CHAPTER XIV
TWO BLACK HORSES AND A COFFIN
For a full half hour the little French girl reposed upon that luxurious couch. Now and again her slender fingers touched the folds of her filmy gown. Often her eyes wandered from pictures to tapestries, then to little touches everywhere that told of lavish expenditure.
As a kitten lying on the doorstep basks in the sunshine, she basked in the warmth of elegance that was all about her.
“I am Lorena LeMar,” she was telling herself. “I am no longer a very careful little French girl. I am care-free, extravagant. I must tip the porter and the bell boy. I must ride in a taxi. I must—
“Oh!” she exclaimed, springing to her feet. “I came near to forgetting. We must go to the Tavern. I must see Jensie.”
“To-night?”
“At once.”
Jeanne was out of her finery and into street clothes in a jiffy.
“Now down the elevator and into a taxi.” They were away like a streak. “You see,” she explained, “there is so very much I do not know about those blessed mountains. Jensie must tell me. She must go with me to-morrow. Ah! That most terrible to-morrow!” she sighed.
Florence scarcely heard her. She was thinking of many things, of the long-eared Chinaman, of Erik Nord’s story, of the three-bladed knife and last but not least of Jensie and her “haunts.”