chin in her hands to
+stare dreamily at the fire. "Sort of like folks, ships are. Some are slim
+and pretty and not much use except just to play around when the water's
+sparklin' and the sun shines bright. That's true of folks and ships
+alike. And I guess it's right enough. We all like pretty things.
+
+"But the slow old freighter, smelling of bilge and tar, she's good enough
+for me. She's like the most of us common workers, carrying things, doing
+the things that need to be done, moving straight on through sunshine and
+storm until the task is completed and the work is done.
+
+"Yes, child, I've sailed for forty years. I've watched the moon paint a
+path of gold over waters blacker than the night. I've heard the ice
+screaming as it ground against our keel, and I've tossed all night in a
+storm that promised every minute to send us to the bottom. Forty years,
+child, forty years!" The aged woman's voice rose high and clear like the
+mellow toll of a bell at midnight. "Forty years I've felt the pitch and
+toss, the swell and roll beneath me. And now this!" She spread her arms
+wide.
+
+"The ground beneath my feet, a roof over my head.
+
+"But not for long, child. Not for long. A few months now, and a million
+pairs of feet will tramp past the spot where you now stand. What will
+these people see? Not the cathedral, as Meg will call it, nothing half as
+grand.
+
+"And we, Meg and me, we'll move on. Fate will point his finger and we'll
+move.
+
+"Ah, well, that's life for most of us. Sooner or later Fate points and we
+move. He's a traffic cop, is Fate. We come to a pause. He blows his
+whistle, he waves his arm. We move or he moves us.
+
+"And, after all," she heaved a deep sigh that was more than half filled
+with contentment, "who'd object to that? Who wants to sit and grow roots
+like stupid little cottonwood trees?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIV
+                            THE BLACK PACKET
+
+
+"Meg, show Florence your stateroom." Aunt Bobby rose after her soliloquy.
+"Mine's more plain-like," she apologized. "The men set a heap of store on
+Meg, so they took what was the stateroom of the captain in the balmy days
+of that old ship and set it up for Meg, right here on the island.
+
+"It's all there, walls and cabinet all done in mahogany and gold, wide
+berth, and everything grand."
+
+"It's not like sleeping on the water with a good hull beneath you." Meg's
+tone was almost sullen. "Just you wait! I'm going back!"
+
+Once inside her stateroom her mood changed. It became evident at once
+that she was truly proud of this small room with its costly decorations
+that had come down from the past. Two great lanterns made of beaten
+bronze hung one at the head and one at the foot of her berth.
+
+"It's wonderful!" Florence was truly impressed. "But this island, it is a
+lonely spot. There must be prowlers about."
+
+"Oh, yes. All the time. Some good ones, some bad."
+
+"But are you not afraid?"
+
+"Afraid? No. I laugh at them. Why not?
+
+"And besides. Look!" Her slender finger touched a secret button. A
+cabinet door flew open, revealing two revolvers. Their long blue barrels
+shone wickedly in the light.
+
+"But you couldn't fire them."
+
+"Oh, couldn't I? Come over some day just before dark, when the waves are
+making a lot of noise. I'll show you.
+
+"You see," she explained, "I must be careful. If the police heard, they'd
+come and take them from me.
+
+"But on board ship!" Her eyes danced. "I could out-shoot them all. You
+know how long a freighter is?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"We used that for a shooting range. I could out-shoot all the men. It was
+grand! If we missed the target, the bullet went plump into the sea! And
+that was all.
+
+"No," she said thoughtfully as she dropped into a chair, "I'm not afraid.
+There was one man, though, who had me almost scared. His face was so
+dark! He had such ugly eyes!"
+
+"Dark face, ugly eyes!" Florence recalled Jeanne's description of the man
+who had hounded her footsteps.
+
+"But I fooled him!" Meg chuckled. "I fooled him twice. And I laughed in
+his face, too."
+
+Rising, she pressed a second button in the wall to reveal still another
+secret compartment. "See that!" She pointed to a black packet. "That was
+his. It's mine now.
+
+"I wonder why he put it where he did?" she mused.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"In Snowball's net."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That's just what he did. I was sitting alone among the rocks at night.
+He came out, acting mysterious. He poured two buckets of water on
+Snowball's windlass so it wouldn't creak and then he threw this package
+into the net and lowered away.
+
+"It is heavy. Went right to the bottom. I slipped into the water and went
+after it. Got it, too. See! There it is!
+
+"And do you know," her voice fell to an excited whisper, "that's to be my
+birthday present to myself. It's to be my surprise."
+
+"Surprise! Haven't you unwrapped it?"
+
+"No. Why should I? That would spoil my fun."
+
+Florence looked at this slim girl in overalls, and smiled. "You surely
+are an unusual child!"
+
+"He came back next day." Meg ignored this last. "He made Snowball dive
+down and look for his package. He didn't find it. The man was angry. His
+face got blacker than ever, and how his eyes snapped! An ugly red scar
+showed on his chin. Then I laughed, and he chased me.
+
+"I dropped into the water and came up where there is a hole like a sea
+grotto. I watched him until he went away. He never came back. So now this
+is mine!" Pride of ownership was in her voice.
+
+"But ought you not to open the package? It may have been stolen. It may
+contain valuables, watches, diamonds, pearls." Florence was thinking of
+the lost necklace.
+
+"Ought!" Meg's face was twisted into a contemptuous frown. "Ought! That's
+a landlubber's word. You never hear it on a ship. Many things _must_ be
+done--hatch battened down, boilers stoked, bells rung. Lots of things
+_must_ be done. But nothing merely _ought_ to be done. No! No! I want to
+save it for my birthday. And I shall!"
+
+At that she snapped the cabinet door shut, then led the way out of her
+stateroom.
+
+Ten minutes later Florence was on the dark winding path on her way home.
+
+"What an unusual child!" she thought. And again, "I wonder who that man
+could be? What does that packet contain?"
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXV
+                          THE BEARDED STRANGER
+
+
+Though that which happened to Jeanne on this very night could scarcely be
+called an adventure, it did serve to relieve the feeling of depression
+which had settled upon her like a cloud after that dramatic but quite
+terrible moment when the irate director had driven her from the stage. It
+did more than this; it gave her a deeper understanding of that mystery of
+mysteries men call life.
+
+Between acts she stood contemplating her carefully creased trousers and
+the tips of her shiny, patent leather shoes. Suddenly she became
+conscious that someone was near, someone interested in her. A sort of
+sixth sense, a gypsy sense, told her that eyes were upon her.
+
+As her own eyes swept about a wide circle, they took in the bearded man
+with large, luminous eyes. He was standing quite near. With sudden
+impulse, she sprang toward him.
+
+"Please tell me." Her voice was eager. "Why did you say all this was 'a
+form of life'?"
+
+"That question," the man spoke slowly, "can best be answered by seeing
+something other than this. Would you care to go a little way with me?"
+
+Jeanne gave him a quick look. She was a person of experience, this little
+French girl. "He can be trusted," her heart assured her.
+
+"But I am working." Her spirits dropped.
+
+"There are extra ushers."
+
+"Yes--yes."
+
+"I will have one called."
+
+"This man has influence here," Jeanne thought a moment later, as, side by
+side, they left the building. "Who can he be?" Her interest increased
+tenfold.
+
+"We will go this way."
+
+They turned west, went over the bridge, crossed the street to the south,
+then turned west again.
+
+"Oh, but this--this is rather terrible!" Jeanne protested. Scarcely five
+minutes had passed. They had left the glitter and glory of jewels, rich
+silks and costly furs behind. Now they were passing through throngs of
+men. Roughly clad men they were, many in rags. Their faces were rough and
+seamed, their hands knotted and blue with cold. Jeanne drew her long coat
+tightly about her.
+
+"No one will harm you." Her strange companion took her arm.
+
+The street setting was as drab as were those who wandered there: cheap
+movies displaying gaudy posters, cheaper restaurants where one might
+purchase a plate of beans and a cup of coffee for a dime. The wind was
+rising. Picking up scraps of paper and bits of straw, it sent them in an
+eddy, whirling them round and round. Like dead souls in some lost world,
+these bits appeared to find no place to rest.
+
+"See!" said her companion. "They are like the men who wander here; they
+have no resting place."
