Scarcely had her head touched the pillow than she was fast asleep.
Jeanne did not sleep. There was no need. For was she not at heart a gypsy? And did not gypsies sleep when the spirit moved them to do so? Twenty hours in one long sleep and after that, if opportunity presented itself, twenty hours of adventure.
Ah, yes, no rising at seven to gulp down toast and coffee, then to dash for a train. Jeanne was a real vagabond. Curled up among the cushions in the sunshine, she had slept long hours that day.
So now she dragged the mysterious box into their tiny living room and spread its highly colored banners on every available piece of furniture.
“Truly,” she whispered, “they are grotesque.” She was studying a picture, all done in some form of needlework, the picture of a god with a dozen arms and quite as many legs. “But then, they are beautiful, too. What gorgeous tapestries they would make!”
She was thinking now of the all too bare walls of the great living room in her own castle in France.
She had not found being rich in France a joyous business, this Petite Jeanne.
In France if you are young and you are rich, then you are watched over by a mother or perhaps an aunt (Jeanne had an aunt). You must see certain people. You must not see others. You must not wander away alone. You must not—oh, no, my dear, you must not—speak to strangers! No life was this for a sweet and beautiful vagabond like Petite Jeanne.
So, when Florence had written her a glowing letter telling of the city of many marvels that was spreading itself fairy-like across the waterfront in Chicago, she gave her chateau over to a caretaker, bade him allow all the good children to play on her grounds and in her forest at will, then took a ship for America and her beloved big pal, Florence.
“And now,” she sighed happily, “here I am.