The Magic Curtain Read online

  CHAPTER III ON THE VERGE OF ADVENTURE

  Long after Petite Jeanne's dainty satin slippers had danced her off tobed, Florence Huyler sat before the fire thinking. If your acquaintancewith Florence is of long standing, you will know that she was possessedof both courage and strength. For some time a gymnasium director, she haddeveloped her splendid physical being to the last degree. Even now,though her principal business in life had for some time been that ofkeeping up with the little French girl, she spent three hours each day inthe gymnasium and swimming pool. Her courage surpassed her strength; yetas she contemplated the step Petite Jeanne had taken and the events whichmust immediately follow that move, she trembled.

  "It's all too absurd, anyway," she told herself. "She wants to be anopera 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 werefutile. Petite Jeanne believed in Fate. Fate would take her where shewished to go.

  "If she wished to marry the President's son, she'd become a maid in theWhite House. And then--" Florence paused. She dared not say that PetiteJeanne would not attain her end. Up to this moment Jeanne had surmountedall obstacles. Adopted by the gypsies, she had lived in their camps foryears. She had inherited their fantastic attitude toward life. For hernothing was entirely real, and nothing unattainable.

  "But to-morrow night!" Florence shuddered. The little French girl meantto don her dress suit and as Pierre Andrews return to her post as usherin 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. Shestole 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 knewright well. She had no need to steal. She still had a little money in thebank. Yet, as a means to an end, had she taken the necklace, intendinglater to return it?

  "No! No!" she whispered aloud. "Jeanne is reckless, but she'd never dothat!

  "But where is the necklace? Who did take it?" For a time she endeavoredto convince herself that the precious string of pearls, having becomeunclasped, had slipped to the floor, that it had been discovered and evennow was in its youthful owner's possession.

  "No such luck." She prodded the fire vigorously. "In the end fortunesmiles 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 havespent 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 wearit? 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'swhat counts most with Jeanne. Oh, my dear little Jeanne! What an adorablepeck of trouble you are!"

  And all the time, quite lost in the big, eager, hungry world that waitedjust outside her window, the little French girl lay among her pinkeiderdown quilts and slept the sleep of the just.

  The cold gray dawn of the morning after found Petite Jeanne considerablyshaken in her mind regarding the outcome of this, her latest adventure.

  "Will they truly arrest me?" she asked herself as, slipping into a heavyrobe, 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 thisvery city. An uninviting place it had been, too. With judge and lawyersalternately 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, oglinggroup of visitors looking on, the whole place had depressed her beyondwords.

  "Am I to stand there to be stared at? Will the lawyers and the judge makea 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. Youwill see that I do not have your necklace!'

  "But no!" She flushed. "As Petite Jeanne I might be searched. But asPierre. 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 upcourage. Gray skies, gray streets, gray fog, dripping walls of greatbuildings, 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 oncein 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 anastonishing fact: numbers of people were hurrying past her. A strangeproceeding on a drab day when men prefer to be indoors. But strangest ofall, each one of these individuals was shorter than Petite Jeanneherself. And the little French girl was far from tall.

  "How extraordinary!" she murmured under her breath. "It is as if I weresome half-grown Gulliver in the land of the Pygmies."

  She knew this was pure fancy. But who were these people? A look into onestorm-clad, bemuffled face told her the answer:

  "Orientals. But where can they be going? They must have come from manyplaces."

  The question absorbed her attention. It drove trouble from her mind. Shefollowed the one whose face she had scrutinized. In time she saw him dartup a short flight of stairs to enter a door on which were inscribed thewords: "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 possessedof a highly ornamented front. Strange and grotesque figures, dragons,birds of prey, great, ugly faces all done in wood or metal and painted ingaudy 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 pacesto the left.

  "Seven, three, seven," she read aloud. She gave a sudden start. She knewthis location. Only three blocks away was a costumer's shop. For a dollaror two this costumer would turn her into any sort of person she mightchoose to be, a pirate, an Eskimo, yes, even a Chinaman. That was hisbusiness. At once Jeanne was on her way to that shop.

  In an astonishingly short time she was back; or at least some personanswering her description as to height, breadth of shoulders, glovenumber, etc., was coming down the street. But was it Jeanne? Perhaps notone of her best friends could have told. Certainly in the narrow hallwayof that mysterious building, which little men were still entering, hernationality was not challenged. To these mysterious little people, whowere gathering for who knows what good or evil reason, she was for themoment an Oriental.