The Silver Butterfly Read online

  CHAPTER XI

  "Bobby," said Kitty Hampton one evening as they sat alone together in herdrawing-room, "things are slow, deadly slow. Why do not you do somethingto amuse your little cousin?"

  "My little cousin has far more amusement than is good for her as it is,"returned Hayden. "But while you're mentioning this, let me say that I amanxious to evince some appreciation of all the hospitality you and Mrs.Habersham and one or two others have shown me; but I don't know just whatto do."

  Kitty sat up with a marked accession of interest in her expression andattitude. "Dear me! There are quantities of things you could do," shesaid. "But, Bobby, do get out of the beaten track; try to think ofsomething original. Of course, it's all nonsense, about feeling underobligation to any one for so-called hospitality, but there is no reasonwhy you should not provide some fun. Now, what shall it be?"

  "Anything you say," remarked Hayden amiably. "To tell the truth, Kitty,I've been intending to ask you just what I should do. What can yousuggest?"

  "It requires thought." Kitty spoke seriously. "But be assured of this:I'm not going to suggest any of the same old things. If you wantsomething really delightful and have a desire to have us truly enjoyourselves you must have just a few congenial people. Better make it adinner, I think. That is it. A dinner at your apartment," catchingjoyously at this idea, "with some original, clever features."

  "I thought whatever it was"--Hayden had reddened perceptibly--"I'd likeit to be--a--a--compliment, in a way, to Miss Oldham."

  "I do not doubt it." Kitty surveyed him with amused eyes.

  "I always think of her in connection with the butterflies she wears somuch. Would it be a possibility to carry the butterfly idea out in someway?" he asked.

  Kitty clapped her hands. She was all animation and enthusiasm now. Thehabitual, sulky-little-boy expression had quite vanished from her face."Beautiful! Just the idea! You couldn't have thought of a better one. Thebutterfly lady has had a great fascination for you, hasn't she, Bobby?"

  "Which one?" he asked quickly.

  "Which one? Hear that!" His cousin apostrophized space. "Why, I wasthinking of Marcia, of course."

  He smiled a little and became momentarily lost in reverie, his chin inthe palm of his hand, and dreaming thus, Kitty's old French drawing-roomand Kitty herself, her blond prettiness accentuated and enhanced by thedelicate pinks and blues of her gown, vanished, and Marcia seemed tostand before him all in black and silver as he had seen her recently at aball, with violets, great purple violets, falling below the shiningbutterfly on her breast, her sweet and wistful smile curving her lips andher eyes full of light and happiness.

  "Bobby, come back!" Kitty touched him petulantly on the arm. "You've beena million miles away, and you looked so selfishly happy that I feel allshivery and out in the cold."

  "Kitty," he said, "I will confess, when I said, 'Which one?' I wasthinking not only of Miss Oldham, but of the other butterfly lady--theMariposa. You know Mariposa means butterfly. Well, it is really theMariposa who fascinates me."

  "Bobby! What on earth do you mean?" Kitty's expression was a mixture ofDisappointment and indignation.

  "Just what I say. The Mariposa fascinates me; but, Kitty," his facesoftening, "I love the fairy princess with all my heart. I have loved herfrom the first moment I saw her."

  "How dear! I have thought so, hoped so, for some time." Her face was allaglow. "But you frightened me dreadfully, just now. I was afraid you hadgone over to Mademoiselle Mariposa like Wilfred Ames. He is crazy abouther, simply crazy. I did not know he could be crazy over anything, exceptthe chance of tearing off to some impossible spot to shoot big game."

  "Wilfred Ames! Crazy about the Mariposa!" exclaimed Hayden incredulously;and then he paused, remembering that it was but recently that he had metAmes at the door of Ydo's apartment.

  "Yes." Kitty was sulky again. "It's true. And I wanted him for Marcia.But Marcia was stupid about it and always laughed at the idea. HoracePenfield says that he has completely swerved from his allegiance toMarcia. Just fancy how his mother will behave now. Good for her, I say.But, Bobby, have you told Marcia?"

  "Yes. I couldn't help it, Kitty, but it wasn't fair. I had no right tosay a word until I know how things are going to turn out with me andthat, thank Heaven, will be settled in a day or so." He drew a long sigh.

