“I shall be careful. And now—” Jeanne rose, then went weaving her way in a slow rhythmic dance toward a narrow metal stairway leading to a balcony. “Now I go to my dreams. Bon nuit!”
“Good night,” Florence replied as once more her eyes sought the burned-out fire.
“Strange! Life is strange!” she murmured.
And life for her had been strange. Perhaps it always would be strange.
She did not retire at once. The studio, with its broad fireplace, its deep-cushioned chairs and dim lights, was a cozy, dreamy place at night. She wanted to think and dream a while.
Never in all her event-filled life had Florence been employed in a stranger way than at that moment. She was, you might say, a reporter, or, better perhaps, an investigator, for one of the city’s great daily papers.
She had walked into the newspaper office one morning, as she had walked into a hundred places, just to ask what there was she might do. She had, by great good fortune, been introduced to Frances Ward, who proved to be the most interesting and inspiring old lady she had ever known.
“Our paper,” Mrs. Ward had said, “is cutting down on its playground and welfare work. There is—” she had hesitated to peer searchingly into Florence’s face—“there is something I have been thinking of for a considerable time. It’s a thing I can’t do myself.” She laughed a cackling sort of laugh. “I am too old and wise-looking. You are young and fresh and, pardon me, innocent-looking.
“You wouldn’t mind,” she asked suddenly, “having your fortune told?”
“Of course not.” Florence stared.