"I—I think I have heard of it," he said at last, and objurgated himself for his stammering banality.
"But," and the word seemed to express a pout, "I understood that it was in your collection."
"Ah, one must not trust too much to report and rumor," Hayden reminded her.
"Then it is not in your collection?" she persisted.
"Señorita, my collection is a large one." He smiled amusedly at the thought of this hypothetical collection, and the grandiloquent tone in which he referred to it. "I can not say, offhand, just what varieties it contains."
"True," assented the voice reasonably, and Hayden felt that its possessor was probably a person who was reasonable when one would naturally expect her to be capricious, and capricious when one would naturally expect her to be reasonable. "True," she repeated thoughtfully, "I only wanted to say, señor, that should you find that you have that particular butterfly, I am in touch with certain collectors who would be willing to pay a large price for it."
"I have no desire to sell outright, señorita, please understand that," Hayden spoke quickly, taking a high tone. "But should I care to consider your proposition, how am I to communicate with you? Shall I ring up Central and say: 'Please give me the delicious voice?'"
"Ah, señor, you are of an absurdity! Never fear, you will hear from me again, and soon. Good‑by." Her voice died away like music.
Hayden mechanically hung up the receiver, and then sat for a moment or two staring rather stupidly before him. At last, he shook his head and laughed in whimsical perplexity: "Who would ever have considered New York the haunt and home of mystery?" he murmured. "Every day connects me with a new one, and the charming ladies who seem involved in them apparently take delight in leaving me completely in the air, suspended, like Mahomet's coffin, 'twixt Heaven and earth, with the pleasing promise that I shall hear from them again—and soon."