CHAPTER XXXV FLORENCE GETS HER MAN

In a bright colored dressing gown, her golden hair falling about her shoulders, Petite Jeanne sat buried deep among cushions in her great easy chair.

It was high noon of her great day. She had slept late. Now, as she sat sipping tea and munching toast, she thought of the past and of the future.

Behind her in the past lay disappointments, heartaches and many perils. Were they gone forever? Did only a golden future lay before? She hoped so.

And yet—she thought of the dark-faced gypsy whose one purpose in life appeared to be to come into possession of her gypsy Fire God; she thought, too, of the enemy of Maxwell Street. It was he, she felt sure, who was hounding poor old Dan Baker for money.
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“He’s a blackmailer! I hope we have heard the last of him!” she cried passionately.

Soon she was to know that they had not!

Since the affair at the door of the opera stage and the theft of Florence’s Boston bag, the ever thoughtful Solomon had secured a special taxi driver, a man of skill and courage, to carry Florence and Petite Jeanne wherever they must go. But until now nothing further had happened.

“And to-night is the night!” She poked her pink toes out from the blanket in which they were wrapped and murmured: “And to-night, you feet, you must do what Florence calls your durndest!” She laughed a merry laugh.

At four their special cabman honked in the street below. They would go to the theatre. There in her dressing room Petite Jeanne would rest, partake of a belated tea, and await the zero hour.

She was thinking of this in a dreamy way as they sped toward the theatre when, as they paused before a crossing signal, shocking things began to happen.
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“Make room!” a gruff voice demanded. A man in a huge overcoat attempted to crowd in beside Florence. She resisted. All her splendid muscles went into play. The taxi driver was not lagging in his part. Swinging the car sharply about, he attempted to dislodge the intruder from the running board. A car coming from the opposite direction struck his hind wheel. His cab spun around, skidded sharply to the right and struck the curb with a crash.

The shock threw the intruder from his place. He went sprawling, struck his head on the street curb and lay there dazed.

In an instant Florence, filled with honest courage and righteous indignation, leaped upon him.

But now a second man, springing from his car, dashed at her. She could hardly cope with both of them. But reinforcements were coming. A crowd was gathering. From this crowd sprang a stout, ruddy faced man. With one deft blow he felled the oncoming assailant and, with apparent satisfaction proceeded to pin him to the pavement.
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Florence felt the man she held struggle to free himself. But just then two burly policemen, arriving on the scene, relieved her of her task.

Trembling from head to toe, Petite Jeanne had left the wrecked cab and was standing by the curb when the man who had come to their rescue approached with lifted hat.

“I have a car here, a rather good one.” He half apologized for intruding. “Your cab’s smashed. The driver tells me you are bound for your theatre. It would be a pleasure—” Suddenly he stopped and stared with dawning recognition at the little French girl.

“Why, upon my word!” he exclaimed. “It is you! Petite Jeanne! The very person for whom I am looking!” He stripped off a glove to hold out his hand.

Until that time, thinking him only a gallant stranger, Jeanne had taken no notice of this man. Now, after one surprised look, she cried, with the feeling native to her race:

“Preston Wamsley! My very dear friend!”
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It was, indeed! Having returned, after a month of travel, to his hotel in New York, and finding there Jeanne’s letter regarding his long lost luggage, this friend of her sea journey had hastened immediately to this city and to Angelo’s studio. There he had received the French girl’s address and had been driving to her home when these strange happenings had arrested his progress.

“Nothing,” he said, with a ring of genuine emotion in his voice, “could give me greater pleasure than to drive you to your theatre. Your friend may come with us. You have an unusual taxi driver. He appears to know the ropes. He will make all necessary reports and see that those rascals are put behind bars where they belong. It was a kidnaping plot beyond a doubt.

“No,” he said a moment later, as Jeanne, after sinking into the cushions of the great car he had employed, started shakily to explain, “you need not tell me a thing to-night. To-morrow will do quite as well. Your nerves have been shaken. And this, the driver assures me, is to be your great night.”
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“It is,” Petite Jeanne murmured. Then sitting up quite suddenly, she produced a ticket from her purse. “This,” she said, “is the last one in my private row. You must take it.”

“I could not well refuse.” He tucked it away in his billfold; then, as Jeanne sat quite still with eyes closed, striving to still her madly beating heart, they glided onward toward the theatre and her night of nights.