+
+Jeanne shuddered.
+
+But suddenly her attention was arrested by a falling object that was
+neither paper nor straw, but a pigeon.
+
+One glance assured her that this was a young bird, fully grown and
+feathered, who had not yet learned to fly. He fluttered hopelessly on the
+sidewalk.
+
+"A beautiful bird," was her thought. "Such lovely plumage!"
+
+A passer-by with an ugly, twisted face leered up at her as he said:
+
+"There's something to eat."
+
+"Some--"
+
+Jeanne did not finish. To her utter astonishment she saw that a very
+short man in a long greasy coat had captured the pigeon, tucked it under
+his coat and was making off.
+
+"He--he won't eat it?" she gasped.
+
+"Come. We will follow." Her companion hurried her along.
+
+The short man, with the bird still under his arm, had turned south into a
+dark and deserted street. Jeanne shuddered and wished to turn back. Then
+she thought of the pigeon. "He is beautiful even now," she whispered.
+"What must he be when he gets his second plumage? How proudly he will
+strut upon the roof-tops.
+
+"Tell me truly," she said to her companion, "he would not eat him?"
+
+There came no answer.
+
+Having traveled two blocks south, they crossed the street to find
+themselves facing a vacant lot. There, amid piles of broken bricks and
+rusty heaps of sheet-iron, many camp fires burned. Moving about from fire
+to fire, or sitting huddled about them, were men. These were more ragged
+and forlorn, if that were possible, than those she had seen upon the
+street.
+
+Then, with the force of a bullet, truth entered the very heart of her
+being. These men were derelicts. These piles of broken bricks and rusting
+iron were their homes; these camp fires their kitchens. Soon the young
+pigeon would be simmering in a great tin can filled with water.
+
+"Wait!" she cried, leaping forward and seizing the short man by the arm.
+"Don't--don't cook him! I will pay you for him. Here! Here is a dollar.
+Is that enough? If not, I have another."
+
+Blinking back at her in surprise, taking in her long coat, her jaunty
+cap, the man stared at her in silence. Then, as the bearded man hurried
+up, he blinked at him in turn.
+
+"I didn't mean to eat him," he protested. "Honest I didn't. But if you
+want him--" he eyed the dollar bill eagerly "--if you want him, here he
+is."
+
+Thrusting the pigeon into Jeanne's hands, he seized the bill and
+muttered:
+
+"A dollar--a dollar, a whole cartwheel, one big iron man! I didn't know
+there was one left in the world!" He seemed about to shed tears.
+
+As he turned his face up to Jeanne's she noticed that he had but one eye.
+
+"What's your name?" the bearded one asked.
+
+"Mostly they call me the one-eyed shrimp."
+
+Pocketing the money, he walked away.
+
+"This, too," said the bearded one solemnly, "is a form of life."
+
+"But why such cruel, cruel contrasts?" In her mind's eye Jeanne was
+seeing jewels, silks and furs. There were tears in her voice.
+
+"To that question no answer has been found," the bearded man answered
+solemnly. "The world is very old. It has always been so. Perhaps it is
+necessary. It gives contrast. Lights and shadows. We must have them or
+nothing could be seen.
+
+"I am a sculptor, a very poor one, but one nevertheless. Perhaps you may
+visit my studio. There you will find things I have done in lovely white
+marble, yet the beauty of the marble can only be brought out by shadows.
+
+"Come! You are cold." He turned Jeanne about. "We will go back to the
+Opera House. Always we must be going back."
+
+Strange as it may seem, Jeanne did not wish to return. That magnificent
+palace of art and song had suddenly become abhorrent to her.
+
+"The contrasts," she murmured, "they are too great!"
+
+"Yes. There you have discovered a great truth. Come to my studio some
+day. I will show you more." The bearded one pressed a card into her hand.
+Without looking at it, she thrust it deep into her trousers pocket.
+
+In silence they returned to the Opera House. Once inside, Jeanne
+experienced a miracle. The dark, cold, bitter world outside had vanished.
+In her mind, for the moment, not a trace of it remained. For her, now,
+there was only light and life, melody, color--romance in fact, and opera
+at its best.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXVI
+                          AN EXCITING MESSAGE
+
+
+Petite Jeanne was a sun-worshipper and a fire-worshipper of the best
+sort. She worshipped the One Who created fire and Who sends us light to
+dispel the gloom of night. The day following her unusual experiences in
+the lower regions of the Opera House found her curled up in a big chair.
+The chair stood before a large window of their living room. Here she was
+completely flooded with light. On bright days, for a space of two hours,
+the sunlight always succeeded in finding its way through the labyrinth of
+chimneys and skyscrapers, to fall like a benediction upon this
+blonde-haired girl. And Jeanne rejoiced in it as a kitten does the warm
+spot before the hearth.
+
+"It's God looking down upon His world," she murmured now.
+
+"Jeanne," Florence stood in the door of her room, "did that man, the
+dark-faced one with the evil eye, did he have a scar on his chin?"
+
+"Y-e-s. Let me see." She closed her eyes to invite a picture. It came.
+"Yes, now I see him as I did only yesterday. Yes, there was a scar."
+
+"You saw him yesterday?"
+
+Reluctantly Jeanne turned her face from the sunlight. "I'll tell you
+about it. It was exciting, and--and a bit terrible. What can he want?"
+
+She told Florence about the previous day's adventure. "But why did you
+ask about the scar?" It was her turn to ask questions.
+
+"I was out at the island last night. You'd never dream of the discovery I
+made there. But then, you've never seen Aunt Bobby--probably not so much
+as heard of her."
+
+Florence had described her experiences up to the time when Meg invited
+her to inspect her stateroom, when the phone rang.
+
+"I'll answer it." Florence took down the receiver.
+
+"It's for you," she said, half a minute later.
+
+With a deep sigh Jeanne deserted her spot in the sun.
+
+For all that, her face was flushed with excitement when she put the
+receiver down.
+
+"It's the little old lady of the cameo."
+
+In her excitement she found herself talking in a hoarse whisper. "She has
+persuaded Hop Long Lee, the rich Chinaman, to let us see the magic
+curtain. Better still, his people will stage a little play for us. They
+will use the magic curtain."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Next Friday, at midnight."
+
+"Midnight? What an hour!"
+
+"Night is best. And what other hour could one be sure of? There is
+Marjory Dean. She must see it. And we must find Angelo."
+
+"Angelo? Have you seen him?"
+
+"Not for months. He went to New York to make his fortune."
+
+Angelo, as you will recall, was the youthful dreamer who had created a
+fascinating light opera role for Jeanne.
+
+"But only two days ago," Jeanne went on, "I heard that he had been seen
+here in the city."
+
+"Here? Why does he not give us a ring?"
+
+"Who knows?" Jeanne shrugged. "For all that, I will find him. He must
+come.
+
+"And to think!" She did a wild fling across the room. "We are to see the
+magic curtain. We will weave an opera about it. The opera shall be played
+on that so grand stage."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+Jeanne did not hesitate. "By Marjory Dean! She will have the leading
+role. I shall insist. And why not? Would she not do so much for me?
+Truly. And more, much more!
+
+"As for me!" Again she settled herself in the spot of sunlight. "My time
+will come."
+
+She might have added, "Sooner than you could dream of." She did not.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVII
+                                DREAMING
+
+
+Angelo must be found. It was he who had written the successful light
+opera, _The Gypsy God of Fire_. No other could write as he--or so Jeanne
+thought. Yes, he must be found, and that without delay. Friday midnight
+would be here before anyone could dream three dreams.
+
+And where was one to look for him save in his old haunts? "His garret
+studio and at night," Jeanne said to Florence, next morning. "To-morrow
+we will go."
+
+"But to-morrow I cannot go. My work keeps me out late."
+
+"Ah, well, then I shall go alone."
+
+"Are you not afraid to be on the streets at night?"
+
+"As Pierre I am afraid. But I shall be Petite Jeanne. As Jeanne I shall
+be safe enough."
+
+Knowing the futility of an argument with this strange child of France,
+Florence smiled and went on her way.
+
+That is how it came about that Jeanne found herself at a late hour
+climbing the stairway that led to the garret studio that once had
+witnessed so much lightness and gaiety.