  "Bobby," Kitty was looking at him curiously, and a rather hard abruptnesshad crept into her tone, "has she, Marcia, told you anything aboutthese?" She touched the butterflies clasped about her throat.

  "No." He shook his head. "But I believe I have guessed theirsignificance. And it has made me happier than I can tell you. It has mademe feel that our interests are one, as if Destiny had intended us foreach other."

  "I'm sure I don't see why it should," she said shortly, looking at him ina bewildered, disapproving way. "I didn't know you were that kind. Itsounds awfully self-seeking. I do not believe you've guessed right." Herface brightened. "That is it. You've got some idea into your head, andit's evidently far from the correct one. You wouldn't be the Bobby I knowif it were."

  "Then tell me what the correct one is," he coaxed. "If I am on the wrongtrack, set me on the right one."

  "Not I," she returned firmly. "The thing for us to decide is just whatsort of a dinner you are going to have. You want some really interestingfeatures. I insist on that."

  He threw wide his arms. "I give you carte blanche, here and now, Kitty.All that I insist on are the butterfly effects. Beyond that, I leaveeverything in your hands; but I must have them."

  Kitty's eyes gleamed with pleasure. She loved to manage other people'saffairs. "I'll see to them," she affirmed. "Just give me a little time tothink them up. What shall we have afterward? Some music?"

  "So commonplace," he objected, "and the place is too small."

  "Yes-s-s," she reluctantly agreed. "And you don't want very many people.Just our own especial little group."

  "It will have to be small," he warned her. "My quarters do not admit ofanything very extensive."

  "Whom shall we have?" Mrs. Hampton began to count on her fingers. "TheHabershams, and Edith Symmes, and Horace Penfield, and Warren and myself,and Marcia, and Wilfred Ames, and yourself." She paused, a look of dismayoverspreading her face. "We'll have to have another woman. Who on earthshall it be?"

  "A butterfly dinner without the Mariposa would seem like _Hamlet_ withthe Prince left out, wouldn't it?" suggested Hayden.

  "Oh!" Kitty gasped joyously. "Mademoiselle Mariposa! Do, do, invite her.What fun! Do you think she will come? You know Marcia knows her, but shewill not talk about her ever, because, she says, Mademoiselle Mariposahas requested her not to. So she will not say where and how she met her.Mean thing! Of course, I've only seen her in her little mask andmantilla. You do not suppose she would wear them to a dinner, do you? Iam dying to see her without them. Horace Penfield knows her very well andhe says she is very beautiful and deliciously odd. If it enters into herhead to do anything she just does it, no matter what it is. Andextravagant!" Kitty lifted her eyes and hands at once. "They say that herjewels and frocks are almost unbelievable. Why, one day when she wasreading my palm, I noticed that her gown was drawn up a little on oneside, and showed her petticoat beneath, with ruffles of Mechlin, realMechlin on it. Some people say that she is a Spanish princess, orsomething of the kind--so eccentric that she tells fortunes just for thefun of it. Oh, Bobby, do, do get her."

  "When shall we have this dinner?" asked Hayden, with apparentirrelevance.

  Kitty thought quickly. "Give me ten days to decide upon things and havemy orders carried out."

  "Very good. Ten days. Let me see, that will be Tuesday of week afternext. Do you think the rest will come?"

  "Of course they will come. They would break any other engagement to meetMademoiselle Mariposa."

  "Then I will find out now if she will come, if you will allow me to useyour telephone."

  He was lucky enough to find Ydo at home; but when he informed her that hewas givin
g a dinner for a few friends on Tuesday, ten days away, and thathe earnestly desired her presence, she demurred.

  "What are you doing this evening?" he asked.

  "Nothing," she answered, "and I am bored."

  "Then jump into your electric and come here to my cousin's, Mrs. WarrenHampton's, as fast as you can," he said audaciously.

  "How do you know she wants me? You are taking a great deal on yourself."

  For answer Hayden handed the receiver to Kitty, who had followed him outand now stood at his shoulder listening breathlessly to every word."Mademoiselle is in doubt of your eagerness to see her," he said.

  "Oh, please come," urged Kitty through the telephone. "Waste no time."

  "I will be with you in twenty minutes," said Ydo sweetly.

