No helping of "a thousand on a plate," as doughboy might have expected, did Jane serve from the pot. No stream of gold fell through her fingers, to puddle between them on the stone-flagged floor. No packets of bank-notes crinkled in her grasp. No king's-ransom jewels blinked in the night-light after their long interment. Yet was the girl's prediction proved true that he scarcely could believe at first the nature of their find. Stupidly he stared. Only slowly could his mind, face its surprise and its enormity.

CHAPTER XXVII-"FORTUNE FOREVERMORE"

At ten o'clock next morning a taxicab carrying three fares drew out of the Fifth Avenue "pa.s.s" and stopped before the Sturgis house. A woman and one of the men alighted. The second remained seated, his waiting role evidently prearranged, as the pair did not so much as nod back at him. Ascending the stone flight, they rang the front bell, as strangers might. In due time the door swung open.

"Miss Jane-thank Heaven you're alive and back again!" Jasper's exclamation was fervent beyond all rules of butlership. "Mr. Pape, good morning, sir. Your arrival is timely, too. They have been telephoning in all directions to locate you. Such excitement, Miss Jane, as we've been suffering!"

"_They_, Jasper?" The girl faced about in the vestibule.

"The madame, Mrs. Sturgis, and Judge Allen. He has had a fall and broken his shoulder, we fear. Mr. Harford, also, was in some sort of accident.

An automobile struck him, I believe."

"Accidents all round, eh?" Pape enquired. "Ain't that odd?"

"Indeed, yes, sir-odd and unfortunate."

Distressed as he looked, Jasper might have joined in the exchanged smile of the younger pair, had he known how fortuitous, if odd, was this gathering of those persons concerned in the pending crock's-bottom settlement. Indeed, since the lid had been lifted from the bean pot of fabulous store, circ.u.mstances had worked with them.

Their exit from the block-house and the park had been shared with that of the many young couples driven from Eden at the strokes of midnight.

With the crock between them wrapped in Pape's coat, they had sauntered out Pioneers Gate unmolested by the law so lately hot at their heels.

Straight to the yellow brick on East Sixty-third they had whirred themselves and their find; had seen triumph complete in a pair of outward-blinded eyes which could reflect glad sights from within.

Only an hour off after breakfast did Pape ask for the rescue of his equine pal from the granite-spiked corral that flanks the mid-park stables. This was effected by a ransom payment insignificant as compared with the paint-pony's joy. He was then ready for the business of this first day of real togethership with his self-selected-she who admittedly herself had selected him.

Of the quartette in the luxurious living-room upstairs, Irene Sturgis was the first to exclaim their unannounced entry.

"Jane-and still with _him_-the impossible person!"

The histrionic horror in her voice brought Mills Harford to his feet; contrary-wise, sank Mrs. Sturgis into the depths of a wing-chair; broke up the council of war under way beside the couch on which lay the wounded little judge.

"Good morning, one and all!"

The cheer of Jane's greeting was not reflected in the faces of those addressed.

"We hardly hoped to find you bunched up and waiting for us like this,"

Pape added with something of a flourish. "Saves sending for you."

The matron straightened on the edge of her chair and, with a precise expression, inspected first him, then her niece. "You two spent the night together, I a.s.sume?"

"Most of it, auntie, at a spiritualistic seance in Central Park."

Pape chuckled. "The most inspiring I ever attended."

"_Jane_-and you the girl I counted on as so reliable! My Irene is steady by contrast. You pretend to go visiting friends and only let us know your whereabouts when you get arrested. One night in a police station-house and the next-I presume-at least, I _hope_, for all our sakes, that you thought to marry this-this young man before bringing him here."

"Marry, mother-that _brute_?" Irene slithered from her seat on the arm of the chair recently vacated by the handsome real-estater. Throwing herself upon her cousin's neck with a freshet of real tears, she wailed: "Oh, my poor dar-rling-our _poor_ old Janie! No matter what your mistakes, you are more to be pitied than punished. Don't lay your neck on the altar of matrimony for this outlaw. I am sure there's a good man and true somewhere in the world for you, even though he does seem a long time showing up. Don't be overcome by this Wild West stuff. _I_ know full well that he has his fatal fascinations. _I_ was once but a bird held in his snake-like spell, until my Harfy saved me from the high seas of his tyranny and the burning blast of his--"

"Enough, Rene. Loose me. You'll drown me with brine if you don't smother me first," begged the object of her anxiety.

