The Silver Butterfly Part 23

"Yes, sir."

But before he could make further explanation, or Hayden could give orders either to ask the lady to enter or to beg that she excuse him, there was a soft, hesitant footfall, the delicate feminine rustle of trailing skirts, the faint delicious fragrance of violets, and he sprang to his feet, his heart pounding. In some mysterious uncannily skilful manner, Tatsu vanished.

Marcia was very white, her long, dark gown fell about her, her face gleamed pale as a lily, wistful as regret, from the shadow of her large black hat.

"Mr. Hayden, Bobby." She made a step toward him. "Why, how tired you look! You are ill!" she broke off to cry, deep notes of tenderness and solicitude in her voice.

"I am a little tired," he said, with an effort. "But you, too, look pale.

Do not stand. Come near the fire. Lay aside your furs. I will have some hot tea brought."

She allowed him to lead her to a chair, her eyes fixed still upon his face. "Something has worried you, is bothering you still. Isn't it so?"

He dismissed the question. "You must believe me," he said, "when I a.s.sure you that I am quite well, and that everything is all right."

She was still standing, and now she turned to him and laid her hand upon his sleeve. There was an intensity, almost a wildness in her expression.

"Ah," she cried, "you have missed the photographs. I was afraid of that, but I couldn't get here sooner. I telephoned twice, but I could not reach you. You know that I could not have dreamed of coming here, here to your apartment except for the most urgent of reasons. Bobby"--she burst into tears and clung to his arm--"it was I--I who stole your papers and photographs."

"My dear," bending above her, "do not say such things." His voice trembled. "If you borrowed my photographs you did it for some good reason, for cause which seemed right and proper to you. That is enough for me."

"Oh, Robert, Robert!" She was weeping now, her whole figure shaken with sobs. "Your goodness, your sweetness overwhelms me. It is more than I can bear. But, Bobby, you mustn't believe the worst things of me. I didn't take them from the motives you may attribute to me."

"Dear Marcia," he said soothingly, "do not talk of motives. Whatever your motives were, they were right. But you are going to tell me no more now.

You are going to sit down here and have a cup of tea, and rest quietly a few moments before you attempt to tell me anything more. Here, you must lay aside those heavy wraps."

He took her furs, he begged her to remove her hat, then occupied himself for a moment in fussing over the fire and giving orders for hot tea, and was rewarded presently by seeing that the color had returned to her lips and cheeks, and that the frightened, strained expression had faded from her eyes.

"There," he said, after Tatsu had brought in the tea things, and he had poured some for her. "Two lumps of sugar, one slice of lemon. You see, I remember your tastes."

She smiled gratefully at him. "Please, may I tell you all about it now?"

she asked.

His face fell again into the lines of dejection. In spite of the cheerfulness he had forced himself to a.s.sume, and in spite of the compa.s.sion he felt for her weakness, he would have postponed for ever this confession which must condemn her.

"Why," he asked, "why not bury the incident in a wise oblivion, and never mention it again? Indeed, indeed, it is better so. One of the best mottoes in the world is, 'Never explain.'"

His lips smiled, but his eyes pleaded, and his heart pa.s.sionately protested:

Must we lose our Eden, Eve and I?

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Her languor and weariness disappeared in a moment; she drew herself up now, the pose of her head haughty, her eyes chill. "Never explain?" she repeated. "It is, as you say, an excellent motto--for those who are best a.s.sisted by a wise silence. But I a.s.sure you I am not trying to gain your pity, or tolerance or forgiveness. I took your photographs and maps yesterday evening and acted probably on incorrect reasoning and mistaken impulse, but I should do exactly the same thing again under the same circ.u.mstances; and now, I insist upon your listening to those circ.u.mstances."

She laid aside her cup and with the scarlet still glowing on her cheek began:

"Yesterday morning I received word from Mr. Carrothers that a man who had all the charts and photographs of The Veiled Mariposa had been discovered, and that that man was you. You may imagine my sensations. At first, I could not grasp it, it seemed too inconceivable and incredible to be true, and then, as the facts of the case were given me and I was able to realize it, to take it in, why--I was overcome with joy. Ah, B---- Mr. Hayden, no one was ever so happy as I yesterday morning. Your words of a week ago, the afternoon that we had walked in the Park, came back to me. Your mysterious allusions to the good fortune which was almost within your grasp--and this was it! And to think that I--I should be one of the owners of the property! Why, it was like a fairy-story."

"And are you really one of the owners?" he interrupted her to cry.

"Indeed, yes. But let me go on. I was also told that your information would be in our hands within twenty-four hours, and then, I learned that Ydo was conducting the negotiations. That was the rift within the lute. I immediately became frightened. I did not know what it meant. What I did know was that Ydo stops at nothing to gain her ends. And of course, she, being interested, too--"

"How is she interested?" he interrupted again. "I have not discovered that."

