The Silver Butterfly Page 6

  CHAPTER VI

  Hayden had elected to spend one evening at home, a most unusual decisionfor him, but one which the night fully justified, for a February gale wasin full progress and was forcing every citizen whether comfortably housedor uncomfortably out in it, to stand at attention and listen to itsshrieking iterations of "a mad night, my masters."

  But to be quite accurate, the state of the weather had nothing whateverto do with the state of Hayden's mind. Let it be said, by way ofexplanation, that since his return to New York, he had been going out sosteadily, accepting so many invitations, meeting so many people, pursuingthe social game so ardently, that the thought of a quiet evening at home,recommended itself very alluringly to his imagination, and by sheervirtue of contrast, assumed almost the proportions of an excitingdiversion.

  Tatsu had, as usual, deftly, silently and with incredible rapidityarranged everything for his comfort; and his leisurely dinner completed,Robert settled himself for a long solitary evening undisturbed by any mendropping in to interrupt his meditations, or by any vagrant desires towander out. The gale precluded both possibilities. It had risen to itsheight now, and filled the air with the steady roar of artillery. Greatdashes of rain spattered sharply against the window panes, and Haydenwould lift his head to listen and then sink back more luxuriously thanever into the depths of his easy chair. It was the sort of night tothrow, occasionally, another log on the fire and watch the flames dancehigher--illuminate with their glowing radiance the dim corridors and thevast and stately apartments of a _Chateau en Espagne_. What an additionthose new pictures are to the noble gallery! And the vast library withthe windows opening on the Moorish court! But some of the tapestries needrenovating, those priceless tapestries!

  Then, surfeited with gazing on so much beauty and splendor, one turns tomore homely comforts, and while the logs sink to a bed of glowing ashes,dreams over one's favorite essays, or skims the cream of the last newnovel.

  It was such an evening as this that Hayden had planned; but plans, asimmemorial experience has taught us, but never quite convinced us, "gangaft a-gley," and Robert's were no exception to the rule. Between him andthe open page before him, he saw continually the face of Marcia Oldham.The sweet, wistful, violet eyes gazed earnestly at him, the delicatelycut mouth with the dimple in one corner smiled at him and his bookpresently dropped from his fingers and lay unheeded on the rug while hedreamed dreams and saw visions. Gradually, his thoughts wandered from thefuture and its hopes to the past, and for the first time since his returnthe old wanderlust stole over him, the wanderlust temporarily lulled andquiescent, but always there, that passion for change which was sointegral a part of his nature. But he no longer wished for new sceneswith no companionship but that of a man friend or so, he dreamed insteadof a season of wandering with Marcia, with her to travel the uncharted,with her to "follow October around the earth." He wondered if the lovelylady of the silver butterfly cared only to breathe the air of cities, orif she, like himself, delighted in gazing upon the strange andunaccustomed, in getting,

  "Out in the world's wide spaces, Where the sky and the desert meet, Where we shake from our feet all traces Of the dust of the city street?"

  He believed she did. He could not be so strongly conscious of some secretand indefinable sympathy existing between them if their tastes were notsimilar. Ah well, whatever her tastes might be he could gratifythem,--providing, of course, that she chose to look kindly upon him, andif things only came his way, a little, just a little, and surely he hadreason to be gratified by the turn events had taken since he had come toNew York.

  He had, of course, taken a chance in telling Horace Penfield as much ashe had about The Veiled Mariposa, the lost mine on which he had foundedhis hopes. Hayden drew his shoulders up to his ears and pulled down thecorners of his mouth, the picture of a school-boy convicted of stealingjam. He had had reason on many occasions to convict himself of suchindiscretions. He reflected a little dolefully, that he would probably bea very poor business man, that is, if business depended on caution and alack of confidence in his fellow-beings. But, bent on cheering himself,even if Horace should break faith with him and prattle to the limit--andHorace's limit was a long one, the blue canopy of heaven, when it came togossip--what possible harm could it do? In fact, it might serve Haydenimmeasurably, for the talk might reach the ears of those who held someinterest in the property and thus get him into immediate communicationwith them. In any event, let Horace gossip as he would, it could do nopossible injury, for Robert held the key of the situation with hiscarefully drawn maps and his many photographs. Blessings on his camera!

  There was a wild dash of hail against the window, a shriek of the wind,and Hayden looked up surprised at the interruption and then fell againinto his reverie. What an odd thing that had been for Penfield to say,that about hearing of the Veiled Mariposa, and how remarkably it had beenconfirmed. From a source, too, that he would least have expected it. Thatprophecy had certainly been literally fulfilled. Little Kitty Hampton wasthe last person he should have expected to mention The Veiled Mariposa.

