essed in every movement, every line of face and figure, would she
have been beautiful at all?

While Robert considered this question the Mariposa looked at her watch,
then touched an electric bell. It was answered by her private secretary,
a dark, pale, colorless young woman whom Hayden had not seen before.

"Eunice," said the Mariposa carelessly, "I do not wish to be disturbed
for an hour. Whoever calls within that time, tell them that it is
impossible for me to give them a reading to-day. Make other appointments
for them at as early a date as possible. That is all." The depressed
young woman bowed and withdrew.

"It is exactly half-after three, Mr. Hayden." She snapped her watch shut.
"Now we can talk. I fancy you are quite right. The crystal really did
not--what do you say--did not, cut very much ice."

"You think then that, as you suggested the other evening, we shall
probably find an interest in common?" he said.

"Undoubtedly. Several of them, perhaps."

He bent nearer. "Including butterflies?" he suggested.

She showed her white and even teeth. "Including butterflies," she
repeated.

"But first," he said impetuously, "do allay the curiosity which, I assure
you, would otherwise continue to come between me and any business matters
we might discuss."

She looked at him with an inquiry which held a sort of prescient reserve.
He could see that if not actually on guard, she held herself in readiness
to be so.

"What do you mean?"

"You," he said daringly. "I have sat here watching and waiting to catch
you tripping in that faultless accent of yours. It must be real. I have
lived too much in Southern countries to be deceived."

She looked gratified, her pleasure showing itself in a deepening color.
"It was adopted for business purposes, now it has become second nature.
I, too, have lived much in Southern countries. The Romany strain, my
mother was a Gipsy. You are a brother, Mr. Hayden, if not in blood, in
kind. That kind that is so much more than kin. You are here to-day, there
to-morrow. The doom of the wanderer is on you, and the blessing. Take it
on the word of a fortune-teller." She spread out her hands smiling her
wide, gay smile with a touch of irony, of feminine experience, the
serpent-bought wisdom of Eve in it. "You know what it means to hear the
red gods calling, calling; to know that no matter what binds you, whether
white arms or ropes of gold, you have to go."

"You show yourself a true daug