“Fine!” the artist exclaimed. “It’s wonderful to be strong and be able to glory in it. On with the feast!”
CHAPTER III
DANGER TOMORROW
“Jeanne, one of your friends has stolen four hundred dollars!” Florence exclaimed, springing to her feet as Jeanne, garbed in a plaid coat and with a silver-grey fox fur about her neck, breezed in from the night. She had been to the Symphony concert. Her ears still rang with the final notes of a great concerto. Florence’s startling words burst upon her like a sudden blare of trombones and clash of cymbals all in one.
“My friend?” she exclaimed in sudden consternation. “One of my friends has stolen all that?”
“From a poor widow with three small children,” Florence said soberly. Then in a changed, half teasing tone, “Anyway, the paper says the thief was a gypsy, so I suppose she was, and a fortune teller as well.”
“Oh! A gypsy!” Breathing a sigh of relief, Jeanne threw off her wraps, tossed back her shock of golden hair, then sank into a chair before the burned-out fire where Florence had sat musing for an hour.
“My dear—” Jeanne placed a long slender hand on Florence’s arm. “Not all gypsies are my friends—only some gypsies. Not all gypsies are good. Some are very, very bad. You should know that. Surely you have not forgotten how those bad ones in France seized me and carried me away to the Alps when I was to dance in the so beautiful Paris Opera!”
“No,” Florence laughed, “I have not forgotten. All the same, you must help me. Mr. Joslyn—he is our editor, you know—sent down a marked copy of the paper. Above the story of the gypsy fortune teller’s theft he wrote, ‘This is right in your line.’
“So!” she sighed. “It’s up to me. Until just now I have been a reporter of a sort, rather more entertaining and amusing than serious. But now—” she squared her shoulders. “Now I am to become a sort of reporter-detective, at least for a time.
“And Jeanne,” she added earnestly, “you must help me, you truly must. You know all the gypsies in the city.”