+
+She had expected to find changes. Times were hard. It had come to her, in
+indirect ways, that her good friend had met with little success in New
+York. But she was scarcely prepared for that which met her gaze as the
+door was thrown open by Angelo himself.
+
+Advancing into the center of the room, she found bare floors where there
+had been bright, rich, Oriental rugs. The unique stage, with all its
+settings of blue, green, red and gold, was bare.
+
+"Yes," Angelo spoke slowly, meditatively, as if answering her mood, "they
+took my things, one at a time. Fair enough, too. I owed money. I could
+not pay. The piano went first, my old, old friend. A battered friend it
+was, but its tones were true.
+
+"And what grand times we had around that piano! Remember?"
+
+"I remember." Jeanne's tone was low.
+
+"But don't be sad about it." Angelo was actually smiling. "They took the
+piano, the rugs, the desk where I composed your light opera.
+
+"Ah, yes; but after all, these are but the symbols of life. They are not
+life itself. They could not carry away the memory of those days, those
+good brave days when we were sometimes rich and sometimes very, very
+poor. The memories of those days will be with us forever. And of such
+memories as these life, the best of life, is made."
+
+After some brief, commonplace remarks, came a moment of silence.
+
+"If you'll excuse me," Swen, Angelo's friend, said, "I will go out to
+search for a bit of cheer."
+
+"Yes, yes. He will bring us cheer. Then he will sing us a song." Jeanne
+made a brave attempt at being merry.
+
+When Swen was gone, Angelo motioned her to a place before the fire.
+
+"We will not despair. 'Hope springs eternal in the human breast.' The
+beautiful spring-time of life will bloom again.
+
+"And see," he exclaimed, enthusiastic as a boy, "we still have the
+fireplace! They could not take that. And there is always wood to be had.
+I found this on the beach. It was washed up high in the storm at a spot
+where children romp all summer long. Driftwood. Some from a broken ship
+and some from who knows where?
+
+"See how it burns. The flame! The flame!" He was all but chanting now.
+"What colors there are! Can you see them? There is red and orange, pink,
+purple, blue. All like a miniature magic curtain."
+
+"Yes, like a magic curtain," Jeanne murmured.
+
+Then suddenly she awoke from the entrancing spell this remarkable youth
+had woven.
+
+"Ah, yes, but those brave days will return for you!" she cried, springing
+to her feet and leaping away in a wild dance. "The magic curtain, it will
+bring them back to you!"
+
+His fine eyes shone as he rose to admire the grace of her rhythmic dance.
+"Now you are dreaming."
+
+"Dreaming?" She stopped dead still. "Perhaps. But my dreams will come
+true. Allow me to congratulate you. You are about to become famous. You
+will write a grand opera."
+
+"Ah! The gypsy fortune teller speaks." He still smiled. Nevertheless he
+held her hand in a warm clasp.
+
+"Yes," she agreed, "I am a gypsy, a fortune teller. Well, perhaps. But,
+for all that, I only speak of things I have seen. Listen, my good
+friend!" Her tone was impressive. "I have seen that which will form the
+background for an Oriental opera. Not a long opera, one act perhaps; but
+an opera, vivid and living, all the same. And you, my friend, shall write
+it."
+
+"You talk in riddles." He drew her to a seat beside him. "Explain, my
+beautiful gypsy."
+
+"This much I shall tell you, not more. I have seen a magic curtain that
+burns but is not consumed. Friday at midnight you shall see it for
+yourself. And about it you shall weave a story more fantastic than any
+you have yet dreamed."
+
+"And you shall be the leading lady!" He had caught the spirit of the
+hour. "That shall be glory. Glory for me."
+
+"Ah, no, my friend." Petite Jeanne's head drooped a little. "I am not
+known to grand opera. But you shall have a leading lady, such a grand
+lady! Marjory Dean! What do you say to that?"
+
+"You are right." Angelo's tone was solemn. "She is very grand, marvelous
+indeed. But, after all, we work best, we write best, we do all things
+best for those who love us a little."
+
+"Ah, you would say that!" Jeanne seized him by the shoulder and gave him
+a gentle shake.
+
+"But see!" she cried when she had regained her composure. "Marjory Dean,
+too, is to see the magic curtain. To-morrow at midnight, you shall see
+her. And then I am sure she will love you more than a little. Then all
+will be more than well.
+
+"And now see! Here is Swen. He is bringing hot coffee and sweet rolls
+stuffed, I am sure, with pineapple and fresh cocoanut. On with the
+feast!"
+
+Angelo produced two ancient plates and three large cups devoid of
+handles. They settled themselves comfortably before the hearth to enjoy
+such a communion of good spirits as had never been granted them in those
+balmy days when purses were lined with gold.
+
+"What is poverty when one has friends?" Angelo demanded joyously, as at
+last he assisted Jeanne to her feet.
+
+"What, indeed?" Jeanne agreed heartily.
+
+"Friday at midnight," Angelo said solemnly, as a moment later Jeanne
+stood at the doorway.
+
+"As the clock strikes the hour," she breathed. Then she was gone.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXVIII
+                          FLORENCE CRASHES IN
+
+
+At that moment Florence was involved in an affair which threatened to
+bring her brief career to a tragic end.
+
+It had begun innocently enough. The back of a man's head, seen in a
+crowd, had interested her. She had made a study of men's heads. "There's
+as much character to be read in the back of one's head as in one's face,"
+a psychologist had said to her. Doubting his statement, she had taken up
+this study to disprove his theory. She had ended by believing. For truly
+one may read in the carriage of the head stubbornness, indecision, mental
+and physical weakness; yes, and a capacity for crime.
+
+It was this last, revealed in the neck of the man in the throng, that had
+set her on his trail.
+
+She had not long to wait for confirmation. At a turn in the street the
+man offered her a side view. At once she caught her breath. This man was
+dark of visage. He had an ugly red scar on his chin.
+
+"Jeanne's shadow!" she whispered to herself. "And such a shadow!" She
+shuddered at the very thought.
+
+For this young man was not unknown to her. Not ten days before, in a
+crowded police court he had been pointed out to her as one of the most
+dangerous of criminals. He was not, at this time, in custody. Just why he
+was there she had not been told. Though suspected of many crimes, he had
+been detected in none of them.
+
+"And it is he who has been dogging Jeanne's footsteps!" she muttered. "I
+must warn her.
+
+"He, too, it was, who sank the package in Snowball's net. Meg's birthday
+present." She smiled. Then she frowned. "I must warn her. It may be a
+bomb. Stranger discoveries have been made."
+
+For a moment she considered another theory regarding the package. A
+moment only--then all this was driven from her mind. Drama was in the
+making, real drama from life. The evil-eyed one had paused before a
+doorway. He had remained poised there for a moment like a bird of prey:
+then the prey appeared, or so it seemed to Florence.
+
+A short, foreign-appearing man with a military bearing all but came to a
+position of salute before the dark one of the evil eye. That one essayed
+a smile which, to the girl, seemed the grin of a wolf.
+
+The short man appeared not to notice. He uttered a few words, waved his
+hands excitedly, then turned as if expecting to be led away.
+
+"A Frenchman," Florence thought. "Who else would wave his arms so
+wildly?"
+
+Then a thought struck her all of a heap. "This is Jeanne's little
+Frenchman, the one who bears a message for her, who has come all the way
+from France to deliver it."
+
+At once she became wildly excited. She had notions about that message.
+Strangely fantastic notions they were; this she was obliged to admit. But
+they very nearly drove her to committing a strange act. In a moment more
+she would have dashed up to the little Frenchman. She would undoubtedly
+have seized him by the arm and exclaimed:
+
+"You are looking for Petite Jeanne. Come! I will lead you to her!"
+
+This did not happen. There was a moment of indecision. Then, before her
+very eyes, the dark one, after casting a suspicious glance her way,
+bundled his prey into a waiting taxi and whisked him away.
+
+"Gone!" Consternation seized her. But, suddenly, her mind cleared.
+
+"What was that number?" She racked her brain. Tom Howe, the young
+detective who had pointed out the dark-faced one, had given her the
+street number believed to be his hangout.
