Part 14 (1/2)

Kitty thought quickly. ”Give me ten days to decide upon things and have my orders carried out.”

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

”Of course they will come. They would break any other engagement to meet Mademoiselle Mariposa.”

”Then I will find out now if she will come, if you will allow me to use your telephone.”

He was lucky enough to find Ydo at home; but when he informed her that he was giving a dinner for a few friends on Tuesday, ten days away, and that he 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. Warren Hampton'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 out and 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 her chair, but danced about expressing her delight at the prospect of at last seeing 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 are so vivid that she insists on seeing them in tangible form. I don't believe she particularly counts the cost or the base material means by which these things must be accomplished.”

”Fancy!” sighed Kitty. ”Oh, I do hope she will wear one of her stunning gowns and some of those marvelous jewels they say she possesses, set in the most wonderful, quaint ways, Horace Penfield says. But surely she will.”

”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. She may strike you as a bit staccato and stilted sometimes; but it is natural to 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 not heard, and now, Mrs. Hampton turned with a stifled scream to see a stranger, a Gipsy, standing almost at her elbow.

”Pretty lady!” The English was more deliciously broken than ever, and so cajoling was the whisper that it would have coaxed the birds off the trees and wheedled money from the stingiest pocket. ”Pretty lady, let me tell your fortune. Cross my palm with silver. 'Tis the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter who asks you.”

Kitty looked from the Gipsy to Robert in bewilderment. This was not the dazzling figure in gauzes and satins and jewels she had expected, a capricious lady of a foreign and Southern n.o.bility, whose whimsical and erratic fancy was occasionally amused by a change of role. This was a daughter of the long, brown path, who afoot and light-hearted took naturally to the open road, with the tanned cheek, white teeth, and merry eyes of her kind.

And yet, if not the glittering vision Kitty had antic.i.p.ated, Ydo was a sufficiently vivid and picturesque figure. Her short corduroy skirt had faded with wear and was.h.i.+ng to a pale fawn-tint with a velvety bloom upon it; her brown boots were high and laced, her blue blouse had faded like her skirt to a soft and lovely hue. A red sash confined her waist, a handkerchief of the same color was knotted loosely about her throat, while a yellow scarf was tied about her head and fell in long ends down her back.

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