"I will explain later. I want to go on with this part of my story now.

But, as I say, knowing Ydo, her daring, her indifference to anything but her own game, her powers of resource--"

"Oh, come, you are unjust to her," he exclaimed, forgetful of his own base suspicions.

"Oh, I know it, but believe me, I am not"--again her head was haughtily lifted--"I am not trying to gain your sympathy by criticizing her; I am merely trying to make you understand the case as it appeared to me. As I say, I was frightened. It was all my own superst.i.tion. Indeed, I know that it was; but I got in a panic, and could not reason clearly. No," as he strove to take her hand, "please wait. And then, last night when Horace Penfield asked you to show the photographs I saw a confirmation of my fears, and when Ydo entered I was still more frightened. I suspected an arrangement, a plot between them. There were the photographs and maps on that little table where you had carelessly thrown them; any one could take them; and then when Ydo was going through her nonsense over that gla.s.s ball and had every one's attention fixed on her Horace crept around and stood so near the table that I was sure he was going to seize them, so I took them myself. I twisted the gauze scarf which was about my neck around them and carried them out that way. No one noticed. And here they are." She lifted the package from her m.u.f.f, still wrapped in the scarf, and held it out to him. "No one has even glanced at them; not even myself."

"And you did this to save me! Oh, Marcia, Marcia!" He was more moved than he could express.

"Wait!" She lifted her hand imperatively. "I haven't finished. There are lots of things to tell you yet."

"Postpone them!" he cried ardently. "Forget them until to-morrow! Ah, dearest, you are tired. You have borne too much strain already."

"No, no!" she cried. "It grows late, and I must, must tell you these things before I leave you."

"Leave me!" he cried. "Try it. When you go I go with you."

They both laughed. "But listen, Bobby," she pleaded; and at that "Bobby"

his heart glowed, he was surely forgiven. "Don't you want to know how I happened to be the largest owner of the vast Mariposa estate?"

"Oh, indeed I do!" he said. "Are you the largest owner?"

"Yes," she nodded. "You see, at the height of his prosperity, my father bought it from a Mr. Willoughby, whose wife inherited it. No one knew it, but even at that time my father's mind was affected, and before long his disease, a softening of the brain, had fully manifested itself. His greatest interest in life had always been business, and after this change came upon him he got all kinds of strange ideas in his head, among them a perfect mania for destroying papers. It is princ.i.p.ally for that reason,"

with a slight shrug of her shoulders, "that we were left almost penniless. But he had a head clerk, a Mr. Carrothers, Ydo's father, by the way, who saw how things were going, and who, by various ruses, succeeded in saving some of the papers, among them those relating to the Mariposa estate. These were intact.

"After my father's death, as you have probably heard, there was practically nothing left, nothing for my mother and myself to live on. So I decided to go into business. I am," with a little smile, "both a designer and manufacturer of quaint jewelry, ornaments and things; but there wasn't any money. But Mr. Carrothers, who had more or less, was crazy about the Mariposa property. He had looked up the history of the Willoughbys and found that everything that Mr. Willoughby claimed was true, and he wanted an interest in the estate, so he offered to finance my little venture if I would give him a third interest in the property.

"I was glad enough to do so, and he and I went into partnership. It has been a success. We have made money, but it left little time for anything else. Nevertheless, Mr. Carrothers has never lost his enthusiasm in regard to The Veiled Mariposa, and that has kept up my flagging interest.

We have not been idle about it either; but have kept prospectors down there almost all the time. Ydo went over the ground two or three years ago. But this year, we had decided to make a special effort. We were to send down some great expert and a seasoned old prospector or two who could positively smell ore on the rocks.

"I sent out my little messages in the shape of the jeweled b.u.t.terflies, and Ydo, who had not been in this country for several years, decided to tell fortunes under the name of The Veiled Mariposa, and to carry out the idea in her disguise. It was a clever idea because she could advertise, and any one who had anything to communicate about the mine would naturally connect her with it and seek her out. And sure enough, this has proved our lucky year, for you, you discovered it--The Veiled Mariposa."

She smiled happily at him.

"To lay it at your feet." He caught her hands and drew her up from her chair. "Ah, Queen of Eldorado, will you take it with my poor heart?"

They were both laughing; but it was laughter that trembled on the verge of tears. "Sweetheart," she murmured, her arms about his neck, her face hidden on his shoulder, "my mine, my b.u.t.terflies and my heart are yours for ever."

"Ah!" He held her so closely that the violets, crushed upon her breast, protested in wafts of fragrance.

"There are more things I want to tell you," she murmured.

"You will do nothing of the kind, O Scheherazade! Not, at least, until you have had something to eat. Ah, we will go to the Gildersleeve, where we first met, or at least first talked. Come, your hat and wraps, no delay."

He a.s.sisted her into her long cloak, and laid her furs about her shoulders.