+
+"One, three," she said aloud. "One, three, six, four, Burgoyne Place.
+That was it!
+
+"Oh, taxi! Taxi!" She went dashing away after a vacant car.
+
+Having overtaken the cab, she gave the driver hasty instructions, and
+then settled back against the cushions.
+
+Her head was in a whirl. What was it she planned to do? To follow a
+dangerous criminal? Alone? To frustrate his plans single-handed? The
+thing seemed tremendous, preposterous.
+
+"Probably not going to his haunt at all. May not be his haunt."
+
+Pressing her hands against her temples, she closed her eyes. For a space
+of several moments she bumped along.
+
+Then she straightened up. The cab had ceased its bumping. They were
+rolling along on smooth paving. This was not to be expected.
+
+"Driver! Driver!" she exclaimed, sliding the glass window to one side
+with a bang. "Where are we?"
+
+"Kinzie and Carpen."
+
+"Oh, oh!" She could have wept. "You're going north. The address I gave
+you is south."
+
+"It can't be, Miss."
+
+"It is!"
+
+"Then I'm wrong."
+
+"Of course! Turn about and go south to 2200. Then I'll tell you the way."
+
+Once again they glided and jolted along. In the end they pulled up before
+a stone building. A two-story structure that might once have been a
+mansion, it stood between two towering warehouses.
+
+"That's the place. There's the number."
+
+She hesitated. Should she ask the driver to remain? "No, they'll see him
+and make a run for it." She had thought of a better way. She paid him and
+as if frightened by his surroundings he sped away.
+
+"Not a moment to lose!" she whispered. Some sixth sense seemed to tell
+her that this was the place--that the dark one and his victim were
+inside.
+
+Speeding to a corner where a boy cried his papers, she thrust half a
+dollar into his hand, and whispered a command:
+
+"Bring a policeman to that house!" She poked a thumb over her shoulder.
+
+"You'll need three of 'em!" the boy muttered, as he hurried away. She did
+not hear. She was speeding back.
+
+"Now!" she breathed, squaring her shoulders.
+
+Up the stone steps, a thrust at the doorbell. Ten seconds. No answer. A
+vigorous thump. A kick. Still no response.
+
+Examining the door, she found it to be a double one.
+
+"Rusty catches. Easy!
+
+"But then?"
+
+She did not stand on ceremony. Stepping back a pace, she threw her sturdy
+form against the door. It gave way, letting her into a hallway. To the
+right of the hallway was a door.
+
+A man was in the act of springing at her when someone from behind
+exclaimed:
+
+"Wait! It's a frail!"
+
+The words appeared to upset the other's plans, or at least to halt them
+for a second.
+
+During that second the girl plunged head foremost. Striking him
+amidships, she capsized him and took all the wind from his sail in one
+and the same instant.
+
+She regained her balance just in time to see a long, blue gun being
+leveled at her. It was in the hand of the evil-eyed one.
+
+Not for naught had she labored in the gymnasium. Before the gun flashed,
+it went whirling through space, crashed a window and was gone.
+
+As for the evil-eyed one, he too vanished. At the same moment three
+stolid policemen came stamping in. The newsboy had done yeoman duty.
+
+The offender who had been overturned by Florence was duly mopped up. The
+evil-eyed one was sought in vain. Groaning in a corner was the short
+Frenchman.
+
+His arms were bound behind him in a curious fashion; in fact they were so
+bound by ropes and a stick that his arms might have been twisted from
+their sockets, and this by a few simple turns of that stick.
+
+"Kidnappin' an' torture!" said one of the police, standing the captured
+offender on his feet. "You'll get yours, Mike."
+
+"It was Blackie's idea," grumbled the man.
+
+"And where's Blackie?"
+
+The man shrugged.
+
+"Left you to hold the bag. That's him. Anyway, now we got it on him,
+we'll mop him up! Blamed if we don't! Tim, untie that man." He nodded
+toward the little Frenchman.
+
+"Now then," the police sergeant commanded, "tell us why you let 'em take
+you in."
+
+"They--they told me they would take me to a person known as Petite
+Jeanne."
+
+"Pet--Petite Jeanne!" Florence could have shouted for joy. "And have you
+money for her, a great deal of money?"
+
+"No, Miss." The little man stared at her.
+
+Florence wilted. Her pet dream had proven only an illusion. "At any
+rate," she managed to say after a time, "when the police are through with
+you I'll take you to her lodgings. I am her friend and pal."
+
+The little man looked at her distrustfully. He had put his confidence in
+two American citizens that day, and with dire results.
+
+"We'll see about that later." The police sergeant scowled.
+
+"I think--" His scowl had turned to a smile when, a few moments later,
+after completing his investigation and interrogating Florence, he turned
+to the Frenchman. "I think--at least it's my opinion--that you'll be safe
+enough in this young lady's company.
+
+"If she'd go to the trouble of hirin' a taxi and followin' you, then
+breakin' down a door and riskin' her life to rescue you from a bloody
+pair of kidnappers and murderers, she's not goin' to take you far from
+where you want to go."
+
+"I am overcome!" The Frenchman bowed low. "I shall accompany her with the
+greatest assurance."
+
+So, side by side, the curious little Frenchman and the girl marched away.
+
+"But, Mademoiselle!" The Frenchman seemed dazed. "Why all this late
+unpleasantness?"
+
+"Those two!" Florence threw out her arms. "They'd have tortured you to
+death. They thought, as I did, that you were in possession of money, a
+great deal of money."
+
+"In France," the man exclaimed in evident disgust, "we execute such men!"
+
+"In America," Florence replied quietly, "we mostly don't. And what a
+pity!
+
+"The elevated is only three blocks away." She took up a brisk stride.
+"We'll take it. I hate taxis. Drivers never know where you want to go.
+Outside the Loop, they're lost like babes in the wood."
+
+A taxi might indeed have lost both Florence and the polite little
+Frenchman. Under Florence's plan only the Frenchman was lost. And this,
+to her, was just as bad, for she _did_ want Petite Jeanne to meet this
+man and receive the message from him, even though the message was not to
+be delivered in the form of bank notes.
+
+It was the little man's extreme politeness that proved his undoing. In
+the Loop they were obliged to change trains. Florence had waited for the
+right train, and then had invited him to go before her, when, with a lift
+of his hat, he said, bowing:
+
+"After you, my dear Mademoiselle!"
+
+This was all well enough. But there were other Madams and Mademoiselles
+boarding that train.
+
+Again and yet again the little man bowed low. When at last the gates
+banged and the train rattled on its way, Florence found to her
+consternation that she was alone.
+
+"We left him there bowing!" There was a certain humor in the situation.
+But she was disappointed and alarmed.
+
+Speeding across the bridge at the next station, she boarded a second
+train and went rattling back. Arrived at her former station, she found no
+trace of the man.
+
+"He took another train. It's no use." Her shoulders drooped. "All that
+and nothing for it."
+
+Her dejection lasted but for a moment.
+
+"To-morrow," she murmured. "It is not far away. And on the morrow there
+is ever something new."
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXIX
+                        IT HAPPENED AT MIDNIGHT
+
+
+Midnight. The lights of Chinatown were dim as four figures made their way
+to a door marked: "For Members Only."
+
+Jeanne, the foremost of these figures, knew that door. She had entered it
+before. Yet, as her hand touched the heavy handle, she was halted by a
+sudden fear. Her face blanched.
+
+Close at her side Marjory Dean, artist and supreme interpreter of life as
+she was, understood instantly.
+
+"Come, child. Don't be afraid. They are a simple people, these
+Orientals."
+
+"Yes. Yes, I know." The girl took a tight grip on herself and pressed on
+through the door. Marjory Dean, Angelo and Swen followed.
+
+At the top of the second stair they were halted by a dark shadow-like
+figure.
+
+"What you want?"
+
+"Hop Long Lee."
+
+"You come."
+
+The man, whose footsteps made not the slightest sound, led the way.
+
+"Midnight," Jeanne whispered to herself. "Why did I say midnight?" It was
+always so. Ever she was desiring mystery, enchantment at unheard-of
+hours. Always, when the hour came she was ready to turn back.
+
+"The magic curtain." She started. A second dark figure was beside her.
+"You wished to see?"