  Back in the drawing-room, Kitty was too excited to remain quietly in herchair, but danced about expressing her delight at the prospect of at lastseeing the Mariposa sans mask and mantilla.

  "Tell me, Bobby," she insisted, "is she really so eccentric?"

  "I fancy she does exactly as she pleases, always," he replied.

  "And extravagant? Warren says no one could be more extravagant than I."

  "She is a dreamer," he averred, "a dreamer who dreams true. Her ideas areso vivid that she insists on seeing them in tangible form. I don'tbelieve she particularly counts the cost or the base material means bywhich these things must be accomplished."

  "Fancy!" sighed Kitty. "Oh, I do hope she will wear one of her stunninggowns and some of those marvelous jewels they say she possesses, set inthe most wonderful, quaint ways, Horace Penfield says. But surely shewill."

  "I think it likely," agreed Robert amiably.

  "And is she very clever and interesting?" continued Kitty.

  "She is herself," said Hayden. "I can not describe her any other way. Shemay strike you as a bit staccato and stilted sometimes; but it is naturalto her. She is always herself."

  There was a faint sound of a curtain before the door being pushed aside,but this, Kitty and Hayden, absorbed in their conversation, had notheard, and now, Mrs. Hampton turned with a stifled scream to see astranger, a Gipsy, standing almost at her elbow.

  "Pretty lady!" The English was more deliciously broken than ever, and socajoling was the whisper that it would have coaxed the birds off thetrees and wheedled money from the stingiest pocket. "Pretty lady, let metell your fortune. Cross my palm with silver. 'Tis the seventh daughterof a seventh daughter who asks you."

  Kitty looked from the Gipsy to Robert in bewilderment. This was not thedazzling figure in gauzes and satins and jewels she had expected, acapricious lady of a foreign and Southern nobility, whose whimsical anderratic fancy was occasionally amused by a change of role. This was adaughter of the long, brown path, who afoot and light-hearted tooknaturally to the open road, with the tanned cheek, white teeth, and merryeyes of her kind.

  And yet, if not the glittering vision Kitty had anticipated, Ydo was asufficiently vivid and picturesque figure. Her short corduroy skirt hadfaded with wear and washing to a pale fawn-tint with a velvety bloom uponit; her brown boots were high and laced, her blue blouse had faded likeher skirt to a soft and lovely hue. A red sash confined her waist, ahandkerchief of the same color was knotted loosely about her throat,while a yellow scarf was tied about her head and fell in long ends downher back.

  Kitty immediately recovered from the shock she had experienced at theunheralded advent of the strange visitor and endeavored to make up inwarmth of greeting for the surprise she had shown.

  "Forgive me, instead," said Ydo, with charming penitence. "But I was theGipsy to-night in heart and feeling. I had to put on these. Oh," throwingherself into a chair, "I have suffered to-day. It has been coming on fordays. Ennui. Do you know it, pretty lady? And the longing for mine ownpeople."

  "Your people are not in this country, are they?" asked Kitty politely.

  The Mariposa drew her brows together in a little puzzled frown. "Mypeople!" she repeated. "Oh," with dawning comprehension, "you meanrelatives. I," with a short laugh, "I said mine own people. You," turningto Robert, "you understand. One of the greatest, most searching questionsever asked, and which must finally be answered by each of us from thepromptings of his own heart, is: 'Who is my brother and my sister?' Ah, Ishall soon take to the road again. If I could only go now!"

  "To find your own people," asked Kitty timidly.

  "One does not seek one's own," said Ydo disdainfully. "One does not'scour the seas nor sift mankind a poet or a friend to find.' He comes,and you know him because he is a poor Greek like yourself. Dearlady"--she broke into one of her airy rushes of laughter--"in spite ofyour smiles and all the self-control of a careful social training, youare the picture of bewilderment. See, you can keep no secrets from thefortune-teller. You can not place me. Why do you try? I refused to beannounced and mine was the fate of the listener. Brutus there is anhonorable man who admits that I am extravagant, even if he condones it.Ah, madame, money is not wealth, it is a base counterfeit, a servant whomI bid to exchange itself for beauty. These"--she stripped the petals froma red rose in a vase near her, and tossed them in the air--"these are thereal wealth of the world. And Brutus says I am stilted, exaggerated in myconversation, given to metaphor and hyperbole. That is because I dare toexpress what I feel, and since everywhere I see parables I voice them.Why not?