The more Jane struggled, however, the tighter did the bob-haired cousin cling.

"But, you poor thing, I know he'll turn on you one day and beat you up!

You saw how he treated my Harfy-a man and his superior in every way-how he rained blow after blow on his priceless pate. What _wouldn't_ he do to a weak woman in his power? Don't you go and get desperate just because-Luck in love always seems to run my way, don't you think so-or do you? Harfy was so nice-nice when he was coming to and so suppressed.

I _dote_ on suppression. Do you-or don't you? He just gazed at me with all his _soul_ when I asked the question I knew he was too used up to ask me. And we're going to have the biggest church wedding of any girl in my set, with all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, just as soon as mother can manage it.

Aren't we, dar-rling?"

"It seems-that we are."

In the admission, her challenged fiance looked neither into the black eyes of his perquisitory young lady of to-day nor the blue ones of her upon whom he had pressed his heart and hand on every available occasion in their near past. His expression was that of one who acknowledges himself vanquished-and by a victor fairer than the fight.

"Since, madame, you approve and even urge my suit for your niece's hand"-and Pape frowned deeply before the disdainful matron-"I'll go one better than Harfy by admitting without being told to that I have a.s.sented. Although we aren't married yet-yet, Irene, we're going to be right soon-soon. That was as unalterable from the first as the laws of gravity-or of levity. By way of tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, we have a score or two to settle first with three of you folks, which is why we came."

"Ah!"

The pudgy jurist had risen painfully on one elbow and now sent the warning word in company with a look-same sort-Mrs. Sturgis' way.

"Thank G.o.d we are not too late, Helen," he added after a throat-clearance, "to save dear Jane from this schemer. As I hoped, the formalities of our marriage law have not been complied with. This leaves you free to act as the foolish girl's nearest of kin. It will be easy to secure an order from one of my friends at court restraining her further activities by committing her into your care."

"It will take more than an order from such friends at court as you will have after to-day to restrain Jane," Pape suggested pleasantly.

"Clearly she has acted under undue influence from you so far, young man," Allen continued with impressment. "Were you half as clever as conspicuous you'd have got the ceremony over before coming here to threaten her family. As the husband of an orphaned young woman you might have had something to say, but--"

"Orphaned?"

With the interruption Pape crossed to one of the Fifth Avenue windows and there busied himself with a quite unnecessary readjustment of the shade.

The lady of the house was apparently too disturbed to resent this new impertinence.

"You know how I dread the courts, Samuel. Let me first try suasion." In emotionful appeal she turned to Jane. "For sake of the dear, dead sister who was your mother, I beg you, as one who has tried to take a mother's place, to give up this ill-timed attack of folly and this impossible man. Perhaps you inherited the tendency, for she also made a sad mistake in choosing her mate."

"She did?" the "orphan" asked quietly, her eyes on the velvet hangings of the hall door.

"In marrying a Lauderdale-practically a pauper despite the family obsession of their claim to vast estates in the Borough of the Bronx-she ruined her life. She, too, became obsessed through his power to control her thoughts. Her life, as well as his, was one long nightmare of crown-grants, wills, deeds, what-nots. She died of it, dear, just as your father afterwards went down under disgrace and gloom. Now you, child, stain your white hands with this black magic. Excited by the craze for adventure of this person, you let yourself be led into indiscretions that bid fair to ruin you. Why not give him up now-this morning? I'll stand by you no matter what is said."

"Me, too, dar-rling," chimed in Irene. "I'll soon be a matron, you know, and I'll find you some adequate male, up-to-date though honest, whom we'll persuade to forget and forgive."

Aunt Helene, her breath regained, pleaded further: "Listen to this before you leap, my child. Despite what your grandfather left in the way of puzzle-charts, Judge Allen and I, acting in your interest, have at last satisfied ourselves that there is nothing-quite nothing of the slightest material value to you buried in Central Park. We didn't intend to tell you so soon, but all last night the judge had a crew of men working at a spot indicated in the cryptogram."

"And how did he get the instructions of the cryptogram?" Jane enquired.

"No one saw it before it was stolen but me."

"_Jane_, that you should speak to me in that suspicious tone! Had I been given opportunity, I should have told you that yesterday the contents of your antique snuff-box were secretly exchanged for the large reward which I offered in your name, presumedly by the thief who stole it from my safe."

"You don't say, ma'am? So! It was, eh?" The Westerner was rather explosive from acute interest.