+
+"Y-yes."
+
+"You shall see. I am Hop Long Lee.
+
+"And these are your friends? Ah, yes! Come! You will see!" His hand
+touched Jeanne's. She started back. It was cold, like marble.
+
+They followed in silence. They trod inch-thick rugs. There came no sound
+save the tok-tok-tok of some great, slow clock off there somewhere in the
+dark.
+
+"I am not afraid," Jeanne told herself. "I am not going to be afraid. I
+have seen all this before."
+
+Yet, when she had descended the narrow, winding stairs, when a small,
+Oriental rug was offered her in lieu of a chair, her limbs gave way
+beneath her and she dropped, limp as a rag, to the comforting softness of
+the rug.
+
+That which followed will remain painted on the walls of
+never-to-be-forgotten memories.
+
+Figures, dark, creeping figures, appeared in this dimly lighted room.
+
+Once again the curtain, a red and glowing thing, crept across the stage.
+She gripped Marjory Dean's hand hard.
+
+Some figures appeared before the curtain. Grotesque figures. They danced
+as she had imagined only gnomes and elves might dance. A vast,
+many-colored dragon crept from the darkness. With a mighty lashing of
+tail, he swallowed the dancers, then disappeared into the darkness from
+which he had come.
+
+"Oh!" Jeanne breathed. Even Marjory Dean, who had witnessed many forms of
+magic, was staring straight ahead.
+
+A single figure appeared on the stage, one all in white. The figure wore
+a long, flowing robe. The face was white.
+
+From somewhere strange music began to whisper. It was like wind sighing
+in the trees, the trees in the graveyard at midnight. And this was
+midnight.
+
+Next instant Jeanne leaped straight into the air. Someone had struck a
+gong, an Oriental gong.
+
+Mortified beyond belief, she settled back in her place.
+
+And now the magic curtain, like some wall of fire, burned a fiercer red.
+From the shadows the dragon thrust out his head once more.
+
+The white-faced figure ceased dancing. The wind in the trees sang on. The
+figure, appearing to see the dragon, drew back in trembling fright.
+
+He approached the fiery curtain, yet his back was ever toward it. There
+was yet a space between the two sections of the curtain. The figure,
+darting toward this gap, was caught in the flames.
+
+"Oh!" Jeanne breathed. "He will die in flames!"
+
+Marjory Dean pressed her hand hard.
+
+Of a sudden the floor beneath the white figure opened and swallowed him
+up.
+
+Jeanne looked for the dragon. It was gone. The fiery red of the curtain
+was turning to an orange glow.
+
+"Come. You have seen." It was Hop Long Lee who spoke. Once again his
+marble-cold hand touched Jeanne's hand.
+
+Ten minutes later the four figures were once more in the street.
+
+"Midnight in an Oriental garden," Angelo breathed.
+
+"That," breathed Marjory Dean, "is drama, Oriental drama. Give it a human
+touch and it could be made supreme."
+
+"You--you think it could be made into a thing of beauty?"
+
+"Surely. Most certainly, my child. Nothing could be more unique."
+
+"Come," whispered Jeanne happily. "Come with me. The night is young. The
+day is for sleep. Come. We will have coffee by my fire. Then we will
+talk, talk of all this. We will create an opera in a night. Is it not
+so?"
+
+And it was so.
+
+A weird bit of opera it was that they produced that night. Even the
+atmosphere in which they worked was fantastic. Candle light, a flickering
+fire that now and then leaped into sudden conflagration, mellow-toned
+gongs provided by the little lady of the cameo; such were the elements
+that added to the fantastic reality of the unreal.
+
+In this one-act drama the giant paper dragon remained. The flaming
+curtain, the setting for some weird Buddhist ceremony, was to furnish the
+motif. A flesh and blood person, whose part was to be played by Marjory
+Dean, replaced the thing of white cloth and paper that had danced a weird
+dance, and became entangled in the fiery curtain. Oriental mystery, the
+deep hatred of some types of yellow men for the white race, these entered
+into the story.
+
+In the plot the hero (Marjory Dean), a white boy, son of a rich trader,
+caught by the lure of mystery, adventure and tales of the magic curtain,
+volunteers to take the place of a rich Chinese youth who is to endure the
+trial by fire.
+
+A very ugly old Chinaman, who holds the white boy in high regard,
+learning of his plans and realizing his peril, prepares the trap-door in
+the floor beneath the magic curtain.
+
+When the hour comes for the trial by fire, the white boy, being ignorant
+of the secrets that will save him, appears doomed as the flames of the
+curtain surround him, consuming the very mask from his face and leaving
+him there, his identity revealed in stark reality.
+
+Then as the rich Chinaman, who has planned the trial, realizes the
+catastrophe that must befall his people if the rich youth is burned to
+death, prepares to cast himself into the flames, the floor opens to
+swallow the boy up, and the curtain fades.
+
+There is not space here to tell of the motives of love, hate, pride and
+patriotism that lay back of this bit of drama. Enough that when it was
+done Marjory Dean pronounced it the most perfect bit of opera yet
+produced in America.
+
+"And you will be our diva?" Jeanne was all eagerness.
+
+"I shall be proud to."
+
+"Then," Angelo's eyes shone, "then we are indeed rich once more."
+
+"Yes. Your beautiful rugs, your desk, your ancient friend the piano, they
+shall all come back to you." In her joy Jeanne could have embraced him.
+As it was she wrung his hand in parting, and thanked him over and over
+for his part in this bit of work and adventure.
+
+"The music," she whispered to Swen, "you will do it?"
+
+"It is as well as done. The wind whispering in the graveyard pines at
+midnight. This is done by reeds and strings. And there are the gongs, the
+deep melodious gongs of China. What more could one ask?"
+
+What more, indeed?
+
+"And now," said Florence, after she had, some hours later, listened to
+Jeanne's recital of that night's affairs, "now that it is all over, what
+is there in it all for you?"
+
+"For me?" Jeanne spread her hands wide. "Nothing. Nothing at all."
+
+"Then why--?"
+
+"Only this," Jeanne interrupted her, "you said once that one found the
+best joy in life by helping others. Well then," she laughed a little
+laugh, "I have helped a little.
+
+"And you shall see, my time will come."
+
+Was she right? Does one sometimes serve himself best by serving others?
+We shall see.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXX
+                            A SURPRISE PARTY
+
+
+Time marched on, as time has a way of doing. A week passed, another and
+yet another. Each night of opera found Jeanne, still masquerading as
+Pierre, at her post among the boxes. Never forgetting that a priceless
+necklace had been stolen from those boxes and that she had run away, ever
+conscious of the searching eyes of Jaeger and of the inscrutable shadow
+that was the lady in black, Jeanne performed her tasks as one who walks
+beneath a shadow that in a moment may be turned into impenetrable
+darkness.
+
+For all this, she still thrilled to the color, the music, the drama,
+which is Grand Opera.
+
+"Some day," she had a way of whispering to herself, "some happy day!" Yet
+that day seemed indistinct and far away.
+
+The dark-faced menace to her happiness, he of the evil eye, appeared to
+have vanished. Perhaps he was in jail. Who could tell?
+
+The little Frenchman with the message, too, had vanished. Why had he
+never returned to ask Pierre, the usher in the boxes, the correct address
+of Petite Jeanne? Beyond doubt he believed himself the victim of a
+practical joke. "This boy Pierre knows nothing regarding the whereabouts
+of that person named Petite Jeanne." Thus he must have reasoned. At any
+rate the message was not delivered. If Jeanne had lost a relative by
+death, if she had inherited a fortune or was wanted for some misdemeanor
+committed in France, she remained blissfully ignorant of it all.
+
+Three times Rosemary Robinson had invited her to visit her at her home.
+Three times, as Pierre, politely but firmly, she had refused. "This
+affair," she told herself, "has gone far enough. Before our friendship
+ripens or is blighted altogether, I must reveal to her my identity. And
+that I am not yet willing to do. It might rob me of my place in this
+great palace of art."
+
+Thanks to Marjory Dean, the little French girl's training in Grand Opera
+proceeded day by day. Without assigning a definite reason for it, the
+prima donna had insisted upon giving her hours of training each week in
+the role of the juggler.