  "And Brutus says I am eccentric, admitting that I dare to be myself; andto dare to be one's self, dear lady, is to dare everything. We are afraidof life, of love, of sorrow and joy, of everything. This fear of life isuniversal."

  "And you, are you never afraid?" asked Kitty.

  "Of what?" laughed the Gipsy. "Let me tell you a secret; and oh, madame,wear it next your heart, guard it. 'Tis a talisman against fear. Thelions are always chained. Believe me, it is so. But our conversation isof a seriousness! Mr. Hayden spoke of a dinner."

  "Yes, and he's given me permission to do just as I choose," said Kitty."So it's got to be a success--"

  "And she's trying to say," interrupted Hayden, "that it couldn't possiblybe a success without you."

  "Of course I am," agreed Kitty, "only I should have put it less bluntly."

  "Wait! I have an inspiration." Ydo thought a moment. "I will not come tothe dinner. We can make it much more effective than that. Ah, listen!"waving her hands to quell their protests. "Let me appear, later in theevening, in my professional capacity and tell the past, present andfuture of your guests. Yes, I will come in mask and mantilla, The VeiledMariposa," with a dramatic gesture, a quick twinkle of the eyes towardHayden. "I assure you, it will be far more interesting so."

  "There is really no doubt about that," said Kitty thoughtfully, andtogether they silenced Robert's eloquent plea that the dinner would fallflat unless Ydo was one of the guests.

  "It is settled, and I must go." The Mariposa spoke decisively. "I shallgo home and make Eunice play for me, and perhaps I shall dance off someof my restlessness."

  "Oh, dance for us," begged Kitty. "I will play for you, and you see thatthe piano is so placed that I can watch you at the same time. What shallI play? Some Spanish dances?"

  Ydo, full of the spirit of the thing, considered. "I think I will showyou a pretty little dance I learned down in South America."

  "South America!" Hayden started as if he had received an electric shock.

  Perhaps a heightened color glowed on Mademoiselle Mariposa's cheek; butshe gave no further sign of perturbation. "Yes," she answered carelessly,"I have lived there, in one place or another. Any one of those Spanishdances will do, Mrs. Hampton. Watch my steps. They are peculiar and verypretty."

  As she stood there swaying like a flower in a breeze, it was, to Hayden'sfancy, as if he had never seen color before. Kitty in her pinks and blueswas a gay little figure; her drawing-room was a rich and sumptuouslydecorated apartment, but under the spell of the Mariposa's "woven pacesand weaving hands," Mrs. Hampton appeared a mere Dresden statuette, thetapestried and frescoed walls became a pale and evane
scent background,and Ydo alone, dancing, focused in herself all light and beauty; nay, sheherself was the pride of life, the rhythm of motion, the glory of color.

  On and on she danced and Hayden, watching, dreamed dreams and sawvisions. She was the Mariposa floating over a field of flowers, scarletand white poppies, opening and closing its gorgeous wings in the hotsunshine; she was a snow-flake whirled from the heart of a winter storm;she was an orchid swaying in the breeze; she was a thistledown driftingthrough the grasses.

  Then, at the height of her spells she stopped and laughingly cast herselfinto a chair.

  "Oh!" Kitty was breathless with admiration. "Oh, why, why, when you candance like that, do you tell fortunes?"

  "There's a reason," Ydo quoted, with a little toss of her head towardHayden. "That is exactly the answer I made your cousin once before. And,oh, senor, apropos of that reason, I have a conference arranged for youto-morrow afternoon at four o'clock at my apartment. I almost forgot totell you. I meant to have telephoned."

  Hayden's face flushed with pleasure. "Really?" he cried. "You really havethe people together. Oh," with a long sigh, "it is good news. Suspensedoes wear on me, senorita." He spoke half humorously, but with anunderlying seriousness.

  "It will soon be over," encouraged Ydo. "Then, until Tuesday night, tendays hence, _au revoir_, madame; and until to-morrow at four o'clock, _aurevoir_, senor. Good luck for ever be on this house! In it I haveforgotten temporarily my wanderlust. Good-by."