The Silver Butterfly Part 12

"Let us appease any possible disappointment she may have suffered by taking her a present," suggested Hayden, fired by inspiration. "Women, children, every one likes presents, do they not? Come, let us find shops."

"What an adventurer you are!" laughed Marcia, letting him lead her across the street, a confusion crowded with swiftly moving vehicles and cars, for they had now left the twilight shadows and comparative seclusion of the Park and were walking down the noisy thoroughfare.

"You will have to make a quick decision," she added as they came upon a region of many brilliant shops and sidewalks crowded with people. "What will you take her, fruit or flowers?"

But Hayden was too happy to consider any topic with gravity. "We will take her a swanboat, or one of the Hesperidian apples, or the Golden Fleece."

And although Marcia spent herself in urging him to stick to the conservative fruit and flowers, he insisted on following his own vagrant fancy, and at last decided upon an elaborate French basket of pale-blue satin covered with shirrings of fine tulle. The lid was a ma.s.s of artificial flowers, violets and delicate pink roses, and within the satin-lined depths was a bunch of Hamburg grapes.

This, when finally and carefully wrapped, made a huge package; but Hayden insisted on carrying it, a.s.suring Marcia that every one they met would be sure that he was carrying home the turkey for their Sunday dinner. He bore it ostentatiously, and took particular glee in any pa.s.sing attention they excited.

"You act as if you were twenty, instead of well--let me guess your age,"

looking at him with keen scrutiny. "About thirty-five," said Marcia cruelly.

He stopped short to gaze at her with pained reproach. "I am Youth!

Incarnate Youth, just eighteen. No doubt to your dulled materialistic vision I appear to wear a coat and hat. Is that true?" with polite, tolerant patience.

"It certainly appears that way to me," she replied. "What do you imagine yourself to be wearing?"

"And I dare say," he continued still patiently, "that you also fancy you and I are strolling about in one of the shopping districts of New York?"

"Yes," nodding affirmatively. "Where else?"

"Wretched, purblind girl! Thirty-five indeed! Why, I am eighteen, and clad in the hide of a leopard with a wreath of roses on my brow, and you, sweet Oenone, are wandering with me on the slopes of Ida--and we are taking your mother, not one, but a peck of golden apples."

"All things considered," said Marcia significantly, "I am glad we have reached our own door."

They found Mrs. Oldham in good spirits in consequence of having seen a number of people who had sufficient tact duly to admire her new costume worn for the first time that afternoon. She had given much consideration to all the effects of the picture she wished to create, and now sat in an especial chair in an especial part of the room, a vision in pale gray and orchid tints most skilfully mingled. Her feet, in orchid silk stockings, and slippers adorned with great choux of gray chiffon, looked on their footstool as if they were a part of the decorations of the room and had never served the utilitarian purpose of conveyance.

"Oh, I am glad to see you!" she cried, peering past Marcia to Hayden who followed, almost obscured by his great package. She stretched out a hand for him to take, not disarranging her pose by rising and thus spoiling the composition. "Marcia, you're dreadfully late, as usual," a touch of fretfulness in her voice.

"I know," replied her daughter; "and now, I'm going to leave Mr. Hayden to you. Give him some tea, won't you? I'm dining at the Habershams, you know, and he will drive down with me after a while."

"Of course I'll give Mr. Hayden some tea. Send in some hot water, Marcia." She leaned forward, still careful not to move her feet and fussed with the tea things on the table by her side. "I am very glad to see you," she murmured again. "Ah, Mr. Hayden, if it were not for my friends I should be a very lonely woman. You understand, of course, that I do not complain. Marcia is the dearest girl that ever was, so lovely and attractive. Oh, dear, yes. But," with an upward glance of resignation, "quite young people are apt to be thoughtless, you know, and Marcia's social life is so much to her, and indeed, I am selfish enough to be truly glad that it is so; it really is a great bond between dear Wilfred and herself; but of course it leaves me much alone; and it is not good for me to be thrown back on myself and my own sad thoughts so much.

Mr. Oldham always recognized that fact. 'Change, constant diversion is an Absolute necessity to one of your sensitive, high-strung nature,' he would so often say, but," with a long-drawn sigh, "no one thinks enough about me to feel that way now."

"Don't say that," said Hayden cheerfully. "I may not be any one, but I've been thinking about you. Look! I carried this enormous bundle through the streets just for you. Be careful. It's heavy."

She flushed with pleasure through her delicately applied rouge, and stretching out her hands for her gift began eagerly to unwind the various tissue-papers which concealed it. The last of these discarded, she placed the basket in the middle of the table and spent herself in ecstatic phrases, melting from pose to pose of graceful admiration.

"Ah, Mr. Hayden," with one of her archest glances, "you remind me so much of Mr. Oldham." Hayden had a swift, mental picture of that grim old pirate of finance, as represented by his portraits and photographs, his shrewd, rugged old face surrounded by Horace Greeley whiskers. "He never came home without bringing me something. Sometimes it was just a flower, or some fruit, and again it was a jewel. You can't fancy, Mr. Hayden, no words of mine can express to you his constant thought and care for me.

You take lemon in your tea, do you not? I thought so. I always remember those little things about my friends. And he had such faith in my business judgment, too. He would often discuss business with me and ask my opinion on this or that matter; and he always, without exception, acted on my advice. He used to say--so foolish of him--that he could not understand why he should have been so favored as to have found a combination of beauty and brains in one woman."

"It is rare, but as I understand now, not impossible." Hayden took his cue n.o.bly.