+
+More than this, she had all but compelled Jeanne to become her understudy
+in the forthcoming one-act opera to be known as "The Magic Curtain."
+
+At an opportune moment Marjory Dean had introduced the manager of the
+opera to all the fantastic witchery of this new opera. He had been taken
+by it.
+
+At once he had agreed that when the "Juggler" was played, this new opera
+should be presented to the public.
+
+So Jeanne lived in a world of dreams, dreams that she felt could never
+come true. "But I am learning," she would whisper to herself, "learning
+of art and life. What more could one ask?"
+
+Then came a curious invitation. She was to visit the studios of Fernando
+Tiffin. The invitation came through Marjory Dean. Strangest of all, she
+was to appear as Pierre.
+
+"Why Pierre?" she pondered.
+
+"Yes, why?" Florence echoed. "But, after all, such an invitation!
+Fernando Tiffin is the greatest sculptor in America. Have you seen the
+fountain by the Art Museum?"
+
+"Where the pigeons are always bathing?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is beautiful."
+
+"He created that statue, and many others."
+
+"That reminds me," Jeanne sought out her dress suit and began searching
+its pockets, "an artist, an interesting man with a beard, gave me his
+card. He told me to visit his studio. He was going to tell me more about
+lights and shadows."
+
+"Lights and shadows?"
+
+"Yes. How they are like life. But now I have lost his card."
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+Florence returned to the island. There she sat long in the sunshine by
+the rocky shore, talking with Aunt Bobby. She found the good lady greatly
+perplexed.
+
+"They've served notice," Aunt Bobby sighed, "the park folks have. All
+that is to come down." She waved an arm toward the cottonwood thicket and
+the "Cathedral." "A big building is going up. Steam shovels are working
+over on the west side now. Any day, now, we'll have to pack up, Meg and
+me.
+
+"And where'll we go? Back to the ships, I suppose. I hate it for Meg. She
+ought to have more schoolin'. But poor folks can't pick and choose."
+
+"There will be a way out," Florence consoled her. But would there? Who
+could tell?
+
+She hunted up Meg and advised her to look into that mysterious package.
+"It may be a bomb."
+
+"If it is, it won't go off by itself."
+
+"It may be a gun."
+
+"Don't need a gun. Got two of 'em. Good ones."
+
+"It may be stolen treasure."
+
+"Well, I didn't steal it!" Meg turned flashing eyes upon her. And there
+for a time the matter ended.
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+Jeanne attended the great sculptor's party. Since she had not been
+invited to accompany Marjory Dean, she went alone. What did it matter?
+Miss Dean was to be there. That was enough.
+
+She arrived at three o'clock in the afternoon. A servant answered the
+bell. She was ushered at once into a vast place with a very high ceiling.
+All about her were statues and plaster-of-paris reproductions of
+masterpieces.
+
+Scarcely had she time to glance about her when she heard a voice, saw a
+face and knew she had found an old friend--the artist who had spoken so
+interestingly of life, he of the beard, was before her.
+
+"So this is where you work?" She was overjoyed. "And does the great
+Fernando Tiffin do his work here, too?"
+
+"I am Fernando Tiffin."
+
+"Oh!" Jeanne swayed a little.
+
+"You see," the other smiled, putting out a hand to steady her, "I, too,
+like to study life among those who do not know me; to masquerade a
+little."
+
+"Masquerade!" Jeanne started. Did he, then, see through her own
+pretenses? She flushed.
+
+"But no!" She fortified herself. "How could he know?"
+
+"You promised to tell me more about life." She hurried to change the
+subject.
+
+"Ah, yes. How fine! There is yet time.
+
+"You see." He threw a switch. The place was flooded with light. "The
+thing that stands before you, the 'Fairy and the Child,' it is called. It
+is a reproduction of a great masterpiece: a perfect reproduction, yet in
+this light it is nothing; a blare of white, that is all.
+
+"But see!" He touched one button, then another, and, behold, the statue
+stood before them a thing of exquisite beauty!
+
+"You see?" he smiled. "Now there are shadows, perfect shadows, just
+enough, and just enough light.
+
+"Life is like that. There must be shadows. Without shadows we could not
+be conscious of light. But when the lights are too bright, the shadows
+too deep, then all is wrong.
+
+"Your bright lights of life at the Opera House, the sable coats, the
+silks and jewels, they are a form of life. But there the lights are too
+strong. They blind the eyes, hide the true beauty that may be beneath it
+all.
+
+"But out there on that vacant lot, in the cold and dark--you have not
+forgotten?"
+
+"I shall never forget." Jeanne's voice was low.
+
+"There the shadows were too deep. It was like this." He touched still
+another button. The beauty of the statue was once more lost, this time in
+a maze of shadows too deep and strong.
+
+"You see." His voice was gentle.
+
+"I see."
+
+"But here are more guests arriving. You may not be aware of it, but this
+is to be an afternoon of opera, not of art."
+
+Soon enough Jeanne was to know this, for, little as she had dreamed it,
+hers on that occasion was to be the stellar role.
+
+It was Marjory Dean who had entered. With her was the entire cast of "The
+Magic Curtain."
+
+"He has asked that we conduct a dress rehearsal here for the benefit of a
+few choice friends," Miss Dean whispered in Jeanne's ear, as soon as she
+could draw her aside.
+
+"A strange request, I'll grant you," she answered Jeanne's puzzled look.
+"Not half so strange as this, however. He wishes you to take the stellar
+role."
+
+"But, Miss Dean!"
+
+"It is his party. His word is law in many places. You will do your best
+for me." She pressed Jeanne's hand hard.
+
+Jeanne did her best. And undoubtedly, despite the lack of a truly magic
+curtain, despite the limitations of the improvised stage, the audience
+was visibly impressed.
+
+At the end, as Jeanne sank from sight beneath the stage, the great
+sculptor leaned over to whisper in Marjory Dean's ear:
+
+"She will do it!"
+
+"What did I tell you? To be sure she will!"
+
+The operatic portion of the program at an end, the guests were treated to
+a brief lecture on the art of sculpture. Tea was served. The guests
+departed. Through it all Jeanne walked about in a daze. "It is as if I
+had been invited to my own wedding and did not so much as know I was
+married," she said to Florence, later in the day.
+
+Florence smiled and made no reply. There was more to come, much more.
+Florence believed that. But Jeanne had not so much as guessed.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXXI
+                    FLORENCE MEETS THE LADY IN BLACK
+
+
+The great hour came at last. "To-night," Jeanne had whispered, "'The
+Magic Curtain' will unfold before thousands! Will it be a success?"
+
+The very thought that it might prove a failure turned her cold. The
+happiness of her good friends, Angelo, Swen and Marjory Dean was at
+stake. And to Jeanne the happiness of those she respected and loved was
+more dear than her own.
+
+Night came quite suddenly on that eventful day. Great dark clouds,
+sweeping in from the lake, drew the curtain of night.
+
+Jeanne found herself at her place among the boxes a full hour before the
+time required. This was not of her own planning. There was a mystery
+about this; a voice had called her on the telephone requesting her to
+arrive early.
+
+"Now I am here," she murmured, "and the place is half dark. Who can have
+requested it? What could have been the reason?"
+
+Still another mystery. Florence was with her. And she was to remain. A
+place had been provided for her in the box usually occupied by Rosemary
+Robinson and her family.
+
+"Of course," she had said to Florence, "they know that we had something
+to do with the discovery of the magic curtain. It is, perhaps, because of
+this that you are here."
+
+Florence had smiled, but had made no reply.
+
+At this hour the great auditorium was silent, deserted. Only from behind
+the drawn stage curtain came a faint murmur, telling of last minute
+preparations.
+
+"'The Magic Curtain.'" Jeanne whispered. The words still thrilled her.
+"It will be witnessed to-night by thousands. What will be the verdict?
+To-morrow Angelo and Swen, my friends of our 'Golden Circle,' will be
+rich or very, very poor."
