“I’ll look.” The brown one vanished, to return almost at once.
“Yass’m! Jest step right in!” She bowed low. “The priestess will see you, ’zactly at four.”
The reception room which the girls entered was large. Along one side was a row of comfortable chairs. All but two of the chairs were filled. If one were to judge by their rich attire, these people were the owners of the cars parked outside. They were all women. One was old and one quite young. The others, four in all, were middle-aged.
“She’s marvelous!” one of the waiting ones said in a half whisper. “The first time I saw her she told me I had a boy who was not yet sixteen and who was more than six feet tall. She said I had been married twice, but that I have no husband now. She said my principal jewels were a necklace of pearls coming down from my grandmother, a diamond bracelet and three diamond rings. All of this is exactly right. And think of it! She had never seen me before! I had not so much as given her my name. Wasn’t that most astonishing?”
Florence listened in vast surprise. This woman was speaking, beyond doubt, of the voodoo priestess. Could she indeed tell you all about yourself, your innermost secrets? She shuddered. Who could want any stranger to know all that? She looked at June. She, too, had heard. Her face was all alight. “All these people believe in her,” she whispered. “They are much older than I, and must be wiser, and they are rich. Surely she will tell me where my father is, and when he will come back. It—it’s so very little to ask.” There was an appealing note in the girl’s low voice that went straight to Florence’s heart.
“I have ten dollars left,” June whispered. “Next week I’ll have a little more, and soon a very great deal.”
“Yes,” Florence thought, “and therein lies your great peril! In such times as these much money is a menace to any innocent and unprotected person. We must find her father, we must indeed! But how? There’s the trouble.”
Her thoughts were broken in upon by the brown girl of the rolling eyes. “The priestess will see you all now,” she whispered.
“June,” Florence asked in a low tone, “have you been here before?”
“Never.” The girl shuddered.