  A Fortune-teller! The Veiled Mariposa! There was, there could be noquestion of coincidence here. It was design, beyond all peradventure, anddesign he meant very speedily to fathom. Hayden set his nice, square jawfirmly, and when Hayden set his jaw that way, you might look for thingsto happen. He might be over-impulsive and lacking in caution, but he hadplenty of initiative, pluck and determination. Then, his face relaxed andsoftened. He threw his cigarette into the bed of ashes on the hearth andstretched his arms above his head. Ah-h-h! He felt like Monte Cristo.Surely, surely, the world was his. Had he not, all in the space of a fewweeks, found his heart's love, and a clue to his fortune?

  Again, he started, but this time not at the storm which seemed to bedying down a bit, but at a sharp ring from the telephone on a desk at theother side of the room.

  "The deuce!" exclaimed Hayden getting on his feet. "Who on earth iscalling me such a night as this?" He walked over and lifted the receiverwith the usual curt, "Hello!"

  "Is this Mr. Hayden's apartment?" asked a voice which made him start. Itwas low, full, deliciously musical and with an unmistakable Spanishaccent.

  "Yes, and this is Mr. Hayden speaking," was Robert's response, with alightning change of tone. A quick, excited thrill of interest ran overhim. He strove to place that voice, ransacked his memory in the effort todo so, but quite in vain. He was, however, in spite of such swift,momentary precautions, absolutely convinced that he was listening tothose enchanting tones for the first time. "Who is this speaking?" heasked. But only a burst of low, rippling laughter with a faint hint ofmockery in it reached him.

  "I'm afraid I'm rude enough to insist upon maintaining my incognitoto-night," was the demure answer.

  "But that puts me at once at a disadvantage," protested Hayden.

  "Naturally," the laughter in her voice was irresistible now. "That iswhere a man ought to be."

  "That is where he usually is anyway," he remarked. "But you must admitthat there is something awfully uncanny about a situation like this. Onso wild a night one would be justified in expecting almost any kind of aghostly visitant."

  "Bar them out," she advised. "Remember Poe's Raven who still is sitting,never flitting, on the pallid bust of Pallas, just above the chamberdoor."

  Hayden glanced up involuntarily. "There isn't any pallid bust of Pallas,"he announced. "But that jolly old raven's method of paying a visit wascrude and commonplace compared to yours. He came tapping and rapping inthe most old-fashioned way; but you reach me with a wonderful disembodiedvoice through the ever mysterious avenue of the telephone. It reallymakes me creepy. Won't you locate it? Give it a name?"

  "Scientists," she reminded him in her delicious, broken English, "canreconstruct all kinds of extinct animals and birds from one small bone,or a tooth, or a beak, or hoof."

  "So might I," Hayden valorously asserted, "if I had as much to go on; buta voice is different."

  "Quite
beyond your powers," she taunted.

  "Not at all. I hadn't finished," Hayden was something of a Gascon atheart, "I will go the scientists one better and reconstruct you from avoice." He put back his hand and drew up a chair. He was enjoying himselfimmensely. "Now," impressively, "you are dark, dark and lovely and young,and you are sweet as chocolate and stimulating as coffee. And you wear arose in your hair and silken skirts like poppy-petals, and the tiniest ofblack slippers over white silk stockings; and you flutter an enormous fanthat sends the fragrance of the jasmine on your breast all through theair, and you have a beautiful name--oh a name as enchanting as yourvoice, have you not, Anita, Rosita, Chiquita, Pepita, Carmencita, and allthe rest of it?"

  "You are impertinent, much too bold," she admonished. "I will not talk toyou any more if you are not quite respectful; but the first part of yourdescription was pretty. Let me, if I can, do even half so well. You,senor, are rather tall and quite slender, no superfluous flesh, allmuscle, and your eyes are a dark gray and your hair is brown, so is yourface, by the way; and you have a cool, leisurely sort of manner, althoughyour speech is quite rapid, and you have a charming, oh, a most unusuallycharming smile."

  "But you know me!" cried Hayden naively. "Of course, of course," as herlaughter swelled, "I know you've flattered me to death," the red risingin his tanned cheek, "with all that rot about my grin. But," speakinglouder in the effort to drown those trills and ripples of melodiouslaughter, more elfishly mocking and elusive than ever, "your portrait ofme, no matter how grossly exaggerated, is in the main, correct."

  "Still talking?" droned the menacing voice of Central.

  "But it isn't fair," Hayden continued to protest to the Unknown. "Youhave me at a disadvantage, and I am going to drop all courtesy and anypretense of good manners. Now, are you ready? Yes? Well then, who are youand what do you want?"

  "Who am I? Ah, senor, a waif of the wind, adrift on the night's Plutonianshore; but an hour or two ago, the gale caught me up in Spain and sweptme over the seas. Regard me as a voice, merely a voice that would holdspeech with so distinguished a naturalist."

  "A naturalist!" exclaimed Hayden both disappointed and disconcerted. "Youhave mistaken your man. I can lay no claims to any scientificaccomplishments or achievements."