+
+"The Magic Curtain." Surely it had been given a generous amount of
+publicity. Catching a note of the unusual, the mysterious, the uncanny in
+this production, the reporters had made the most of it. An entire page of
+the Sunday supplement had been devoted to it. A crude drawing of the
+curtains, pictures of Hop Long Lee, of Angelo, Swen, Marjory Dean, and
+even Jeanne were there. And with these a most lurid story purporting to
+be the history of this curtain of fire as it had existed through the ages
+in some little known Buddhist temple. The very names of those who,
+wrapped in its consuming folds, had perished, were given in detail.
+Jeanne had read, had shuddered, then had tried to laugh it off as a
+reporter's tale. In this she did not quite succeed. For her the magic
+curtain contained more than a suggestion of terror.
+
+She was thinking of all this when an attendant, hurrying up the orchestra
+aisle, paused beneath her and called her name, the only name by which she
+was known at the Opera House:
+
+"Pierre! Oh, Pierre!"
+
+"Here. Here I am."
+
+Without knowing why, she thrilled to her very finger tips. "Is it for
+this that I am here?" she asked herself.
+
+"Hurry down!" came from below. "The director wishes to speak to you."
+
+"The director!" The blood froze in her veins. So this was the end! Her
+masquerade had been discovered. She was to be thrown out of the Opera
+House.
+
+"And on this night of all nights!" She was ready to weep.
+
+It was a very meek Pierre who at last stood before the great director.
+
+"Are you Pierre?" His tone was not harsh. She began to hope a little.
+
+"I am Pierre."
+
+"This man--" The director turned to one in the shadows. Jeanne caught her
+breath. It was the great sculptor, Fernando Tiffin.
+
+"This man," the director repeated, after she had recovered from her
+surprise, "tells me that you know the score of this new opera, 'The Magic
+Curtain.'"
+
+"Y-yes. Yes, I do." What was this? Her heart throbbed painfully.
+
+"And that of the 'Juggler of Notre Dame.'"
+
+"I--I do." This time more boldly.
+
+"Surely this can be no crime," she told herself.
+
+"This has happened," the director spoke out abruptly, "Miss Dean is at
+the Robinson home. She has fallen from a horse. She will not be able to
+appear to-night. Fernando Tiffin tells me that you are prepared to assume
+the leading role in these two short operas. I say it is quite impossible.
+You are to be the judge."
+
+Staggered by this load that had been so suddenly cast upon her slender
+shoulders, the little French girl seemed about to sink to the floor.
+Fortunately at that instant her eyes caught the calm, reassuring gaze of
+the great sculptor. "I have said you are able." She read this meaning
+there.
+
+"Yes." Her shoulders were square now. "I am able."
+
+"Then," said the director, "you shall try."
+
+Ninety minutes later by the clock, she found herself waiting her cue, the
+cue that was to bid her come dancing forth upon a great stage, the
+greatest in the world. And looking down upon her, quick to applaud or to
+blame, were the city's thousands.
+
+In the meantime, in her seat among the boxes, Florence had met with an
+unusual experience. A mysterious figure had suddenly revealed herself as
+one of Petite Jeanne's old friends. At the same time she had half
+unfolded some month-old mysteries.
+
+Petite Jeanne had hardly disappeared through the door leading to the
+stage when two whispered words came from behind Florence's back:
+
+"Remember me?"
+
+With a start, the girl turned about to find herself looking into the face
+of a tall woman garbed in black.
+
+Reading uncertainty in her eyes, the woman whispered: "Cedar Point.
+Gamblers' Island. Three rubies."
+
+"The 'lady cop'!" Florence sprang to her feet. She was looking at an old
+friend. Many of her most thrilling adventures had been encountered in the
+presence of this lady of the police.
+
+"So it was you!" she exclaimed in a low whisper. "You are Jeanne's lady
+in black?"
+
+"I am the lady in black."
+
+"And she never recognized you?"
+
+"I arranged it so she would not. She never saw my face. I have been a
+guardian of her trail on many an occasion.
+
+"And now!" Her figure grew tense, like that of a springing tiger. "Now I
+am about to come to the end of a great mystery. You can help me. That is
+why I arranged that you should be here."
+
+"I?" Florence showed her astonishment.
+
+"Sit down."
+
+The girl obeyed.
+
+"Some weeks ago a priceless necklace was stolen from this very box. You
+recall that?"
+
+"How could I forget?" Florence sat up, all attention.
+
+"Of course. Petite Jeanne, she is your best friend.
+
+"She cast suspicion upon herself by deserting her post here; running
+away. Had it not been for me, she would have gone to jail. I had seen
+through her masquerade at once. 'This,' I said to myself, 'is Petite
+Jeanne. She would not steal a dime.' I convinced others. They spared her.
+
+"Then," she paused for a space of seconds, "it was up to me to find the
+pearls and the thief. I think I have accomplished this; at least I have
+found the pearls. As I said, you can help me. You know the people living
+on that curious man-made island?"
+
+"I--" Florence was thunderstruck.
+
+Aunt Bobby! Meg! How could they be implicated? All this she said to
+herself and was fearful.
+
+Then, like a bolt from the blue came a picture of Meg's birthday package.
+
+"You know those people?" the "lady cop" insisted.
+
+"I--why, yes, I do."
+
+"You will go there with me after the opera?"
+
+"At night?"
+
+"There is need for haste. We will go in Robinson's big car. Jaeger will
+go, and Rosemary. Perhaps Jeanne, too. You will be ready? That is all for
+now.
+
+"Only this: I think Jeanne is to have the stellar role to-night."
+
+"Jeanne! The stellar role? How could that be?"
+
+"I think it has been arranged."
+
+"Arranged?"
+
+There came no answer. The lady in black was gone.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXXII
+                           SPARKLING TREASURE
+
+
+The strangest moment in the little French girl's career was that in
+which, as the juggler, she tripped out upon the Opera House stage. More
+than three thousand people had assembled in this great auditorium to see
+and hear their favorite, the city's darling, Marjory Dean, perform in her
+most famous role. She was not here. They would know this at once. What
+would the answer be?
+
+The answer, after perfunctory applause, was a deep hush of silence. It
+was as if the audience had said: "Marjory Dean is not here. Ah, well, let
+us see what this child can do."
+
+Only her tireless work under Miss Dean's direction saved Jeanne from
+utter collapse. Used as she was to the smiling faces and boisterous
+applause of the good old light opera days, this silence seemed appalling.
+As it was, she played her part with a perfection that was art, devoid of
+buoyancy. This, at first. But as the act progressed she took a tight grip
+on herself and throwing herself into the part, seemed to shout at the
+dead audience: "You shall look! You shall hear! You must applaud!"
+
+For all this, when the curtain was run down upon the scene, the applause,
+as before, lacked enthusiasm. She answered but one curtain call, then
+crept away alone to clench her small hands hard in an endeavor to keep
+back the tears and to pray as she had never prayed before, that Marjory
+Dean might arrive prepared to play her part before the curtain went up on
+the second act.
+
+But now a strange thing was happening. From one corner of the house there
+came a low whisper and a murmur. It grew and grew; it spread and spread
+until, like a fire sweeping the dead grass of the prairies, it had passed
+to the darkest nook of the vast auditorium.
+
+Curiously enough, a name was on every lip;
+
+"Petite Jeanne!"
+
+Someone, a fan of other days, had penetrated the girl's mask and had seen
+there the light opera favorite of a year before. A thousand people in
+that audience had known and loved her in those good dead days that were
+gone.
+
+When Jeanne, having waited and hoped in vain for the appearance of her
+friend and benefactor, summoned all the courage she possessed, and once
+more stepped upon the stage, she was greeted by such a round of applause
+as she had never before experienced--not even in the good old days of
+yesteryear.
+
+This vast audience had suddenly taken her to its heart. How had this come
+about? Ah, well, what did it matter? They were hers, hers for one short
+hour. She must make the most of this golden opportunity.
+
+That which followed, the completing of the "Juggler," the opening of "The
+Magic Curtain," the complete triumph of this new American opera, will
+always remain to Jeanne a beautiful dream. She walked and danced, she
+sang and bowed as one in a dream.
+
+The great moment of all came when, after answering the fifth curtain call
+with her name, "Petite Jeanne! Petite Jeanne!" echoing to the vaulted
+ceiling, she left the stage to walk square into the arms of Marjory Dean.
+
+"Why, I thought--" She paused, too astounded for words.
