Chapter 18

By the time Hayden had reached his own door his nerves were steadied and his poise somewhat restored. He felt sore and bruised in spirit, however, and desired nothing so much as to sit by himself for a time and think out, if possible, some satisfactory arrangement of this tormenting matter. But, as he threw open the door of his library with a sensation of relief at the prospect of a period of unbroken solitude, he stopped short, barely repressing the strong language which rose involuntarily to his lips.

In spite of the fact that spring had at last made her coy and reluctant debut, there had been a sharp change in the weather and winter again held the center of the stage. Regardful of this fact, Tatsu had built a roaring fire in the library to cheer Hayden's home-coming. The flames crackled up the chimney and cast ruddy reflections on the furniture and walls; last night's orchids seemed to lean from their vases toward this delightful and tropical warmth, and there, with a chair drawn up as near the hearth as comfort permitted, was Horace Penfield, long, lean, cold-blooded, enjoying the permeating glow and radiance.

He turned his head lazily when Hayden opened the door, and Robert in his indignation felt a faint chill of apprehension as he met that glance. Penfield's eyes had lost their usual saurian impassiveness. They were almost alive, with that expression of interest which only the lapses and moral divagations of others could arouse in them.

"Hello!" he said, indifferent to the fact that Hayden still stood frowning in the doorway. "I've been waiting about half an hour for you."

"Anything especial?" asked Robert coldly, walking over and standing by the mantelpiece, his moody gaze on the burning logs.

Penfield chuckled. "Oh, I don't know." There was an unconcealed triumph in his tones; but he had no intention of being hasty, he meant to extract the last drop of epicurean pleasure that was possible in this situation. Penfield was not lacking in dramatic sense, and he had no intention of losing any fine points in the narration of his news by careless and slovenly methods of relation.

"No," he continued, "nothing particular; but I've lately run across one or two things which I fancied might be of interest to you. By the way," with the effect of branching off with a side issue, "of course you know that Ames' engagement to the Mariposa is announced?"

"I know nothing of Ames' private affairs," returned Hayden shortly. "How should I?"

"You might have judged that from the way he behaved last night." Penfield again indulged in a series of unpleasant chuckles. "His mother! Lord! There'll be the deuce to pay there! Look at the way she's been behaving over his attentions to Marcia Oldham, and then just fancy how she'll take this! She evidently gave that luncheon the other day to propitiate Marcia, and invited the Mariposa to show the world that Wilfred's so-called infatuation was merely an amiable and tepid interest. I wouldn't miss seeing the fun for a farm--no, not for all those lost mines of yours. I think that I shall drop in for a cup of tea with the old lady this afternoon, and murmur a few condolences in her ear, and then watch her fly to bits." He rolled about in his chair in paroxysms of silent mirth. "But," sobering, "it's too bad to think of missing the interview between the Mariposa and herself. I really do not know which one I would put my money on." He considered this a moment. "But that isn't the only interesting thing I've gleaned in the day's work." He glanced keenly at Robert through his white lashes, and again the triumph vibrated in his thin voice. "Hayden, do you know I've discovered the owner of your lost mine?"

Robert sat silent a moment, motionless, apparently thinking; his face at least betrayed nothing. "The owners," he corrected.

"No, I don't mean owners at all," returned Penfield coolly, "I mean just what I said--the owner. Ah," the most unctuous satisfaction in his voice, "for all your non-committal manner I don't believe you know as much as I do."

"Perhaps that's true," said Hayden sharply. "Whom do you mean by the owner?"

"Why, the elderly gray-haired man with whom Marcia Oldham is seen more or less," affirmed Horace, self-gratulations in his tone. What if his field was petty? He did not consider it so, and his feats were great.

Hayden dropped the hand with which he had been shielding his eyes and stared at the gossip on the other side of the hearth. "What on earth are you talking about?" he demanded.

"I'm giving you facts, straight facts, dear boy," replied Horace, his pale eyes shining through his white lashes.

"But--but--"

"Oh, there's no 'but--but' about it." Horace was consummately assured. "That man is the owner of your lost mine, so go ahead and dicker with him. I know. You can take my word for it."

"Is this a fact, Penfield?" asked Robert gravely. Horace had at least succeeded in impressing him.

"True as I'm sitting here. There's absolutely no doubt about it. Yes, I've got down to the secret of that old lost and found mine of yours." He chuckled at his wit. "But," his complacency increasing to the point of exultation, "that isn't all I know, by any means. All winter long I've been bothering my head about those butterflies the women are wearing, and now, at last, I've got a line on them."