"Oh, Mr. Hayden!" A reproving finger was shaken at him with the archest coquetry. "If you talk that way I shan't give you another cup of tea, no matter how hard you beg. But where was I? Oh, yes, I was telling you that Mr. Oldham so often discussed business matters with me."

"And did they interest you?" asked Hayden vaguely, wondering how soon he could possibly expect Marcia to return.

"Oh, yes, I found it more thrilling than the printed page."

"Most men do," he replied dryly. "I didn't know that women felt that way."

"I did." Mrs. Oldham nodded her head in modest acceptation of the fact that she was the exceptional woman. "I found it not only thrilling, but often _so_ romantic. I do not see why people will speak of 'the dry details of business.' I think it is full of romance."

Hayden stared at her with the amazement her mental processes always aroused in him.

"It never seemed exactly within the range of romantic subjects to me," he said dubiously; "but perhaps that's the way I've been looking at it."

"Certainly it is," she affirmed triumphantly. "Now I'll prove it to you.

As I often say to young people, Mr. Hayden: 'Never make an a.s.sertion unless you can prove it.' Now, I distinctly remember Mr. Oldham telling me of a most romantic business matter. A lost mine of almost unthinkable value which was on an old estate somewhere in Brazil, or no, Peru. Why, what is the matter, Mr. Hayden? Your eyes are almost popping out of your head. You look as if you had seen a ghost."

Hayden caught himself together. "It is only that it is so interesting. Do go on and let me hear the rest of it."

Mrs. Oldham smiled, well pleased at the tribute to her powers as a raconteuse. "Well, there isn't much to tell. I've forgotten the details, and they were so romantic, too; but Mr. Oldham seriously considered buying it."

"And did he buy it?" Hayden's hands were trembling in spite of himself.

"This is so intensely interesting, one would like to hear the conclusion of the story."

But Mrs. Oldham only shook her head. "I don't know," she said vaguely. "I think he did; but I can't be sure."

She began another long story, but Hayden, after listening to enough of it to a.s.sure himself that it had no bearing on The Veiled Mariposa, gave himself up to the confused conjectures, the hopes, the dreams that thronged his brain.

Was it a possibility that Marcia, Marcia, might be the heiress of the great Mariposa estate? The owner, or one of the owners of it? He felt overcome by the bare mental suggestion. But was it a possibility, even a dim and remote one? Accepting this as a temporary hypothesis, was it not borne out by certain facts? The b.u.t.terflies, for instance. Did not those jeweled ornaments symbolize in some delicate, fanciful way, Marcia's way, her ownership of The Veiled Mariposa? And would not that ownership also account for the much-questioned source of her wealth? He stopped with a jerk up against a dead wall. The Mariposa mine had not been worked for years; the ranches were cultivated only by the Spaniard in possession. These facts were like a dash of cold water, extinguishing the flame of his hopes. And yet, and yet, the b.u.t.terflies! But that, he was forced to admit, might be the merest coincidence.

On that chain of evidence he would find it necessary to regard his cousin, Kitty Hampton, Mrs. Habersham, the London actress, a score of women, as possible owners of his Golconda. Nevertheless, in spite of reason, he could not escape the conviction, unfounded but persistent, that those b.u.t.terflies were in some way connected with the ownership of that distant lost mine. And this purely intuitive belief was suddenly strengthened by the remembrance of Marcia's embarra.s.sment in the Park, an hour or two before, when she had involuntarily and inadvertently spoken of Mademoiselle Mariposa familiarly as Ydo.

"Yes, Mrs. Oldham, I quite agree with you. As you say: 'One can not be too careful.' Oh, no, I never was more interested in my life."

Ydo! Ydo! He took up the thread of his absorbing reflections again as Mrs. Oldham's voice purled on reciting with infinite detail all the data of one of her Helen-like conquests. Ydo! What bond could exist between the reserved, even haughty Marcia in spite of all her gentleness, and the capricious, wayward, challenging Ydo? A bond sufficiently strong to permit the affectionate familiarity of first names? He had from the beginning believed that Ydo had some interest in the property, although he had never been able satisfactorily to guess the nature of it. But Marcia! The mere possibility of her being interested in what Ydo merrily called his Eldorado had never struck him before, and his brain was bewildered by the thousand new trains of conjecture it started.

At this point his reflections were broken in upon by the entrance of Marcia herself. She was all in white with the big, ruby-eyed b.u.t.terfly on her bosom, and the chain of b.u.t.terflies about her throat. She looked more radiant than he had ever seen her as she stood before them drawing on her long gloves. Her eyes, no longer sad with all regret, were like deep blue stars, and her smile was full of a soft and girlish happiness.

"You look very well, Marcia," said her mother critically. "A new gown, of course. How differently they are cutting the skirts!"

"It's a lovely gown," affirmed Hayden, smiling down into Marcia's eyes.

"After all, a simple white frock is the prettiest thing a woman can wear."

"Simple!" Mrs. Oldham's mirth was high and satiric. "Isn't that like a man? Simple is the last word to be applied to Marcia's frocks, Mr.

Hayden. It's a good thing, as I often tell her, that her father left us so well provided for."

The lovely happiness vanished from Marcia's eyes. She looked quickly at her mother with an almost frightened expression, and then, with eyelashes lowered on her cheek, went silently on drawing on her gloves, two or three tense little lines showing about her mouth.

"I think Miss Oldham is very unkind," said Hayden, with some idea of bridging the situation gracefully, "never to have shown me any of her pictures. She paints, paints all day long, and yet will not give one a glimpse of the results. Kitty Hampton has been promising to show me some of the water-colors she has, but she has not yet done so."

"Have you been talking much to Mr. Hayden of your pictures, Marcia?"

asked her mother suavely.