+
+"You thought I had fallen from a horse. So I did--a leather horse with
+iron legs. It was in a gymnasium. Rosemary pushed me off. Truly it did
+not hurt at all."
+
+"A frame-up!" Jeanne stared.
+
+"Yes, a frame-up for a good cause. 'The Magic Curtain' was yours, not
+mine. You discovered it. It was through your effort that this little
+opera was perfected. It was yours, not mine. Your golden hour."
+
+"My golden hour!" the little French girl repeated dreamily. "But not ever
+again. Not until I have sung and sung, and studied and studied shall I
+appear again on such a stage!"
+
+"Child, you have the wisdom of the gods."
+
+"But the director!" Jeanne's mood changed. "Does he not hate you?"
+
+"Quite the contrary. He loves me. Why should he not? I have found him a
+fresh little American opera and a future star. His vast audience has gone
+away happy. What more could he ask?"
+
+What more, indeed?
+
+But what is this? Florence is at Jeanne's side. What is she saying? "They
+think they have discovered the whereabouts of Rosemary's pearls. On the
+island." Would she go with them? Most certainly, and at once. But alas,
+she has no clothes save those of Pierre, the usher of the boxes. Ah,
+well, they must do. She will be ready at once. Yes! Yes! At once! Right
+away!
+
+They were all tumbling helter-skelter into the big town car, Jeanne,
+Florence, Rosemary, Jaeger, the "lady cop" and even Marjory Dean, when a
+dapper little man approached the car to ask for Petite Jeanne.
+
+"She is here," the "lady cop" informed him. Indeed she was, and wedged in
+so tight it was difficult to move.
+
+"Ah! At last!" the little man sighed. "May I speak with her? It has been
+my privilege to bear a message from France."
+
+"A message!" Jeanne thrilled to the tips of her toes.
+
+"I am afraid it is impossible." The "lady cop's" tone was business-like.
+"It is late. Our errand is of the greatest importance."
+
+"So, too, is my message. If you will permit, I shall accompany you."
+Looking in the crowded car, he opened the driver's door and, hearing no
+objections, took his place beside the chauffeur.
+
+"And mystery still pursued her," Florence whispered to herself, as she
+studied the back of the little Frenchman's head.
+
+Jeanne was crowded in between Rosemary and the "lady cop." As Rosemary's
+arm stole about her, still conscious of her dress suit and her
+masquerade, she moved uneasily.
+
+"It's all right, little French girl," Rosemary whispered. "I have known
+all the time that you were Petite Jeanne and not Pierre.
+
+"All the same," she added, "I have enjoyed this little play at life quite
+as much as you."
+
+With a little sigh of relief Jeanne sank back among the cushions.
+
+Down the boulevard they sped; across a rattling wooden bridge, then
+across the wind-blown, sandy island.
+
+The car came to a stop at the entrance to the path that led to Aunt
+Bobby's "Cathedral."
+
+"You would do well to let me go first," Florence said to Jaeger and the
+"lady cop." "Meg, the girl, has two fine revolvers. She can use them and
+will do so if she believes she is being attacked."
+
+Fortunately there was no trouble about securing an entrance. The strange
+pair had not yet retired. At the sound of Florence's voice they threw
+wide the door. At sight of her numerous company, however, they appeared
+ready to slam it shut again.
+
+"Just a little lark." Florence reassured them. "We have come all the way
+from the opera to a 'Cathedral.'"
+
+"Well, come in then." Aunt Bobby moved aside to let them pass.
+
+"You see," said Florence, when they had crowded into the small living
+room, "this lady here," she nodded at the "lady cop," "has a curious
+notion about that birthday package of yours, Meg. She believes it
+contains a pearl necklace of great value."
+
+"But I--" Meg's face flushed.
+
+"A reward of a thousand dollars has been offered for its return," the
+"lady cop" put in quickly. "If you have recovered it, that reward will be
+your own. Think what that will mean."
+
+"But I have waited all this time!" Meg protested. "And to-morrow is my
+birthday."
+
+Florence glanced hastily at her watch. She smiled. "Not to-morrow, but
+to-day." She showed that it was fifteen minutes past twelve.
+
+With her last objection overruled, Meg produced the mysterious package.
+At once a little circle of eager ones gathered about her.
+
+With trembling hands, she untied the cord. She had all but unrolled the
+black wrapping when the package, slipping from her nerveless fingers,
+fell to the floor.
+
+At once there came flashing back to them all manner of color: white,
+pink, red and green.
+
+"Not pearls alone, but diamonds, rubies, sapphires!" the "lady cop" said,
+in an awed tone. "What a treasure!"
+
+At the same time, with a little cry of joy, Rosemary bent over to seize
+her string of pearls and clasp them about her neck.
+
+"A thousand dollars, Meg!" It was Aunt Bobby who spoke. "They said a
+thousand. That will settle all our troubles for many a day."
+
+"And there will be more, much more." The "lady cop" began carefully
+gathering up the scattered jewels. "All these were stolen. There will be
+other rewards, and that which is never claimed may be sold."
+
+"That dark-faced one thought he had chosen a safe place to hide it!" Meg
+laughed.
+
+"He was close pressed by the police," the "lady cop" explained. "It was
+his one chance. And he lost; which was right enough."
+
+"And now," came in a polite tone from the corner, "if I may have a word
+with Petite Jeanne?" It was the little Frenchman. "But where is she? I do
+not see her."
+
+"Meg," said Jeanne imploringly, "have you a dress to loan me?"
+
+"Sure have!"
+
+They disappeared.
+
+Five minutes later Jeanne reappeared in a blue calico dress.
+
+"I am Petite Jeanne." She bowed low to the little Frenchman.
+
+"Ah, yes! So you are. Then it is my pleasure to announce that you are
+sole heir to a great castle in France. It is known as '_Le Neuf
+Chateau_.' But it is truly very old and carries with it a broad estate."
+
+"A castle!" Jeanne seemed undecided whether to shout or weep. "A great
+castle for poor little me?"
+
+"Ah, my child," the Frenchman put in quickly, "it will not be
+necessary--it is quite unnecessary for you to reside there. Indeed, at
+this moment it is rented, for an unheard of rental, to a rich American
+who fancies castles and is fond of following the hounds."
+
+"Then," exclaimed Jeanne, "I shall accept! I shall return to my beautiful
+Paris. And there, forever and ever, I shall study for the opera. Is it
+not so, Marjory Dean?
+
+"And you, all of you, shall come to Paris as my guests."
+
+"Yes, yes, on some bright summer's day," the great prima donna agreed.
+
+That night--or shall we say morning?--Petite Jeanne arranged "Pierre's"
+carefully pressed dress suit upon a hanger and hung it deep in the
+shadows of her closet. "Good-bye Pierre," she whispered. "You brought me
+fear and sorrow, hope, romance, a better understanding of life, and,
+after that, a brief moment of triumph. I wonder if it is to be farewell
+forever or only adieu for to-day."
+
+And now, my reader, it is time to draw the magic curtain. And what of
+that curtain? Up to this moment you know quite as much as I do. It was
+used in but one performance of the opera that bears its name. It was then
+withdrawn by its owner. Not, however, until a stage-property curtain,
+produced with the aid of tiny copper wires, strips of asbestos and
+colored ribbons, had been created to take its place. The secret of the
+original magic curtain is still locked in the breast of its oriental
+creator.
+
+The dark-faced one has not, so far as I know, been apprehended. Perhaps
+he fled to another city and has there met his just fate. Why he haunted
+the trail of the page of the opera, Pierre, is known to him alone, and
+the doer of dark deeds seldom talks.
+
+And so the story ends. But what of the days that were to follow? Did that
+little company indeed journey all the way to Paris? And did they find
+mystery and great adventure in Jeanne's vast castle? Did Jeanne tire of
+studying opera "forever and ever" and did she return to America? Or did
+our old friend, Florence, forgetting her blonde companion of many
+mysteries, go forth with others to seek adventure? If you wish these
+questions answered you must read our next volume, which is to be known
+as: _Hour of Enchantment_.
+
+
+
+
+                            * * * * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+--Obvious typographical errors were corrected without comment. Non-standard
+  spellings and dialect were left unchanged.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42137 ***