His voice sounded curiously far away to Hayden and he did not at once take in the meaning of the words. His head was whirling. So, that middle-aged, gray-haired man was really the owner of the mine, and it was for him that Marcia--No, he would not think of it. He would not let those torturing doubts invade his mind. With every force of his nature he would again resist them and bar them out.

"Yes," Penfield was gloating, "I'm on to the butterflies, at last."

"Why should you imagine that they have any special significance?" Hayden's voice sounded faint and dull in his ears.

"Because I have a nose for news, Hayden. I was born with it. I feel news in the air. I scent it and I'm rarely mistaken. I said to myself last November, those butterflies mean something, and I intend to get to the bottom of them. And where do you think they led me? Oh, you will be interested in this, Hayden," smiling. "They led me right to the root of Marcia Oldham's secret."

Hayden threw up his head, a flash of anger on his spiritless face. "You can't discuss Miss Oldham here, Penfield."

"Oh, easy now," returned Horace cynically. "It's nothing to her discredit, far from it. You remember the night you suggested that she might live by the sale of her pictures, and I scoffed at you and said that all the pretty little pictures she could paint in a year wouldn't keep her in gowns? Well, you were nearer right than I for once."

A light came into Hayden's face. He opened his mouth as if about to speak.

"Now, just wait," Horace admonished him. "The reason your suggestion struck me as ridiculous was this: One must have a reputation to make a decent living as an artist, and who ever heard of the Oldham pictures? Where were they on exhibition? Who bought them? Nothing in it, you see." He moved his hand with a gesture of finality. "But," impressively, "Marcia Oldham can paint just the same, and beautifully; but that is not all she can do. It appears that as a child she very early showed a marked artistic talent. Her mother always disliked it; though her father encouraged it in every way; but she developed a rather peculiar bent, and in the years that she spent abroad she devoted herself to the designing and making of jewelry and objets d'art. Her especial fad, you know, were those exquisite translucent enamels, just like her butterflies.

"Well, when her father died, and the crash came, Marcia, who was already ranked as a professional among people who knew about those things, decided to go into it as a business and support her mother and herself.

"But that is where the old lady comes in. Obstinate as a mule, weak as water, with a lot of silly, old-fashioned pride, she absolutely balked, had hysterics, took to her bed, did all the possible and impossible things that women do under such circumstances, with the result that Marcia was at her wit's end. Finally, the mother capitulated up to a certain point. Marcia might go ahead and pursue her avocation in peace under one condition, that it should be a dead secret, that not a whisper of it should reach the world.

"At first, Marcia rebelled at this decision; but one of her friends in her confidence, probably Kitty Hampton, who has considerable executive ability, persuaded her that it held certain advantages. For instance, she as a noticeable figure, not only on account of her beauty, but also because of her style and her positive genius for dress. Now, Kitty held--and as events have proved, correctly--that Marcia, by keeping the business end of it dark, could, by appearing as a devotee of social life, advertise her wares as she could no other way, especially when aided and seconded by Mrs. Habersham and Mrs. Hampton.

"But neither of these two women is financially interested with her. That being the case, who backs the business? I am inclined to think"--Horace spoke thoughtfully and yet with sufficient assurance--"that that person is identical with the man who is the owner of the lost Mariposa. By the way, you did not ask his name. It is Carrothers."

"Carrothers! Carrothers! Why, that was Ydo's name. Ydo Carrothers." Hayden huddled down into his chair. He could not think. His brain, his dazed and miserable brain had received too many impressions. They had crowded upon him and he could not take them in. Penfield was talking, talking straight ahead, but although Robert heard the words, they conveyed no meaning to him. Then from the maze of them, Marcia's name stood out clearly. Horace was speaking of her again.

"Hayden, are you asleep? I've just asked you why Marcia Oldham was so surreptitiously carrying off that package from the little table in the drawing-room last night. She wrapped it up in her gauze scarf and carried it off as stealthily as a conspirator in a melodrama."

Hayden threw off his lethargy with a supreme effort. "Did she?" in a tired and rather indifferent voice. "I dare say she was afraid of disturbing the others. I asked her to take them home with her and look them over."

"Oh!" Penfield's voice was a little disappointed but not suspicious. He rose. There was no use in wasting any more time on a man who took news, real news, so indifferently as Hayden. He thought with a smile of various drawing-rooms where his bits of information would create a sensation. Then why should he who could take the stage as a man of the hour, the most eagerly listened-to person in town, longer deny himself that pleasure?

"Good-by, Hayden," he said hastily, nor waited to hear if he was answered.