  "Oh, pardon!" There was an affected and exaggerated horror in her tones."I have made a mistake, oh, a great mistake. I had fancied that you werea collector of butterflies."

  Hayden nearly dropped the receiver. There was the smallest of pauses andthen he spoke in his accustomed tone, a little cooler and more leisurelythan usual, with some fleeting idea of caution.

  "Ah, yes, yes, I am somewhat interested in that line. But the fact isknown to few. Perhaps you will kindly tell me how you learned of myenthusiasm?"

  "Are you quite sure that you may not have mentioned the subject to meyourself." Her voice was full of subtle emphasis.

  "No, senorita," he laughed. "That will not do. You can not throw me offthe track that way, by trying to make me doubt my memory."

  "Then, truly, you do not recall the old glad days in Spain?" her voicequestioned incredulously, doubted, took on a little fall ofdisappointment, almost of wounded vanity or sentiment.

  "Senorita, emphatically, no. Had I, in the old glad days in Spain, or theold glad days anywhere else, ever met a woman with a voice like yours, Ishould never have forgotten her in a thousand years. No, senorita. Trysomething else. That will not do."

  "Zip!" There was unmistakable temper in the exclamation.

  "We were speaking of butterflies," said Hayden, alarmed lest she shouldring him off. "Are you at all interested in that line?"

  "Indeed, yes," she assured him, "although I doubt very much if myinterest is anything like as scientific as yours. I fancy I am moreinterested in them because of their wonderful beauty, than for any moreparticular reason. And what in all the world, senor, is so beautiful asthe butterflies of the tropics? Do you remember how they come floatingout into the sunlight from the dark mysterious depths of the forests?Such colors! Such iridescence on their wings; but the most beautiful ofall are the great gray ones, senor, the silver butterflies."

  Again Hayden started violently and again succeeded in controlling thesurprise her words aroused in him. "I quite agree with you," he saidpolitely. "The silver butterfly is one of the most beautiful of all thetropical varieties."

  "Yes, truly." Again there was the hint of irresistible laughter in thelady's tones. "But there is a curious little fact that I fancy very fewof you naturalists know, and that is that it is not confined absolutelyto the tropics. Doubt the assertion if you will, but I make it calmly: I,senor, with my own eyes have seen silver butterflies at New York, and inthe most unlikely places; oh, places you would never dream of, the opera,for instance."

  "You surprise me!" Hayden was prepared for anything now, and his voicewas carefully indifferent, almost drawling; but his mind was working likelightning. What on earth could this mean? Was it a possibility that itmight be Marcia,--Marcia Oldham herself, thus cleverly disguising hervoice? No, no, a thousand times, no. He hastily rejected the thought.Even if she possessed the skill--nevertheless the very tones themselvesrevealed a woman of a totally different type and temperament.

  "I am so anxious to see your collection," continued the rich,warmly-colored voice. "I am wondering if you have been able to secure aspecimen of a very rare butterfly indeed, one which some naturalistsbelieve is quite extinct. It is called 'The Veiled Mariposa.'"

  Hayden felt as if in some peculiar, intuitive sort of way, he hadexpected this from the first. For a moment or two, he could not controlhis excitement. His mouth felt curiously dry, and he noticed that hishand was trembling.

  "I--I think I have heard of it," he said at last, and objurgated himselffor his stammering banality.

  "But," and the word seemed to express a pout, "I understood that it wasin your collection."

  "Ah, one must not trust too much to report and rumor," Hayden remindedher.

  "Then it is not in your collection?" she persisted.

  "Senorita, my collection is a large one." He smiled amusedly at thethought of this hypothetical collection, and the grandiloquent tone inwhich he referred to it. "I can not say, offhand, just what varieties itcontains."

  "True," assented the voice reasonably, and Hayden felt that its possessorwas probably a person who was reasonable when one would naturally expecther to be capricious, and capricious when one would naturally expect herto be reasonable. "True," she repeated thoughtfully, "I only wanted tosay, senor, that should you find that you have that particular butterfly,I am in touch with certain collectors who would be willing to pay a largeprice for it."

  "I have no desire to sell outright, senorita, please understand that,"Hayden spoke quickly, taking a high tone. "But should I care to consideryour proposition, how am I to communicate with you? Shall I ring upCentral and say: 'Please give me the delicious voice?'"

  "Ah, senor, you are of an absurdity! Never fear, you will hear from meagain, and soon. Good-by." Her voice died away like music.

  Hayden mechanically hung up the receiver, and then sat for a moment ortwo staring rather stupidly before him. At last, he shook his head andlaughed in whimsical perplexity: "Who would ever have considered New Yorkthe haunt and home of mystery?" he murmured. "Every day connects me witha new one, and the charming ladies who seem involved in them apparentlytake delight in leaving me completely in the air, suspended, likeMahomet's coffin, 'twixt Heaven and earth, with the pleasing promise thatI shall hear from them again--and soon."